There is a sense of confidence in Ukraine that has not been felt in Europe for a long time.
(Photo: IMAGO/Cover Images)
People who just remained in fear are pouring into the streets, carrying flags on their shoulders, singing and dancing. Images from the liberated southern Ukrainian city of Cherson document the end of a reign of terror. You will be remembered for a long time.
The war in Ukraine has not yet been decided, the Russian invaders are digging in for the winter. But there is a feeling of confidence that has not been felt in Europe for a long time, a touch of 1989.
In the past few months, Ukrainian forces have retaken more than 70,000 square kilometers of their land, the size of Bavaria. Not only that the liberation struggle is already more successful than most Western military experts thought possible. The courage and desire for freedom of the Ukrainians are an inspiration for a continent that was in danger of forgetting how to dream.
Ever since the failure of the European constitutional convention twenty years ago, the European Union has been preoccupied with averting crises. The experts who predicted a new “European century” and the “Europeanization of international politics”, i.e. the taming of power through rules and a reconciliation of interests, were replaced by prophets of doom who announced the end of the European project.
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The EU dragged itself through the euro crisis, Brexit and the pandemic. She survived, but became increasingly deformed. In the dispute over austerity programs, import tariffs and vaccine doses, the European political agenda shrank to harm reduction, and the big picture was lost sight of: the raison d’être of a united Europe.
In the past few days, while the EU ambassadors in Brussels were once again bickering over a cap on the price of gas, it was the Ukrainians who recalled what the EU was originally founded for. To secure peace, to enable a better future, to overcome the continent’s bloody past.
The Ukrainian soldiers are retaking their country so that it no longer remains the forecourt of an authoritarian Russia doomed to corruption, instability and backwardness, but can one day become part of a free, prosperous Europe.
Every week, Moritz Koch, head of the Handelsblatt office in Brussels, analyzes trends and conflicts, regulatory projects and strategic concepts from the inner workings of the EU, alternating with other Brussels correspondents. Because anyone interested in business needs to know what’s going on in Brussels. You can reach him at: [email protected]
With every Russian defeat, that future draws nearer. Kremlin ruler Vladimir Putin, who wanted to smash the continent’s peace order and restore a Greater Russian empire, underestimated the Ukrainians’ spirit of resistance and believed that he shouldn’t take the EU seriously as a power-political actor. Both are now taking revenge.
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The EU’s determination to support the beleaguered Ukrainians on the side of the USA with arms deliveries and financial aid played a decisive role in the planned storming of Kyiv becoming a Russian rearguard action. In his neo-imperial madness, Putin has started a war which, it is already clear, he cannot win.
Europeans are so preoccupied with managing their internal conflicts that they are only just beginning to realize the dynamics at work around them. Russians question the war against their neighboring country. China’s regime has maneuvered itself into the zero-Covid trap, stalling the economy. In Iran, young people who want to live in freedom are rebelling. In the US, voters have punished radical, anti-democratic candidates. The system rivals of the EU are on the defensive.
Despite all the criticism of the really existing Europe, which transcends regulations, the Europeans in particular should not forget: their union is a peace project whose ideals of democracy and the rule of law give many people hope. Not just a free trade zone with a bureaucratic superstructure.
More: Escalate to de-escalate: How Putin wants to win the energy war against the West