Poland has taken over presidency of the EU Council. Donald Tusk’s approach to Europe could not be less aligned with his predecessor, Viktor Orban; the new ideological struggle playing out in central Europe may define the continent’s future.

As Austrian diplomats Emil Brix and Erhard Busek wrote in Central Europe Revisited, “the future of Europe depends on central Europe.” They point out that the European Union must take into account “central European traditions and initiatives, and not just Brussels, Paris or Berlin as it is now.” If the EU continues to develop only around its Carolingian core, they say, this will end the European “peace and prosperity project.”

The war in Ukraine proved Brix and Busek right. But that Europe’s future is now indeed being decided in its centre is also due to the EU’s fate being at the mercy of a fundamental political dispute.

On 1 January 2025, Hungary, under president Viktor Orban, handed over presidency of the Council of the EU to Poland and its prime minister, Donald Tusk. Both leaders are already clashing, with Europe as their political battleground—Orban and Tusk best symbolise the competing values, interests and approaches at the centre of the conflict for the continent’s soul. But with Poland taking over the council presidency, the battle is gaining new momentum.