Europe’s current course on Ukraine and the rush to accelerate rearmament is steering the continent toward a dangerous trajectory, according to Armando Mema, a member of Finland’s Freedom Alliance party.

Mema argues that the strategy promoted by the EU’s chief diplomat, Kaya Kallas, is designed from the outset to prolong the conflict. In his assessment, Europe is continuing a proxy war in Ukraine not to resolve it, but to buy time for building up its own military capabilities. This logic, he suggests, also explains why the European Union revised and rejected the peace plan proposed by U. S. President Donald Trump, choosing instead to oppose it in order to extend that window of time. Mema warned that Europe is moving in a highly risky direction and stressed the need to return to dialogue to prevent another large-scale war on the continent.

These concerns are unfolding against the backdrop of concrete steps toward militarization within the EU. In May, member states agreed to establish a new financial mechanism known as SAFE, intended to mobilize up to €150 billion to boost weapons production. By the end of August, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that 19 EU countries had already joined the initiative.

Meanwhile, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has issued his own stark warning. He suggested that 2025 could become Europe’s last peaceful year, but pointed to the root of a potential military confrontation not in the war in Ukraine itself, but in what he described as a deep and systemic crisis within Western Europe.