Europe’s unity is fraying under pressure

Unity endures, but national politics are slowing collective action across the EU.

NOT long ago, the prevailing assumption in Brussels was that crisis would drive Europe closer together. From the eurozone shock to Brexit and the pandemic, each rupture was expected to reinforce the logic of deeper integration. That confidence has now ebbed. Sibylline’s Annual Forecast shows the European Union entering 2026 facing a paradox.

The external case for unity – war on its eastern flank, an increasingly transactional United States, strategic competition with China – has rarely been stronger. Yet internally, national governments are pulling back, asserting sovereignty within the EU framework rather than pushing towards the federal horizon once sketched by figures such as Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel.

Decision-making has become slower and more transactional, shaped by temporary alliances and blocking minorities rather than a shared strategic direction. With growth weak or stagnant in the bloc’s largest economies, governments are prioritising domestic industries, fiscal stability and electoral survival, leaving flagship EU initiatives – from competitiveness to artificial intelligence (AI) and green policy – increasingly delayed or diluted.

Those strains will be reflected in the EU’s upcoming rotating presidencies. Cyprus and Ireland – both non-NATO members – are set to hold the European Council presidency next year, shifting agenda-setting power at a moment when the bloc is struggling to forge consensus. While both are experienced administrators, officials privately note that smaller states have less political weight to broker compromises on highly contested issues, particularly as divisions over security, trade and regulation deepen.

“This is a stress test not just of EU priorities, but of the structures that have, until now, allowed the bloc to muddle through,” says Alexander Lord, Sibylline’s lead Europe-Eurasia analyst.

One example is the long-delayed EU-Mercosur trade deal with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is due to visit Brazil to help finalise the landmark pact, which the EU has been negotiating with the Mercosur trade bloc for more than 20 years. But France has called for a delay, citing concerns from farmers that less stringent controls in Latin America could undermine fair competition.

Where Paris might once have found a way to manage such concerns internally, its room for manoeuvre is now constrained by domestic instability. “The French government is in a weakened position, and that clearly has an effect on EU decision-making,” Lord says.

That strain is compounded by a shift in Europe’s internal balance of power. The Franco-German axis that long underpinned EU decision-making is under pressure, with Berlin’s strategic and fiscal priorities increasingly diverging from Paris’s. At the same time, influence is shifting eastwards, with Poland emerging as a more assertive power, particularly on defence, reflecting both its economic rise and frontline exposure to Russia.

Two of the most acute pressure points are migration and Ukraine, both of which are testing the EU’s ability to sustain consensus. 

On migration, resistance to collective approaches is no longer confined to the Visegrád states, with frontline countries in southern Europe also pushing back as domestic politics harden. 

On Ukraine, sustaining military, financial and political support into 2026 will place growing strain on governments facing economic pressure and voter fatigue.

Denis MacShane, who served as Europe minister under Tony Blair during the EU’s largest enlargement in 2004, says resistance to migration has been underestimated. “The main European Union countries have not faced up to the fact that the mass arrival of people – from whatever source or background – is deeply disturbing and unpopular among populations who feel they have not shared fairly in the gains of globalisation,” he says.

It is this failure of delivery, rather than the idea of Europe itself, that lies behind the erosion of federalist momentum. “

The early success of Giorgia Meloni reflected that previous, more Euro-federalist Italian governments did not deliver what Italians felt they needed,” MacShane says. “But Meloni remains successful because, as a protégé of Mario Draghi, she has dropped almost all of her anti-EU precepts; she no longer talks about Italy leaving the union or returning to the lira.

“She demonstrates how the right can learn.”