Pourquoi la guerre en Ukraine risque d’affaiblir l’Europe dans le monde
This article, published in the latest GRASPE booklet, makes the point that the cumulative consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine will have far greater consequences in the countries of the South than in wealthy countries. These consequences have jeopardised the admittedly slow movement of convergence between standards of living at global level seen over the last several decades.
The war in Ukraine has brought about what is known as global “stagflation”, combining steep inflation with economic stagnation, even to the point of recession. This situation has been unknown since the 1970s, the authors of the article pointed out. The war has also massively disrupted exports of cereals and fertiliser. “Yet the impact of the increase in food prices is far greater in the countries of the South than in the developed countries; food accounts for less than 20% of household budgets in wealthy countries, but represents 40% in sub-Saharan Africa”, the authors note (our translation throughout). According to the World Food Programme, undernourished people numbered around 132 million before the pandemic and 276 million at the beginning of this year. The figure currently stands at around 323 million.
“At the same time, the central banks everywhere are pushing interest rates up to tackle inflation. But, again, this tendency is far greater in the emerging and developing countries (…). We are starting to see a loss of investor confidence in the countries of the South. All of this comes in a context in which the external debt of these countries has risen sharply in recent years, often driven by China, which currently holds more than half of the debt of the countries of the South”, the authors observe.
The GRASPE authors argue that “Europeans should be aware of the major geopolitical risks associated with this paradigm shift and act to limit them”. “During the Covid-19 pandemic, a lot of bitterness built up in many countries of the South when they saw how the developed countries were not in much of a hurry to come to their rescue (…). Today, many of these countries, encouraged by the Russian propaganda machinery, tend to hold the Europeans and the West more broadly responsible for the problems caused by the war on Ukraine because of their sanctions”. Although Russian disinformation needs to be tackled, “it is highly likely that these efforts will remain in vain if it is not accompanied by powerful and massive actions of concrete solidarity to help the countries of the South to limit the effects of the war”, the authors state, arguing the need to successfully mobilise the international institutions (UN, World Bank, IMF, FAO, WFP, G7 and G20) to actively support the most vulnerable countries, particularly in matters of food security, but also by providing sufficient financial support. The EU should also channel more of this to the African continent. “Will we be capable of this?”, the authors ask, pointing out that the European budget is just as limited as ever in real terms (1% of European GDP) and totally inflexible, because of its multi-annual nature and the requirement for balance.
The authors conclude that “confronted with the major consequences of the war in Ukraine, the European Union already seems, notwithstanding its fine words, to be struggling in practice to increase its internal solidarity to tackle this. It therefore seems unlikely that it will be behind or an active participant in the global ‘Marshall plan’, even though this will be vital to limit the negative, even potentially disastrous effects in many countries and regions of the world, of the war in Ukraine. If this bleak prognosis should materialise, it is to be feared that the geopolitical price for our inaction will be very high for Europe and of many years’ duration”.
Another article examines the prospects of a shake-up of European Security and Defence Policy following the return of war to European soil. But it appears undeniable that “for the time being, the war has above all reinforced the Western camp as a whole: NATO, which seemed at one point no longer to have a future, is back to being the lifeboat of the European countries stuck in their ways of ease and contradictions”, the authors write, stressing that the “concept of European strategic sovereignty (…) is therefore once again at a crossroads”. “There are more and more declarations in favour of revising the European treaties to give more weight to a Europe of security and defence, as it cannot be denied that in its current configuration, the European Union on its own cannot face an armed conflict in Europe that may only last a few weeks; it quite simply does not have the resources to do this, despite a substantial level of spending”, the authors note, expressing criticism of institutional architecture that “does not always allow efficiency, but on the contrary encourages immobilisation as a by-product of working in silos”.
“When will there be a proper common army, going beyond the creation or reinforcement of a rapid action force of anecdotal dimensions?”, the authors ask, pointing out that the majority of European citizens want greater strategic sovereignty. I would point out that this requires a strategy and the infamous “Strategic Compass” adopted in March 2022 is at best a pale imitation of one and already largely obsolete. Starting long-term work today on a European army is an idea that has merit for its structuring effect, but such a project cannot, in and of itself, supply the necessary remedies to respond to the challenges of defence and security in the short and medium terms. What needs to be done now as a matter of urgency is to learn lessons from the war in Ukraine in strategic and tactical terms and make corresponding adaptations to intelligence (which was weighed and found wanting at the start of the war) and its coordination, force structures, capabilities and means of procurement, resilience and strategic autonomy in all areas likely to be affected in the event of a total war.
The review also contains an article by Paolo Ponzano, former European civil servant and now special adviser to the Vice-President of the European Commission, Maroš Šefčovič, calling for root-and-branch EU reform under a constitutional procedure. The author, who stresses that an agreement with the backing of all Twenty-Seven is vanishingly unlikely given the differences of opinions on the objectives of the integration process, recommends the creation of a federal union by a smaller number of volunteer states. Ponzano argues that this should meet the following conditions: (1) the fundamental law of this federal union would not take precedence over national conditions other than in the fields of activity in which it has devolved competencies (and therefore sovereignty) to the EU; (2) the members of the future European government, whether these are selected by a single president of the “new EU” (possibly elected directly by European citizens) or by the national governments, should be directly accountable to the new parliament (made up of a chamber of the people and a chamber of the state) and subject to a confidence vote of the latter; (3) the members of the new European government were appointed directly by the single president of the new union, he or she would not necessarily have to ensure that all nationalities were “represented” and could therefore potentially choose more than one citizen from one member state and none from another; (4) the new system of allocating responsibilities would give the federal union a “strategic autonomy” that would allow it to exercise its own competencies in the fields of external and interior policy; (5) for external policy, the federal union would need an autonomous defence capability to lend credibility to its decisions (…), but could not assume responsibility for all of its military capability until a certain amount of time has passed, argues Ponzano, who does not seem aware of the fragility created by this compromise in favour of the member states pursuing what he describes as a “essential military role”; (6) for interior policy, the author would allocate responsibility for currency, the economy and finances, internal security (tackling terrorism and organised crime), the market and competitiveness (including digital and artificial intelligence) to the federal level; (7) provide the federal union with an autonomous fiscal capacity, in other words the right to levy taxation. Well, we can always dream! (Olivier Jehin)
Georges Vlandas (edited by). GRASPE. Booklet no. 45, July 2022. The publications of the Groupe de réflexion sur l’avenir du service public européen are available at https://graspe.eu
How Finnish and Swedish Accession to NATO will alter the Geopolitical Landscape in the Baltic
The latest edition of the review In Depth, former member of parliament Aristos Aristotelous, director of the Cyprus Centre for Strategic Studies, points out that the accession of Finland and Sweden to the Atlantic Alliance will remove a sizeable area of neutral space between NATO and the Russian Federation, with a front of 1300 km of the border between Finland and Russia. Further West, the transit of the Russian fleet between the Baltic and the North Sea could be blocked by Sweden’s accession. “Russia is going to have to take account of this new but essential front, which will increasingly affect its interests and energy and, at least in the immediate future, absorb its limited military resources, which have been pointed in other directions” argues Aristotelous, adding that “together with a haemorrhaging of Russian forces in Ukraine, this fact negatively affects the conventional military capabilities of the country, inside Russia and outside, or in areas of competition with Turkey”. He goes on to explain that under these circumstances, the domination and control of the Black Sea area aspired to by Moscow is now become increasingly vital for Russia, but also for Turkey. The increasing needs of the Russian fleet to navigate via the Turkish Straits to the Mediterranean are therefore an increasing headache for Turkey, although the author stresses that Turkey is also seeking to benefit from them by means of diplomatic blackmail carried out against its allies of the Atlantic Alliance, either by means of discourse and acts designed to build up relations with Russia, or by placing obstacles, such as those used in the case of Finnish and Swedish accession. (OJ)
Aristos Aristotelous. How Finnish and Swedish Accession to NATO will alter the Geopolitical Landscape in the Baltic – Also, its Effect on Turkey and the Cyprus issue. Cyprus Center for European and International Affairs. In Depth. Volume 19. Issue 4, July 2022N° 2022/2. To 2022. ISSN: 2421-8111. The electronic letter can be downloaded from: http://cceia.unic.ac.cy
Jacobs’ EU Guide Book
“This is a guide book unlike all others. Its unifying theme is European integration. Its geographical scope covers the European Union and its member states and beyond. Its places range from institutions to people and from the contemporary day to the past. The author knows the institutions inside-out and invites us to contemplate the role of certain key individuals and the places that both reflect them and shaped them, bringing to mind Jean Monnet’s comment that ‘nothing is possible without men, but nothing lasts without institutions’”, read Pat Cox’s nail-on-the-head introduction to this book written by former staffer at the European Parliament, Francis B. Jacob. Although the guide has clearly given the former president of the European Parliament an opportunity to indulge in his memories, it gives other readers at least the same number of discoveries.
Following an introduction to its history, featuring, for instance, a run-down of various projects each one crazier than the last (rural site in a village north of Alsace in 1949, eurodistrict in Saarland in 1955 or a new town baptised “Lake Europa” near Schengen in 1963, amongst others), featuring on the road of the improbable quest for a European capital, Joseph offers us a potted history of the life of the EU based on major players who have shaped the history of European integration.
The guidebook goes on to present, for each country, the seats or sites of institutions and bodies of the EU with their individual characteristics, together with their addresses, telephone numbers and opening or visiting times. He adds the houses of Europe and such diverse structures as the homes of Robert Schuman in Scy-Chazelles, of Jean Monnet in Houjaray, of Count Coudenhove Kalergi in Pobezovice and the Vaclav Havel library in Prague. Jacob decided to include Switzerland, even though it is not an EU member, so as to be able to include the Fondation Jean Monnet in Lausanne, sites related to Denis de Rougemont and non-EU organisations such as CERN. There are even five pages on the United Kingdom, which has left it, with the addresses of the European delegations to London and Edinburgh, but also the homes of Winston Churchill (Chartwell) and Edward Heath (Arundells) and the Hume Foundation in Derry, Northern Ireland. (OJ)
Francis B. Jacobs. Jacob’s EU Guide Book – The Landmark Sites of European Integration. John Harper Publishing. ISBN: 978-1-8380-8988-7. 248 pages. €20,00