The European Union has long been criticized as ineffective on foreign policy. But Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has created a crisis of epic proportions. Will it prompt the E.U. to finally come together as a real geopolitical power?
While it is still early, the E.U. is showing signs of new political resolve and unity in response to Putin’s aggression. The organization is implementing hard-hitting sanctions and offering military assistance to Ukraine, surprising those who have dismissed it as an irredeemable geopolitical weakling.
Our own research on political development suggests this moment has the potential to create a turning point in the E.U.’s path. History suggests that only in the crucible of war do obstacles to dramatic centralization of power melt away. This could happen — although it is by no means certain — across a wide range of policy areas.
The E.U. looks dysfunctional
Despite many virtues, the E.U. is nobody’s ideal of a robust and effective system for solving problems. Nor is it loved unreservedly by its citizens, who share only a thin sense of European identity. These dysfunctions have caused a lot of problems over the years. And that doesn’t even start to get into its shortcomings in foreign and security policy.
E.U. member states have been unwilling to allow the E.U. taxing, borrowing and spending powers. That contributed to the euro’s economic and political crises in the 2010s. The E.U.’s unbalanced development also worsened the humanitarian costs of its refugee crises. The E.U. had dismantled its internal borders while failing to centralize control over its external borders or asylum policy.
It doesn’t look any better in foreign and security policy. While the E.U. has created a dense network of diplomatic and security ties, military spending has lagged far behind the levels needed to ensure that the E.U. can protect its own security. A strongly held taboo has prevented it from taking any overt actions to create a genuine European security force. Finally, the E.U.’s limited collective identity means that it has often lacked the solidarity to do hard things together as a political community.
Russia is about to plunge into financial crisis. How will citizens react?
War in Ukraine may change this
The E.U. is not a state — a government that has unquestioned authority over a given part of the world — and will probably never be one. Even so, the scholarly literature on state-building can help us understand why the E.U. has developed so unevenly, with robust legal institutions but weak or sometimes nonexistent abilities to raise money through taxes or use military force.
Raising taxes and armies requires the centralization of power, which is almost always politically contentious. Across history, political projects aimed at centralizing power have worked best when security pressures push a government to consolidate authority and encourage its constituent parts to come together as one community. Until now, the E.U. has been shaped much more by market forces than military threats or war fighting.
While the global coronavirus pandemic did push the E.U. to centralize some key new powers, the threat of illness was no match for the more existential threat of war, which has often brought states together. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine appears to be pushing the E.U. to centralize more rapidly than before in its history.
Putin is breaking 70 years of norms by invading Ukraine. What comes next?
The Russian threat is remaking Europe
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine presents a clear and present danger to the collective security of the E.U.’s member states. What’s more, Putin’s authoritarian regime — which is perpetrating an unprovoked attack on a peaceful democracy — presents exactly the sort of common enemy that can help sharpen Europeans’ sense of shared identity.
NATO and U.S. military dominance has long given the E.U. a security umbrella, allowing it to avoid building up its collective defense or act together when facing tough foreign policy decisions. Even up to a few days ago, some observers still deplored Europe as the “free-rider continent.”
In the past 24 hours, however, the E.U., has taken unprecedented steps to use its collective weight to punish Russia for its aggression. These include financial sanctions, including removing some Russian banks from the SWIFT international payments system, instituting a no-fly zone over the E.U. for all Russian aircraft, banning Russian state-owned broadcasters from the E.U., and finally, financing weapons deliveries and sending its member states’ fighter jets for Ukraine’s use. The E.U. has never done any of this before.
The Ukraine crisis is now a nuclear crisis
All these actions are underpinned by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s watershed speech to the German Bundestag on Saturday. Scholz announced a dramatic increase in German defense spending and a new role for Germany in the world. His speech overturned decades of German postwar reluctance to assert military power. Germany’s changed approach fits well with French President Emmanuel Macron’s long-standing emphasis on the E.U.’s need for “strategic autonomy.” Together, they are likely to remake E.U. foreign policy. If history is any guide, this will probably have consequences across a variety of policy areas, perhaps reducing the weakness of E.U. policymaking.
War is horrifying and history-making. It may also be the only thing that will finally push the E.U. forward as a polity.
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Kathleen R. McNamara (@ProfKMcNamara) is professor of government and foreign service at Georgetown University, where she co-directs the Global Political Economy Project.
R. Daniel Kelemen (@rdanielkelemen) is professor of political science and law and the Jean Monnet Chair in European Union Politics at Rutgers University.