For a brief moment there, it seemed that the performative threat of an "imminent invasion" by Putin would make the European Union less dysfunctional than it always is (and indeed, when it comes to agreeing to have German debt fund everyone's prosperity for a few years, if it meant agreeing that "Putin man bad", with hundreds of billions in new debt issuance, there was shocking agreement across Europe). It didn't last however, and on Thursday EU leaders tussled over weapons deliveries to Kyiv and who would represent them in US-led diplomacy as the bloc struggled to formulate a strategy on Ukraine.

As Bloomberg reports, an EU summit in Brussels was unable to agree on delivering €5 billion ($5.4 billion) to secure ammunition for Ukraine this year, as members including France and Italy balked at committing to specific financial volumes. A number of European leaders will meet again in Paris on March 27 to try to drive the process forward, but they too will fail to agree (unless Germany agrees to foot the entire bill).

"The objective for me on Thursday is first of all for there to be a renewed and explicit commitment, and perhaps one that is a little more specific, on short-term support for Ukraine," French President Emmanuel Macron said late Thursday as leaders filed out, and Macron failed to achieve his objective.

Leaders have become increasingly alarmed about being kept out of Trump's dealing with the Kremlin, and the risk of being unable to agree on how to help Ukraine defend itself. During the summit, they pored over the sequence of Trump's phone diplomacy this week, which yielded an agreement to halt attacks on energy infrastructure, but fell well short of a ceasefire aimed at ending the three-year war.

EU leaders also sparred over the failure so far to put forward a senior figure as part of a bid to gain entry into the process and represent the 27-member bloc. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the EU needed a "negotiating team and a representative" to be at the table. 

Because nobody has accused a bunch of socialists to be able to agree. On anything. Ever.

It got funnier: so enamored is Europe with its performative "stand" against an imminent Russian invasion that people don't even remember what their roles are, and instead rising tensions led to a heated exchange between Sanchez and the EU's foreign policy chief and rabid Russophobe, Kaja Kallas.