“We are naked in a world of storms, because we have not prepared ourselves for today’s world,” the EPP leader said. “We were in a weak position during the trade deal … because half of Europe — the Balkans, Poland, Romania — are simply really afraid of Putin. And the only thing that can protect them at the moment is American military power.”

Europeans, Weber added, are now facing the hard reality of being “unable to defend ourselves against the drones that are coming.”

Moscow has been accused of violating NATO airspace on several occasions in recent weeks, including in Poland and Estonia, in what constitutes a new phase of escalating tensions between the West and Russia. Major Danish airports were briefly closed early Thursday morning due to what authorities said were drones.

On trade, Weber said he would have liked to see the EU and its chief negotiators show more self-confidence in talks with Trump over the summer, including by not backing down on the bloc’s digital tax for U.S. tech giants. But, he added, this was unrealistic due to the bloc’s military dependence on the U.S.

Weber called on the leaders of the EU’s 27 member countries to strengthen the bloc and show more visionary leadership.

“If we had a [Helmut] Kohl and a [François] Mitterrand today who created the euro back then, they would be paving the way for a European army,” he said. “That kind of leadership, that kind of visionary approach, is lacking at the moment.”

Today, he went on, this is the job of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron.

“It must be said that all of our top politicians are so caught up in national politics, so under pressure … that unfortunately, we do not have a generation of leaders in office right now who are capable of taking the big steps that are needed,” he added.

Publishing the name of a professional athlete online because they have broken anti-doping rules is against the EU’s privacy laws, a top EU lawyer has said.

The fresh opinion from Advocate General Dean Spielmann weighs a case taking place in Austria, where four professional athletes who have broken anti-doping rules are arguing that publication of their details online would breach the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.

Austrian law requires details including the athletes’ names, sporting discipline, duration of their exclusion and the reasons for that exclusion to be published on the websites of the Austrian anti-doping agency and an associated legal committee.

Sarkozy, 70, is still awaiting sentencing but is expected to be able to walk out of court a free man by appealing the verdict, which would push sentencing until after the appeal. 

Sarkozy has repeatedly professed his innocence and claimed to be the victim of a smear campaign coordinated by Gadhafi’s allies after the former French president led the NATO effort  to overthrow the Libyan dictator in 2011. 

The conservative Sarkozy has had repeated run-ins with the law since leaving office — including one corruption case in which he was found guilty and has exhausted his appeals. But the Libyan case contained the most egregious charges and heaviest potential penalties. 

This developing story will be updated.