29 leaders gathered in Cyprus. As usual, the summit was about one who didn’t.

NICOSIA, Cyprus — Not for the first time, the ghost haunting the EU summit was Donald Trump.

While the two-day gathering in Cyprus was formally focused on the bloc’s security, economy and seven-year budget, the issue haunting Europe’s leaders was their increasingly fraught relationship with what was once their closest ally.

“The war in the Middle East has already had disastrous consequences for people, for infrastructure and for the global economy,” European Council President António Costa said at a concluding press conference alongside European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen — in which Trump’s name was never uttered. “And with every day that passes without a solution, the situation is only getting worse. The current situation clearly underscores how closely Europe’s security is linked with that of the Middle East.”

Like the giant 430-meter-wide North Cypriot flag — emblazoned with Turkey’s star and crescent in the Turkish-occupied part of the island that was visible from where the leaders met — the U.S., and the actions of its president, loomed large.

Over dinner in Ayia Napa on Thursday evening, they discussed the economic fallout from the U.S. and Israeli-led war in Iran, including energy prices, inflation and the risk of recession.

“As usual, all the topics we discuss are related to the U.S and its actions, like it or not,” said an EU diplomat, granted anonymity like others in this article to discuss the confidential talks.

The 29 world leaders who attended the EU summit in Ayia Napa, Cyprus, on April 23-24, 2026. | Jewel Samad/AFP via Getty Images

Behind closed doors, Costa warned leaders that the EU should be more autonomous across the board, according to two other diplomats. The Council president also warned that leaders can’t avoid facing the reality that U.S. interests are no longer in line with the EU’s, they said.

Independence from the U.S.

In total, 29 leaders convened over the course of two days in Cyprus: 24 from the EU, four from the Middle East and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Even when they were not talking about issues directly linked to Iran and the U.S., the Trump effect was impossible to miss.

Over dinner, leaders talked about how to make the EU’s barely used mutual defense clause — Article 42.7 — work in practice, while avoiding any suggestion it could replace NATO’s Article 5 security guarantee. That discussion comes at a sensitive moment for European capitals, which are trying to respond to growing uncertainty over Washington’s commitment to European security without sending the signal — either to the U.S. or to Russia — that they are undermining NATO themselves.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk was among those who came out strongly in favor of making Article 42.7 operational, according to a senior EU official, who added that Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides presented ideas on the subject to the other leaders over dinner.

On Friday, leaders turned to the bloc’s next seven-year budget. The debate has been sharpened by the economic pressure of the war and by calls for the EU to become more ambitious — and more independent from Washington.

The EU budget amounts to around 1 percent of the bloc’s wealth, with capitals like Berlin opposing an increase and others like Warsaw, as well as EU figures like top diplomat Kaja Kallas, who think that, in this geopolitical context, that is not enough.

Still, with so many disagreements between governments, even reaching an agreement by the end of the year, as Costa is pushing for, looks tough.

“All about the U.S.”

The summit, held across a narrow stretch of Mediterranean dividing Europe from the Middle East, also exposed a broader vulnerability: Europe’s struggle to define a geopolitical role at a time when crises in the Gulf, Russia’s war and uncertainty over U.S. policy are all converging.

That uncertainty was one reason Cyprus organized a lunch with Middle Eastern leaders at the end of the EU summit. Nicosia has argued that the EU should play a larger role in the region — a view often echoed by southern European countries, which complain that Brussels remains too focused on the bloc’s eastern flank.

The EU needs to become a more active geopolitical player, because “a threat to a merchant vessel in the Strait of Hormuz is a threat to a factory in Belgium, for example,” von der Leyen said at the end of the summit.

She said she wanted the EU to move beyond reactive crisis management, including by considering an expanded scope for missions such as Operation Aspides — evolving from basic protection to more sophisticated joint maritime coordination — and by building structural cooperation to scale up defense production.

In essence, the meeting with Middle Eastern leaders was “all about the U.S.,” according to two officials, who added that there was never any prospect of direct, on-the-record criticism of Washington.

With too much at stake to risk a direct confrontation, leaders are left grappling with how to pick up the pieces.

Sebastian Starcevic, Giorgio Leali, Nektaria Stamouli and Gabriel Gavin contributed reporting from Cyprus.