Inducting Ukraine into NATO after forcing Russia back behind its pre-2014 borders has been the only strategic aim EU leaders have allowed themselves to contemplate since Russia’s invasion three years ago. Alas, well before US President Donald Trump’s re-election, this aim slipped into the realm of infeasibility. The writing had been on the wall for a while.
First, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war economy proved a godsend to his regime. Second, even Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, was terminally unwilling to push for Ukraine’s NATO membership, leading the country down the garden path with vague promises. And, third, there was strong bipartisan opposition in the US to the idea of NATO troops fighting alongside Ukrainians.
So, in a display of breathtaking hypocrisy, the many “Putin is the new Hitler” speeches never resulted in a commitment to fight alongside the Ukrainians until Putin’s army was defeated on the ground. Instead, a cowardly West kept sending weapons to the exhausted Ukrainians so that they could defeat the “new Hitler” on its behalf — but on their own.
NO PLAN B
Inevitably, and despite gallant fighting by increasingly outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian soldiers, European leaders’ sole strategic aim turned to dust — a reality that would have become undeniable regardless of who won the US presidency in November last year. Trump merely brought it forward with a brutality reflecting his long-held contempt not just for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, but also for the EU itself. And so, lacking any Plan B, a Europe weakened by a two-decades-long economic slump is now struggling to respond to Trump’s Ukraine policy.
After the Munich Agreement in 1938, Winston Churchill famously proclaimed that Neville Chamberlain had been “given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.” In their angst not to make the same mistake, EU leaders are about to repeat it, in reverse: Their war-until-victory approach will give way to the humiliating peace that Trump will gleefully impose on them, and on Zelenskiy’s government, when they eventually come begging.
While it is undoubtedly true that Europe must either rise to the occasion or disintegrate, the question is: Rise how? What is really wrong with Europe? What is the EU missing the most?
It beggars belief that Europeans cannot recognize the answer staring us in the face: Europe is missing a proper Treasury, the equivalent of the US Department of State, and a parliament with the power to dismiss what passes as its government (the European Council). Even worse, there is still no discussion of how to plug these gaping holes in Europe’s institutional architecture.
The EU has always dreaded the beginning of any Ukraine peace process precisely because it would expose the bloc’s nakedness. Who would represent Europe at the negotiating table, even if Trump invited us to join? Even if the European Commission and European Council could wave a magic wand to conjure a large, well-armed EU army into existence, who would have the democratic authority to send it into battle to kill and be killed?
Moreover, who can raise enough taxes to ensure the EU army’s permanent combat-readiness? The EU’s intergovernmental decisionmaking means that no one has the democratic legitimacy to make such decisions.
When European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen recently announced her new ReArm Europe initiative, sad memories of the incompetent Juncker Plan, Green Deal and Recovery Plan came flooding back. Large headline figures were again being tossed about, only to be exposed on closer scrutiny as smoke and mirrors. Does anyone seriously expect France to increase its already-unsustainable public-finance deficit to fund weaponry?
Absent the institutions to enact military Keynesianism, the only way Europe can rearm is by shifting funds from its crumbling social and physical infrastructure — further weakening a Europe already reaping the bitter harvest of popular discontent, which is fueling the rise of far-right forces across the continent. And for what? Does anyone believe that Putin will be deterred by a Europe that might have a few more shells and howitzers, but is drifting further away from the prospect of the federal governance needed to decide matters of war and peace?
PEACE NOW
ReArm Europe will do nothing to win the war for Ukraine. It will, however, almost certainly drive the EU deeper into its pre-existing economic slump — the underlying cause of Europe’s weakness. To keep Europeans safe in the face of the twin challenges posed by Trump and Putin, the EU must embark on its own multipronged Peace Now process.
First, the EU must reject outright Trump’s predatory effort to grab Ukraine’s natural resources. Then, after floating the prospect of relaxing sanctions and returning US$300 billion in frozen assets (which cannot simultaneously be used as a bargaining chip and for Ukraine’s reconstruction), the EU should commence negotiations with the Kremlin, offering the prospect of a comprehensive strategic arrangement within which Ukraine becomes what Austria was during the Cold War: sovereign, armed neutral, and as integrated with Western Europe as its citizens desire.
Third, instead of a permanent stand-off between two large armies along the agreed border, the EU should propose a demilitarized zone at least 500km deep on each side, the right of return of all displaced people, a Good Friday-style agreement for the governance of disputed areas and a Green New Deal for the war-torn areas, jointly financed by the EU and Russia. All outstanding issues should be addressed in negotiations held under the auspices of the United Nations.
Lastly, the EU should use the prospect of relaxing tariffs on Chinese goods (green tech, in particular) and sanctions on technology exports to open negotiations with China with a view to a new security arrangement that reduces tensions and enlists the Chinese to the goal of safeguarding Ukraine’s sovereignty.
If we truly want to strengthen Europe, the first step is not to rearm. It is to forge the democratic union without which stagnation will continue to erode Europe’s capacities, rendering it unable to rebuild what is left of Ukraine once Putin is finished with it.
Yanis Varoufakis, a former finance minister of Greece, is leader of the MeRA25 party and professor of economics at the University of Athens.
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