The Economist June 4th 2022 Europe 29Squabbling in unison
U
nity among the nations of Europe is like a French soufflé. First
comes the impressive puff, then, inexorably, a graceless sag-
ging as the dish is tested by time and cutlery. Both the diplomat
and the diner are then left wondering whether the whole thing
was worth whipping up in the first place. Russia’s invasion of Uk-
raine on February 24th jolted Europe into unity. Acting as one
made the euinto something akin to a geopolitical power, albeit
precariously. As expected, 100 days later that unity looks some-
what punctured. Intra-European squabbling has resumed, and is
now quite loud. But what sounds like serious discord must be in-
terpreted by European standards. In the ways that matter, conti-
nental unity is holding up rather well.
Europe has more potential rift lines than national dishes. To
oversimplify, in past crises the division has often been between
flinty northerners who resent being made to pay for ever more
costly European schemes—bail-outs, stimulus packages and so
on—and spendthrift southerners. Over Ukraine, by contrast, the
main fissure has been between east and west. Eastern hawks, no-
tably in Poland and the Baltics, fear that anything other than an
unambiguous defeat of the Russian invasion will encourage Vlad-
imir Putin to attack them next. In their eyes the traditional powers
that dominate the euare showing insufficient steel in their sup-
port of a neighbour under attack. France, Germany and Italy, they
mutter, are complacent about the threat Europe faces, and would
rather chit-chat with Mr Putin than stand up to him.
Some of the criticism aimed at the “old Europe” trio, to revive a
phrase, is warranted. Olaf Scholz, Germany’s chancellor, some-
times declares that Mr Putin must not win and at other times
sounds like an otherworldly peacenik. “Can violence be fought
with violence?” he recently mused. Promises of German arms de-
liveries to Ukraine have not always been followed up with actual
deliveries. France has sent advanced kit into battle, but President
Emmanuel Macron has also warned that Russia should not be hu-
miliated. Mr Macron is using the war to promote his idea of “stra-
tegic autonomy” (ie, a Europe that depends less on America). Ma-
rio Draghi, the Italian prime minister, has pleaded with Europeans
to crank up the pressure on Russia rather than chill with the air
conditioning afforded by cheap energy—while Russian crude ex-ports to Italy have in fact increased, and some Italian firms have
bowed to the Kremlin’s demand for payment in roubles.
All three leaders sporadically call for a ceasefire. The hawks ob-
ject that this would mean accepting Mr Putin’s theft of Ukrainian
territory, and giving his forces a chance to dig in, regroup and at-
tack again. Worse, Messrs Scholz, Macron and Draghi regularly
speak to Mr Putin, which the hawks deride as pointless, counter-
productive or bordering on treasonous. None has yet been to Kyiv,
a city that eastern European leaders (and Britain’s Boris Johnson)
visited while rockets still rained on it. Of the big western European
powers, only Italy is overtly pushing for Ukraine to become a can-
didate for eumembership, something easterners fervently desire.
These rifts are not imagined—even if some of the charges
against the old guard are. Reports that Italy had sought a sanctions
carve-out for its luxury-goods exports to Russia turned out to be
bunk (and Mr Draghi used his central banker’s wonkishness to de-
vise painful sanctions on Russian foreign currency reserves).
Charges that Mr Macron tried to nudge Ukraine into giving up ter-
ritory for peace look similarly flimsy; he has made clear time and
again he is speaking to Mr Putin at the behest of Ukraine. Germany
has been least successful in dodging criticism. But kinder analysts
point out that the overhaul of its foreign and defence policy,
known as Zeitenwende and including a €100bn ($107bn) boost to its
armed forces, was never likely to achieve overnight results.
More importantly, the spiky intra-eurhetoric is not blocking
co-operation. Where it matters, Europe has shown unity. On May
30th, in their fourth meeting since the invasion, European leaders
agreed upon stiffer sanctions against Russia. Their sixth such
package included an embargo on most imports of Russian crude
oil. That the deal took several weeks to come good was not because
France or Italy demurred, but because the Putin-friendly regime in
Hungary played hardball, threatening to veto the whole thing.
Hungary depends on Russian oil delivered via a pipeline, which is
now much cheaper than other sources. It won an exemption from
sanctions for piped crude. As with any eupolicy, oil sanctions
would not have been seriously considered, let alone passed, with-
out the encouragement of the biggest countries. Nor would €9bn
in financial aid to Ukraine have been mobilised without the con-
sent of the three biggest contributors to the club’s budget.A lot of hot air
Europe has a propensity to look more fractious than it is. Democ-
racy is always noisy; a union of 27 democracies even more so.
Leaders who snipe at each other on the European stage are often
playing to a domestic audience, while forgetting that their neigh-
bours also have domestic politics. Every time Mr Draghi publicly
favours delivering weapons to Ukraine, say, he is taking a political
risk: the Northern League and Five Star Movement, the two biggest
parties backing his fragile coalition, are vocally against it. In east-
ern Europe, where the public eagerly reach into their pockets
when asked to donate money to buy weapons to pummel Rus-
sians, leaders lose no votes by sounding hawkish.
How long will unity last? An obvious next step would be for the
euto slap sanctions on Russian gas, which the Kremlin would
struggle to reroute to other clients, but which European custom-
ers (not least German ones) would also struggle to replace. The
possibility seems distant at the moment—but then again, so did
an oil embargo a few weeks back. As the struggle continues to stop
Russia from biting chunks out of its neighbours, European unity
will be further tested. But so far, it seems to be holding. Charlemagne
Concerns over European disunity are overdone—for now