![]() ![]() Yet it does seem that one consequence of the current crisis will be significantly enhanced European military capabilities. There is of course a long way to go before rousing words are translated into meaningful action. And, in a stark break with past reticence, the EU itself pledged to provide Ukraine with €1 billion in military assistance. Finland and Sweden are reconsidering the issue of NATO membership. The former has announced a referendum on its opt-out from EU security policies. Denmark and Poland have also announced increases in defence spending. Germany will become the world’s third biggest military spender. German defence spending will rise from 1.5 per cent in 2021 to two per cent a 100-billion-euro fund will be created for the armed forces. In a dramatic half hour on 27 February, Olaf Scholtz reversed decades of German strategic thinking. The Strategic Compass published ten days later declared that the ‘EU and its Member States must invest more in their security and defence to be a stronger political and security actor.’Īnd, crucially, member states seem intent on rising to the challenge. As the EU’s newly minted ‘Strategic Compass’ puts it, the EU is ‘surrounded by instability and conflicts’.Īt Versailles in March, EU leaders declared their intention to ensure the EU could ‘take more responsibility for its own security’. More broadly, many of the other challenges the Union faces in its neighbourhood – in the Middle East, Africa, the Sahel, and the Balkans – will be exacerbated by the war. And not simply because of the conflict itself. ![]() The shock delivered to the collective EU system seems to have spawned a realisation, going beyond the usual cheap talk, that its ‘geopolitical holiday’ is over. If the Donald Trump presidency (and accompanying threats – at least according to John Bolton – to leave NATO) had illustrated the fragility of the NATO shield, Ukraine has rammed home its continued importance by underlining the reality of the Russian sword. In the face of the armed invasion of a neighbouring sovereign state by a country already recognised as a potential threat, and acting in lockstep with the United States, unity amongst member states has been (relatively) easy to maintain. Unlike, say, the Eurozone or migration crises, events in Ukraine have not proven intrinsically divisive. The war in Ukraine has come as a shock to the system of a union that, for years, has failed to deliver when it comes to its security ambitions. While Russian pipeline supply to Europe overall was steady at 167 Bcm in 2021, exports to the EU decreased by 8.2% (-12 Bcm).‘Europe will be forged in crisis and will be the sum of the solutions adopted for those crises.’ If ever there were a moment to ponder the import of Jean Monnet’s words, it is now.
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