Europe | The future of the EU

Emmanuel Macron warns Europe: NATO is becoming brain-dead

America is turning its back on the European project. Time to wake up, the French president tells The Economist

EMMANUEL MACRON, the French president, has warned European countries that they can no longer rely on America to defend NATO allies. “What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO,” Mr Macron declares in a blunt interview with The Economist. Europe stands on “the edge of a precipice”, he says, and needs to start thinking of itself strategically as a geopolitical power; otherwise we will “no longer be in control of our destiny.”

Illustration of Erdogan in a Tank flying the Turkish flag, a man in a suit with a briefcase with the EU flag on it sticks his thumb out to hitch a ride while a truck with the US flag speeds past

Europe’s reluctant reset with Turkey

President Erdogan’s top challenger is behind bars. Europe has bigger fish to fry

Feeding Reindeer on a Sami Farm

Europe wants Sweden’s minerals. That’s more bad news for the Sami

Weak legal protections are pushing reindeer-herders to the brink


 U.S. President Donald Trump greets Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni outside the West Wing of the White House

Why Italy’s defence spending lags far behind

Despite Giorgia Meloni’s vocal criticism of Putin’s war


France is a far healthier country than America

Yet even its medical care is under strain

America is selling a Ukraine peace plan. No one is buying, yet

If they can’t seal the deal, Donald Trump’s team may walk away