Yes, Europe is changing, but old habits die hard

Daniel DePetris, Tribune News Service

Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv’s pressing problems on the battlefield and President Donald Trump’s brazen unpredictability have done what no other combination has done before: shocked Europe out of its peace dividend slumber. An increasing number of European leaders are now asking themselves whether the Continent can afford to do business like it did in the three decades since the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. As French President Emmanuel Macron observed with trademark dramatic flair weeks ago, “It’s quarter to the midnight.” There is an emerging acknowledgment among Europeans that they’ve been sitting for too long assuming the US will be perfectly willing to keep the barbarians from breaching the walls. Americans have tried to disabuse them of this notion for decades — in 2011, then-US Defence Secretary Robert Gates warned NATO allies that it would be difficult to maintain US support for the alliance if the burden continued to fall on America’s shoulders. But the Europeans didn’t really take the issue seriously until a revanchist Russian leader by the name of Vladimir Putin brought war back to the region.

So it’s only fair to ask: Is Europe casting old assumptions aside and stepping up to the plate? The answer is muddled. On the positive side of the ledger, European policymakers are moving at a relatively fast pace, which is quite impressive given the typically slow churning of Europe’s arcane bureaucracy. Germany, a country that traditionally favours social spending over national defence and is almost immovable out of its comfort zone, now resembles a country in a hurry. Last week, incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz, working with the very political party he defeated in February elections, managed to change Germany’s constitution to loosen the country’s debt break, which constrains discretionary spending. The next German government will now be able to increase its defence budget and rebuild the dilapidated Bundeswehr without having to worry about strict deficit laws.

The European Union is doing something similar. Last week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen laid out a series of new initiatives to bolster the Continent’s military capability. A big part of this involves joint purchasing, allowing the EU bureaucracy to negotiate weapons contracts on behalf of its members in order to get the best price and minimize duplication. But by far the most innovative is a provision exempting defence spending up to 1.5% of gross domestic product from the EU’s strict fiscal rules. If taken advantage of, this could add an additional 650 billion euros to the EU’s total defence spending.

But it’s not all good news. For starters, there is still some division on Ukraine. Europe generally speaking is on Ukraine’s side, wants a settlement to the war to be as close to Kyiv’s preferences as possible and isn’t wiling to explore a detente with Moscow until the war is over.

But not all European countries are singing from the same song sheet. Disagreements persist on how much support Ukraine should receive. This was illustrated during an EU summit last week, when the bloc’s foreign affairs chief was unable to get consensus on a 40 billion-euro military aid package to replenish the Ukrainian army’s stockpile of artillery ammunition. A slimmed down version of the same proposal was tabled for another day. At the end of the meeting, EU officials walked away with nothing to show for their efforts.

Although this is no doubt discouraging to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, it’s not surprising. Indeed, just because countries have a similar understanding of a problem doesn’t necessarily mean they will have a similar set of beliefs on what to do about it. Different European states also have different interests and opinions about what is most pressing or important.