EU exhales as Trump pulls back from the brink, for now

BRUSSELS (CN) — European leaders seized on a two-week U.S.-Iran ceasefire Wednesday with unconcealed relief, after days of watching U.S. President Donald Trump threaten to erase “a whole civilization” — and their own energy supplies with it.

In a joint statement, the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Britain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain and the EU institutions welcomed the truce, thanked Pakistan for its mediation and called for “a swift and lasting end to the war within the coming days.” The officials pledged European support for freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz and called on all sides to implement the ceasefire — including in Lebanon.

But the terms of the deal, such as they are, remain contested — and its geographic scope is already in dispute.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif — who helped broker the last-minute pause — said the ceasefire applied to Lebanon too, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said overnight it “does not include Lebanon.” Israeli strikes continued Wednesday morning.

Shortly after the ceasefire announcement, Bahrain, Israel, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates all issued warnings about incoming missiles from Iran. That fire stopped for a time, then hostilities appeared to restart.

An oil refinery in Iran came under attack, according to Iranian state television, which said firefighters were working to contain the blaze but no one was injured. It did not say who launched the attack.

Still, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the agreement “much-needed deescalation” and pressed both sides to keep negotiating toward a durable settlement. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas framed it as “a step back from the brink,” urging the parties to restore traffic through the strait and convert the pause into something permanent.

Not all European voices struck the same note. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez — whose government had refused Washington the use of airbases at Rota and Morón for offensive operations — offered pointed, backhanded praise. Ceasefires are “always good news,” he said, but the pause could not erase “the chaos, the destruction and the lives lost.”

Spain, he added, “will not applaud those who set the world on fire just because they show up with a bucket.”

“Madness seems to have gripped the world, " Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto told Parliament Tuesday — invoking Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a reminder of where unchecked conflict leads. European Council President António Costa was equally blunt, warning that strikes on power plants and bridges would be “illegal and unacceptable” under international law.

The deal came within hours of Trump’s self-imposed deadline Tuesday evening. He had threatened to destroy power plants and bridges across Iran, warning: “A whole civilization will die tonight.”

Pope Leo XIV called the threat “truly unacceptable,” while Sharif publicly urged Trump to hold off as talks toward a settlement took shape.

“[It is] a big day for World Peace!” Trump declared Tuesday night on Truth Social, sketching out a vision of a “Golden Age of the Middle East.” “We are, and will be, talking Tariff and Sanctions relief with Iran,” he said again Wednesday.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi offered a notably different account of what had been agreed. Tehran would suspend military operations and allow safe passage through the strait only “via coordination with Iran’s Armed Forces and with due consideration of technical limitations,” he said Tuesday evening — stopping well short of the “complete, immediate and safe opening” Trump had demanded. He characterized the deal as Washington’s acceptance of Iran’s own framework.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared a “historic and overwhelming victory” at a Pentagon news conference Wednesday, saying U.S. forces would remain in the region and were “prepared to restart at a moment’s notice.” Vice President JD Vance, speaking from Hungary, described the situation as a “fragile truce” that could evaporate within days — language that sat uneasily alongside Trump’s triumphalist Truth Social posts.

The gap between the two sides’ descriptions left European officials with little to anchor their optimism beyond the fact that the missiles had, for now, stopped flying.

The view from outside

Formal negotiations are set to begin Friday in Islamabad under Pakistani mediation — a diplomatic outcome that underscored how little traction Brussels had managed to exert over a conflict that had directly threatened its energy security.

Europe had leverage it never used. The continent’s military bases form the logistical backbone of U.S. operations — a pressure point European countries failed to deploy consistently, Liana Fix of the U.S. think tank Council on Foreign Relations argued Tuesday.

That sidelining reflects a deeper transatlantic fracture the ceasefire does little to repair. Trump, who told reporters last week he is “reconsidering” the U.S. role in NATO, has grown increasingly hostile toward European allies over their refusal to contribute forces to the Iran campaign or grant access to joint bases.

“[The president] has been disappointed by NATO and other allies’ unwillingness to be helpful throughout Operation Epic Fury, even though his efforts to destroy the threat posed by Iran is to their benefit,” said White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte arrives in Washington Wednesday for talks aimed at preventing the rift from widening further — with his options narrow and his leverage resting almost entirely on his personal relationship with the president.

Underlying the caution: European capitals have been reluctant to antagonize Washington while Trump holds the keys to any Ukraine settlement — leaving the continent exposed on two fronts simultaneously.

But the conflict had struck at a core European vulnerability. The Strait of Hormuz handles roughly a fifth of global oil shipments, and its near-closure had driven Brent crude above $110 a barrel and stoked fears of stagflation across the eurozone. Markets moved sharply on the ceasefire news: the STOXX 600 gained nearly 4%, Germany’s DAX rose 5% and London’s FTSE 100 climbed 3%.

Among European officials, the prevailing mood was relief — not at the outcome, but at having narrowly avoided something worse.

Courthouse News correspondent Yuval Molina is based in Brussels.