Where's Guy Verhofstadt when you need him (GENYA SAVILOV/AFP via Getty Images)
Cast your mind back to February 2014 — and the dramatic conclusion to the Euromaidan protests in Kyiv. Given the choice between alignment with Brussels or Moscow, there was no doubt as to where the crowd’s sympathies lay.
On the night of the 20th, a special guest from the European Parliament got up on stage: Guy Verhofstadt, the arch-federalist and former Prime Minister of Belgium. Addressing the cheering throng he was full of praise: “you are defending European values and European principles.”
Two days later, the pro-Moscow Yanukovych government was forced from office. The protesters had won — and so, it seemed, had the European Union. Who needs an army and a navy when you’ve got “values” and “principles”?
Fast forward to the present day and the Russian military is massed on Ukraine’s borders, poised to complete a conquest that began with the annexation of Crimea. I suppose Mr Verhofstadt could be deployed to stand in Moscow’s way, but on this occasion I doubt it would do much good.
However, Brussels could focus on something else he said back in 2014: “we as the European Union have one obligation… that’s to stay behind your cause.” In that regard, the EU might not have any military power of its own — but it does have diplomatic power.
Indeed, the EU has a fully-fledged foreign policy apparatus. It has a High Representative (currently Josep Borrell) to act as the EU’s foreign minister; it has embassies and consulates around the world; and it has direct representation on powerful bodies like the G7 and G20. Its diplomacy is also backed with the clout that comes from being the world’s biggest trade block.
So given that capacity, one might expect the EU to be leading the effort to save Ukraine. But instead its diplomats are on the sidelines — much to the frustration of Emmanuel Macron, among others. Instead, the future of Ukraine — and by extension Europe — is being hammered out between Washington and Moscow. Even Britain, supposedly isolated by Brexit, has made a bigger impact than Brussels.
The Russians, meanwhile, are laughing. Commenting on the EU’s lack of involvement, Sergei Lavrov — the country’s Foreign Minister — expressed mock sympathy: “We can see that the European Union feels somewhat disadvantaged.” As to the possibility of a separate EU-Russia dialogue Lavrov observed that “the US needs to be asked if it is willing to let [the EU] take any independent action.”
He was making mischief, of course. It’s not the US stopping the EU from taking a leading role — but the EU itself. The Ukraine crisis is the greatest test that the Common Foreign and Security Policy has ever faced, and so far the failure is comprehensive. Beyond the usual empty words and token gestures, the 27 member states of the European Union have been unable to present a united front.
There’s no doubt as to which of the 27 is most to blame. As I have argued before, Germany was warned years ago that its collaboration with Russia on energy supplies would undermine the security of Russia’s neighbours. Now that these fears have been realised, the new German government has a chance to make amends. But far from showing leadership, the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has weakened Europe’s resolve — for instance by blocking defence exports to Ukraine.
The EU is Russia’s biggest trading partner — accounting for more than a third of its imports and exports. Comprehensive economic sanctions could therefore act as a serious deterrent to war. However, the threat has to be credible. There was fighting talk this week from the Danish foreign minister, who said the EU is ready to impose “never seen before” sanctions. However, that doesn’t match Scholz’s less-than-resolute language: “no one should harbour the illusion that there is any step that has no consequences for us.”
It also didn’t help when Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schönbach, the German naval chief, had to resign after some unguarded comments about the current crisis. “What [Putin] really wants is respect,” he was reported as saying, “and, my God, giving someone respect is low cost, even no cost… It is easy to give him the respect he really demands — and probably also deserves.” No doubt Putin was left wiping away the tears.
So is the EU’s problem actually a German problem? Up to a point, but the blame must be shared by other member states for tolerating it. If they won’t stand up to German flakiness on foreign and defence policy, then what chance do they have against Russian aggression?
Unfortunately, EU governments are under very little pressure from their voters to take the continent’s defence seriously. Consider the core principle of NATO — the Article 5 obligation that every member of the organisation should come to the military aid of any member that is attacked. In other words, one for all and all for one. According to this 2020 Pew report, there was majority support for this principle in some EU countries, but not others. Asked whether their own country should respond militarily to a Russian attack on a fellow NATO member, 64% of those asked said yes in the Netherlands, but only 41% in France and Spain, 34% in Germany and just 25% in Italy. This compares to 60% in the US and 55% in Britain.
Somewhat hypocritically, much higher percentages expect that the United States would respond to a Russian attack: 75% of Italians thought so as did 63% of Germans. Clearly, many Europeans assume that they will be defended — even if they aren’t prepared to contribute to the defence of their neighbours.
Ukraine, of course, is not a NATO member. And perhaps that’s why the EU isn’t doing all it can to deter Russia. The assumption is that Kyiv represents an endpoint for Moscow’s ambitions — not a pit stop on the way to Vilnius or Warsaw or Berlin. Let’s hope that theory is never tested.
What makes the EU’s irresponsibility harder to take is the very nature of the “European project”. On the 1st January, 1999 the euro came into being — and changed the character of the European Union forever. From that moment, it became a fundamentally inward-looking enterprise devoted to the survival of the single currency at any cost. The alternative path that the EU could have taken: a looser association of nations — but one that doesn’t stop halfway across the continent — was forever closed off.
Well, so be it. Every empire has to have a frontier. But when the line is drawn, one has to be ready to guard it. One cannot exclude unless one is prepared to defend. The EU seems oblivious to this — and that is its greatest failure.
Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.
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SubscribeSmacks a bit of playing to the pro-Brexit crowd, but God, even the most ardent Remainer has to acknowledge that everything written here is painfully true.
The EU has become an embarrassment to itself. With the vaccine passports, dodgy contracts with Big Pharma and now the flirtation with mandatory vaccination, it has betrayed it most fundamental values.
True believers like myself are turning away in disgust. To my shame, it has taken something as personal as the covid crisis for me to acknowledge what should have been apparent after the Crimea annexation, the hamfisted ‘sanctions’ that followed, and the approval of the Nordstream pipeline: The EU is a failed project. Western civilisation now depends on the transatlantic alliance between the UK and the US.
God help us.
Broadly agree with you, but would like to point out that, although Ursula vdL mentioned Europe-wide mandatory vaccination, the EU did not have any power to introduce that. It is a member state competence. The most the Commission could have done was to recommend introducing it.
Also – I am not sure the EU has approved the Nordstream pipeline…I think there is still legal wrangling going on with it, although I have to admit I am not fully up to speed.
The article is pointing out the silence from the EU when it comes to Ukraine. You could say that they are behaving in the same way when it comes to vaccine mandates and the pipeline. You don’t need to have control something to voice an opinion.
Right, yes. I perhaps should have used the word ‘tacit’ to avoid confusion, because I think that Katharine is technically correct regarding the EU’s position wrt Nordstream.
As a passionate supporter of the EU project for over 50 yrs I couldn’tagree more with: “The EU has become an embarrassment to itself. With the vaccine passports, dodgy contracts with Big Pharma and now the flirtation with mandatory vaccination, it has betrayed it most fundamental values.”
I am simply sickened with what they’ve done. I feel utterly alienated from Austria, Greece, Italy, France, Germany etc. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised – after all Europe was where fascism originated and it sure has returned with a vengeance with vaccine mandates etc.
I am contemplating moving to England to escape the madness on the continent.
Thank you for such an erudite and polite comment.
You have obviously rejected your previous vulgar persona, (if my memory serves me correctly).
Well done indeed & keep taking the pills.
In 1990 Germany was united. The French policy was ” Frenc jockey riding the German horse ” This was not realistic post 1990, so Mitterand suggested the Euro to control German power. Kohl was against it until the German car makers realised it would protect them from Italians when they devalued the Lira. Also the Deutschmark was very strong, almost like the Swiss Franc and was harming exports. The Euro would devalue the currency with which wich Germany exported it’s goods, destroy any Italian advantages at the top end of the car marketand generally make the vast majority of companies who competed with Germany, uneconomic.
Germany agreed provided they did not have to pay other countries debts. Soros has pointed out the Euro can only survive if Germany pays for the debts. Germany can probably carry Spain but not Italy.
I suggest that Germany is in a similar position to what it planned if it’s invasion of France and Belgium had been succesful in 1914 and it was able to impose a Customs Union on Europe.Europe proving raw material, cheap labour and export markets for a German economy based upon high value manufacturing.
I thought the EU’s failure to help the Bosnian Muslims back in the nineties was quite telling. The EU was tested and failed to help. Then Dutch UN peacekeepers watched as Muslim men were herded from their protection to their deaths. It wasn’t resolved until NATO turned up.
That’s also true. The argument then, though, was that the EU still needed to ‘form’ itself to develop the kind of political coherence necessary to assume this mantle.
That is what I believed at the time.
Many Muslims said to me the massacre of 7000 men at Srebrenica in 1995 caused a massive increasse in support for islamic Terrorism. In 1990, the West defended Kuwait. The Taleban took control of Afghanistan in 1992. Bin Laden moved to Sudan . From 1992, there were many Arabs, Chechens and other Muslims who left Afghanistan. All these factors enables Bin Laden to recruit ex Afghanistan veterans to an anti West Jihad. They first congregate in Sudan and then move back to Afghanistan where hatred of the West due to Srebrenica massacre unites a disparate group o Jihadis. What makes Bin Laden’s propoganda so effective is that he points out the Bosnian Muslims were the most Westernised in the World yet the West allowed the Serbs to murder them.
“Clearly, many Europeans assume that they will be defended — even if they aren’t prepared to contribute to the defence of their neighbours”.
Yes, that’s exactly it. More than ready to take but unwilling to give. A common attitude among continental Europeans friends is: why does the EU even need a military? We’ve got NATO and the US will always be there. Like overgrown children earning good money who should go out and stand on their own two feet but can’t see the point in leaving the comfort of Hotel Mama.
One of the greatest lies in modern times is “European values”. So much time and energy goes into shooting the breeze on this but really, tangible examples in practice are hard to come by. And when the pressure is on, Russian tanks are ready to role into the Ukraine, and it’s time to put your money where your mouth is, the EU is oddly mute. Or, as Ambrose Evans-Pritchard over at the DT put it yesterday, “heroically useless”.
The only value of any meaning in the EU is money. The single market over everything.
Excellent.
One of the greatest lies in modern times is “European values”.
Well said!
Spot on… Brexit is endlessly argued over in terms of £ or EURO signs and money-in or money-out by Remainers because this is the way the EU characterise everything, but it was never about money-in and money-out, and I cannot see the Baltic states and Poland and others simply standing by in trust as Germany plays games with Russia.
Another of the “greatest lies” that was shamelessly peddled was that the EU was responsible for 70 years of peace in Europe
Precisely, what utter b*llocks to lapse into the vernacular.
The American ‘big stick’ kept the wretched ‘Europeans’ in check. A more ungrateful bunch of t*ssers would be hard to imagine.
Why is anybody surprised about the lack of guts shown by the EU? Is anyone out there still a Remainer? You can trust us – we won’t tell anybody.
This is all about energy and Russia’s dominance in Natural Gas. This has not affected the UK so acutely yet, but if the Chinese keep buying up the LNG as they did in 2021, the UK will be in line for even more significant rises in energy costs through 2022. Please forget BREXIT it is done, we need to move on, normalise our relationship with Europe and deal with our problems as they are in 2022 like adults.
What do you mean by “normalise our relationship with Europe”?
Start looking for solutions rather than manufacturing inflammatory headlines for the right wing press. We have left which cannot and will not be reversed. So rather than constantly trying to poison any negotiations all the time, how about sorting out temporary visas for musicians and entertainment? This was offered but turned down by the Home Office as looking too like freedom of movement. Our music and entertainment industry is severely diminished by this jingoistic act. There are plenty more too.
“Right wing” press?
Right wing press !!,? have you never watched BBC news or itn news? It could not be more left wing woke retainer!!
Inflammatory headlines – like the EU politicians that said the U.K. must suffer post-Brexit in order to ensure it is seen as a failure?
How do you normalise a relationship with people who still want to hurt you? Are you into abusive relationships?
It always seems to me that it is mainly Macron who is always shouting and sticking obstacles in the way…he needs to give up on the distracting fantasy that somehow we can be made to vote again. The figures on *would you expect to defend/would you expect to be defended* are , well quite frankly, chilling..with the French joining the Italians in not even waiting for hostilities to start before they put in the surrender document.
He has an election to fight if he ever declares
Why not try fracking for a change? You could gain independence from both American energy policy and Russian energy supply manipulation. It would be a big game changer.
We have short-term governments. If you approve fracking today you get the opprobrium tomorrow morning. The energy security comes in five years’ time. By then you’re in the Lords and your opponents are in power.
The Franco-German axis is a joke at this point.
My guess is that the EU tacitly thinks that empires have legitimate ‘spheres of influence’. If the EU likes to push the UK, Switzerland and Norway around when and where it can, why shouldn’t the Russian federation do the same to its neighbours?
Criticism of the EU is justified but there is one country at the root of the current problem and apologists for Russia need to remind themselves it isn’t the EU releasing Novichok on British soil or murdering hundreds of civilians by shooting down aircraft. Get some perspective.
Agreed not this time, but what about the thousands of Iraqis, Afghans, Syrians etc Or perhaps they don’t count?
The EU has no army, no navy, no nukes and its economic sanctions would backfire. Its member states have no strategic interest in Ukraine and its populations would kick out any politician who would stake the nation’s future for a country nobody could pinpoint on a map. To top it all off a few key countries have made themselves dependent on Moscow for their energy needs. It’s not a betrayal at all, its realism on display here. All previous demonstrations of support for Ukraine are just talk….which is what Brussels is really good at.
I just found Ukraine on the world map and it looks pretty strategic if you lived in Poland, Slovakia, Hungry, Moldova or Romania.
5 countries out of 27.
Precisely, and none of them adding anything worthwhile to the other 22…in fact undermining their working class communities
Those are 5 Eastern European countries that also should not have become part of anything remotely calling itself Western. They have been captured by EU/NATO subterfuge or else by the vicissitudes of history from the Russian sphere of influence formerly known as the Soviet Bloc. Their strategic concerns should not be leading to further illicit annexations of former Soviet buffer zones (….unless you want to risk a nuclear war), otherwise every illicit annexation could lead to further annexations.
There was no imperative to become dependent on Russian Gas..it was the result of choices. The EU are like the SNP, they fell for the *End of History* rubbish, and since then have become inward looking, and self obsessed about *the project*..those in favour of a wholly united superstate EU (few) and the others just going along until the day they reach their individual red line.
The US and all the West felt for far too long that all we have to do trade and the totalitarian states will slowly open up and become more like us. That hasn’t worked, they have traded their way into permeating our states and societies and we are the ones becoming more like them.
I would suggest that the third of Russian trade that takes place with the EU is mostly with former Soviet countries – the trade was there and stayed there.
I dislike this warmongering article.
As I have said before, Ukraine is to Russia as Cuba was to the USA in the mid-1960s. With Russian missiles due to arrive in Cuba and point towards the USA, WW3 was on the brink. Fortunately President Kennedy’s threat of war caused the ships to turn back.. Don’t you see the similarity between what the USA faced then and what Russia is now facing with Ukraine on its border?.
In my opinion, we can only be thankful that the EU countries are not united. As happened in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Libya and Syria, the USA always retreats within its borders and leaves Europe or Asia to cope with the influx of refugees.
Ukraine should be neutral like Finland and Sweden on Russia’s northern borders.
The Cuba analogy fell flat when Ukraine gave up its nuclear deterrent.
They can only be neutral because of the USA, if it goes properly 1920s and 30s isolationist Russia will simply nibble bits away and after tidying up Ukraine will move onto Estonia (massive Russian minority) or the right of Kaliningrad to be reunited by eliminating the Suwalki Gap.
As the poll stats in the article make clear the lotus eating EU countries want to be defended but can’t be bothered to defend anyone.
What rubbish!
Are you forgetting that Russia saved Britain in WW2? Hitler’s army turned towards Russia instead of the Germany armies continuing its firepower and bombardment against us – and Russia paid a terrible price, particularly in Leningrad (St. Petersburg). The USA was, of course, content to stay out of the European war until it was forced into the conflict with the invasion at Pearl Harbour.
Personally I think we would be safer if NATO was disbanded and America stayed within its own borders.
Think of the carnage it has inflicted on other nations since WW2 – Korea, Vietnam Afghanistan. Iraq, Libya and Syria – returning home and leaving Europe and Asia to cope with the refugees fleeing from the conflict and the devastation of their countries.. .
And the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact? What of that?
Germany treated the Russians abominably. No surprise that they fought back. But it wasn’t done for any regard for the Allies. It’s NATO that’s kept the peace since 1945. Definitely not the EU or its antecedents.
Ukraine always was neutral, it wasn’t part of NATO and as a result has lost large swathes of its territory to the Russians
….nah, off-beam on this one Peter. The formal push of Europe eastward, is the enterprise of the Western bureaucratic institutions, not any of the peoples affected. It is complete lunacy.
The ‘push’ of Europe or the choices of countries formerly under the brutal suppression of Russia? Publish your sources to show that Eastern European people have not made democratic choices to be part of the EU or other European treaty organisations despite all the criticisms of those organisations. They know very well that Unherd would really be unherd in Russia.
…your perspective is dangerously one sided Tel. What about the individual peoples of Western Europe not getting to vote on the Lebenstraum for the Brussel based bureaucracies? Yep, the Russians are not like us….
Should those Eastern European countries have their foreign policy dictated by the Russians? Why should the Kremlin decide which defensive alliances other countries join? It’s also worth remembering that NATO never placed battalions in those countries bordering Russia until Putin annexed Crimea (and basically eastern Ukraine). For him to now complain about NATO moving eastward is a bit much when it’s his actions that have caused his neighbours to be fearful of Russian aggression
The Russian objection to mission creep eastwards, by the current iteration of imperious europe (EU/NATO), is not a rhetorical assertion made in the context of last decade events Billy Bob.
The anxiety of the Russian state derives from the catastrophic experience at the Russian end, of the Napoleonic expansion, the mid 19th century Franco-British Crimean intervention, and of course the Third Reich.
That anxiety is only likely to ease after generations of peaceful co-existence and economic integration, (e.g. through the N’strom 2 pipeline). The price of otherwise asserting Western political and societal virtue will be a new war.
Russia can afford to be a problem only because Global Warming Alarmists have managed to shut down a lot of fossil fuel production, and also nuclear electriciy generation. The price of oil and natural gas, Russian government’s main revenue sources, have almost doubled since Biden took a number of actions hostile to North American production.
The solution, however, is in European hands. Make fracking legal. Break your dependence on Russian natural gas by producing your own. There are a lot of American experts who would be glad to develop your assets, if you let them.
Great article
The EU does need an army, but that’s also where the Germans are a hinderance. They want the Americans to do all the work as the Germans are committed “transatlanticists”. And part of this is the anti militaristic worldview imparted after WWII. That needs to go.
What’s needed is a EU alliance with a looser alignment with NATO, but fully capable of self defence against Russia, Turkey and able to control people smuggling in the Med. This alliance should be the front line of any defence in fact. With bigger military spending and larger navies. Every EU member, including Ireland and the 4 others with their pseudo neutrality, ever country should be prepared militarily to fight to defend Poland or Greece – which would mean spending more money. Anything else isn’t an alliance.
I can’t see changing the initials on the alliance from N,A,T and O to an E and U…or trying to form an alliance ‘below’ Nato will achieve anything. If they are lazily freeloading now they’ll just keep lazily freeloading/
I watched the news in disbelief this afternoon as an ex-PM of Finland [someone please correct if he held a different post] praised Angela Merkel as one of Europe’s greatest ever leaders because she was able to speak to Putin in his own language. (Yes, there was a little more to it than that.) Germany’s past is understandably infused with a mistrust of Russia, and Merkel’s naivety towards Russia competes for recognition with her equally disastrous approach to the 2015 immigration crisis.
This article is useless propaganda. People who have no knowledge about the situation shouldn’t be allowed to write an article about it. Westerners live in their little bubble world and seem to have no clue about history or foreign affairs. They just parrot back what the TV tells them. Russia has maintained a naval base at Sevastopol since its founding in the late 1700s under Catherine the great. After the the USSR collapsed Russia leased the base until 2042 with a promise to renew indefinitely. It was understood that there would be no mass immigration from the West to settle Crimea and push out the Russians. It is a little know secret that there are a lot of Russian military families who settled Crimea over the years. All of this was the price Ukraine paid for keeping nominal control of Crimea. All that went out the window in the US backed Coup in February of 2014 with the coup government claiming that they were going to kick the Russians out of Crimea. Obviously that didn’t happen and it will never happen unless the Western “elites” want to start a nuclear war over it. My guess is they don’t. That what they want to do is drive a wedge between European countries and Russia to keep them easily malleable to US interests as their economic power continues to decline. It almost looks like they are goading the Russians into committing some violent act. Do I have that right? Yes. I am pretty sure I have that right.
there was no doubt as to where the crowd’s sympathies lay
If there is no doubt why didn’t they just wait until the next election? The Orange revolution happened and the Russians didn’t do a thing. Of course they didn’t attack the Donbas region or threaten to kick the Russians out of Sevastopol. Eventually the leaders of that revolution collapsed from their own corruption. This round of leaders are doing the same exact thing. lol
Crimea only became part of the Ukraine in the mid 1950s when it was moved by Kruschev whose parents lived in the Donbas.
If one looks who has benefited it is Putin. The actions of EU/USA in promoting anti Russian factions in the Ukraine and then backing down, makes Putin strong. Also, Germany constructing gas pipelines to Russia makes the Ukraine irrelevant. Russia now has a guarateed income from gas. The Red Army Faction and Z2 by joining the Green Party and closing down nuclear in Germany has donne more damage to the West than the numerous murders they undertook.
It is almost as if Putin who used run KGB agents from Dresden has planned it all along. Could The Green Party( ex communist terrorists) Schroder and Merkel done any more to undermine Western security ?
What in the world was a European PM doing in 2014 standing in front of a violent mob praising its efforts to overthrow a democratically elected President? Imagine if instead of Guy Verhofstadt in the Maiden it was Putin in front of an Insulate Britain demonstration? Russia unilaterally withdrew from Eastern Europe, the Baltics, and Ukraine and the Western response was to expand an anti-Russian alliance up to its borders, and to help overthrow a democratically elected government that failed to sign an unfair deal subordinating itself to the EU. That’s the EU failure, not its mixed efforts to defend Ukraine today.
Peter, I don’t buy the EU being responsible for this Gerhard Schröder’s administration made a decision to phase out nuclear power years ago and no matter how hard she tried Angela Merkel was pushed into accepting no nuclear power generation after 2022.Given that nuclear was still producing over 10% of Germany’s electricity up to 2021 they have boxed themselves into a massive problem which Putin seeks to exploit. Yes a big issue for the EU simply because its biggest economy is stuck between a rock and a hard place on energy.
I also take issue with your suggestion that the EU since the creation of the Euro has become inward looking? Given that in the last 4 years they have concluded trade deals with Canada and Japan suggests otherwise. Yes the Euro has caused massive problems and will continue to do so because of the disparate nature of the 27 economies but the Euro’s demise has not happened yet which I forecast a long time ago but have to be honest they have muddled through. The UK on the other hand is paralysed by minor problems of its own making, which demeans us.
Normalisation will take some time as long as there are significant parties on both sides who believe Brexit can be reversed and that the UK needs to be made an example of.
When will the EU be ready to make a trade deal with the UK?
It’s not through the UK’s lack of trying.
I spend a lot of time talking to people my business trade with in Germany and Austria and honestly we have done ourselves no favours really. Frost was just like De Gaulle easier to say no than yes or even maybe. Quite honestly to my friends it’s better the UK is out we were always making out for special treatment. I am not sure we will ever get a better deal because the one Frost and Johnson cooked up is pretty one sided we have to get over it the EU won that one.
I gave you an uptick although I don’t agree. I too am talking to industry colleagues in Germany (just organising some rental equipment back from there as I write) and Austria, not to mention Italy and Netherlands.
We were doing business in all these countries through 2021. January was challenging but it gradually got easier as the year went on. Italy continues to do its own thing, of course, as they have done throughout the EU years.
There is no doubt that the removal of open borders has made freight movements more difficult , but not so much that the difficulties can’t be overcome and mitigated over time, as businesses and even reluctant bureaucrats have been doing.
In the long term, there is no practical reason – except intransigence – why the EU cannot agree to improved trade terms with the UK as they have done with various other non-EU states. it won’t happen overnight though.
No, but for a wee bit of compromise the U.K. left the EU. So the EU didn’t win that one, in fact they made a huge, maybe fatal, strategic error in losing the U.K..
And I’m grateful for their stupidity every day as it will only benefit the U.K. long term.
The EU is turning into a digital age version of the Hapsburg empire a set of states that haven’t got all that much incentive to stay together as various already dimming, collective memories of how bad it was in recent history, either under the military dictators (Portugal, Spain, Greece, etc or the Soviet Union’s empire).
Talking about trade deals shows that what people think it should be about, and want it to be about…we’d never have left if that was the reality.
But it’s an ever ratcheting, stealth project to create a super sized EU state without ever overtly even discussing it.
I have had two lots of FBPE types lashing at me as stupid for six years now… half saying an EU army is utterly impossible and a Brexit lying straw man argument, it can never happen. The other half saying it must happen and the possibility has *always been there in the discussions and treaties* before sending reams of document extracts that prove both diametrically opposed views.
That made me laugh.
Thank you for that erudite essay.
It seems that the only certainty in life, besides death & taxes, is that when it comes to a really important epoch making decision, the Fatherland* will always get it wrong!
(* Germany, for younger readers.)
Germany gets very few decisions like that wrong, I think it really shows the strength of Green Politics over a long period of time in Germany which is worrying when we see promises like net zero bandied about by politicians with no real idea how that can actually be achieved.
For once I have to agree with Tony Blair who made sure the UK did not ditch its plans for new nuclear power reactors at the time Germany did.
But that is my point, on truly titanic issues Germany gets it wrong. The Investiture Dispute, The 30 Years War, 1914, 1939, and now this.
However I do agree with you about Blair. At least we have 13 Reactors, which is better than none.*
(* The French have 56.)
I have to admit that I was only thinking post 1871! I am not sure it’s that simple.
Whilst we still have 13 reactors I am not sure how we build more, we have let our capability to build such projects alone now lapse and I really don’t like any ideas of having China involved in anything connected with UK infrastructure. EDF whilst big nuclear players are struggling in many aspects of their business. The one thing that is certain our heavy reliance on wind has to be balanced properly.
Well let’s put it this way, on the division of Karl der Gross’s * ‘Empire’ in 843 it was East Francia/Germany that got off to the best possible start, particularly under Otto der Gross (great). West Francia/France trailed far behind.
However as the Middle Ages progressed it was ‘Capetian’ & ‘Valois’ France that became the greatest state in Western Europe, whilst Germany dissolved into a myriad of petty statelets, grandly calling itself The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. An almost perfect contradiction in terms!
This happened because of number of catastrophic blunders made by the German ‘Emperors’ and others, too numerous to mention here.
As to Wind, does it really work or is this just another giant Green Scam?
(* Sometimes known as Charlemagne.)
Simple;, develop shale oil and gas, underground coal gasification and Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactors. Most of R and D has been done. LFTR were developed in 1950s by Oak Ridge USA Dep of Energy.
Given they are the dominant economic power in Europe and have been for a hundred years they’ve fairly made a mess of it compared to our nation of shopkeepers.
In what way is the UK paralysed? You surely don’t mean the current partygate nonsense?
Yes it is nonsense, but look the effect?
None – MSM bangs on about it; people like us reading the news get distracted by it; meanwhile the economy grows, services develop, trade continues, employed totals increase, blah blah. Life, and the country, goes on regardless of party gate.
Which is why we have been able to act on Ukraine, unlike the dithering EU or the do-nothing Germans.
The EU seems to be at the point of unification that we yanks were in 1776 when we were obliged to expel George III and his minions.
Look what became of that improvised Union! The divided-serpent, “don’t tread on me” flag of 1775 was replaced with the Stars and Stripes, which is . . . well, you know.
Now is the time for all Europeans to come to the aid of the EUnion!
And I venture to say that our guys in Washington are willing to assist in that project. Monsieur Macron would certainly be a pivotal gear in that assembly. Perhaps this would be the occasion of our, at last, thanking the French (et al) for lending Lafayette to us back at the dawn’s early light.
Language united you.
Languages divide the EU.
Where is my previously written comment?
I just love reading the intellectual discussion that follows every Unherd article. In this case though, I’m surprised not to see any reference to Putin’s own motivation. Surely, being (probably) the World’s richest man, having plundered the country’s resources, his main focus is to remain in power? The Russian population will support his ‘Make Russia Great Again’ strategy and he’ll die out of prison.
There is an article, The Putin Doctrine, in the current edition of Foreign Affairs, that is worth reading.
Another low and dirty decade?
The perceived problem arises out of the writer’s expectations, rather than reality. Contrary to the impression given by Brexiters, the EU is not a sovereign state, and so in many situations cannot act like one, even if it has diplomatic clout in other situations. I for one am content that the EU focuses on the Single Market and other issues within its Treaty competences. If member states are unable to agree, so be it. Criticism for failures to act should be addressed to the member states.
Do you remember when Baroness Ashton held that role? She was a time-server on various NGO’s who had never stood for election to anything. She was ennobled by Blair and appointed High Representative without any previous diplomatic experience
She earned more than a British PM, and led her own cabinet, without troubling any electors to give her any sort of mandate.
I despise the EU; it is the diametric opposite of a democracy
Strange that you blame the EU for that and not the people who appointed her. Not saying that the EU are incapable of it.
She was friendly with Tony and Cherie, hence the title and the job. I was protesting against the EU system which allows patronage on that scale.
Stop the warmongering. Britain and the EU should stay out of the Ukriane, it is a Russia-Ukriane issue and therefore none of our business.
What Putin is actually trying to do is to drive Americans out of Europe. There was no Cold War before Hitler got Uncle Sam into Europe. A Europe without American troops will be conducive to being dominated by the Russians. How many tanks has Germany left in active service? Miniscule when compared to the Russians. He would not get this opportunity everyday. You’ve got COVID, devastated economies as a consequence, and a polarized political discourse in place. The German government is just formed. French elections in 3 months. Putin’s got you guys on all fronts.
And a complete joke in the White House.
Precisely, also the hypocrisy is simply just staggering!
Only a few years ago Butchers Bush & Blair launched a completely unprovoked war on Iraq, and ‘butchered’ upwards of 500,000 souls in the process……..bravo.
Additionally a similar war was visited of both Afghanistan and Syria with not dissimilar results. Had the ESN* afflicted Bush done his intelligence homework correctly he should have directed his fury against Pakistan. No doubt the supine Blair would have followed obediently.
(*Educationally subnormal.)
Ah yes, that ancient principle of international relations: “two wrongs make a right”.
I would have thought it was more along that Ines of that ancient principle, “people who live in glass houses” etc
Apologies, wrong target!
“therefore none of our business”
A huge country (militarily) bullies its much weaker neighbour. Is there not a principle of international law at stake (e.g. the independence of nation states)? China I am sure is watching with some interest how the rest of the world responds to this challenge to the international order.
Only two countries have ever given up nuclear weapons; South Africa and Ukraine. SA did it because the end of white minority rule was coming and they didn’t want black marxists to inherit their nukes.
Ukraine inherited about one-third of the USSR’s nukes when it dissolved. It agreed to give them up in return for a treaty guaranteeing its borders, signed by Russia, USA & UK. Obviously we never imagined that the border violator would be our co-signatory. It is our business, unfortunately.
That is precisely what the liberals in the U.S. were saying in 1939 about the Germans in Europe. I have a copy of a tattered NYT from 1939 to prove it. Good thing they didn’t listen to them back then.
You’re seeing 10% of the whole picture. It’s the other 90% of what’s in Putin’s head which is the overriding worry. and he’s playing with Europe like a cat plays with a mouse.
It’ll be our business when millions of refugees fleeing the war turn up on our doorstep. What do you suggest we do then?
Look out for Putin turning up on our doorstep.