The European Union must realize that neutralizing the regional threat posed by Iran is a matter of national survival.
The current war with Iran has exposed a deeper structural weakness in Europe’s strategic thinking. Iran is already part of Europe’s security environment—through the drones it supplies to Russia for use in Ukraine, its intelligence and proxy networks across Europe and its growing partnership with Moscow.
But many European leaders continue to treat Iran as a distant regional problem rather than a direct challenge to Europe’s own security.
After a three-day state visit to China in 2023, French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview with Politico that Europe must avoid getting dragged into a confrontation between China and the U.S. over Taiwan. Macron emphasized what he called his theory of “strategic autonomy” for Europe to become a “third superpower.”
“The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers,” Macron said. “The worst thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction.”
It is precisely this kind of indecisiveness—that Macron criticized—which characterizes the EU’s response to the joint U.S. and Israeli attacks against the regional threat posed by Iran. In a joint statement, the leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom called on Iran to stop its “reckless attacks” against countries in the region, saying that they would take steps to defend their allies in the region “through enabling necessary and proportionate defense action to destroy Iran’s capability to fire missiles and drones at their source.”
Yet much of the EU’s actions seem to run counter to its own interests.
Despite Iran’s ballistic missile threats, its closure of the Straits of Hormuz and material support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the largest European countries have declined to join the initial phase of the U.S.-Israeli strikes. While France has ordered its aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle to set sail for the Mediterranean, France has agreed to work with China—another major Russian ally—to de-escalate the conflict.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer stood by his decision on Thursday to not join the initial U.S.-Israeli strikes, while Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez openly condemned the U.S. and Israeli strikes, denying the U.S. permission to use jointly operated military bases on its territory to attack Iran. The EU’s 27 nations, in a statement on Sunday, called for “maximum restraint” and full respect for international law in the Iran conflict.
Is this indecisiveness merely a momentary shock from EU leaders in reaction to the U.S.-Israeli strikes, or is this a glimpse of what the next decade in Europe will look like? A continent where foreign policy is shaped by short-term national threat perceptions rather than a common strategic approach. With a heightened threat of Iran-linked sleeper cells striking targets in Europe following the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the EU now faces a choice: confront the Iranian threat as a strategic challenge–or continue to treat it as someone else’s war.
Bradley Martin is the Executive Director of the Near East Center for Strategic Studies. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter @ByBradleyMartin
Dr. Liram Koblentz-Stenzler is the Head of the Global Extremism and Antisemitism Desk at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at Reichman University, Herzliya, and a visiting scholar at Brandeis University. Follow her on LinkedIn.
The views expressed in this article are their own.