How can the European Union replace nato? That was the top item under discussion as EU leaders met in Cyprus over the last two days.

• Article 42.7 of the Lisbon Treaty makes the European Union a mutual defense alliance just like nato.
• But nato has existed for 75 years, conducts regular joint military drills, has clear command structures, and has spent decades making its mutual defense provision as specific and workable as possible.
• The EU’s Article 42.7 was introduced in 2009 and right now looks more symbolic than practical.

Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides, who currently holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, presented an early draft of a standard EU mutual defense procedure.

“It could be something like the activation of the EU civil protection mechanism, which allows any country hit by a disaster to request emergency assistance,” said a Cypriot official.

Just ahead of the meeting, the EU agreed to release a $105 billion loan to Ukraine, after outgoing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán dropped his veto.

Most significantly, the EU is once again borrowing money as a bloc, like it did during covid-19. The ability to jointly borrow money is a seemingly boring, yet practical, powerful step toward creating an EU superstate. It adds to the pressure to consolidate European nations’ finance and taxation under a central authority. It is such a major change that three states—Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic—opted out.

• EU leaders also discussed fast-tracking Ukraine’s EU membership. Although some member nations want it to happen within the next year, it quickly became obvious that this would not happen.
• Ukraine was offered a new type of EU-lite membership, which it declined.
• The Europeans also approved their 20th sanctions package on Russia.
• European leaders met with the presidents of Lebanon and Syria. “The EU stands with your countries and your people,” European Council President António Costa said. “You can count on us.”

We have already had enough symbolic unions—Budapest Memoranda, symbolic security guarantees, nato, a symbolic path to nato. We deserve full membership in different alliances and, of course, in the European Union.
—Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine

The EU continues to take practical steps toward becoming the empire prophesied in Revelation 17 and other Bible passages. For more about the important steps the EU took this week toward this dramatic outcome, read Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry’s article “The First of the 10 Kings Unite Against America.”