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Brussels, 3 March 2026

MCC Brussels today commented on European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s widely criticised response to the large-scale military operations launched by the United States and Israel against Iran.

While her remark that the EU would “deal with it on Monday” was mocked as an emblem of bureaucratic inertia, MCC Brussels argues that, in one important sense, the delay was appropriate: there is no meaningful role for the European Union in shaping the unfolding events.

“Despite years of rhetoric about the ‘return of geopolitics’ to Brussels, the reality is that the EU remains structurally unprepared for a world defined by power, national interest, and hard security,” said  Frank Furedi, Executive Director of the think tank MCC Brussels.

Rhetoric Without Power

Over the past four years, EU leaders have repeatedly claimed that Europe must become a serious geopolitical actor. Yet recent developments demonstrate that neither the EU institutions nor the Member States acting through them are equipped to influence high-intensity conflicts beyond Europe’s borders.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz underscored this reality when he acknowledged that, although Germany may share the objectives of the United States and Israel, “we ourselves aren’t capable of achieving them.”

“That such admissions can be framed as statesmanship reveals the depth of Europe’s strategic malaise,” Frank Furedi noted. “European leaders increasingly devote their energy not to exercising power, but to explaining why they cannot.”

An Institutional Mismatch

At a fundamental level, MCC Brussels argues, the European Union is ill-suited to an international environment in which national interest and sovereign power are openly asserted.

“The EU was constructed around post-national governance, supranational legalism, and the belief that interdependence would soften geopolitical rivalry,” the statement said. “But we are now in a world where power politics has returned in unmistakable form.”

In response to crises such as Iran and Ukraine, the EU’s contributions are largely confined to statements urging “restraint” and “respect for international law,” often accompanied by expressions of solidarity with civilian populations. While morally resonant, such language does not amount to strategic influence.

“The Union’s reliance on human-rights rhetoric has become a substitute for power, not a complement to it,” MCC Brussels warned.

The Limits of ‘More Europe’

Each new initiative designed to strengthen the EU’s geopolitical capacity-whether through funding instruments, coordination frameworks, or defence planning mechanisms-ultimately reproduces the same contradiction.

“The EU attempts to act like a state while remaining a union of states,” the statement said. “No degree of bureaucratic refinement can resolve this structural tension.”

MCC Brussels cautioned against calls to use the current crisis as justification for further centralisation at EU level.

“The problem is not insufficient Brussels coordination. It is the absence of clearly articulated national interests among European states and the erosion of sovereign political responsibility.”

Fundamental Questions for Europe

The escalation involving Iran raises profound questions for European societies, including:

  • The changing character of warfare
  • Europe’s dependence on global energy markets
  • The future role of the United States
  • The persistence of state-sponsored terror and radical Islamist movements
  • The vulnerability of overseas military infrastructure
  • The meaning of sovereignty in an era of renewed geopolitical competition

“These are not questions that can be resolved through communiqués,” Furedi stated. “They require political clarity, strategic capability, and democratic accountability at the level of sovereign nation states.”

A Return to Political Reality

MCC Brussels concluded that progress on major international challenges will not come from attempting to “rejuvenate” EU formats, but from restoring serious political debate about national interest within Europe’s states.

“Only sovereign governments, accountable to their citizens and capable of exercising real authority, can confront the strategic dilemmas now facing Europe,” the statement said.

“In the meantime, President von der Leyen’s instinct to refrain from dramatic intervention may be less a failure of leadership than an acknowledgment of reality: the European Union is not a decisive actor in this conflict. Recognising that limitation is the first step toward an honest reassessment of Europe’s place in the world.”