One must admire the timing of the European political class; they have a truly singular talent for discovering the obvious just as the roof begins to cave in. Valérie Hayer, the Chair of the Renew Europe group, has recently graced the airwaves to announce that the era of 'appeasement' regarding the former—and perhaps future—American president is officially over. It is a deliciously dramatic posture, delivered with the kind of practiced gravitas one usually reserves for the final act of a Shakespearean tragedy, though in this case, the actors are wearing polyester blends and the stage is a drafty hall in Brussels.

Hayer’s call for a shift from 'appeasement' to 'deterrence' is the sort of rhetorical flourish that keeps the Eurocrats warm at night. It suggests that, until this very moment, Europe has been engaged in a sophisticated game of high-stakes diplomacy, rather than what it has actually been doing: standing in a corner with its eyes squeezed shut, hoping the loud man from Queens would simply go away if they ignored him hard enough. The use of the word 'appeasement' is, of course, a deliberate and rather clumsy historical dog-whistle, meant to invoke the ghosts of 1938. But while Chamberlain had an umbrella and a piece of paper, the modern EU has a stack of environmental regulations and a collective defense policy that is roughly as sturdy as a wet croissant.

The catalyst for this sudden burst of backbone is, unsurprisingly, the looming threat of absurdity. The prospect of Donald Trump returning to power with a renewed interest in purchasing Greenland—as if the world’s largest island were a fixer-upper in the Bronx—has apparently pushed the European Parliament past its breaking point. One can almost see the gears grinding in the minds of the Brussels elite. The idea that a sovereign territory could be treated as a real estate acquisition is, to someone like Hayer, an insult to the very concept of bureaucratic order. And yet, there is something deeply comical about Europe’s sudden territorial possessiveness over a landmass they usually only think about when the ice caps are melting in a particularly photogenic way.

Then, of course, there are the tariffs. The threat of new taxes on European goods is the one thing that can truly stir the soul of a Renew Europe MEP. It is one thing to threaten the liberal world order; it is quite another to threaten the profit margins of French luxury conglomerates and German automotive giants. This is where Hayer’s 'deterrence' is supposed to find its teeth. The plan, presumably, is to meet American protectionism with a European version of the same, creating a transatlantic race to the bottom where everyone ends up poorer, but at least we can say we were 'deterring' each other while the ship went down.

Hayer’s insistence on this shift highlights the tragicomic core of the European project: the belief that a committee can project power through sheer force of willpower and white papers. To 'deter' a figure who views international relations as a series of zero-sum cage matches requires a level of unity and raw power that the EU simply does not possess. For decades, Europe has outsourced its security to the very power it now wishes to deter, creating a dependency that is as pathetic as it is profound. Calling for deterrence now is like a teenager threatening to move out while still asking for their allowance and laundry service.

The irony, which I find particularly exquisite, is that this call for a 'new strategy' is coming from the Renew Europe group—a faction dedicated to the preservation of a status quo that has been crumbling for years. They speak of 'strategic autonomy' as if it were a spell they could cast by repeating the phrase three times in front of a mirror. In reality, it is a confession of irrelevance. Hayer’s interview is not a blueprint for action; it is a eulogy for the comfort of the last few decades. The 'appeasement' she decries was never a strategy; it was a symptom of a continent that has forgotten how to be a protagonist in its own history.

So, we shall watch with weary amusement as the EU prepares its 'deterrence.' There will be summits, there will be press releases, and there will be many, many meetings in rooms with no windows. They will talk of red lines and trade instruments, all while the American circus prepares to come back to town with a vengeance. Valérie Hayer may believe she is drawing a line in the sand, but from where I sit, it looks more like she is trying to stop a tide of chaos with a very expensive, very sophisticated, and ultimately very useless silk handkerchief.