Europe is confronting an ‘existential’ crisis, foreign ministers say

Europe is facing an “existential” moment in its history and must take a bold and united stand when it comes to guaranteeing Ukraine’s future security, regional foreign ministers told the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.

“This is an existential moment and it’s a moment where Europe has to stand up,” Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told the audience on Saturday as she took part in a panel entitled ‘Europole? The Old Continent’s New Geopolitical Role,’ moderated by CNBC’s Silvia Amaro.

“Our answer to others’ [policy of] ‘My Nation First’ is ‘Europe United,’ and this is what we show here on the panel, this is what we have shown in the last couple of days — that we made clear there will not be any peace in Europe if it’s not a European peace,” she said.

U.K. Foreign Minister David Lammy described the war in Ukraine as the frontline not just for the country but for Europe, and agreed that the continent had to answer an “existential question” over Ukraine’s future security.

“We know that even when we get to a negotiated peace, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin won’t go away, so this is an existential question for Europe, we need [to look at] that question alongside the United States and at an appropriate time we’ll get into a debate about security guarantees and there will be an arrangement,” he said.

European foreign ministers agreed on Saturday that allowing Ukraine to join the military alliance in the future could be the easiest and most cost-efficient way to deter Russia from future aggression toward its neighbor.

“We say that there is an irreversible pathway for Ukraine towards NATO,” Lammy told the MSC, adding that this was “the cheapest and it is the best mechanism to secure peace not just in Europe but across the Euro-Atlantic.”

His German counterpart Baerbock agreed, saying “the pathway for Ukraine lies in [entering] NATO” and that it would be the “cheapest” way to guarantee Ukraine’s security in the long-term.

European officials were left reeling when President Donald Trump announced last week that he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy and that both leaders had agreed to peace talks, seemingly without consulting European allies before the calls.

Trump and his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth caused further consternation in Europe by stating that they believed Ukrainian membership of military alliance NATO was an “unrealistic” objective.

European officials responded that it was a mistake for U.S. officials to take Ukrainian membership of NATO, a key concern of Russia’s and a potentially key point of leverage for allies, off the negotiating table.

This year’s Munich Security Conference has brought together defense and security officials from around the world to discuss the future of Ukraine, peace talks with Russia and Europe’s defense architecture.

The meeting comes at a time when expectations are high that the war between Russia and Ukraine can be brought to a close, but also heightened insecurity as to what a U.S.-brokered peace deal could look like, and what role allies could have in negotiations.

There are also concerns that Russia could be tempted to regroup and attack Ukraine again in the future if Kyiv is not granted sufficient security guarantees.

European officials have warned that if they are not involved in peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, a deal wouldn’t work but NATO chief Mark Rutte also told the MSC that Europe’s NATO members need to “stop complaining” about being sidelined and should instead come up with “concrete ideas” to end the war on just terms for Kyiv.

Radosław Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister — who said the current situation was both “a crisis and a result” of Europe having consumed a “peace dividend” for too long — added on Saturday that he was not too concerned that Europe had not been consulted ahead of Trump’s phone call with Putin last week.

Still, he believed the “call was a mistake because it vindicates President Putin and lowers morale in Ukraine” but asserted that, sooner or later, Europe would have to be involved in talks on Ukraine’s future security.

“But when President Trump says that as part of a deal there will have to be European troops [safeguarding a deal] then it will be up to us to supply them, so sooner or later we will have to be involved,” he said.

Jean-Noël Barrot, minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs in France, said the continent had a lot to offer in terms of leadership.

“Let me first try to fight against some form of Euro-bashing or Euro-pessimism. We hear on stage and many of us are proud to say, that we believe that Europe is a super power. Europe is the continent that has pushed back against a full-scale invasion by Russia that was supposed to be the greatest military power of the world and that has failed to achieve its goals,” he told the panel.

“That being said, there are big challenges for Europe and one of them is to scale up defense spending,” he said.

Failure to secure a “just and lasting peace” for Ukraine would enfeeble not only Europe but also the United States, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the MSC Friday.

U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg said Saturday that a peace plan for the two warring nations could come within days or weeks.

“I’m on Trump time,” Kellogg told delegates at a fringe event at the Munich Security Conference, referring to U.S. President Donald Trump’s famed fast-moving decision making.