It made for a striking image: on 10 March 2022, three presidents — the European Council’s Charles Michel, France’s Emmanuel Macron and the European Commission’s Ursula von der Leyen — gave a press conference in the Gallery of Great Battles at Versailles to announce the EU’s response to the war in Ukraine. They made no earth-shattering announcements, but there was a clear desire to impress upon viewers that inter-European historical antagonisms were over. ‘This is a turning point for our societies, our peoples and our European project,’ said Macron, visibly satisfied.
Rarely have the EU27 shown such unity on a major geopolitical issue. Within days, tough sanctions packages against Moscow were in place and, in an unprecedented move, arms deliveries to a country at war approved. The new European Peace Facility (EPF), created in 2021, has made a striking debut: under its provisions, the EU can now deliver military equipment to a theatre of operations. Previously, its international interventions were strictly limited to development aid and peacekeeping.
This huge step enables the EU to consign to history memories of its impotence during the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. The United States, not Europe, ended a devastating civil war ‘two hours from Paris’ under the 1995 Dayton accords. This bitter lesson led to the development of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), launched as part of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 and continuously developed until the Lisbon Treaty (2007), which created an operational sector, the Common Foreign, Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Thereafter, among other structures, the EU had a diplomatic corps, a European Defence Agency and EU Battlegroups.
This impressive array raises questions. What project is this new defence structure intended to serve? The French president’s answer has been ‘European sovereignty’ ever since his Sorbonne speech of September 2017. He defines this very broadly to include security and combatting terrorism, defence, control of migration flows, sustainable development, digital cooperation, agriculture, health and energy. In Versailles, he even mentioned food and something (puzzlingly) called ‘protein sovereignty’: his major partners prefer the less catchy phrase, ‘strategic autonomy’.
For a long time, following General De Gaulle’s lead, France advocated a powerful Europe, capable of setting objectives distinct from those of the US. Other European states, notably Germany, never shared De Gaulle’s vision, partly out of mistrust of a France they found domineering and partly because of the reassurance that came with being under the US umbrella. ‘A stronger and more capable EU in the field of security and defence will contribute positively to global and transatlantic security,’ read the declaration at the end of the Versailles summit, ‘and is complementary to NATO, which remains the foundation of collective defence for its members.’ Were these the last rites for the idea of a Europe of independent nation states so dear to De Gaulle?
A stronger and more capable EU in the field of security and defence will contribute positively to global and transatlantic security, and is complementary to NATO, which remains the foundation of collective defence for its members Versailles summit declaration
In French diplomatic circles, there’s a view that one should not read too much into a choice of words: there’s little to choose between sovereignty and autonomy. Yet ‘sovereignty’ is linked to the emergence of the nation state in the 17th century. Macron knows the significance of this word reverberates through the great moments in French history: his insistent use of it may reflect a European federalist ambition. The new German government’s programme and its decision to raise the national defence budget to over 2% of GDP opens up an unprecedented path for such a project.
However, the EU27, who are due to define a ‘strategic compass’ this spring, have so far been content with solidarity based on principles listed in the 1992 Petersberg Declaration (humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping, combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking operations).
To take to the choppy waters of the new global geopolitics in a sustainable and mutually supportive way, the EU27 would have to develop a realistic shared vision of the world, that derives substance from a definition of ‘common interests’. Here, insistent invocations of ‘democracy’ and the defence of ‘European values’ to justify supporting Ukraine leave room for doubt, given the level of corruption in Kyiv. As if supporting the legitimate struggle of an unjustly invaded people were not enough. This discourse disconnected from reality, like the ‘systemic rivalry’ claimed in relation to Russia and China, shows that the EU also regards itself as a ‘moral’ power defending a system of values.
Does this ‘global policeman’ stance square with the often more prosaic, even cynical, requirements of all foreign policy? The toughness of the sanctions imposed on Moscow reflects the gravity of the crime, but it also happens to fit the US vision of the world, which includes containing Russia. Yet it might be more in the Europeans’ interest, given geographical realities, to reach some accommodation with a powerful neighbour whose presence cannot be erased from the continent.
The muted sparring between Paris, which opposes Ukraine’s fast-track EU accession, and the European Commission, which has campaigned for it and also wants to open the door to Georgia and Moldova, is a reminder that even the geographical limits of Europe are not fixed. Georgia’s application — still pending, like Turkey’s — also recalls the indeterminate borders between the EU and Asia. So what territories and populations — let’s avoid the word ‘peoples’ — do we have in mind when we talk about ‘sovereignty’ and what vision of the world are we defending? At the Versailles summit, Von der Leyen, Macron and Michel emphasised that ‘Ukraine belongs to the European family’ because it ‘fights for democracy and the values we hold dear’. This is ultimately a rather vague criterion, and does not reflect any geopolitical thinking.
Several points remain far from clear. How can ‘strategic autonomy’ be reconciled with promoting free trade? Free trade has led, for example, to the dismantling of the ‘Community preference’ policy that protected European agriculture from devastating competition. To deal with the agricultural consequences of the war in Ukraine, the Commission is now talking about ‘crisis measures’. Its overall strategic thinking includes trade agreements, particularly with Asia and Africa (1).
What are the limits of anti-Russia solidarity, and will it survive the war? Hungary, which for once voted for sanctions without quibbling, has already refused to allow arms to transit through its territory, officially for security reasons. And Berlin prefers American F-35s over French Rafales on the grounds that they are cheaper and perform better, acknowledging in passing that ‘European strategic autonomy’ doesn’t go as far as the aeronautics industry. This view speaks volumes about the misunderstandings of ‘common defence’. This has not stopped Paris from upping the ante: prime minister Jean Castex said on 11 March 2022, ‘We make no distinction between the independence of France and the independence of Europe.’
It’s worth noting that, despite the stage-managed performance in the Gallery of Great Battles, the EU’s common foreign and defence policy remains in the hands of sovereign governments: it is agreed unanimously by the 27 member states, leaving only a marginal role for the Commission, European Parliament and Court of Justice in Luxembourg. The EPF budget is set and managed intergovernmentally, outside the federalised procedures dominant in the single market and the eurozone. The key words ‘cooperate’ and ‘partnership’ indicate an approach that is more participatory than coercive, and always allows a state to opt out or block a decision.
Macron likes to brandish the trident of ‘sovereignty-unity-democracy' to make the EU27 accept ‘European sovereignty' as an imperative rather than a French fantasy. But to date, he has had no mandate from French voters for such an undertaking
We are not seeing a revival of the idea of a European Defence Community (EDC), which was stillborn in 1954, with a European army under the authority of a defence commissioner (which would have required NATO agreement). But sending lethal weapons to Ukraine does open the door to potentially long-term federalisation insofar as the EU is now dealing with questions of life and death, sensitive issues that have traditionally been for states to decide.
What gives this European integration process legitimacy? Macron likes to brandish the trident of ‘sovereignty-unity-democracy’ (2) to make the EU27 accept ‘European sovereignty’ as an imperative rather than a French fantasy. But to date, he has had no mandate from French voters for such an undertaking, so his invocations of democracy are mere sloganeering. Observers divide into two camps: on one side those for whom legitimacy (as conferred by universal suffrage or its representatives) is the crowning achievement of a process, not a prerequisite for further ‘transfers of sovereignty’; and on the other, those who believe that it is, in fact, a sine qua non, if accepting faits accomplis is to be avoided.
With its nuclear strike capability, the world’s third largest diplomatic network and a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, France — the EU’s leading military power — is probably one of the countries staking most in this transfer of competences towards Brussels. But do transfers of sovereignty automatically create a common political project, which might justify them, while the people wait to be asked their opinion?