EU races to contain Iran war fallout as top officials warn of failing response

STRASBOURG, France (CN) — From Jordan to Oman, the European Union convened 13 Middle Eastern leaders in an emergency call Monday, pledging humanitarian aid to Lebanon and insisting that diplomacy — not force — was the only way out of the crisis.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen — head of the EU’s executive arm — and European Council President António Costa — who chairs summits of the bloc’s 27 national leaders — spoke Monday with the leaders of Jordan, Egypt, Bahrain, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Armenia, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Oman.

In a joint statement, the two stopped short of endorsing military action, insisting that “dialogue and diplomacy is the only viable way forward” — a pointed contrast with Washington as European governments remain divided over the conflict.

Von der Leyen announced the EU would fly emergency humanitarian supplies to Lebanon on Tuesday to help some 130,000 people displaced by the conflict.

The two leaders said the EU’s naval escort missions in the Red Sea and eastern Mediterranean, already active before the Iran war, could be expanded to deal with the deteriorating situation. An Iranian drone struck a British military base in Cyprus on March 2 — the first attack on European territory since the conflict began.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who flew to Cyprus Monday to meet Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, announced France would send two additional frigates to Aspides, the EU’s anti-drone escort mission launched in 2024 to protect commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

“We are in the process of setting up a purely defensive, purely escort mission,” Macron said after the meeting at a Cypriot air base where Greek F-16s are now deployed. Despite the growing military presence, all three leaders stressed they were not seeking to expand the conflict.

Christodoulides was blunt: “We are not involved in military operations.”

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez remains the most vocal EU critic of the U.S.-Israeli strikes, a position that prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to threaten to suspend all trade with Spain after Madrid refused to let U.S. forces use its military bases for missions linked to the Iran campaign.

European nations have deployed warships and fighter jets across the Eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea since Iranian drones had struck a British air base in Cyprus and a French naval base in the UAE last week, drawing European military assets directly into the conflict. Greece sent two frigates and four F-16s to Cyprus, France dispatched a frigate and its aircraft carrier and Britain moved naval and air-defence assets to the region.

“When Cyprus is attacked, it is Europe that is attacked,” Macron said, pledging to uphold Franco-Cypriot defense agreements

Macron said Monday France also wanted to set up military escorts for tankers and container ships into the Strait of Hormuz “as soon as possible” — though he cautioned the operation could not get underway until the fighting subsided.

The EU has launched its largest-ever coordinated civilian evacuation, chartering repatriation flights for the first time in the bloc’s history under emergency powers activated last year. More than 4,100 European citizens have been flown home across 14 member states since the conflict began, with 23 of the EU’s 27 countries requesting assistance.

EU questions its own tools

Von der Leyen and foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas addressed the bloc’s annual Ambassadors Conference in Brussels earlier Monday, where the commission president delivered one of her most candid assessments of EU foreign policy to date.

Von der Leyen questioned whether the EU’s foreign policy system, built on consensus among 27 member states, remained capable of acting decisively in fast-moving crises. “Whether the system that we built — with all of its well-intentioned attempts at consensus and compromise — is more a help or a hindrance to our credibility as a geopolitical actor,” she said, pointing to the stalled 90 billion-euro ($94 billion) loan to Ukraine, blocked by Hungary for months, as a case in point.

On Iran itself, there “should be no tears shed for the Iranian regime” that had repressed its own population and armed proxies across the region with missiles and drones, she said.

Von der Leyen was explicit that the Iran conflict was not the source of her frustration — just the latest example of it. “It is, in fact, a symptom of the wider issue — as was Greenland, as is Ukraine, and will be many more places in the year ahead,” she said.

Kallas struck the same note, describing the moment as a “turning point” where the premises that have guided global affairs for decades “can no longer be assumed.”

“If anyone was not feeling it before, then we feel it now,” she told ambassadors Monday.

Von der Leyen warned “the spillover is already a reality today — whether on energy and finance, trade and transport, or the displacement of people.” The Strait of Hormuz — through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s daily oil supply passes, along with 12% to 14% of Europe’s LNG from Qatar — has effectively shut down to commercial traffic since Iranian forces declared it closed on March 2.

Qatar’s energy minister Saad al-Kaabi warned Friday that oil prices could reach $150 a barrel within weeks if ships cannot safely transit the strait, threatening economies globally. Qatar has already halted LNG production after Iranian drone strikes hit its Ras Laffan facility, taking roughly a fifth of global LNG supply offline.

The economic fallout is already rippling through European markets. Oil surged above $119 a barrel Monday — its highest since mid-2022 — and investors began betting that the European Central Bank would raise interest rates before year-end, reviving memories of the inflation wave that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Trump was dismissive. “Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace,” he posted on Truth Social Sunday. “ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!”

Trump has pledged to deploy the U.S. Navy to escort tankers through the strait if necessary, though no escort mission has yet been launched.

The conflict began Feb. 28 when the U.S. and Israel launched a military operation against Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and triggering a wave of Iranian retaliatory strikes across the Gulf and Israel.

Courthouse News correspondent Yuval Molina is based in Brussels, Belgium.