One year of Trump II: Where Europe stands

One year into President Trump’s second term, Europe has had to adjust to a Washington that is testing the edges of sovereignty and influence – and is more willing to turn interdependence into leverage. From Greenland and the geopolitics of the Arctic to Venezuela and the so-called ‘Donroe Doctrine’, the message is clear: power politics are back in plain sight. Where does that leave Europe’s security, prosperity and diplomatic room for manoeuvre?

The Brussels Institute for Geopolitics invites you to join us on 29 January for a discussion on what Europe has learned over the past year, what it still refuses to see and what must be done next. The era in which Europeans could treat the transatlantic relationship as a stable backdrop is over. The question now is whether Europe can respond to pressure with more than improvisation: with choices, priorities and the willingness to use its own leverage.

To explore these questions, BIG brings together three voices who approach Europe’s predicament from different angles of power:

• Diego Martínez Belío, State Secretary for Foreign and Global Affairs of Spain, brings the perspective of a high-ranking Spanish government official, senior diplomat and strategist, shaped by leadership roles in Spain’s diplomatic service spanning EU affairs and key overseas postings.
• Luuk van Middelaar, Founding Director of the Brussels Institute for Geopolitics, has been one of Europe’s clearest interpreters of the shift from rules to power, and of what it takes for the EU to act politically when history accelerates. The discussion will be moderated by
• Dave Keating, France 24’s Brussels correspondent and the author of The Owned Continent (2025), whose reporting has tracked Europe’s dependencies and its struggle to turn influence into agency.

The discussion will be followed by a Q&A and a small reception.