Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's new newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe's Eastern neighborhoods.
I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I'm drilling down on my far-fetched prediction for 2026: The EU will do well!
2026: The EU Might Actually Do Rather Well This Year
Around this time of year, I always try to make a bold claim for the new year. For 2025, I was speculating that Transnistria and Moldova might reunite -- something that didn't even come close to happening. So, for 2026, I will make an even more outrageous claim. I predict that the European Union will actually do rather well.
It’s fair to say that there is a lot of doom and gloom in Brussels these days. Largely overlooked in talks over a potential future settlement of Russia’s war in Ukraine, facing countless hybrid attacks such as severed undersea cables and drone incursions, and enduring fraying transatlantic relations with a White House openly questioning the bloc have all taken their toll on Brussels. Rarely has the club been tested so much from all angles. “A sheep in a brand-new world of predators,” as one EU diplomat recently put it.
And frankly, it shouldn’t be better this year with the United States potentially pulling more of its troops out of the continent and stepping up support for various Eurosceptic parties, Ukraine either being forced to accept a humiliating deal with Moscow or being pushed back further militarily by a resurgent Russia that even might test an EU or NATO country – something that European officials have been warning about and cautioned that they aren’t really ready to face alone.
But there is an alternative, brighter vision for the EU -- admittedly a highly unlikely one involving some opportunities to grasp and a lot of “ifs”.
Ukraine Gets The Money
Let’s start with one of the major disappointments in the closing stages of last year: the failure to agree to a reparations loan for Ukraine. This was admittedly a major blow for both European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and German chancellor Friedrich Merz, who were pushing hard to leverage frozen Russian state assets in the bloc to generate a 90-billion-euro loan for Ukraine for the next two years. The rationale was, why should EU taxpayers foot the bill for Moscow’s pillaging of Ukraine when Putin’s cash could be used instead?
Yet, the alternative, to raise money backed by the EU budget and supported by 24 EU member states (the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia opted out) isn’t actually as awful as it seems. Sure, some EU leaders lost their prestige over the reparations loan and the bloc appeared indecisive but, in the end, Kyiv will get enough money to sustain its fight against Russia for the next couple of years and the Ukrainians don’t have to pay the money back until Russia pays reparations.
In the meantime, the Russian assets remain frozen for as long as the EU wishes to have them immobilized with the bloc keeping the option of using them later. It’s not ideal, but it’s more than any other country or organization is offering Kyiv at the moment.
Expanding The Club, Cutting Russian Energy
And then there are things that the bloc has already done that could start bearing fruit soon. Take enlargement for example. The bloc will continue to close accession chapters with Montenegro and Albania in the new year with the former now set to become the EU's 28th member state by 2028. Brussels' thinking, albeit wishful at this moment, goes that by adding Montenegro and potentially even Albania rather soon would motivate Kosovo and Serbia to engage in talks to normalize relations between them, which have been dormant for years. But given that Serbia didn’t even show up at the latest EU-Western Balkans summit in Brussels just before Christmas, this might be easier said than done.
With the EU having shed more members than it gained in the last decade with Brexit, adding one or even a few will give Brussels a boost by showing the EU is still an attractive club for outsiders. Iceland potentially holding a referendum this year to resume EU accession talks suspended over a decade ago would further reinforce this image.
Then there is the phase-out of Russian energy that will be more or less completed this year and will cut the bloc off from one of its longest dependencies on the Kremlin. Decided in late 2025, the prohibition of Russian gas imports for short-term contracts will apply from 25 April 2026 for liquefied natural gas (LNG) and from 17 June 2026 for pipeline gas. For long-term contracts, the cutoff is 1 January 2027 for LNG and September that same year for pipeline gas.
No Big Votes!
Another thing that might help the EU is the lack of elections in 2026. If France can escape holding snap parliamentary elections, which actually seems likely at the moment, this year is a bit of an anomaly as none of the big countries actually have to face their voters nationally. That means that French President Emmanuel Macron and his counterparts in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, and Spain can start off 2026 focused on policymaking.
Sure, there are elections that will capture attention. Take the votes in two former East German regions, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Saxony-Anhalt, in September in which the AfD is set to finish first. The far-right party might, for the first time, simply be too big to ignore when coalition-building starts (if it doesn’t get an outright majority). This will induce a lot of soul-searching in Germany, notably as the party is also expected to get around a fifth of the vote in two other regional elections in the Western part of the country earlier in the year.
And in Slovenia’s parliamentary election in March, its long-time populist maverick Janez Jansa might return to power again -- joining likeminded Brussels-bashers already in power in Czechia, Hungary and Slovakia.
The Magyar Moment
But that quartet might be short-lived, as Hungarians go to the polls in early April. And there are strong indications that Viktor Orban, who has been running the country since 2010, will be defeated by Peter Magyar -- a former Fidesz protégé who turned into an opposition leader.
This would be the most consequential result for the EU this year as Orban’s Hungary has been seen as a spoiler on many issues, notably related to Ukraine. While Czechia and Slovakia often side with Hungary, few believe that they will be hardline enough to block things on their own like Hungary has often done.
And while Peter Magyar and his Tisza party are rather lukewarm on Kyiv as well, Brussels would expect several Budapest vetoes simply to be lifted if they came to power. The list is long and includes EU military aid to Ukraine that has been blocked for three years, EU accession negotiations with Ukraine (and Moldova) on ice since 2024, potentially tougher sanctions on Moscow (and Minsk), and a greater readiness to channel other types of funding for the war-torn country.
Money Matters
A defeat for Orban could also make it somewhat easier to agree on a new multi-year EU budget, as the rule-of-law conditionality -- meaning that EU funds can be frozen in cases of rule-of-law transgressions -- can be kept in the framework. Hungary has had millions of euros suspended in recent years due to this conditionality, and Orban would likely try to sabotage any continuation of the mechanism.
The budget, covering the years 2028-34, should ideally be agreed at the end of 2026. The European Commission came up with its proposal earlier in 2025, an ambitious plan worth nearly 2 trillion euros, which included 100 billion euros for Ukraine and splashing around 130 billion euros on defense. The final deal will surely not be that ambitious, as many of the richer EU member states loathe seeing spiraling Brussels budgets while they normally have to be tightening the national budget back home. Expect a final agreement to be struck in 2027. However, the level of ambition will give you an indication of how serious the EU is going forward, notably in defending itself and sticking up for Ukraine beyond 2027.
Mending US Ties?
Finally, there is also the relationship with the United States, which EU officials hope will get better after a rocky 2025 in which the bloc had to accept a 15% tariff on most EU imports and saw it getting viciously attacked when it slapped a 120 million euro fine on Elon Musk’s X for breaching transparency rules under the bloc’s newish Digital Services Act (DSA), which entered into force in 2022.
More DSA cases against other American internet giants are in the making even though settlements might be reached before fines are meted out. Targeting Chinese internet giants might also smooth things over with Washington. Fears will remain all over the bloc, notably when it comes to any decision to pull large numbers of American troops back from the continent and that more broadsides, such as the National Security Strategy’s musings about European “civilizational erasure” might continue from American officials.
But when speaking to European diplomats there is also a hope that American rhetoric will be milder given that midterm elections are coming up in November. While 2025 was a year of foreign diplomatic efforts, the thinking is that American politics will turn to domestic issues as the vote approaches. Foreign policy hardly ranks high among voter priorities when ordinary Americans go to the polling booths, leaving the transatlantic relationship to recover somewhat in 2026.
Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter @RikardJozwiak, or on e-mail at jozwiakr@rferl.org.
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Thanks for all your questions, comments and encouragement throughout 2025!
Until next time,
Rikard Jozwiak
