A common place to start: the European Union advances in crises. It is true that in some of them it almost falls by the wayside and has left a deep sense of exhaustion in the European project. From the euro crisis of 2010, Europeans emerged battered and resentful from north to south; of the refugee crisis in 2015, divided east-west; from the Brexit of 2016, everyone left distrustful; and the pandemic, polarized.
However, in each crisis some mechanism has been activated that has allowed us to get out of the quagmire and that is at the origin of advances in integration, sometimes in large steps, others in tiny steps. An example of great progress has been the pandemic, with the creation of the Recovery Fund, the largest stimulus package approved by the EU to collectively boost and transform the European economy. On the opposite side is the refugee crisis, where little more than awareness has been achieved to date, with no results in modern mobility and asylum management policy.
Now, facing the precipice of a war on the continent launched by Russia, Europeans have leapt forward more than two decades in building a common defense. First it was the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who announced before the Bundestag on February 27, three days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a special defense budget of 100,000 million euros as well as the commitment to increase the defense budget by above 2% of GDP. It was followed by the EU’s approval to buy and send military equipment to the Ukrainian government under the European Peace Support Fund, created in 2021 to strengthen the capacities of EU countries and third countries.
Although it is not the first time that Europeans have been convinced of the need to have a defense policy, Russia’s military escalation is forcing them to accompany their declarations with immediate action. After all, no foreign policy is credible if it is not backed by the means –military where appropriate– with which to carry it out.
In the analyzes of these days, what could be interpreted as a predominance of the militaristic approach over diplomatic negotiation and political agreements resonates with special concern. The reality, however, is that in the moment of war created by Moscow there can be neither diplomacy nor politics that is not accompanied by military power. The Russian military threat, including the nuclear one, has had to roar to resurrect an essential policy in a scenario of stark geopolitical competition.
The European project of defense dates back to the Maastricht Treaty, but was officially launched in December 1998, at the Franco-British summit in Saint-Malo. The declaration by the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the French President Jacques Chirac, in which they undertook to provide Europe with a military force with sufficient credibility and means, is the seed of the Common Security and Defense Policy, contained in the Lisbon Treaty. If France and the United Kingdom, the two military powers of the EU, marked from the beginning the possibilities (Paris) and limitations (London) for a common defense, Brexit left the French alone in an effort whose most recent articulation is the “ strategic autonomy” defended by Emmanuel Macron.
Even before the Ukraine crisis, the French president had placed defense at the top of the agenda for France’s semester in the EU. This March, the Council should approve the so-called Strategic Compass, the document that describes the threats and the means that the EU needs to face them, and a special summit on defense is scheduled for April. Macron did not count on a context as favorable as the current one to promote strategic autonomy in the EU or to relaunch the Franco-German relationship, although Berlin is more willing to also develop a European pillar within NATO. “France’s ambition is to set the course for Europe,” say experts Claudia Major and Sven Arnold, from the German think-tank SWP. The new German coalition government has decided that they too want to set the course for Europe.
Hand in hand with defense will go the construction of a true foreign policy for the EU. Hence, the response we see these days to Russia cannot be interpreted as only military; it is at the same time economic, industrial, technological and, above all, political. The high representative, Josep Borrell, has been explaining it relentlessly for two years. What should come now is the creation of a true European defense industry and the integration of capabilities, so that European armies have interoperable systems, designed with European technology and produced in Europe.
The EU not only advances through crisis, it also advances when Paris and Berlin go in the same direction. And that is what is happening now, with very broad support from other countries of the Union and, above all, with public opinion that clearly says that it is willing to bear whatever cost is necessary to defend peace and security throughout the continent.
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