Europe will not defend the Philippines.
Not in the first hour, not on day one, not at all. Malacanang can host foreign dignitaries, sign joint declarations and pose for photo-ops, but when pressure escalates in the South China Sea, Brussels will remain where it likes to be: on the margins of force.
The reason is simple: the EU lacks means, mandate and will. Recent episodes confirm the reality. Trump pushed Europe into a 5% GDP outlay on American weapons, imposed humiliating tariffs and even instructed Europeans on managing a war at their own doorstep.
Against this backdrop, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas went to Manila proclaiming solidarity and affinity with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr with the familiar homily on values. Yet the contrast was glaring: Europe accepts subordination in its own theater, while preaching resolve in Asia.
The question thus arises: Could the actor Manila hopes will help to counter China in the West Philippine Sea ever be Brussels?
Kallas used the visit to posture as a China hawk, without any leverage. Headlines proclaimed a new era of European commitment to Philippine security, inflated by “concern” over China’s “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive” behavior. But adjectives are not strategy. Partnerships rest on capability and intent, and Europe offers neither.
If any message from the West carried weight lately, it came from France. President Emmanuel Macron, speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue, cut through the fog: Europe will not fight China.
“If the elephant in the room is the day China decides a big operation against a country, will you intervene day one? I would be very cautious today. Everybody would be very cautious today,” Macron said.
France, the EU’s only nuclear power, its most globally deployed force and the only member state with Indo-Pacific territories, confirmed Europe’s hesitation. The implication is terminal: if France won’t act, Europe can’t.
The evidence is not theoretical. The war in Ukraine remains Europe’s test. While Kyiv still pleads for weapons and air cover, Brussels debates gas payments and packages of sanctions to the same regime shelling Ukrainian cities. After 1,300 days of war, Europe has sent billions but not a single combat brigade in a war that its leaders frame as “existential.”
Macron made the linkage explicit: “If both the USA and the Europeans are unable to fix the Ukrainian situation, I think the credibility of both the US and the Europeans to pretend to fix any crisis in this [Southeast Asian] region will be very low.”
Translation: Europe’s relevance in Asia is bound to its performance in Europe. And now that performance is collapsing under reluctance, fragmentation, risk aversion and submission to Washington.
Another way to put it: What has the Philippines contributed to Ukraine? Nothing. And rightly so. Kyiv is not Manila’s fight, just as Palawan won’t be Brussels’s. Nations act where their interests are threatened and their capabilities count.
However, the limits run deeper than military logistics. The EU is not a state. It is a bloc of 27 governments pursuing conflicting China strategies while leaders pretend to speak as one. France defends its own interests. Germany prioritizes export flows to Beijing. Eastern Europe chases Chinese infrastructure deals. Spain seeks Chinese factories. The EU has no collective security, and strategic autonomy remains a slogan.
Amid these realities, what was Kallas really pursuing in the Philippines? Her tour through Southeast Asia, capped in Manila, was less about Philippine security than about self-projection—claiming global engagement without facing the only question that matters: would Europe ever fight in Asia? The answer had already come weeks earlier in Singapore, and it was no.
The greater danger, accordingly, is miscalculation. Manila could mistake symbolic support for protection—and in a military contingency, that would be catastrophic. The gap between words and power was visible from Kallas’s first steps as the EU’s top diplomat: “In my first visit since taking up office, my message is clear: the European Union wants Ukraine to win this war.”
A war the EU refused to fight and cannot even negotiate to end became her stage for declarations. If Brussels cannot turn mantras into force there, how could it matter in the Philippines? The High Representative’s role is not to set policy, still less to deliver victories, but to echo member-state consensus.
Yet some Philippine commentators have excitedly portrayed Kallas’s show as proof of security cooperation, as if it somehow promised definitive defense against China—still the EU’s major trading partner. And full disclosure: the EU does not even have a trade agreement with the Philippines.
Therefore, will it be values or trade? Interests or illusions of protecting “like-minded allies?” Filipino aircrews over contested waters might not be comforted by Kallas’s talk of “democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.” They need combat integration, air cover and the certainty that escalation will be met with overwhelming force in nearby waters.
Europe offers none of that. Currently, when it sends vessels to the region, routes are announced in advance to avoid confrontation—presence without purpose. Political affinities don’t intercept warships or deter coercion.
And the US no longer pretends these performances matter. In February 2025, Vice President J D Vance dismissed European irrelevance at the Munich Security Conference. Kallas answered with defiance, calling on Europe to lead the “free world.”
Weeks later in Washington, Secretary of State Marco Rubio refused to meet her—the very reason she had flown in. And when Ukraine is discussed, EU leaders are not decision-makers but invitees at the White House, where they are lectured on how to negotiate a war they never managed.
For Manila, the ambiguity should be gone. The US, Japan and Australia remain their defense partners. Brussels is useful in trade, regulation and multilateral forums. But expecting military deterrence from Europe versus China is pure fantasy.
Philippine policymakers should stop imagining battalions where there are only bureaucrats. At best, Brussels can fund radar stations or back maritime resolutions; but once combat begins, if it ever does, it will be reduced to its specialty—offering “unwavering support” from afar.
So beware when the pageantry resumes. The inaugural Philippines–EU Security Dialogue in late 2025 will spark the usual theatrical outrage from Beijing—just enough for some to feel important. But no one in Zhongnanhai will lose any sleep over a summit without soldiers.
Because the South China Sea is not governed by grandiloquent declarations and gatherings. It is shaped by resolve, escalation thresholds and the capacity to act without asking. If and when the next crisis comes, Manila will already know Europe can be counted on for rhetoric but will ultimately do nothing.
Sebastian Contin Trillo-Figueroa is a Hong Kong-based geopolitics strategist with a focus on Europe-Asia relations.
