Anxiousness and anger about the way forward for the European Union has been on the rise for a while now. The union has been within the grips of a deepening disaster – or somewhat a number of deepening crises: a cost-of-living disaster, a housing disaster, a migration disaster, a sluggish development disaster, and above all, a political disaster. It faces a big problem from the far proper, which is surging within the polls in lots of EU international locations, threatening to upend the delicate EU cohesion and “liberal values”.
Just some days in the past, the far-right Freedom Occasion received the Austrian elections with 30 p.c of the vote. The far proper should be excluded from the federal government formation course of in Austria, however its different European iterations are in energy or propping up a authorities in 9 out of the 27 EU international locations.
On the worldwide entrance, maybe essentially the most vital problem the EU is dealing with is the persevering with conflict in neighbouring Ukraine, which is exhibiting no signal of abating amid a sustained circulate of weapons from Europe and the US. And, after all, there’s a lengthy shadow of local weather change, which continues to gas lethal pure disasters.
Unsurprisingly, the response of the EU political management to those mounting crises has been to not deal with their root causes, which all boil all the way down to the damaging neoliberal insurance policies they’ve fortunately embraced. As an alternative, their response has been to warmonger, maybe hoping that the prospect of conflict might help the folks of Europe neglect their grievances.
Over the previous two years, we have now repeatedly heard that the largest risk to European safety is Russia and that the answer to it’s to defeat Russia in Ukraine. We now have been repeatedly advised that the trail to peace is escalation.
European weapons have been flowing into Ukraine, with EU international locations regularly increasing their vary to incorporate extra lethal, extra damaging weapons. Now, the newest has been the insistence by European leaders, together with the outgoing EU overseas chief Josep Borrell, that Ukraine be allowed to make use of long-range missiles to hit targets on Russian territory.
On September 19, the European Parliament handed a non-binding decision calling for international locations supplying missiles to Ukraine to permit it to make use of them towards Russian targets.
Russia has repeatedly warned towards such a transfer. It even just lately up to date its nuclear doctrine, decreasing the edge for the usage of nuclear weapons.
Whereas escalation by means of weapons provides to Ukraine continues, Europeans are additionally being advised that their international locations must spend extra on arms to prepare if this similar escalation they’re encouraging will get uncontrolled and the EU finds itself at conflict with Russia. Andrius Kubilius, the EU’s defence commissioner nominee – a place newly created to handle the “Russia risk” – for instance, believes the union ought to change into a “war-weapons storehouse” to discourage Moscow.
The conflict financial system mantra has additionally been promoted, as Europeans are pushed to consider {that a} navy construct can increase the flailing European financial system.
In September, the liberal economist Mario Draghi, the previous president of the European Central Financial institution and former Italian Prime Minister, launched a much-awaited report titled, “The Way forward for European Competitiveness,” which has been lauded by many as a “step in the fitting path” for selling deeper financial integration of the union.
“Peace is the before everything goal of Europe. However bodily safety threats are rising, and we should put together,” Draghi wrote within the report’s introduction. He then went on to recommend that the EU make investments closely in build up its armament trade.
European leaders more and more look like embracing the Latin adage, “Si vis pacem para bellum”, or “If you’d like peace, put together for conflict.” The issue with “warmongering for peace” in the present day is that the existence of nuclear weapons, which may obliterate human civilisation, have radically modified the war-peace equation, particularly in circumstances the place a nuclear energy is concerned.
One, after all, can argue that European leaders are huge on phrases, however not so eager on deeds – therefore the reluctance to go ahead with permitting Ukraine to make use of long-range missiles, regardless of the EU parliament decision and all of the keen rhetoric. Nevertheless, ambiguity and rhetorical threats are nonetheless harmful as a result of they open up the area for navy incidents that might have grave penalties.
What all this discuss conflict, getting ready for conflict, and arming for conflict does is that it successfully distracts from the EU’s many crises and their roots.
For all its insistence of upholding human rights, freedom, democracy and fairness, the EU is actually a neoliberal organisation that very a lot protects the rights of the rich to change into wealthier. Financial coverage shouldn’t be formed by concern for the well being and wellbeing of unusual EU residents, however by concern for securing company earnings.
This is the reason the welfare state is retreating throughout Europe; employment is changing into more and more precarious and dominated by the gig financial system; and the costs of meals, utilities and housing are unaffordable for a lot of. The EU’s extractive neoliberal insurance policies within the type of varied commerce offers with creating international locations are additionally ravaging economies within the World South and driving migration to the continent.
The EU’s neoliberal core can also be why the EU management is failing to push by means of a simply inexperienced transition with out offloading its value onto unusual residents.
Warmongering, arming and making a grand unified military-industrial complicated won’t resolve any of those issues. As an alternative, the EU ought to overhaul its political, social, local weather and financial methods to give attention to social values, participatory democracy, pluralism, welfare, sustainable development, peace, and cooperation. This will likely imply creating a brand new type of socialism to switch the current neoliberal catastrophe and uplift all of Europe.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
