Europe without a centre

France, Germany and the United Kingdom, the three pillars of European power, entered 2026 with fragile and unpopular governments, squeezed between populism on both flanks and an American administration that, in practice, has an interest in seeing them weakened.

France is the worst case. Since Macron dissolved the National Assembly in June 2024, the country has had four minority governments, two of which fell to budget-related confidence votes. Sébastien Lecornu, the current prime minister, survived two no-confidence votes in October only after freezing the pension reform until 2027. France entered 2026 for the second consecutive year without an approved budget, running a fiscal deficit of 5.8% of GDP, debt at 114%, and with Moody's having already downgraded its credit rating. The Assembly is split into three irreconcilable blocs: the left, Macron's centrists, and Le Pen's Rassemblement National. Nobody has a majority, nobody can govern freely, and everyone is waiting for the 2027 presidential election.

Germany is better governed but equally stuck. Friedrich Merz's coalition cannot push through the structural reforms industry needs after years of economic stagnation. A 2026 budget passed with a significant increase in investment, but ideological divisions within the coalition limit the scope of any measure. Italy under Meloni is the most stable of the three, but faces its own fiscal constraints. The telling detail is that Berlin and Rome formed a joint axis against Paris at the February competitiveness summit, with opposing visions on eurobonds and industrial policy. They cannot even agree among themselves on how to save the European economy.

All of this matters for one concrete reason: Europe needs to rearm and it cannot. Military spending requires budgets, which require parliamentary majorities, which none of these governments have. France, which needed an additional €6.7 billion in defence spending for 2026, cannot approve it without a budget. Germany has tripled its planned borrowing but remains far from the 5% of GDP some are proposing for NATO. Europe's problem is not one of will but of political capacity: you cannot project power abroad when you cannot form a stable government at home. And meanwhile, the war in Ukraine continues, Russia makes no concessions, and the United States tells them, ever more openly, to sort it out on their own.