2026 cannot be 2025 on repeat. After a year of buying time and holding ground, Europe enters 2026 facing mounting pressure on several fronts. In this newsletter, we look ahead to the key challenges and choices that will shape the year to come, and where Europe still has room to act.
Dear Friends,
2025 was the year Europe bought time. A defensive year, defined by tariffs, omnibuses and constant effort to maintain US support for Ukraine. All reactive, all necessary. And in many ways, Europe ended 2025 unscathed.
But 2026 cannot be 2025 on repeat.
Europe is at one of its weakest points in years. Geopolitically vulnerable, economically under attack, politically divided. We’re squeezed on all sides.
Geopolitically, Europe is squeezed between a revisionist US administration and a revisionist Russia. After the Venezuela episode, US territorial claims against Denmark have taken on a far more unsettling edge.
Economically, Europe is squeezed between a China whose state-subsidised exports are eroding its industrial base, and a United States that treats Europe as a captive market; a buyer of American goods and an open field for US tech giants. Delivering on the green and digital transitions will remain a challenge.
Politically, Europe is squeezed between the growing fragility of democratic coalitions, and the rise of far-right political parties emboldened and supported by authoritarians abroad. 2026 brings important regional and municipal elections in countries such as Germany and France. It is also a transition year, setting the stage for decisive elections in 2027 in France, Italy, Spain and Poland.
Our New Year’s card depicts 2025 as the year of omnibuses and traffic jams: little movement, little progress. Holding the status quo. Revising past legislation. Editing the already accomplished.
But you don’t pursue an “independence moment” (Ursula von der Leyen) with bureaucratic de-bureaucratisation. You don’t omnibus your way to European sovereignty.
If 2025 was the year of buying time, 2026 is about using it. And moving full speed ahead.
There are enough arenas to watch. Our work in 2026 will focus on the following:
- In our EU and International Politics programme, we will examine how global power shifts are reshaping the EU’s role in the world. A particular focus will be on Europe’s security and defence relationships with Indo-Pacific partners, especially EU-India relations. In this vein, we will launch a study tour to India to deepen strategic exchange.
- In our Green Economic and Social programme, we will closely follow the debate on the next Multiannual Financial Framework. A strong MFF is a foundation for European sovereignty. Our MFF dossier outlines what this means across key policy fields. We will also continue to foster transatlantic dialogue on green industrial policy, with a focus on the Clean Industrial Deal.
- In our Climate, Agriculture and Trade programme, we will convene an expert group on the future of the EU’s trade strategy, asking how sustainability can be advanced in an increasingly disorderly trade environment. We will also look closely at the Circular Economy Act and the role of trade and recycling policy in strengthening Europe’s resource security.
- In our European Energy Transition programme, we will build on our work on the social dimension of the energy transition, with a particular focus on affordability and fairness, which are key conditions for maintaining public support for climate action. We also plan to continue our networking for networks series, and have a policy brief on the tremendous costs and risks of small modular reactors.
- In our EU Democracy and Digital Policy programme, we will launch a strategic project with the Green European Foundation on the EU’s digital ecosystem: how democracy can be resilient in the age of AI and disinformation, and how the EU can assert its values and interests in an increasingly contested digital space.
- And with regards to Gender Democracy, we are working on the upcoming EU gender equality strategy, as well as focusing on recent voting trends among young men, examining their drivers and the role of influencers.
This month we will also launch a LinkedIn series highlighting Europe’s often underestimated power and agency.
These are initial snapshots of our planned work for 2026.
In the meantime, I invite you to read our new Global Power Shifts dossier, the latest World Nuclear Industry Status Report, which we will present jointly with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in the coming weeks, and a recent study by Carnegie Europe, which we supported, on how foreign capital in the Western Balkans carries the risk of undermining governance standards.
As always, do also save the date for our annual Foreign Policy Conference, taking place on 29 January 2026.
Warm regards and all the best for 2026,
