Europe’s grand illusion

Stalin is reputed to have said: “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic.” Sometimes, though, a statistic can speak volumes. Yesterday the High Representative (i.e. foreign minister) of the European Union, Josep Borrell, told the European Parliament: “We’ve given Ukraine nearly €1 billion. That might seem like a lot but €1 billion is what we’re paying Putin every day for the energy he provides us with. Since the start of the war, we’ve given him €35 billion, compared to the €1 billion we’ve given Ukraine to arm itself.”

This statistic ought to shock every admirer of the EU to the core. For all of Europe’s doubtless sincere protestations of support for the victims of the Russian invasion, it has conspicuously failed, either to provide anything like adequate support for Ukraine or to stem the flow of cash to the coffers of the Kremlin. Civilians are dying and being deported in their thousands as a direct consequence of that failure. Ukraine is paying in blood for Europe’s energy.

Despite the horrors of Bucha that have emerged in the last week, the EU delayed passing a new round of sanctions, reportedly because officials are worried about breaking contracts with suppliers. But these sanctions would only affect the supply of coal, a fossil fuel that EU countries possess in abundance and don’t need to import from Russia anyway. More costly boycotts of Russian gas and oil are only being talked about; at present there is no prospect of an embargo happening for a matter of months at least.

The founding fathers of the European Union — statesmen such as Adenauer, de Gasperi, Schuman and Spaak, plus intellectuals including Coudenhove-Kalergi, Röpke, Madariaga and Spinelli — would be horrified by this spectacle. For them, preventing war was always the primary objective of the European movement and the ultimate justification for the sacrifices of sovereignty made necessary by federalism. The war in Ukraine is a catastrophic defeat for the European idea, one which should require the political leadership, bureaucracy and intelligentsia to question their own stewardship of the Union. So far there is little sign that this is happening.

One way to look it what went wrong is to recall that the EU in all its incarnations was a product of the Cold War. Without the need to unite Western Europe against the threat of Soviet domination, the historical grievances and practical divergences of interests might never have been overcome. When the Cold War ended abruptly in 1989, the EU reinvented itself, widening and deepening integration through various treaties and measures such as the single currency.

At the same time, but much less visibly, the Union embarked on a much closer relationship with Russia. The inclusion of Russia in international forums such as the G7 was driven by the belief that closer political and economic ties would result in westernisation. Even after it became obvious that Putin was not interested in democracy or human rights, the illusion persisted that the Russian bear must be hugged close at all costs. And so Europe’s growing dependence on Russian energy gathered momentum. Too many businesses were making too much money in Moscow, too many jobs relied on Russian investment, too many politicians had staked their reputations on playing along with Putin’s strategy of manipulating the energy market. Few dared to rock the boat by pointing out the price paid by EU for its addiction to Russian energy.

That price was symbolised by the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline, denounced by Kyiv as a dagger pointing at the heart of Ukraine, warned against by the UK and the US, yet pursued by Germany with the blessing of the EU. Had Putin not decided to invade Ukraine, Nordstream 2 would probably be operational by now. Nobody in Europe took Ukrainian interests seriously. Seen from Brussels, Russia was indispensable, but Ukraine was expendable.

The dream of a Europe stretching from the Atlantic to Urals is an old one. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the lifting of the Iron Curtain, some believed that it had become achievable. Now that it lies in ruins, we can see that it was always a chimera. Putin was playing EU leaders like a balalaika all along. In the grip of a grand illusion, they danced to his tune. The task for good Europeans now is, as Volodymyr Zelensky puts it, to stop a new Berlin Wall being erected through the middle of Ukraine. Perhaps it is not too much to hope that a less complacent, less arrogant Europe will have fewer illusions about the sacrifices now required and the scale of the challenge ahead.

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