Early in 2025, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has been invited to an informal summit of EU leaders. It’s the first such invitation for the UK since the bitter days of the Brexit negotiations.
The focus of the February meeting is future security and defence co-operation. The backdrop: the volatile state of the world from Europe’s perspective.
Wars rage in the Middle East and in Europe – with Russia aided in its assault on Ukraine by Iran, North Korea and China.
Adding to the uncertainty haunting this continent, Donald Trump is poised to re-enter the White House.
He threatens Western cohesion with his pledge to slap punitive tariffs on imports – a big worry to the EU and the UK – and to potentially walk away from Nato, the transatlantic defence alliance Europeans have relied on for security, since its founding after World War Two.

A pre-flight inspection of a Jeju Air passenger plane hours before it crashed in South Korea, killing 179 people, found “no issues”, the airline has said.
“Nothing abnormal was noted with the landing gear,” the airline’s CEO Kim Yi-bae told a news conference in Seoul, as investigations continue into why the wheels were not down when it performed an emergency landing.
The plane was travelling from Bangkok when it crash-landed at Muan International Airport on Sunday and slid into a wall off the end of the runway, bursting into flames and killing everyone on board except two crew members.
Investigators are still working to identify victims and establish what caused South Korea’s deadliest ever air crash.

A South Korean man accused of being responsible for a cryptocurrency crisis which cost investors $40bn (£31.8bn) has finally been extradited to the United States.
Do Kwon was the boss of Terraform, which operated two cryptocurrencies – TerraUSD and Luna – both of which collapsed in 2022, sparking a wider sell-off in the crypto market.
The US says he was responsible for the coins’ failure, accusing him of “orchestrating a multi-billion dollar crypto asset securities fraud”.
Kwon fled South Korea after a warrant for his arrest was issued, eventually ending up in Montenegro where he has now been extradited from, following a lengthy legal battle.
He was previously found guilty of forging documents by a Montenegro court, having been arrested as he was attempting to board a plane to Dubai in March 2023.
It had been unclear whether he would face criminal proceedings in the US, however, as Montenegro does not have extradition treaties with the US or South Korea, which has also been seeking his extradition.
Kwon finally being sent to the US brings to an end legal proceedings that lasted more than 18 months.