EU Stands for Conflict. Why?

Unlike Washington, Brussels shows no desire to end the confrontation with Russia. Instead, it is ready to spend hundreds of billions of euros to sponsor the continuation of the war in Ukraine and increase its own defense costs 

Vladimir ROTARI, RTA: Last week I criticized the attitude of the European Union, which continues to pursue a confrontational path in defiance of the emerging trend towards peace in Ukraine and a strong global security architecture. Tactically and strategically, this approach does not look reasonable. However, Brussels, as we can see, stands its ground and inertially moves the spiral of confrontation in Europe. The initial shock from the rhetoric and actions of Donald Trump’s administration, unacceptable from the point of view of the European bureaucracy and the leadership of most EU countries, has been replaced by increasingly persistent attempts to influence the American president, including through personal meetings. So far, such visits to Washington have not yielded any results: moreover, although Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer were received quite warmly, the visits of the head of European diplomacy Kaja Kallas and, especially, Volodymyr Zelensky ended scandalously. In regular conversations with the media and during his address to Congress, Trump has not moved one iota from his original positions. In particular, he continues to insist on peace in Ukraine, saying that both sides of the conflict will have to make concessions. This week, we have seen with the example of stopping military aid to Kyiv that the new US authorities are determined to bring everyone to the negotiating table. And in doing so, they are at odds with Europe, which believes that ending the war now would be a bad decision and that Russia should lose and be punished for the invasion. Leaving no hope of changing the American leader’s mind on the Ukrainian conflict and European security in general, Brussels is preparing to demonstrate its own strength by mobilizing unprecedented amounts of resources both to support Ukraine’s ability to continue fighting and to strengthen its own military capabilities. Such ideas have been voiced repeatedly in recent years, and their result was the establishment of the position of defense commissioner in the new composition of the European Commission. Yesterday, the head of this body, Ursula von der Leyen, presented a more concrete initiative called “Rearm Europe”. This five-point plan has been handed over to EU leaders, who will discuss it at the next summit. The first part concerns the release of public funds to finance national defense. Von der Leyen proposed to temporarily exempt the expenditure in question from the rules of the European Stability and Growth Pact, which limits budget deficits to 3% of GDP and government debt to a limit of 60%. Earlier, the violation of these limits would entail sanctions from the European Commission, as they ensured the stability of the economy and currency of the association. Now, it turns out, the long-term prospects of the EU are being sacrificed to rather opportunistic militaristic aspirations. The head of the EC expects that this measure will yield about 650 billion euros over four years if the EU member states increase their defense spending by an average of 1.5% of GDP. The second point of the plan is the emergence of a new lending instrument to provide 150 billion euros for targeted loans. This involves financing joint spending on air and missile defense, artillery systems, missiles, ammunition, drones and counter-drone systems, cyber security, etc. The third proposal is “use of the EU’s common budget”. It is assumed that the money allocated under the “cohesion policy” could be used for defense. In the EU budget for 2021-2027, €392bn is earmarked for this purpose. The remaining two clauses envisage raising private capital and funds from the European Investment Bank, which is currently not allowed to sponsor defense-related projects, for military investments. It should be noted that since the start of the war in Ukraine, the European Union has been increasing its defense spending. For example, in 2023 they amounted to 279bn euros, and in 2024 - already 326bn or 1.9% of GDP. Now NATO, which includes an overwhelming number of EU countries, is discussing raising the target for the bloc’s members from the current 2%. The European Commission’s plans even overtake this logic, as the plan “Rearm Europe” is supposed to accumulate a total of almost 800 billion euros over four years, which means an increase of more than 60%. At the same time, the main burden should fall on the national states, from which the EC expects, as I indicated, an increase in defense spending by 650 billion euros. This is an enormous sum that cannot be raised without cutting other budget items, primarily social ones, which will undoubtedly have a widespread and negative impact on the living standards of the population. The hasty militarization of the EU is akin to trying to keep up with a long-gone train that has already changed tracks. Once again, it is particularly dissonant with the policy of Donald Trump, who only recently proposed to start discussing cutting military spending in the US-China-Russia triangle by half in order to direct funds to “more productive things”. The idea was verbally supported by Vladimir Putin, who himself recently said that defense spending cannot be increased “indefinitely”. As I have already written, Trump is reshaping American foreign policy to a more practical model focused on protecting root interests in economic and diplomatic competition with other great powers, without ideological overtones or military adventures abroad. Europe, on the other hand, cannot seem to get out of the old “black and white” paradigm. Therefore, instead of taking advantage of the moment to end all conflicts on the continent, “hot” and “frozen”, instead of returning to mutually beneficial cooperation with Russia, providing cheap energy resources to the suffocating European industry, the course chosen is to invest hundreds of billions of euros into maintaining the confrontation. I personally see the main reasons for this as the lack of adequate leadership in the EU space, with the exception of individual countries. The European bureaucracy is finally turning into a parasitic superstructure that requires more and more money to implement globalist policies when its main inspirer, the United States, is abandoning them. The ruling elites of the EU countries, nurtured by the previous administrations in Washington, who are incapable of thinking in terms of national interests and therefore deeply despised by Trump, adheres to the same logic. The situation can only be changed by the further advance of the “right wave”, which has now gained powerful allies in the White House. Nevertheless, the mechanisms to deter “unacceptable” parties and politicians from gaining power are becoming increasingly acute and odious, up to and including the cancellation of election results, which does not yet give hope for a rapid change in the EU political landscape.