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The return of war to Europe: an opportunity for geopolitical Union in EU?
The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine created a new geopolitical situation in Europe. By opposing the invasion and uniting for a common cause, the European Union is offered an opportunity to assert the political power and strengthening the strategic independence. However, it will also have to engage in a reorganization of the European continent, by agreeing to reform the existing states and to integrate new member States, as well as being a stakeholder in this necessary restructuring. A renewed and newly founded European Union could then become one of the three poles of a new globalization.
Key words: Aggression – Strategic autonomy – European political community – Enlargement of the European Union – Ukraine
PETIT, Y.: The return of war to Europe: an opportunity for geopolitical union in EU? Právny obzor, 107, 2024, special issue, pp. 52-66.
https://doi.org/10.31577/pravnyobzor.specialissue.2024.04
1. Strengthening European integration and power
With the war of aggression unleashed by Russia against Ukraine, the European continent has entered a "Zeitenwende", what President Putin calls a "special military operation" constituting "a strategic turning point of the first order in the history of Europe and perhaps the world"
1)
. These words may even seem a little weak in the face of "the greatest conflict in Europe since the Second World War (which) turns out to be a Kunderian war"
2)
, if we remember that Milan Kundera has shown for about forty years in his essay "A Kidnapped West" that the European center of gravity would certainly be called upon to move towards the east
3)
, consequently towards Ukraine
4)
.This "unjustifiable, unprovoked and illegal war of aggression", in the words of the EU Council, constitutes in particular a clear violation of the Charter of the United nations and of the peremptory norm of
jus cogens
which is the prohibition of armed aggression against a State. It also represents a fight for European freedoms and values such as democracy, the rule of law, freedom of expression, as well as the freedom to forge one's own destiny,
5)
even though some of these values are being called into question by certain member States
6)
. Finally, it is destabilizing for the entire European continent, because it calls into question the very foundation of the European order, and even the international order.The member States of the European Union are therefore facing a common enemy following the Russian war of aggression. This constitutes a big change for the European project, "which is undergoing a new existential crisis after the repeated crises of recent years (EUrozone crisis, migration crisis, Brexit, Covid-19 pandemic
7)
and which once again seems to confirm Jean monnet's prophecy that Europe would be built through crises and would be the sum of the solutions provided to these crises"
8)
.This return of war in Europe allows - if one can say so - the European Union to achieve a kind of catharsis, and it is not wrong to say that it has begun "a new life in a new context". Indeed, "the conflict in Ukraine, already a driving force in the transformations of the Union and its policies, can the opportunity for new European development, a real new beginning made necessary by external circumstances"
9)
. The Union is ready to enter a new era thanks to a strengthening of its integration and its power, which is imposed by the external events (
1
). In addition, the new geopolitical situation emerging from this war of Russian aggression destabilizes the European continent and, as a result, the entry of the Union into "
terra incognita
" implies that it looks into its reorganization and the new status quo of the European continent (
2
).After the months of war, one thing is clear. Faced with President Putin's imperial ambition, Europe has become aware "that it has no alternative but to oppose its unity to Russian aggression: the war in Ukraine reveals Europe's weaknesses, but also its opportunities, particularly in order to assert - finally - its power"
10)
. It is therefore no exaggeration to say that Russian aggression could result in an acceleration of European construction and allow the Union to take off politically (
A
) and, even if there are many reservations, to increase its strategic independence (
B
).A. The political take-off of the European Union
Everyone knows that peace, the first word of the Robert Schuman Declaration of 1950, is at the origin of the birth of European construction. After more than 18 months of fierce conflict, the question of the possible transformation of the EU arises. It is indeed a question of knowing if the Union is "now ready to move from an economic area of freedom, democracy and peace to the status of a full political actor respected by the major powers of the moment?"
11)
Since it became a leading economic actor, the EU exists on the international scene thanks to its influence and its influence, in short, its
soft power
. With the imperial war unleashed by Russia, it has entered by obligation into the era of
hard power.
The EU has no real choice. The European Council has understood this well. it considers that "it is necessary to strengthen the industrial and technological base of the European defense sector and to make it more innovative, more competitive and more resilient, in particular in the context of the new strategic environment which requires defense policy reorganization and a significant increase in Europe's long-term strategic military capacity to assume greater responsibility for its own defense"
12)
. In order not to become a participant in an active war on the foreign soil with no boots on the ground policy, the United States took the precaution of keeping NATO out of the Russian war of aggression, and "it is the States and the European Union - yes it is the European Union! - that are arming Kiev, not the NATO as we would expect"
13)
. However, it is essential to remember the terms of Article 41-2 TEU, according to which the Union cannot assume "expenditure relating to operations having military or defense implications". The EU has nevertheless reached "the peak of Community interventionism that today constitutes the purchase of munitions for Ukraine by 27 (member States)
14)
. It has achieved this by circumventing the TEU, even if these joint purchases of munitions relaunch the European defene
15)
. It is true that the exceptional nature of military aid to Ukraine raises questions about the institutional development of the EU
16)
.The Union has used its Peace Facility
17)
, which "has financed arms supplies organised by the member States. It has committed almost €12 billion to this"
18)
. The European Council has also just welcomed "the decision to raise the financial ceiling of the European Peace Facility by €3.5 billion in order (...) to continue to provide military support to Ukraine and to maintain the Union's capacity to prevent crises and conflicts (...)"
19)
. A proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council (currently being adopted) on the establishment of the action in support of the production of munitions aims to "urgently strengthen the responsiveness and capacity of the European Defence Technological and industrial Base (EDTIB) to ensure the availability and timely supply of ground-to-ground munitions, artillery munitions and missiles (...)"
20)
. Another innovation occurred in military matters with the creation of an EU military Assistance mission in support of Ukraine (EUMAM)
21)
, the purpose of which is in particular to help Ukraine regenerate its troops over time and to train 30,000 ukrainian soldiers by the end of 2023, which makes it possible to highlight "its added value to amplify national efforts"
22)
. This figure has even been increased to 40,000 by the beginning of 2024
23)
.What is new is that the EU appears as a leading player, playing a key role in the military field, but also in terms of sanctions, energy policy and support for the ukrainian economy. it is now possible to say that "Europe has not only emerged from its naivety in the face of the Russian regime's policy, it has also matured in its geopolitical awareness"
24)
. It is true that as early as 2019, President ursula von der leyen wanted a "geopolitical" European Commission. It turns out that member States "are increasingly calling on the " European dimension " to resolve difficulties that they cannot resolve alone"
25)
. With the adoption of the "next Generation EU" recovery plan, the Commission was authorized to borrow on the capital markets, which has been analyzed as a "Schuman moment" or a "Hamiltonian moment" for Europe
26)
. It seems that we can consider that the march towards political Union is progressing and that the successive crises are resulting in "an outline of a federation with a single currency, common loans and investments, common environmental objectives - those of the Green Deal (...) -, a defence which everything suggests, thanks to messrs. Trump and Putin, will become common and a feeling of the need for political unity in Europe which is asserting itself in our opinions"
27)
.The dangers threatening the EU therefore provide it with "a unique opportunity to assert itself as a true power"
28)
, provided that it is aware of the strategic responsibility that falls to it. Crises make the citizens of the Union understand that it is not only a market, but as the Dutch political scientist luuk van middelaar has expressed it, that it is also a
res publica
, the war in Ukraine reinforcing the idea that, "more than ever, (...) the role of the Union as a political body is emerging more clearly, and that a new public life is taking shape"
29)
. The assertion of this power, however, depends on European unity, which is still frequently thwarted by certain member States
30)
and by their lack of will "to detach themselves from their individual interests in external relations and to build together a common capacity"
31)
. Thus, Germany has made a spectacular turnaround on the diplomatic and military fronts by investing 100 billion Euros in its defence. Finland and Sweden abandoned their nEUtrality to join NATO.It turns out that crisis situations "cannot be resolved by outdated nationalism, but can only find adequate and lasting solution through the strength of the Union"
32)
. The sovereignt
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