Europe is staring at the return of a nightmare it thought it had escaped. Fresh economic data and analyst warnings suggest the Iran conflict is dragging the continent towards stagflation – the toxic mix of rising prices, weak growth and collapsing confidence that haunted Western economies in the 1970s.

After Covid, the Ukraine war and now the Iran conflict, a grim conclusion is taking hold inside Europe’s strategic circles: the continent keeps discovering its vulnerabilities only after the crisis begins. The HCSS column argues that Europe must urgently build strategic stockpiles – from fertiliser and energy to semiconductors – because global supply chains are becoming weapons in geopolitical conflicts.

A fresh transatlantic row is exposing how little room Europe has when Washington decides to play hardball. The Politico report centres on a blunt warning from Donald Trump’s ambassador to the EU: stop reopening the deal, stop delaying implementation and honour what was agreed.

The European Commission wants to be seen as Europe’s strategic brain. This report asks how much steering power it actually has. The answer is uncomfortable. Brussels can frame debates, launch initiatives and warn about risks, but when hard choices appear, control slips back to national capitals. Strategy is talked up, not locked in.

Europe’s far right is watching Washington, and it likes what it sees. This study argues that a second Trump era would not just shake the US system but turbocharge radical right movements across Europe. The shock is not ideological inspiration alone. It is the signal that disruption works and that liberal guardrails can be bent or ignored.

France still talks like a global player, but this analysis shows how domestic chaos is hollowing out its international role. Political fragmentation, protest politics and permanent campaigning are dragging foreign policy down to size. Paris wants influence abroad while barely holding authority at home.

The analysis takes stock of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s first hundred days and finds a government eager to signal strength but constrained by the same limits that trapped its predecessors. Rhetoric has sharpened, priorities look clearer, and ambition is back in Berlin. The problem is delivery.