Europe’s biggest economies are no longer moving in the same direction. As energy costs rise again, heavy industry weakens and defence spending explodes, Germany, France and Italy are increasingly pursuing their own survival strategies while Brussels struggles to hold together a coherent economic plan.

Europe is staring at the return of a nightmare it thought it had escaped. Fresh economic data and analyst warnings suggest the Iran conflict is dragging the continent towards stagflation – the toxic mix of rising prices, weak growth and collapsing confidence that haunted Western economies in the 1970s.

After Covid, the Ukraine war and now the Iran conflict, a grim conclusion is taking hold inside Europe’s strategic circles: the continent keeps discovering its vulnerabilities only after the crisis begins. The HCSS column argues that Europe must urgently build strategic stockpiles – from fertiliser and energy to semiconductors – because global supply chains are becoming weapons in geopolitical conflicts.

A new UK–France migration deal is being sold as a breakthrough. In reality, it is another expensive attempt to contain a crisis that neither side has managed to stop. London will hand over up to £660 million to France over three years to curb small-boat crossings, with part of the money tied to results.

A fresh transatlantic row is exposing how little room Europe has when Washington decides to play hardball. The Politico report centres on a blunt warning from Donald Trump’s ambassador to the EU: stop reopening the deal, stop delaying implementation and honour what was agreed.

Four years after Russia’s gas squeeze sent Europe into economic shock, Brussels is bracing for another energy mess – this time driven by war in the Middle East and the threat of disrupted oil and gas flows through the Strait of Hormuz. The CER commentary and wider Reuters reporting paint a grim picture of a continent still dangerously exposed to events it cannot control.

The commentary delivers a brutal diagnosis of how Europe now talks about itself – and why it is doing real damage. Europe’s leaders increasingly frame the EU as helpless, late and outmatched, not because it is always true, but because humiliation has become a communications strategy. The piece argues that this habit, meant to shock publics into accepting reforms or sacrifices, is backfiring badly.