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Is the war in Ukraine accelerating European integration?
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Europe under construction has long had a problem with power. In 1973, during the first enlargement of what was then only the EEC, its representatives, meeting in Copenhagen, declared that “The Europe of the Nine is aware that, as it unites, it takes on new international obligations. European unification is not directed against anyone, nor is it inspired by a desire for power.”
This deliberate refusal to construct a hard power, after two world wars with the Old Continent at the epicentre, brought mockery from American geopolitical scientists. In 2002, Robert Kagan wrote, with irony: “Europe is turning away from power […] to enter a post-historical paradise of peace and relative prosperity.”
Fundamentally, and that was the whole problem, if Europeans were able to abandon the power of weapons for “normative power” (Zaki Laïdi)… this was because they enjoyed the American protection offered by NATO.
And even if the European Union had organised — since the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997, and even more since the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007 — a Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), it has to be said that credible European defence was lacking.
This is an excerpt from the entire article on SKEMA's ThinkForward knowledge website - read it all here
