The EU and Other Europes

Abstract

For most Europeans, the European Union is seen in a positive light. In the richest and poorest countries. North and south, east and west. This remains its great strength. However, these European elections are not like any other. Europe is going through a deep existential crisis, perhaps the most serious since its foundation. We all know the reason: a major war on the European continent, for the first time since the Second World War. It could be argued that there was a tragic war in the Balkans in the last decade of the 20th century with the break-up of Yugoslavia. But that war was a ‘civil war’ that never threatened European security. We have subsequently seen successive military aggressions by Putin's Russia against a number of independent states that emerged from the implosion of the Soviet Union. In Georgia in 2008, or in Ukraine itself, with the annexation of Crimea and the intervention in Donbass in 2014. It was precisely because Paris and Berlin didn't want to see the true nature of the Russian regime that we are now faced with the war in Ukraine. Everyone has recognised this, including the two capitals. It was a mistake that should not be repeated.