The informal summit of leaders of the Twenty-seven in Versailles leaves the pitiful realization that

the EU has lived too much with its back to reality

and ignoring the warnings of a geopolitical nature that crashed like Cassandra's prophecies before a deaf continent.

Putin's brutal invasion of Ukraine has caught the EU off guard and awakened it from its innocence.

And, now, to deal intelligently and quickly with the very serious challenges we face,

while launching an unprecedented economic and political offensive against Moscow, it is a titanic mission in which

no magical solutions can be improvised.

Community leaders, overwhelmed by events, yesterday entrusted the adoption of concrete measures to the next Council at the end of March.

But they wanted the solemnity of the meeting to serve to transmit to the public the mantra that will necessarily guide the new political era:

Europe is obliged to do whatever it takes to achieve its energy independence and to ensure its defense

.

Nothing that they didn't tell us about a long time ago.

But he has needed to fall off the horse for Putin to show his fangs and reveal himself as a true war criminal - yesterday he increased his attacks against civilians and bombed cities near EU territory.

The search for energy independence seems as essential as it is complex.

Today it is a heartbreaking paradox that, while the West imposes historic sanctions on Russia - which also seriously damage our own economies - the Kremlin is able to pay for its heinous war machine thanks to the oil and gas we buy from it.

Breaking dependency on those supplies is extraordinarily difficult because up to 40% of the gas consumed on average by the Twenty-Seven comes from Russia.

One of the great strengths that Putin has taken advantage of to act as he is doing right now.

The energy crisis, in a context in which the electricity bill has been skyrocketing for many months, requires forceful measures and a European consensus that has seen progress at Versailles.

The request to the Commission for an extraordinary intervention in the price of electricity takes shape.

To this end, Pedro Sánchez announced yesterday that next week he will tour several countries to try to gain support for his market reform proposal.

Both our president and his counterparts were much more emphatic in stating that investment in Defense must be increased.

NATO has for years unsuccessfully required its partners to allocate 2% of their GDP.

And how can we not remember today the disdain with which Sánchez responded to this request when it was made to him by the Atlantic Alliance and the then president of the United States, Donald Trump.

The invasion of Ukraine has turned everything upside down.

But the fact that we are arriving so late in adopting essential measures is also due to the irresponsibility of leaders who confused reality with their daydreams.

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