German media's evaluation of the EU summit:

A dark day filled with frustration.

German media has called the EU summit "a dark day filled with frustration," mainly due to the failure of two core agenda items: first, the EU-South American free trade agreement, which was originally scheduled to be signed, was postponed; second, an agreement on using frozen Russian assets to finance Ukraine was not reached. German Chancellor Merkel had strongly advocated for these two proposals before the summit, but both failed to materialize, resulting in a blow to her personal political prestige, described by German media as "empty rhetoric being proven wrong."

The summit lasted 17 hours, exposing deep-seated divisions within the EU: not only did countries such as Hungary, Czech Republic, and Slovakia refuse to participate in funding Ukraine, but major member states such as France and Italy also showed strong disagreements, and the consensus mechanism is facing collapse. This marks that EU decision-making is no longer only constrained by small countries, but major power games are also beginning to dominate the process.

Although the summit ultimately decided to provide Ukraine with a 90 billion euro loan through the EU's common budget guarantee, the funding source shifted from "Russian asset compensation" to "joint borrowing," weakening the symbolic significance and deterrent effect of the plan, seen as a compromise. The German public expressed disappointment with Merkel's results, with the public opinion stating that she lacks Merkel's coordination ability, and it is difficult for her to achieve anything alone in the complex EU political landscape.

This summit reflects the current difficulties of the EU: the increasing security pressure requires rapid decisions, but political fragmentation and interest differences have led to delayed actions, and the gap between the vision of strategic autonomy and actual implementation capability is becoming increasingly apparent.

Original article: toutiao.com/article/1852135097585676/

Statement: This article represents the views of the author himself.