A decade ago, Europe helped broker the Iran nuclear deal. Now, it seems at a total loss, absent from efforts to stop the unfolding crisis

Sometimes, you have to ask why the EU seems to operate in a vacuum, seemingly unable to fathom how it relates to the rest of the world. Violence is raging in the Middle East and the prospect of all-out war, after Iran’s latest missile attack on Israel, is growing by the day. Yet Europe’s core political community is missing in action.

Internally, the political dust is settling after June’s European parliament elections and a new five-year cycle is starting in Brussels. Ursula von der Leyen is back for a second term as the president of the European Commission, having sailed through her confirmation hearings in the European parliament. The policy glass on a range of key questions from climate to technology is at least half full.

Nathalie Tocci is a Guardian Europe columnist