{"id":43806,"date":"2026-03-19T16:44:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T16:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/43806\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T16:44:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T16:44:17","slug":"eu-leaders-make-middle-east-a-priority-at-brussels-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/43806\/","title":{"rendered":"EU leaders make Middle East a priority at Brussels summit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

EU leaders pose for a family picture during the EU Summit at the EU headquarters in Brussels on Thursday.JOHN THYS\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

European leaders doubled down Thursday on refusing to join the United States and Israel military campaigns in the Middle East as they met in Brussels to grapple with rising oil and gas prices caused by the war.<\/p>\n

European leaders have deflected entreaties from U.S. President Donald Trump to send military assets to secure the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for the global flow of oil, gas and fertilizer. However, rising energy prices because of the war and fears in Europe of a new refugee crisis have pushed leaders to make the Middle East a priority at the summit.<\/p>\n

Oil prices rise on Iranian attack against Persian Gulf energy producers<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very worried about the energy crisis,\u201d said Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever ahead of the summit. He said that energy prices were too high before the war, but that the conflict \u201ccreated another spike.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that becomes structural, we\u2019re in deep trouble,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The summit was initially expected to centre on overcoming Hungary\u2019s opposition to a massive loan for Ukraine, but the conflicts in Iran and Lebanon reset the agenda.<\/p>\n

European leaders have no \u2018appetite\u2019 for joining the war<\/p>\n

European leaders have been deeply critical of the Iranian government, but none have offered immediate help to the U.S. Britain is flat-out refusing to be drawn into the war. France says the fighting would have to die down first.<\/p>\n

Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker said that Europe \u201cwill not allow itself to be blackmailed\u201d into joining the United States and Israel military campaign in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

\u201cEurope \u2013 and Austria as well \u2013 will not allow itself to be blackmailed,\u201d he said ahead of the European Council summit of the leaders of the 27 EU nations. \u201cIntervention in the Strait of Hormuz is not an option for Austria anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

European leaders rebuff Trump\u2019s calls for military help in Strait of Hormuz<\/a><\/p>\n

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said there was \u201cno appetite\u201d among leaders to expand a European naval force in the Red Sea to help secure the Strait of Hormuz or otherwise join the fray.<\/p>\n

Four of the EU\u2019s largest economies signalled a willingness Thursday to contribute to \u201cappropriate efforts\u201d to ensure ships can pass safely through the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, alongside the United Kingdom and Japan, issued a joint statement welcoming \u201cthe commitment of nations who are engaging in preparatory planning\u201d for securing the key oil route, and demanding Iran \u201ccease immediately\u201d its drone and missile attacks and other attempts at blocking it.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz, right, and French President Emmanuel Macron at the EU summit.Omar Havana\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Looking ahead to the war\u2019s end<\/p>\n

Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the war must end before his country can help with matters such as keeping shipping lanes clear.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can and will commit ourselves only when the weapons fall silent,\u201d he said of potential German military support to secure shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz. \u201cWe can then do a great deal, up to opening sea lanes and keeping them clear, but we\u2019re not doing it during ongoing combat operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that would require an international mandate, among other complicated steps, \u201cbefore we can even consider such an issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump administration considers deploying thousands of troops to Iran, sources say<\/a><\/p>\n

While the EU isn\u2019t a party to the conflict, Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten said he understood the U.S. and Israeli reasons for launching the campaign against the \u201cbrutal\u201d Iranian government. He called for the EU to increase both sanctions on Iran and support for Iranian opposition groups<\/p>\n

But others blasted the war as \u201cillegal\u201d and destabilizing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are against this war because it is illegal,\u201d Spanish Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez said: \u201cIt\u2019s causing a lot of damage to civilians, of course, refugees and the economic consequences that the whole world, especially the global south, is already suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump had mentioned NATO support for clearing the Strait of Hormuz but has not officially requested it, said Evika Silina, prime minister of Latvia, one of the 23 out of the 27 EU nations that are NATO members.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen there will be some official requests, I think we always have to evaluate those requests,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

From left, European Council President Antonio Costa, Portugal’s Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.Geert Vanden Wijngaert\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

No single fix for the EU\u2019s diverse energy markets<\/p>\n

The European Commission has told leaders it has a mix of financial instruments that member nations could deploy to lower energy prices, which will be up for discussion. No single policy will likely work to blunt the economic shocks from the war across the bloc\u2019s myriad markets from Romania to Ireland.<\/p>\n

EU leaders are hoping their experience weaning off of Russian energy in the wake of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and of building up the bloc\u2019s military spending toward self-sufficiency will enable to them to do the same for energy independence.<\/p>\n

While some European capitals have called for the suspension or scrapping of climate policies to stave off the worst of the recent spike in energy prices because of the war, others have argued that the EU\u2019s long-term energy strategy should be home-grown sustainable energy decoupled from vulnerable fossil fuel markets.<\/p>\n

European Council President Antonio Costa said that \u201cenergy means security\u201d and that the EU should \u201cbuild our own capacity to produce our own energy, because it\u2019s the only way to be secure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leaders from Italy, Austria, Croatia, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia asked Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to slow the rollout of the EU\u2019s Emissions Trading System. They said it was \u201ctoo steep and overly ambitious\u201d in light of \u201cfragility of today\u2019s economic ecosystems\u201d in a letter seen by The Associated Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: EU leaders pose for a family picture during the EU Summit at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[104],"tags":[211,210,7656],"class_list":["post-43806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brussels","tag-belgium","tag-brussels","tag-noastack"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116256850885976487","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}