Europe has a serious long-range strike problem – and its high-end answer will not arrive fast enough. The Geopolitical Monitor assessment argues that Europe’s indigenous deep-strike systems are unlikely to appear in meaningful numbers before 2028, with the most capable platforms pushed towards the early 2030s.

France likes to present itself as Europe’s most sovereign major power – a nuclear state with global military reach, an independent foreign policy tradition and ambitions to lead Europe in an increasingly unstable world. The RUSI analysis argues that this image masks a more uncomfortable reality: France’s power rests on a web of dependencies that could become serious vulnerabilities during a major crisis.

A growing political rebellion is spreading across Europe, and mainstream parties are struggling to stop it. In this ECFR podcast discussion, Mark Leonard and British MP Liam Byrne argue that the rise of populist movements is not a temporary protest wave but the result of deeper failures that have been building for years.

Europe is staring at the return of a nightmare it thought it had escaped. Fresh economic data and analyst warnings suggest the Iran conflict is dragging the continent towards stagflation – the toxic mix of rising prices, weak growth and collapsing confidence that haunted Western economies in the 1970s.

After Covid, the Ukraine war and now the Iran conflict, a grim conclusion is taking hold inside Europe’s strategic circles: the continent keeps discovering its vulnerabilities only after the crisis begins. The HCSS column argues that Europe must urgently build strategic stockpiles – from fertiliser and energy to semiconductors – because global supply chains are becoming weapons in geopolitical conflicts.

A fresh transatlantic row is exposing how little room Europe has when Washington decides to play hardball. The Politico report centres on a blunt warning from Donald Trump’s ambassador to the EU: stop reopening the deal, stop delaying implementation and honour what was agreed.

The European Commission wants to be seen as Europe’s strategic brain. This report asks how much steering power it actually has. The answer is uncomfortable. Brussels can frame debates, launch initiatives and warn about risks, but when hard choices appear, control slips back to national capitals. Strategy is talked up, not locked in.