Zelenskyy ‘ready for elections’ but says vote is ‘a question for the people of Ukraine, not other states’ – Europe live

The Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, and author of The Far Right Today.

As Europeans reflect on Trump’s latest comments on Europe and the new US national security strategy, here is analysis from Cas Mudde, a leading academic working on far-right movements in Europe.

On the same day that Donald Trump received his made-to-order “peace prize” from his newest pal, Fifa president “Johnny” Infantino, his administration published an equally gaudy national security strategy. The relatively short document oozes Trump and Trumpism. It starts out with the typically modest claim that the president has brought “our nation – and the world – back from the brink of catastrophe and disaster”.

Even if the strategy mostly formalises the ongoing actions and statements of Trump and his administration, it should be heeded as a warning for the world, and Europe in particular.

The document espouses an aggressive form of foreign-policy interference in which the US explicitly sets itself the goal of “promoting European greatness”. Its language could have been directly lifted from Viktor Orbán’s speeches during the so-called refugee crisis of 2015-16: “We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilisational self-confidence.” Even more ominously, the document claims that Europe’s “economic decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilisational erasure”.

The whole section on Europe is steeped in decades of European far-right ideology and propaganda.

None of this is necessarily new – think of JD Vance’s speech at the 2025 Munich Security Conference in which the vice-president launched an ideological attack on Europe’s democratic model.

But perhaps now that it is published in an official document, European leaders will finally understand that “daddy” is serious. And, if the document is too long or vague for them, let me summarise it in terms that are clear and concise: the current US government believes that its national security is best served by the destruction of liberal democracy in Europe. In other words, the US is not (just) an unwilling ally, it is a willing adversary.

Time to act accordingly.

Separately, there is also an important meeting in Strasbourg, with ministers from 46 countries discussing the interpretation of the European Convention of Human Rights when it comes to migration.

As Pippa Crerar and Rajeev Syal say in our story:

Ahead of the meeting, UK prime minister Keir Starmer and Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen have called on European leaders to urgently curb joint human rights laws so that states can take tougher action to protect their borders and see off the rise of the populist right across the continent.

Before a crucial European summit on Wednesday, the prime ministers urged fellow members to “go further” in modernising the interpretation of the European convention on human rights (ECHR) to prevent asylum seekers using it to avoid deportation.

But writing for the Guardian, they said that updating the interpretation of the convention was urgently required to confront the challenges posed by mass migration – and far-right forces that sought to divide mainstream opinion across Europe.

“The best way of fighting against the forces of hate and division, is to show that mainstream, progressive politics can fix this problem,” Starmer wrote in a joint article with the Danish leader, Mette Frederiksen.

“Listening to legitimate concerns and acting on them is what our politics is about. That’s not empty populism, it’s democracy. We are determined to show that our societies can act with compassion while upholding law and order, and fairness.”