{"id":733278,"date":"2026-01-31T15:25:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T15:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/733278\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T15:25:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T15:25:11","slug":"epp-urges-eu-to-gear-up-for-shifts-in-global-balance-of-power-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/733278\/","title":{"rendered":"EPP urges EU to gear up for shifts in global balance of power \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

This means that on issues such as sanctions against Russia, one country can block agreement, as happened last summer when Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico vetoed a package of EU measures against Moscow \u2014 a veto that was eventually lifted<\/a>. Such power in one country\u2019s hands is something that the EPP would like to change.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As for military solidarity, Article 42.7<\/a> of the Lisbon Treaty obliges countries to provide \u201caid and assistance by all the means in their power\u201d if an EU country is attacked. For Weber, the formulation under European law is stronger than NATO’s Article 5 collective defense commitment. <\/p>\n

However, he stressed that the EU still lacks a clear operational plan for how the clause would work in practice. Article 42.7 was previously used when France requested that other EU countries make additional contributions to the fight against terrorism, following the Paris terrorist attacks in November 2015.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Such ideas were presented as the party with a biggest grouping in the European Parliament \u2014 and therefore the power to shape EU political priorities \u2014 presented its strategic focus for 2026, with competitiveness as its main priority.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The EPP wants to unleash the bloc’s competitiveness through further cutting red tape, \u201ccompleting\u201d the EU single market, diversifying supply chains, protecting economic independence and security and promoting innovation including in AI, chips and biotech, among other actions, according to its list 2026 priorities<\/a> unveiled on Saturday.<\/p>\n

On defense, the EPP is pushing for a \u201c360-degree\u201d security approach to safeguard Europe against growing geopolitical threats, \u201caddressing state and non-state threats from all directions,\u201d according to the document. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This means that on issues such as sanctions against Russia, one country can block agreement, as happened last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":733279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[1152,5108,768,1395,1442,141211,12346,6641,13507,3457,473,7057,68102,12495,3677,13071,32,33108,35,2000,299,5187,7058,12336,2816,26386,36,31865,40,1302,8175,30995,2441,6657,2597,54490,11052,7061,2822,2343,6566,332,2663,811,6861,22793,2558,6648,13466,333,1773],"class_list":{"0":"post-733278","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-aging","9":"tag-asylum","10":"tag-borders","11":"tag-china","12":"tag-competition","13":"tag-competition-and-industrial-policy","14":"tag-competition-rules","15":"tag-competitiveness","16":"tag-cyber-diplomacy","17":"tag-cybersecurity","18":"tag-defense","19":"tag-defense-budgets","20":"tag-demographics","21":"tag-development","22":"tag-digital","23":"tag-disinformation","24":"tag-donald-trump","25":"tag-economic-governance","26":"tag-energy","27":"tag-eu","28":"tag-europe","29":"tag-european","30":"tag-european-defense","31":"tag-european-defense-policy","32":"tag-european-politics","33":"tag-extremism","34":"tag-france","35":"tag-hybrid-threats","36":"tag-immigration","37":"tag-innovation","38":"tag-labor","39":"tag-manfred-weber","40":"tag-markets","41":"tag-migration","42":"tag-military","43":"tag-multinational-defense-programs","44":"tag-natural-disasters","45":"tag-procurement","46":"tag-regions-cohesion","47":"tag-research","48":"tag-robert-fico","49":"tag-russia","50":"tag-sanctions","51":"tag-security","52":"tag-single-market","53":"tag-skills","54":"tag-slovakia","55":"tag-supply-chains","56":"tag-terrorism","57":"tag-vladimir-putin","58":"tag-xi-jinping"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=733278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}