“Europe will be forged in crises,” wrote Jean Monnet, one of the founding fathers of the European Union, in 1976, “and will be the sum of the solutions adopted for those crises.” Less than fifty years later, the first part of Monnet’s prophecy has certainly been fulfilled. Excessive fiscal austerity and the long stagnation of the 2010s, the tragic spectacle of the refugee crisis, and the insurgencies of far-right populist parties across Europe seemed more than enough to test the bloc’s crisis management skills and political unity throughout the last decade. Then came COVID-19, which is still tormenting the public health systems of Europe’s member states, and Vladimir Putin’s imperialist war, which has provided the bloc with yet another stress test.

Amid general skepticism, many would argue that Europe displayed remarkable unity at the outbreak of the conflict. The public condemnation of Putin’s aggression and support for the Ukrainian struggle led many leading European governments to send military aid to the Eastern European nation and to call for a full gas embargo against Russia. Two months into the conflict, however, with no real progress on the Ukrainian front, and no negotiations on the horizon, economic rationality and divergent national interests have divided European countries on matters of strategy and political positioning. Today, the bloc’s plan to deal with the Ukrainian crisis and its economic consequences remains painfully unclear.