A bonfire of EU shibboleths on the economy, conflict, finance, energy supply, migration, and even the bloc’s future shape and size, has been lit by the conflict raging in Ukraine.
Battlefield images, the leadership of Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has framed the war as being between European democracy and brute bullying power, and the challenge of coordinating with UK and US allies who are pushing for more while having less to lose, has created a new political necessity.
The standard rational actor analysis of economic interests has gone by the wayside. And while during normal times, the EU’s deep economic ties with Russia had been a liability, with countries fearful of upsetting the Kremlin, those ties now offer leverage unmatched anywhere else in the world.
And the EU is going all in. By cutting off Russian banks from the Swift payments system, not only is the country’s industrial base losing access to foreign currency but Russian citizens’ individual credit card transactions are blocked.
Combined with freezing most of Russia’s foreign exchange reserves, the EU has made a political decision to force a deep recession on the Russian economy, with the hurt and pain that will be felt by Europeans as a result becoming a political irrelevance. Sacred cow No 1 slain.
But so much more has followed. The EU will ask states to grant asylum to Ukrainian refugees for up to three years, using a legal instrument that exists but which has never been triggered. Countries who have baulked at taking in refugees have opened up their borders. So much for sacred cow No 2.
This is no act of universal humanism, as those from Afghanistan and elsewhere who have been seeking to cross from Ukraine within the general population have discovered. But the decision has wider consequences.
With large numbers of Ukrainians settling in EU member states, there will be a new familiarity with the people of that country, while those who may later complain of overcrowding will be under obligation to help rebuild Ukraine as a place to which the displaced will want to return.
EU officials say they expect Ukraine’s application for EU membership “imminently”. There is an expectation that the process of accession will be sped up. Croatia was the last country to join the EU in 2013 and there has been little appetite to open up again. Sacred cow No 3 is on its way out.
Then there is the EU’s arrival on the scene as a funder of lethal weaponry for a nation at war, a “quantum leap” beyond anything we have seen”, said Jacob Kirkegaard, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund.
In Germany, the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, abandoned the country’s postwar approach to conflict by announcing €100bn (£83.7bn) Sondervermögen (special assets) to rearm.
Since Ostpolitik, the normalisation of relations between then West Germany and the east, policy has been predicated upon Russia being a status quo power, not an imperialist one. Berlin’s mercantilist approach had to go, along with sacred cow No 4.
Asked as to the turning point in EU thinking, officials point to an “historic” intervention by Zelenskiy last Thursday evening.
Sitting around the leaders’ table in the Europa building in Brussels at about 8pm, the 27 heads of state and government had been ready to agree a set of strong sanctions on Russia.
There had been calls for more drastic action in the face the extraordinary scenes developing in Ukraine but on his arrival, Scholz told reporters that he preferred to be cautious.
A couple of hours later and Zelenskiy, speaking from Kyiv via videocall to the assembled leaders, changed everything.
“It was an incredibly emotional intervention,” said one of those present. “And I don’t mean by that President Zelenskiy lost his control if you like. It was incredibly professional.
“He spoke about how he was the No 1 target for Russia, and that he felt this may well be the last time that he would be able to speak personally to many of the leaders.
“He spoke about the threat his own family faced. And I think that focused minds and, in my humble opinion, it was a historic moment.”
There is a step further to go. Europe remains reliant on Russian gas. But EU officials say watch this space. In January, the record was broken for deliveries of liquified natural gas and more is on its way, with discussions with Japan and Korea about redirecting deliveries from Qatar ongoing. Ursula von der Leyen has said there is sufficient gas stored to get through the winter.
If the last week has shown anything, it is that turning off the Russian pipes will not be seen as a sacred cow too far.
