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The EU was essentially Western Europe’s response to the extraordinary violence of the two world wars, which were in themselves products of industrialization and nationalism from the nineteenth century onwards. These historical processes led to the complete destruction of the traditional European order.
After World War II, the European continent was dominated by two non-European powers: the United States and the Soviet Union. Because the material and ideological interests of these two powers were impossible to reconcile with each other, what followed was a nuclear arms race that lasted for decades in what became known as the Cold War.
Shortly after World War II, Western Europe’s economy was in ruins, while the continent was militarily defenseless against a Soviet occupation. Without the US Marshall Plan and without America’s guarantee of military defense, Western Europe would hardly have been able to survive.
The founding of NATO in 1949 left the western part of the continent safe, both from Soviet attacks and from a new Germany.–stood up, though divided. The pact then gave rise to the idea that a stable order in Western Europe could be achieved through economic integration within a common market, collective institutions and a common legal system, implying a full integration of the states involved.
The aim was not only to overcome the socio-economic and political causes of destructive nationalism, but also to ensure that the historical turmoil and at the same time Europe’s strongest economy, Germany, be included once and for all in this alliance.
In the decades that followed, NATO and the EU (initially the European Coal and Steel Community, and later the European Economic Community) became the respective military and economic pillars of European security and prosperity, and consequently of the Western European order.
But with the end of the Cold War, new questions arose about what the European order would look like. The answer was that both the pillars of Western Europe – NATO and the EU – would be expanded to include Central and Eastern European countries, which met the criteria for membership.
For their part, many of the former Soviet republics and members of the Warsaw Pact sought assurances that the European order would not be revised later by Russia. NATO and EU membership thus brought the promise of collective security and a common market.
The hope was to eliminate the last relics of the old East-West clash, and to secure a lasting peace through economic exchange and interdependence. However, under Putin’s rule, Russia has pursued a different policy. It has sought to restore its status as a global power by increasingly claiming “Russian territory”; which implies an overthrow of the post-Soviet order.
Looking to the past, not the future, Putin wants to restore the old Russian empire.
As Ukrainians were increasingly expressing their desire to integrate with the West, Putin took steps to deny Ukraine freedom and sovereignty. In 2014, he annexed Crimea, and caused a low-intensity war in the eastern Donbas region. And for 3 months he has been waging a full-scale war, destroying any chance of a peaceful coexistence between Russia and the EU, at least as long as he remains in power.
Geographical division, forced by nuclear weapons blackmail, will again dominate diplomatic relations and economic co-operation. The EU will now have to focus much more on security and geopolitical issues than in the past.
Moreover, now that Sweden and Finland will join NATO, Austria, Ireland, Malta and Cyprus will be the only EU members that do not belong to them either. This will change the relationship between the two pillars of the European order. EU members will be forced to significantly increase their defense spending, as well as urgently increase their contributions to NATO.
The European Union will also face growing geopolitical challenges, as membership applications from Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova are already emerging. So far, the only geopolitical instrument the union has had at its disposal was the promise of full membership (and consequently economic growth and prosperity).
But this promise has turned out to be an illusion for Turkey and the countries of the Western Balkans.
Under its current institutional and legal framework, the EU can pursue its geopolitical interests only to a very limited extent, if at all.
Therefore, the EU of the future will need a more flexible structure, a quasi-confederate structure that surrounds a federal structure at its core. Instead of seeking full membership or nothing at all, Brussels can offer countries greater access to the common market, common security, the EU legal community, the common currency, and so on.
The EU cannot expand indefinitely. But it must acknowledge that its geopolitical interests extend far beyond the instrument of full union membership. As long as authoritarian regimes pose a tangible threat, the European Union, which represents the best economic and social alternative, will become an increasingly important force not only on the European continent, but in the wider gray area to the east, where there is still no clear border with Asia. Whatever happens in Ukraine, the situation there requires a new structural flexibility and not a rigid adherence to old, strained agreements or promises that cannot be fulfilled.
Note: Joschka Fischer, German Foreign Minister and Deputy/chancellor from 1998 to 2005. He has been chairman of the Green Party for almost 20 years. / “Project Syndicate” – Bota.al
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