Ninety billion for the War. But does Europe still have a strategy?

Ursula von der Leyen smiles. António Costa smiles. Volodymyr Zelenskyy smiles. It was, in the words of the President of the European Commission, “a good day for Ukraine and for Europe.” Ninety billion euros in loans approved, forty-five of which are to be disbursed by the end of the quarter. Drones, defense, state budget. Everything runs smoothly, everything follows the script.

But away from the stage of press conferences, one question remains unanswered: after four years, a million victims between the dead and wounded, and hundreds of billions burned, does Europe know where it is going?

The tally no one wants to make

Ninety billion is a staggering figure. It is more than the annual GDP of many member states. It is money that European taxpayers, already struggling with inflation, the energy crisis, and cuts to public services, will find themselves repaying. The statement speaks of a “loan,” not a “gift”: but to whom and when Ukraine will be able to repay sums of this magnitude, in a country devastated by over four years of war, is unknown.

Von der Leyen proudly recalled the promise made in February in Kyiv: “We promised it.” Words that sound like determination. But which, read differently, evoke a commitment made regardless of any assessment of battlefield conditions, financial sustainability, or diplomatic prospects.

“The more Russia intensifies its war of aggression, the more Europe intensifies its support for Ukraine”: this is how von der Leyen summarized European logic. A mirror logic, almost automatic. But therein lies the problem: a strategy defined by the moves of the adversary is not a strategy; it is a chase.

And yet Moscow still fights, still produces, still exports, through the shadow fleet, through third countries, through cryptocurrencies. Each package chases the holes left open by the previous one, in a game of cat and mouse that has never seen the mouse succumb.

Peace, the great absentee

What is most striking in von der Leyen’s statement is what is not there: the word “peace.” Or rather, it is there, hidden in a passage stating that sanctions serve to push Russia “towards negotiations on terms acceptable to Ukraine.” But it doesn’t say how, it doesn’t say when, it doesn’t say who should mediate and with what mandate. Europe, let us remember, despite the many billions, is away from the table of the “greats” in the Ukraine game.

In the meantime, Ukrainian civilians continue to die under missiles. And Europe continues to disburse billions with the same cadence with which, once upon a time, it counted the dead of the Great War: methodically, without asking if an exit exists other than the exhaustion of the opponent.

It is not pacifism

Supporting Ukraine is a legitimate, defensible political choice that many share. But equally legitimate and defensible are the questions that European citizens have the right to ask their governors: what is the EU’s goal? What is the threshold beyond which escalation becomes unacceptable? Does a Plan B exist if the ninety billion is not enough?

Asking this does not mean being an accomplice to Putin. It means demanding that European foreign policy be equal to the stakes involved, not a sequence of triumphal announcements in front of the cameras, while the most devastating conflict of post-war Europe enters its fourth year with no end in sight.

“Today is a good day,” said von der Leyen. But for whom, exactly?

Photo European Commission