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In a surprise move, Turkey has ended its veto on Sweden joining Nato, thereby removing all the barriers to its membership of the military alliance. Hungary quickly followed suit and, as a result of the two countries’ support, a consensus was able to be reached at the 2023 Nato summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan agreeing to support Sweden’s bid to join will be touted as one of the key achievements of the summit. Sweden submitted its formal application for membership in May 2022 alongside Finland, which was admitted into the alliance in April 2023. Sweden, though not a formal member, has had a very close relationship with Nato for almost 30 years, since joining the alliance’s Partnership for Peace programme in 1994. It has contributed to Nato missions. And as a member of the European Union and contributor to the bloc’s common security and defence policy, it has also worked closely with the vast majority of European Nato allies. In pursuing Nato membership, both Sweden and Finland have dramatically shifted their traditional policy of military non-alignment. A critical driver of this move was, clearly, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It is also more evidence that Russian president Vladimir Putin has failed to achieve two of his own strategic objectives: weakening solidarity in the alliance and preventing further Nato enlargement towards Russia’s borders. Finland and Sweden’s accession is of significant operational importance to how Nato defends allied territory against Russian aggression. Integrating these two nations on its north flank (the Atlantic and European Arctic) will help to solidify plans for defending its Ukraine-adjacent centre (from the Baltic Sea to the Alps). This will ensure that Russia has to contend with powerful and interoperable military forces across its entire western border. Why Turkey lifted its vetoFor a few years now, Turkey’s relationship with Nato has been nuanced and strained. Turkey’s objections to Sweden’s accession were ostensibly connected to its concerns over Sweden’s policy towards the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. Turkey has accused Sweden of hosting Kurdish militants. Nato has acknowledged this as a legitimate security concern and Sweden has made concessions as part of its journey towards Nato. The main material driver of the agreement, however, may always have been a carrot being dangled by the US. American president Joe Biden now appears to be moving forward with plans to transfer F-16 fighter jets to Turkey – a deal that appears to have been unlocked by Erdoğan’s changed stance on Sweden. But it is often the case that a host of surrounding deals and suggestions of deals can help facilitate movement at Nato. Everyone, including Turkey, now seems able to sell the developments as a win to their constituents back home. The ‘Nordic round’Sweden’s accession means all Nordic nations are now part of Nato. As well as being significant in operational and military terms, this enlargement has major political, strategic and defence planning implications. Although Finland and Sweden have been “virtual allies” for years, their formal accession means some changes in practice. Strategically, the two are now free to work seamlessly with the rest of the Nato allies to plan for collective defence. Integrating strategic plans is extremely valuable, particularly considering Finland’s massive border with Russia and Sweden’s possession of critical terrain like the Baltic Sea island of Gotland. This will increase strategic interoperability and coordination. Nato allies also open their defence planning books to one another in unprecedented ways. Finland and Sweden will now undergo bilateral (with Nato’s international secretariat) and multilateral (with all allies) examinations as part of the Nato defence planning process. They will also contribute to the strategic decisions that undergird that process. Their defence investments will also be scrutinised (and they will scrutinise the spending of other allies). Initial analysis suggests that while Finland and Sweden have lagged behind their Nordic neighbours’ increases in defence investment since 2014. Finland’s investment in defence leapt significantly leading up to and following its accession to Nato. While we may not know for months if the same is true of Sweden, we may expect similar increases on its part. Alliance norms and peer pressure are powerful. The expansion of Nato to include Sweden is a major step for all these reasons. But while anyone watching the Vilnius summit will naturally now be asking whether the shift changes the situation for Ukraine’s membership aspirations, an answer is unlikely to be on the near horizon. Any final decision on Ukraine being offered a membership action plan for the time being is a bridge too far, especially in the current context of an ongoing war with an outcome that, as yet, is unpredictable.

The bridge connecting mainland Russia across the Kerch strait with the illegally annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea was seriously damaged on July 17 2023, in what appears to be a successful strike by naval drones.  While there has been no official confirmation from Kyiv yet, the attack on a vital Russian supply line fits well into the overall picture of the Ukrainian counteroffensive that has been under way since early June. But the strike is also hugely symbolic, demonstrating Ukraine’s ability to undermine the unlawful Russian claim to Ukrainian territory. The partial destruction of the road bridge followed unsuccessful recent attempts to strike both the bridge and Sevastopol harbour, the main base of the Russian Black Sea fleet. Monday’s attack on the bridge left its parallel railway track undamaged, but all road traffic came to a standstill. Russia is likely to be able to render the bridge operational again as it did after an earlier attack in October 2022. But these repairs will take time, as they did before, and the limited use of the bridge during peak holiday season will serve as a reminder to ordinary Russians of a war that is not without cost to them. Less than four weeks ago, Ukraine also carried out a precision missile strike against the two parallel Chonhar bridges, which provide a vital connection between Crimea and the Russian-occupied part of Kherson region on Ukraine’s mainland.Crimea’s crucial roleThese may seem symbolic strikes of little strategic significance. And on their own, they probably would be, especially as the much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive has been slow in taking back Russian-occupied territory. But these strikes are part of a broader campaign to disrupt Russian supply lines, which is vital to wear down well-entrenched Russian defences across some 1,000km of front line in eastern Ukraine. Crimea plays a crucial role in this context. The links between Russia and southern Ukraine – via the Kerch strait and Chonhar bridges – are potentially vital for supplies to reach Moscow’s occupation forces in the southern Kherson region. This will especially be the case as Ukraine becomes more capable to hit rail and road connections along the so-called Crimean land bridge. Kherson and, further to the east, the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions, are critical to providing Crimea with freshwater for drinking and farming. Water is already in short supply following Russia’s destruction of the Nova Kakhovka hydro-electric dam in early June. Little wonder then that Crimea has been heavily militarised since Russia’s illegal annexation of the peninsula in March 2014 – or that Russian troops there have increasingly been threatened by different anti-Putin partisan groups. These include both Russian volunteers and indigenous Crimean Tatars who have become more active since the start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Similar attacks occured in August 2022 at a time when Ukraine was gearing up for a successful advance against Russian forces that were eventually driven out of the northern parts of Kherson region.Putin’s vulnerabilitiesWhat is really important in all of this is that these same Russian vulnerabilities still exist, in Crimea and in other parts of the hinterland behind the Russian defences in occupied Ukrainian territory. The strike on the Chonhar bridges on June 22 and on the Kerch strait bridge on July 17 exposes them once more for all to see. This exposure is also symbolically highly significant. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is trying to reassert his authority after the abortive mutiny by his erstwhile ally, Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin. So the damage to Putin’s bridge across the Kerch strait further chips away at his strongman image of invincibility. And again, it matters that these attacks happened in Crimea. Of all the territories invaded and still occupied by Russia, this is the one area in which the Russian occupation was overwhelmingly welcomed. What’s more, it is also the one area that Russians are likely to care about, regardless of how detached from reality historical claims to Crimea might sound. So appearing unable to prevent Ukrainian attacks in and on Crimea also exposes a potentially significant personal vulnerability of Putin’s regime and the myths on which it is partially built. This does not mean that the Kremlin is about to lose its grip on Crimea. But Ukrainian claims that it will eventually be able to retake the peninsula, if need be by force, have just become a bit more believable. At a time when debate over how to end Russia’s war on aggression against Ukraine – at the negotiation table or on the battlefield – continues in the west, these strikes serve as a useful reminder that this is Ukraine’s war. It is ultimately decisions in Kyiv that will determine whether, where, and how it can be won.

In the late 19th century, geopolitical thought developed in two steps. First, individual European empires, anxious about their hold over the Eurasian and African land mass, began to codify competitive geostrategies based on their past struggles with one another. Second, the United States (US) took up the most relevant strand of this thinking, from the United Kingdom (UK), and reimagined itself as a global sea power, capable of spreading liberal maritime values such as free exchange worldwide.  These two generations of geopolitics have come home again, brought back to Europe by a well-meaning Joe Biden, the US President. When Biden chose Germany as his key geopolitical partner on the other side of the Atlantic, Europe inexorably began reconfiguring itself according to these two theories. Biden’s choice of Berlin as partner turned Central Europe into a captive fringe for Germany, which in turn spurred a liberal European seaboard to take shape, from the Baltics to Italy.  Biden’s fateful choiceAt the start of his presidency, Biden identified Germany as his key partner in a coming geoeconomic grudge-match with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). With his decision to lift Nord Stream II sanctions Biden was rewarding Europe’s biggest economy and most stable democracy. He was also signalling that Germany must finally take geopolitical responsibility after 30 years of free-riding.  Biden’s choice, logical and well-meaning, has triggered a chain reaction in Europe. Geopolitik is taboo in Germany. So how to respond when the guardian of the open international order pressures you to become geopolitical? The answer is by constitutional means – bind Germany into a federal European state by lifting the right of European Union (EU) governments to veto joint foreign policies. For officials in Berlin, this is the obvious way to harness German power in Europe – so obvious that it does not cross minds that others see things differently. Poles see things differently. They believe federalisation, far from harnessing German power, would cement German dominance of Europe. They do not fear a geopolitical Germany, just so long as it is their kind of geopolitical: they want a Germany that stands up to Russia. But until there is proof that Germany is ready to do so, why commit to federalisation?  The German Government responds by claiming its agenda to federalise EU decision-making is all about standing up to Russia – Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor, wants assertively to enlarge the EU eastwards, and to do so he must first streamline policy making so that the EU still functions when the Moldovans or Montenegrins are sitting around the table. But the Poles say enlarge the EU first, before reforming it.  Poland wants a ‘geopolitical eastern enlargement’ not a process-driven one: the Polish Government wants to expand the EU quickly into the old ‘crunch zone’ between Russia and Western Europe to protect and reward the Ukrainians’ defence of European values. And it wants to do this before federalisation, to hedge against Berlin gaining power over common European decisions and putting EU enlargement on ice in deference to Moscow.  France, meanwhile, hears these conversations and fears that Germany is losing its recent Westbindung – that it is tilting back towards its historical centre of gravity in the East. This would mark the end of the EU as a Mediterranean project. Panicked by this prospect, the French propose a Europe of ‘concentric circles’. This is the notion of Emmanuel Macron, President of France, that an EU of 36 will have to be led by a sub-group of states. The original six western EU states would be at the political and economic core by dint of the fact that easterners like Poland are still not part of influential clubs like the eurozone.  Europeans unthinkingly establish a German empireThese countries are re-enacting historical fears. Geopolitical thinking is hard-wired into European strategic culture, and Germany, Poland and France fall easily into the tropes of late imperial anxiety. Poland fears again being in a crunch zone between Russian and German condominiums. France fears the loss of its old African sphere of influence. And Germany is afraid of others seeing Europe as its empire.  The tragedy of European geopolitics, moreover, is that it is built on historical fears that become self-fulfilling. Combined, these three ideas – ‘European federalisation’, ‘concentric circles’ and ‘geopolitical enlargement’ – formalise unfair political hierarchies in Europe and cement what all fear most – German dominance.  By federalising the EU, Berlin is unwittingly cementing its own position at the top of the European pecking order. It is constitutionalising Europe along very German lines.  The French are aware that Germany is cementing these power hierarchies, but they cling to the belief that they can benefit – that Paris and the original EU states will join Berlin in the inner circle of European affairs. But the French-German relationship has shattered, and Germany now sits alone in the inner circle. So when the French promote the notion of ‘concentric circles’ they legitimise only their own downgrade.  Tellingly, other founding EU members – Belgium, Luxembourg and Italy – are embracing life in the second tier. During the pandemic, when hit by German border closures, Italy teamed up with neighbouring Bavaria, Luxembourg with Rhineland Palatinate, Belgium with North Rhine Westphalia. These EU members now routinely behave as if they were themselves German Laender and the German federal order were Europe’s. As for Warsaw’s notion of ‘geopolitical enlargement’, it in effect relegates Poland and its closest partners to a third or fourth tier. Poland argues that reform of voting procedures should be delayed until after Ukraine and the nine other potential members have joined the EU – implying that new members will renounce their voting rights whilst the EU reforms. In so doing Poland is legitimising precisely what it has complained of for years – the way new states are treated as mute ‘policy-takers’ by Germany long after they join.  Poland’s idea of ‘geopolitical enlargement’ also risks relegating non-EU members like Britain and Norway to the political fringes even as they try to partner with the EU in Ukraine and Eastern Europe: Poland is trying to motivate Germany to enlarge the EU eastwards with the narrative about the need to compete with ‘third powers’ and contain their influence. But, unwittingly, this lumps Britain and Norway in with the PRC and Russia, making them interlopers in their own backyard.  Germany as change-brakerA Berlin-centric European order need not be oppressive for countries in its outer tiers, so long as Germany is responsive and shows moderation. But Scholz does not easily budge. His Germany is mired in angst about its manufacturing prowess, and has little room for others’ concerns. Berlin, faced with demands across Europe for German action and cash, is experiencing a kind of imperial fatigue. Officials not only speak of EU enlargement as a kind of overstretch. They describe the big dossiers in pessimistic, Malthusian terms – digital connectivity in terms of ‘shrinking space’, migration in terms of ‘global overpopulation’, climate transition as a ‘scramble for rare resources’.  This pessimistic Germany too often uses its centrality to protect and enforce the unsustainable European status quo. Instead of radically overhauling Europe’s energy infrastructure during the recent gas crisis, for instance, Berlin announced that it expected southern EU states to give Germany their gas stocks. The bottom line: give us your gas or we will give you our economic recession.  Germany, remember, did not undergo the usual pattern of de-industrialisation over the last 30 years. Instead, it kept its manufacturing sector afloat by squeezing value from Europe’s political and economic infrastructure. This is still the easiest option even if that infrastructure today has little to give. Its neighbours, however, are not yet ready to accept their fate as Germany’s captive fringe. Their fear that Scholz’s Berlin may be adopting a Germany First approach is triggering a remarkable reshuffling of alliances in Europe, as reformist states try to coalesce against Berlin. The Netherlands and France, historically at odds over economic policy, are teaming up. Even more surprisingly France and Poland, so angered by the German stance on nuclear power, are aligning on a cautious selection of strategic matters.  This possible shift of power away from Germany has somehow been missed. True, there has been a lot of talk about a shift of power eastwards in the EU, towards Central Europe, but most commentators agree that this will amount to little given Poland’s divisive domestic politics. Far more interesting and vital is the shift of power westwards, as Germany tries to rewire its critical infrastructure so that energy, investment capital and ideas flow into its ailing economy from the west, not east.  Simple geography makes seaboard states like the Netherlands or Italy access points for resources heading to Germany from the Americas and Africa.  Europe’s liberal seaboardEurope’s seaboard states are alive to the opportunities this shift creates. Italy has revived plans from the 1950s to become an energy hub between Africa and Europe. The British with their long coastline can act as a supplier of wind energy and a dock for liquid natural gas to Europe. The Dutch, having established their ports as a main disembarkation point for US troops and arms, can influence infrastructure decisions across the continent. Coastal states that until recently were split north-south are teaming up under a shared appreciation of their dynamic outward-looking approach. Italy has reportedly invited the Netherlands to ‘push’ it into deregulating its economy on a mutual job creation drive. The Netherlands has encouraged Italy’s highly-educated population to move northwards. Spain has hinted that Dutch farmers might relocate southwards. France and the UK are making available their finance hubs. The Baltics their technology.  These coastal states are, moreover, trying to offer a pontoon to Central and Eastern Europe, connecting it to the Atlantic seaboard. Britain, for instance, has already reached out to Nordic and Baltic states through the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force, and there are discussions about bringing it to Poland and Ukraine. Germany, previously the superconnector at the heart of Europe, is allowing itself to be bypassed.A new sandbox for the sea powersImportantly, countries like Denmark or the Netherlands never viewed the EU in terms of state-building, as in Berlin, where each European crisis is an opportunity for deepening integration and ratcheting the EU forward towards federalisation. They treat it as a kind of sandbox or plug-in: the EU is a means of reinventing order in Europe, responding to big geopolitical shifts with a handy toolbox of markets and inventive governance.   Today the big geopolitical task is to protect states threatened by the rise of the PRC, and ensure mutual access to critical resources and investment capital. Many of those threatened are seaboard states in the Indo-Pacific. The EU has its role to play, and if it were true to this sandbox spirit, it would today be sacrificing sacred cows from the 1990s and raiding old EU projects like the Eurozone to combine cheap and reliable energy, foundational technology, pockets of investment capital and access to the best minds.  But if a German-led EU is not prepared to revive this inventive spirit and pick and mix across old projects – mixing the Capital Markets Union with Green industry and so on – these seaboard countries will use their own shared attributes to turn Europe inside-out.

Ambassador, Admiral, Excellencies, friends, It is a great honour to welcome the USS Gerald R. Ford and its crew to Norway and to Oslo. This is a historical event, nothing less. – A show of force. But just as important: A show of friendship – and a show of trust. And it is great to be back on the Ford! – Because I have been here before. Actually, I landed on the Ford outside Norfolk, Virginia last September. I experienced how it was to land – but even more memorable was to take off, being catapulted off the ship – I am still recovering. Today, we came by boat. – It is more relaxed, if I may say so. It is very good to be back. I would like to thank you for this extraordinary U.S. hospitality, we can all feel it, thank you, Captain for the superb Friday evening entertainment. Stepping onto the ship once again, on the Norwegian side of the Atlantic Ocean, reminds me of the obvious fact: The ocean does not divide us. It unites us. And the ocean, as we can see, is a gateway, a waterway, that makes us to what we are – we are neighbours and close friends across the Atlantic.  The Ford flies a battle flag which shows the compass rose. – This is an important tool, for centuries, and a powerful symbol – for staying on the right course. Navigating the Oslo fjord is no easy thing, and on your very first overseas visit I believe it proves that you master the tool – the compass, although – probably, the pilots also helped. Your skilled sailors have anchored the ship on a spot which is significant in many ways in my country. Because the Oslo Fjord tells an important part of the history of Norway: Merchants and rulers came this way, landed near Akershus Castle, which defended the city for centuries from invasions from outside. The famous explorer Roald Amundsen – whose name is, as you know, on the frigate – started his South Pole expedition from exactly where we are now, just ashore here. The Nazi German occupants came this way in 1940 – however, they struggled a lot more to get through the narrow parts of the fjord. The Norwegian king returned from his exile in Great Britain in 1945 on HMS Norfolk by this waterway. – War and peace. Shortly after, NATO was founded. Our two nations – founding fathers of NATO – are close allies, and – as you reminded, Admiral – the U.S. Navy is particularly important to Norwegian security. The U.S. Marine Corps equipment, stored in Mid-Norway, is proof of that commitment. The Norwegian Armed Forces appreciates, in numerous contexts, the opportunity to train with U.S. women and men in uniform. – And that is what we will do in the coming days, and we look forward to it. Well planned, joint exercises are essential. This is not new. It is about continuity. We know. Our neighbours know. And our allies know.  The USS Gerald R. Ford is now anchored in the heart of the five Nordic countries – coastwise towards the Atlantic Ocean. This region will now form the new northern flank of NATO – with Finland, its newest member – and just pending the acceptance of Sweden. So – a new security policy map is in the making. For the first time in centuries the Nordic countries will belong to the same security alliance, being U.S. partners and partners of a strong alliance for stability and peace.  Admiral, You are not just navigating a large ship; you are navigating a significant political and diplomatic tool: the U.S. at sea. This ship has the ability to enhance stability and security wherever you sail, whatever waters you travel. You demonstrate the U.S. commitment to NATO and to transatlantic security. To our security. For that we are truly grateful. Against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Ukraine, this is – to put it short – more important than ever. So, dear friends, on this beautiful Friday afternoon, we should be reminded that there have been dire times, wars in Europe, and we should prepare to avoid dire times in the future. Immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941, President Roosevelt wired Prime Minister Churchill the following words: “Today we are all in the same boat (…) and it is a ship which will not and cannot be sunk.”  A truly transatlantic message – and from this our transatlantic alliance emerged. Democracies decided on standing together. Like then, we are in the same boat – and in a big one this time, and it feels safe. So, friends, Welcome to Norway, welcome to Oslo. Welcome to come training with us. I wish you and your fantastic crew of this ship an excellent stay. You have been well received in Oslo. You are our friends. I wish you a good onward voyage. Thank you very much for your attention.

Attention will now turn to scrutinizing how Ukraine deploys the US weapons.  On 7 July, days before the NATO summit in Vilnius, the US announced that it would supply Ukraine with cluster munitions – until it can ramp up production of other types of ammunition. It is a controversial decision which is at odds with the views of NATO allies that have foresworn the possession and use of the weapons under the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions. The Biden administration said it had received assurances from Ukraine that the munitions will not be used in areas populated by civilians, that Ukraine will keep records and maps of where they are used, and that it will conduct a post-war clean-up. However, there are significant humanitarian concerns with the use of cluster bombs, and the US–Ukraine decision sends the wrong message to the wider world – particularly to states that are not yet parties to the 2008 Convention. Humanitarian concernsEach cluster bomb can scatter tens or hundreds of explosive submunitions over a wide area. The submunitions frequently do not explode on delivery – this is called the failure rate – and are left in the environment, often sinking into soft ground or water. In recent conflicts, failure rates remain stubbornly high, estimated to range from 10%-40% – despite being much lower in the testing phase. The long-term implications of failed submunitions have been similar to – in some cases worse than – the long-term use of anti-personnel landmines. Munitions surface years or even decades after use, often picked up by children who mistake them for soda cans or toys and are maimed or killed when they explode. Whether the munitions have been fired by an enemy or by their own side, the effect is the same. The use of the weapons also risks breaking international humanitarian law, namely the principle of distinction (the need in an armed conflict to distinguish between combatants and civilians; and between military and civilian objectives). Concerns also relate to breaching the principle of proportionality, and the rule against indiscriminate attacks. The 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM)The CCM is an important piece of international law intended to prohibit the use of cluster munitions in line with these principles of international humanitarian law, placing the long-term needs of civilians at the heart of security decision-making. To date, the CCM has 111 states parties, and 12 signatories. It prohibits the use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster munitions. It requires countries that have joined the convention to destroy their stockpiles of the weapons, clear areas contaminated with unexploded submunitions, and provide assistance to victims. The US, Ukraine and Russia have not yet signed up to the convention. Neither has China or India. But most European states have joined the treaty, including NATO members such as the UK, Germany and France. The convention drew upon experience from the Mine Ban Treaty of 1997 which prohibited the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines. Following the treaty, deminers reported the equally large problem of other unexploded ordnance including cluster munitions. This empirical evidence, along with medical evidence from countries inundated with cluster munitions such as Cambodia, Kosovo, Iraq, Chechnya, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Afghanistan, led to discussions in the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons and then to a stand-alone process that negotiated the Convention on Cluster Munitions.  Indeed, the conclusion of the Convention on Cluster Munitions and its support by so many countries had until now created an important pause in the use of cluster munitions by some non-states parties, including the US – showing the weight of international condemnation of the weapons. (This has not been true for countries such as Russia which has used them with devastating effect against civilians in Ukraine). Cluster munitions are already being used in UkraineRussia has been using cluster munitions throughout its illegal war against Ukraine, along with landmines and thermobaric/vacuum weapons. It has also threatened the use of nuclear weapons. Ukraine has also used its own ex-Soviet stockpile of cluster bombs.   But up until now no NATO country has supplied Ukraine with cluster bombs – reports that Turkey had done so have been denied by both Turkey and Ukraine.Supporters of the US decision point out that the number of unexploded US cluster munitions will be far smaller than the equivalent number of unexploded Russian munitions and landmines already in Ukraine. They also argue that the numbers of Ukrainian civilians killed might well be far higher if Ukraine fails to pursue its counteroffensive, and that Ukraine could even lose the war if not supplied with adequate ammunition. Adhering to the rules of warRussia’s invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and in 2022 were illegal. Subsequent threats to use nuclear weapons, and the continuing situation over the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, have been reckless in the extreme. Russia’s actions reflect the fact that the war is not only about the integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine – although that is of course central. It is also about values, and the adherence to the rule of law. How a state conducts itself during a war is important. Irrespective of the aggression by Russia, and regardless of who has joined the Convention on Cluster Munitions, the rules of international humanitarian law must be respected by all parties to the armed conflict. These rules are designed to balance military necessity with humanitarian purpose – they seek to protect civilians and diminish unnecessary suffering. Ukraine is fighting not just for its territory but for the international rule of law; its own conduct of hostilities must comply with the rules of war.   Attention will now need to turn to scrutinizing how Ukraine deploys the US weapons and whether it can live up to its assurances on how they will be used, including preventing their deployment in or near civilian populated areas. States that are party to the CCM should continue to uphold it. The UK and other treaty members have invested significant diplomatic power to encourage other states to accede to the CCM and they should continue these efforts. The US move sends a poor message, but the fundamental importance and value of the CCM treaty remains.

Keeping rules-based cooperation afloat on a war-torn continent  SUMMARYThe NATO summit in Vilnius taking place from 11 to 12 July 2023 marks another step towards deepening the relationship between Ukraine and the collective West. When paired with the EU’s reinvigorated enlargement process, there is a growing tendency to assume that Washington and Brussels can – or even must – set the terms of the European security order without input from Moscow. However, in a world of ‘mega-regions’ and competing visions of international order, cooperative security remains relevant if the EU wishes to salvage some degree of rules-based order in the space that connects Europe with Eurasia. As first steps in this direction, the EU should work to keep the OSCE operational, launch a limited dialogue with Belarus on arms control, and envision a future for the European Political Community that someday includes Russia. Two highly controversial issues are at the core of our assessment – the amendments to Article 66a concerning future electricity price crises and the resort to inframarginal revenue caps1. The significance of the imagery was unmistakable. In late March earlier this year, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited his counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow, at the same time as Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv. Although lying at near-opposite ends of the Eurasian supercontinent, the leaders of Asia’s two largest economies visiting the belligerents of a European conflict served to illustrate just how integrated the security dynamics of the two theatres had become. Yet it was the Chinese leader, whose country had been the victim of Japanese imperialism in the twentieth century, who was showing off his strategic partnership with a country that had just a year earlier committed an act of unprovoked aggression against its neighbour, while Japan’s head of government demonstrated solidarity with the victim. That Beijing has doubled down on its entente with Moscow, despite the latter’s egregious violation of international law and norms, all in the name of anti-hegemonism, reveals the complex and shifting patterns of international order in today’s world. The increasing integration of the pan-Eurasian security space, when combined with a nuanced understanding of the contemporary (and mixed) foundations of the international order, reveals the extent to which Europe’s own security order will depend not only on the EU’s ability to demonstrate its own resilience, but also its ability to develop new tools and approaches that allow it to reach beyond its own normative orbit and into a more normatively diverse ‘Eurasian’ space. Contrary to the notion that Russia is ‘leaving’ Europe, only by conceiving of the European-Eurasian space from Lisbon to Vladivostok as a single, pan-European security system will the EU be able to manage the normative contestation and political diversity that characterise continental affairs. TWO MAJOR TRENDS The return of great power competition has come with tangible consequences on several policy fronts such as trade rules, supply chains, technological restrictions, access to critical minerals, and the future shape of globalisation more broadly. Its impact has also been felt domestically, with states both democratic and authoritarian attempting to shape the information space and contending with rising nationalist sentiment. But when one looks at the macro-level, two broad trends emerge – one geopolitical and one normative. GEOPOLITICS: THE RISE OF MEGA-REGIONSThe geopolitical trend – traditionally defined as lying at the intersection of power politics and geography – is the formation of ‘mega-regions’ in the Eastern Hemisphere – continental Eurasia and the maritime Indo-Pacific. While these spaces are too vast and diverse to constitute identifiable ‘regions’ in the usual sense of the term, their discursive appeal allows them to shape strategic debates irrespective of how integrated they are in economic or societal terms. Unlike the consolidation of the Western Hemisphere under a single hegemon, these mega-regions are polycentric, suggesting a complicated landscape to navigate. The IndoPacific theatre is characterised by a worsening Sino-American standoff, but also the persistence of varying degrees of non-alignment from important actors, such as India and ASEAN. The mega-region’s strategic importance to the EU flows not only from the sizeable proportion of trade that passes through the Indo-Pacific, but also the fact that EU Member States are facing the pressures of their growing security dependence on the United States, even as Washington’s focus has been clearly pivoting towards Asia for the last several years. The Eurasian theatre links Europe to Asia through growing trade links and connectivity, but also through strategic interactions, such as the Sino-Russian entente and Turkey’s links with Central Asia. Although China is already very much present in Europe in terms of technology, trade links and port ownership, questions surrounding a ceasefire and the reconstruction of Ukraine may also foretell a growing profile for Beijing in shaping Europe’s future security order. Although much will depend on the degree of US and EU acquiescence, China’s role may be limited to delineated financial contributions to the rebuilding of post-war Ukraine, or it may go so far as to include a direct role in keeping the guns silent. The latter, for example, could include a Chinese promise to exercise its influence over the Kremlin to forestall a reinvasion of Ukraine, in exchange for a Western commitment to dissuade Kyiv from retaking its lost territories militarily. Given Russia’s growing dependence on China, European security now appears indelibly imbued with Eurasian – and not just transatlantic or Euro-Atlantic – characteristics. On top of shared challenges and geographic phenomena, such as climate change and the opening up of Arctic maritime routes, political developments over the past several years have helped to weave the European and Asian strategic theatres increasingly into an interconnected security complex. Worsening relations between Russia and the West following the 2013-14 Euromaidan revolution accelerated Moscow’s already-declared ‘pivot to the East’, while its 2022 invasion of Ukraine has ensured that this pivot takes the form of growing dependence on China after Japan and South Korea imposed economic sanctions. China has therefore become an influential player in European security through its (theoretical) ability to influence strategic thinking in the Kremlin about the war’s endgame and contribute to Ukraine’s reconstruction once new security guarantees have been agreed. China’s growing maritime muscle also impacts EU interests not just on matters of trade but also in the realm of international law by calling into question the future shape of the global commons.An additional factor unifying the two theatres has been the European (and American) prioritisation of the Indo-Pacific, with the EU releasing its Indo-Pacific strategy five months prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This provided the political foundations for the EU to continue to place importance on enhancing its profile in the Indo-Pacific, even as war raged closer to home. And although many in Europe reject the binary ‘democracy vs. autocracy’ frame emphasised by the Biden administration, the proliferation of this rhetoric in Western decision-making circles since the war’s start has provided momentum for transatlantic allies to double down on their two-theatre focus.  NORMS: W(H)ITHER INTERNATIONAL ORDER?The normative trend concerns the increasing ability to distinguish between the different layers of international order that the EU inhabits. Debates on international order have often focused on the evolving distribution of power, with various analysts asserting that the world remains largely unipolar, is collapsing into bipolarity, or persists on its path towards multipolarity. But there remains the question of how to characterise terms such as the ‘liberal international order’ (LIO) or ‘rules-based international order’ (RBIO) within which this polarity operates.  Russia’s incursions into Ukraine in 2014 and Syria in 2015, followed by the rise of populism with the Brexit referendum and the election of Donald Trump in 2016, called the future of the LIO into question. This raised more fundamental questions over its actual breadth and reach – whether it was largely consigned to the West or truly global in scope, whether its focus was primarily on upholding multilateralism or whether it also had values-based components, and so on.  Given the nature of these events, it became evident that Western ‘leadership’ in setting the terms of the international order was a core component of the LIO as a concept. Russian actions in 2014-15 frontally challenged the notion that Washington and Brussels could unilaterally shape the norms of European security and ended the West’s post-Cold War monopoly on military interventions in the wider Middle East. Similarly, populism’s rise not only threatened the ideological hegemony of liberalism in Western societies, but also raised questions about whether the Anglo-American powers which have been preeminent for three centuries would remain invested in upholding an order they played a major role in creating. A definition of the LIO that incorporates all elements – proliferating institutions, liberal values, open trade, Western leadership, and transformative ambitions on a global scale – would reveal that the attempt to create a global LIO began in the early 1990s and had effectively failed by the time of the financial crisis and subsequent Great Recession of 2007-09. Given the American origins of that recession, the accepted legitimacy of the economic component of Western leadership became contested, eventually paving the way for the erosion of post-Cold War ‘hyper-globalism’. Western political leadership became more strongly contested after the 2011 NATO intervention in Libya, which some saw as exceeding its UN Security Council-issued mandate strictly to protect civilians, presaging Putin’s subsequent return to the Russian presidency in 2012.  Having failed to become synonymous with global order writ large, the LIO today appears largely constrained to the non-geographic West, today emphasising the defence of democracy rather than its spread. The present-day ‘democracy vs. autocracy’ binary expects that the former model will demonstrate its longevity and eventually win uncontested appeal among the rest of the world, which differs from active attempts to export it.  Despite its neutral-sounding description as the universally accepted global order based on the UN system, multilateral institutions and international law, the RBIO can also be difficult to pin down as a concept. In some conceptions, it has existed since 1945 and has relied upon Western leadership to sustain itself, whereas in others it remains something that still needs to be created in newly conceived and discursively contested strategic spaces such the ‘Indo-Pacific’.  For this reason, the RBIO has also been criticised in some corners for being deliberately opaque and labelled as a mere smokescreen for Western hegemony. At a minimum, one can acknowledge the existence of an RBIO based on a global commitment to the peaceful conduct of relations and resolution of disputes, respect for universally agreed canons of international law – including the basic tenets of the UN Charter – or mutually agreedupon processes. Ultimately, what the distinction between the LIO and RBIO reveals is that, in today’s world, order is plural: one should not speak of the international order as much as the existence of differentiated international orders. If one were to draw distinctions between orders across different policy areas, for example, one would see that both the United States and China support certain aspects of the contemporary global order while rejecting others. Neither is entirely a status quo power, but nor does either power hold a purely revisionist agenda.  The EU, for its part, has benefited enormously from a status quo in which a largely unipolar world, combined with a solid American security guarantee, negated the need to wrestle with the idea of fundamental change in the substance of international order. Although it must now debate the extent to which it can (or even should) embrace the ‘language of power’, this helps to explain why the EU – contrary to other leading actors – continues to defend both the LIO and RBIO. This European posture flows not only from the nature of the EU’s internal system and the commitments underpinning EU treaties, but also from the evolving shape of great power competition.  THE INTERSECTION OF NORMS AND GEOPOLITICS – AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR EUROPE In the normative realm, we are witnessing a fragmentation of order or, put differently, a ‘de-universalisation’ of norms. Rather than a single overarching global order to which all states pay fealty, an integrated global economy and global institutions provide merely a framework in which states litigate the shape of the international order and contest one another’s (possibly conflicting) normative visions.  By contrast, in the geopolitical realm, we observe the opposite phenomenon. While regional theatres have undoubtedly grown in importance, offering smaller actors a chance to shape international order alongside the great powers, these theatres are increasingly integrating themselves into a common system where actors from different regions figure into one another’s security perceptions. This dual process of simultaneous integration and disintegration raises the question of how to conceptualise the linkages between these megaregions and various orders.  Given the likely involvement of China (and perhaps India) in brokering a ceasefire and contributing to the reconstruction of Ukraine, alongside Japan’s cooperation on Ukraine with its Western partners through the G7, strategic calculations among the powers of the Indo-Pacific mega-region are having an impact on events in Europe. But in terms of hard security dynamics, the most direct linkage (or lack thereof) affecting the future of the European order lies in the nature of the relationship between the European and Eurasian spaces. Since Putin’s return to the Kremlin and his casting of Russia as a decidedly non-Western and non-liberal country, it has become common to assert that Russia was ‘leaving’ Europe. Given that the political and economic order on the European continent since the Treaty of Maastricht has been based on the centrality of the EU system, with other states pursuing greater or lesser degrees of alignment with EU norms and standards, to challenge those norms openly and blatantly was seemingly to deny one’s Europeanness. Russia’s subsequent ‘Greater Eurasia’ discourse further highlighted the notion that Moscow no longer sought to re-join Europe, as was its initial ambition after the end of the Cold War, but rather to create a new geopolitical space. This Eurasian space was either to be Russian-led, centred on the post-Soviet region and embodied by organisations such as the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), or would take the form of a broader yet unspecified polycentric pan-Eurasian system from Lisbon to Shanghai with Russia serving as the EastWest bridge at its core. Efforts to bridge the Russian and Brussels-centric visions for continental order through some kind of interstitial linkages between the EU and EAEU floundered, both due to the customs union component of the EAEU and the EU’s effective insistence that Ukraine faced a binary choice between East and West.  But whether one defines Europe in the expansive sense from Lisbon to Vladivostok or not, the collapse of Russia-West relations does not presage the end of the need to conceive of the European and Eurasian regions as a single space. For one, there remain post-Soviet states that desire to build relations with the EU and do not wish to be entirely consigned to the Eurasian Heartland.  Moreover, the ‘pan-Turkic’ element of Turkey’s foreign policy has grown increasingly salient over recent years, offering the prospect of deeper strategic relations between NATO-member Turkey and CSTO-member Kazakhstan. Even when it comes to two adversarial military alliances, bridges are not entirely absent. Turkey and Serbia, in addition to the states of the South Caucasus, stand out as wanting to maintain relations with both Russia and the West.  Yet while the European and Eurasian security spaces are geographically adjacent, forging a conception of a single space between them is rendered more difficult when one considers the LIO-RBIO reference frame. Viewed through this lens, the EU and Russia come across as polar opposites, even in relative terms.  The United States remains, at least for now, committed to a revised version of an LIO centred on the promotion of liberal norms, the preservation of US primacy in the global order, and the maintenance of US leadership within the Western alliance structure. However, when it comes to the RBIO, Washington’s numerous post-Cold War transgressions of international rules and its selective application of normative discourses suggests that an attitude of ‘rules for thee but not for me’ continues to operate to some degree even under Democratic administrations.  China, for its part, is to a degree the mirror image of the US: Beijing rejects the hegemonism and liberal values that underpin the LIO but remains invested in multilateralism and open markets, even if its adherence to the rules has also been selective, such as in its efforts to create ‘facts on the ground’ in the South China Sea.  When it comes to the EU and Russia, the division is even more stark. The EU remains the world’s leading power committed to both the LIO and the RBIO; Russia decidedly rejects the LIO and, since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, has run roughshod over internationally agreed rules and norms as well.  THE EU AT THE CROSSROADS OF EUROPE AND EURASIA The EU is being tested by rising geopolitical tensions in its neighbourhood, which bring ever more assertive challenges against the RBIO. By design, Brussels comes with inbuilt disadvantages in this contest.  In foreign and security policy, the EU is a peculiar beast. Common action still depends on unanimity among Member States, which cautiously limits the EU’s room for manoeuvre. Support for the Ukrainian army is a textbook example of this phenomenon. We have observed common steps to supply Kyiv with weapons through the European Peace Facility. But we have also seen Member States from across the continent emphasise their own priorities – sometimes coordinated, sometimes rather uncoordinated – such as debates over the provenance of military procurement schemes.  As a result, the sum of the EU’s parts occasionally seems to be smaller than all of them combined. The EU decision-making patchwork can at times be accelerated by crises, but under normal circumstances it is a rather time-consuming procedure. And if the war in Ukraine becomes the new normal and the hottest phase of hostilities comes to resemble mere embers, the crisis-like atmosphere often needed for bold decision-making may eventually fade away.  Moreover, although the EU’s dual commitment to the LIO and RBIO forms a core element of both its internal functioning and its international engagement, in recent years there have been some cracks in this picture, most notably when it comes to the domestic political record of Member States such as Poland or Hungary. The apparent hypocrisy or double standard contributes to the erosion of the LIO’s global appeal, while challenging the EU’s ability to advance its particular interpretation of the RBIO.  The EU and its Member States find themselves today confronted with a geopolitical and normative challenge in their neighbourhood. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to a rapid disintegration of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) space into different grades of contestation. This brash disregard for previously agreed rules and principles, when coupled with the erosion of several arms control agreements meant to enhance confidence and predictability in the wider Euro-Atlantic security space, has challenged the very notion that a European security architecture still exists.  The repercussions of the war have led to a strengthening of NATO and a diminished Russian ability to order parts of its ‘near abroad’, prompting other actors to step in, such as Turkey in the Caucasus or China in Central Asia. Trade in the Eurasian space – between the EU and China – has also become more cumbersome by taking the huge landmass of Russia out of the equation and forcing a recalibration of trade routes. Thus, for the EU, the dynamic of integrating geopolitical theatres in Eurasia and the IndoPacific has posed three questions.  First, does the EU have a toolbox for its immediate neighbourhood suitable for managing the geopolitical and normative conflicts inherent to today’s multipolar world? Enlargement and integration offers still rely on the logic of countries adhering to European rules, as they are supposedly driven by their own interest to gain access to this attractive bloc. Therefore, the logic goes, they are likely willing to undergo a tedious scrutiny process and give up substantial parts of the exercise of their sovereignty.  The EU’s enlargement agenda undoubtedly presents the most developed form of normative power projection and has recently garnered new momentum in Ukraine, Moldova and the Western Balkans. These latest developments, coupled with Ukraine’s de facto integration into the Western political and security community, demonstrate the extent to which Russia’s normative proposition has largely failed, even in its historical sphere of geopolitical and cultural influence.  Nonetheless, China’s likely growing influence in European affairs, Russia’s continued determination (and, for now, ability) to wage war, and the normative pluralism inherent to Eurasia’s penetration of the European space all raise questions over whether the EU’s enlargement agenda alone can fill the chasm left by the collapse of the European security order. It also remains too early to gauge the impact of the EU’s more ‘geopolitical’ (less strictly defined) recent moves, such as collective military assistance to Ukraine and its efforts to reduce its dependence on Russian energy, on its ability to shape the panEuropean security system in line with its preferences. Simply put, the strengthened role of the EU within Europe should not encourage Brussels and Member State capitals to sit on their laurels.  Second, what can the EU offer on a global scale to compete in a normatively pluralistic world and encourage other actors to align with EU goals? To the surprise of many in Europe, major non-Western powers, including many leading democracies, have chosen to stay on the sidelines of the war and are trying to hedge their bets. Those that have chosen to advance peace plans, such as the African ten-point plan and the Indonesian proposal, have tended to emphasise the need for de-escalation over justice. Given the increasing salience of these plans from various corners of the ‘Global South’ for the war in Ukraine, this question is important not only for the EU’s global standing but also for the future of the European security order. Universal norms – such as those of the UN Charter, later developed and enshrined in OSCE documents – are being increasingly challenged in the European-Eurasian security space. And while recent events may have given the EU’s norm-setting ability in Europe a boost, the extent to which it can fully see its vision through in the absence of global support remains uncertain. While much of the continent may become more tightly integrated, these developments threaten to render the core principles of the wider regional security order aspirational at best, not unlike the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Third, how autonomously from the US can the EU act? The war has highlighted once again European security dependence on the US. That brings with it implicit, and sometimes explicit, expectations on the US side for a more assertive European stance towards China along the lines of US policy. The EU’s ability to deal with Eurasia and the Indo-Pacific differently, and thus handle the challenges of Russia and China separately as some Member States would prefer, now runs into a US-backed integration dynamic of the European, Eurasian and Indo-Pacific spaces. Thus, the Eurasian theatre seems to have become a key laboratory for the new order of competing concepts, overlapping integration spaces and unclear mechanisms of how to deal with the inevitable tensions between antagonistic claims.  THREE RECOMMENDATIONS  On the normative front, the task of constructing a stable order in a culturally and politically diverse world is unlikely to be achieved through a renewed commitment to the LIO, given its hegemonic and ideological foundations. And on a continental scale, while the LIO model may provide the political conditionally necessary to expand the EU’s sphere of influence, the lesson of the post-Cold War era is that this sphere will not be able to encompass Russia fully.  The EU’s approach today has rather become premised on confronting Russia’s normative model, in place of integrating Russia into some kind of common pan-European space. In fact, although there is no current strategy for how to deal with a post-Putin Russia, it is difficult to imagine the country finding a place in either NATO or the EU, even if it eventually pivots back towards the West and becomes relatively more open and democratic.  Geographically, in the Indo-Pacific, the structural constraint of the US-China relationship will significantly shape the EU’s room for manoeuvre for the foreseeable future. Yet the situation in the European-Eurasian theatre is potentially more volatile. Although the transatlantic alliance’s structure of US leadership has once again become apparent over the course of the war, much can change if a new US president comes to office. Moreover, a European continent featuring a reinforced NATO and an increasingly nationalist and revanchist Russia risks becoming a recipe for another conflict not long after the dust settles on the current phase of hostilities in Ukraine. Simply put, waiting – potentially for decades – for Russia to transform itself before embarking on the task of salvaging what remains of the RBIO connecting Europe and Eurasia is not an option. While relations will not be repaired overnight and the conditions do not presently exist to reaffirm (or reconstitute) the core principles underpinning the continental order, the EU can take three relatively immediate steps to prevent worst-case scenarios from materialising.  First, the OSCE, which brings together 57 participating countries, is in danger of entering 2024 without a chair or a budget. The EU would be poorly positioned to advocate credibly for a strengthened global RBIO if Europe itself becomes a rare continent without an inclusive and pan-regional functioning RBIO of its own.  The collapse of the OSCE would not only eliminate the last major regional institution bringing Russia and the rest of Europe together, but would also put Central Asian countries in a more difficult position, removing from them a forum in which they can navigate between the European and Eurasian spaces.  If Estonia’s chairmanship is unable to proceed, EU Member States should be prepared to rally behind a compromise candidate which boasts links to both Europe and Eurasia. Kazakhstan presents a natural choice, offering the EU a chance to build on its recently activated strategic partnership with Astana. In consultation with Ottawa and Washington, they should also agree to commit emergency funding to keep the body afloat if necessary and consider institutionalising money for the OSCE budget in the next Multi-Annual Financial Framework. Although Member States already contribute more than two-thirds of the organisation’s main budget, such a move would demonstrate the EU’s collective commitment to upholding a continental RBIO that spans beyond its own borders – a necessity given the now-unavoidable intersection between the European space and the pluralistic Eurasian mega-region. Russia’s initial post-Cold War dream of a pan-European security order centred on the OSCE has been dashed. Instead, the body’s activities have increasingly centred on its humanitarian ‘basket’, focusing in large part on post-Soviet states. As NATO and the EU expanded to include Central Europe, Moscow became increasingly convinced that the OSCE had become a second-tier institution for supposedly second-rate countries, giving it an incentive to impede its functioning rather than strengthen its capacities.  Still, it is precisely because of the pluralistic nature of the Eurasian mega-region and the EU’s own need to navigate it through the framework of rules that Brussels should remain invested in the OSCE’s survival, however imperfect the institution may become. Recent European Council conclusions have laudably articulated the EU’s continued commitment to the OSCE, but there has yet to be an explicit recognition that to survive as a body where states can manage crises and discuss security challenges on the continent, the organisation’s de facto focus may need to narrow, even if its more wide-ranging activities do not completely hollow themselves out.  In short, an OSCE that resembles the leaner Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) of preceding decades is better than no OSCE at all. The OSCE’s more ambitious policy agenda is partly a product of the era of a Westernising Russia – an era which has decidedly passed. To remain resilient, international institutions must adjust to changing circumstances. And in any event, there remain ample other formats through which EU Member States can pursue their normative agenda.  Second, the pan-European arms control architecture is now in tatters following the American and Russian withdrawals from the Open Skies Treaty, the demise of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, Russia’s suspension of its participation in New START, and its formal withdrawal from the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty. These regimes will not be resurrected overnight. However, in an attempt to demonstrate a remaining semblance of independence from the Kremlin, Belarus has remained active in the surviving regimes and will likely retain its membership in the CFE Treaty. The EU’s position on the political legitimacy of Alexander Lukashenko aside, Minsk’s continued participation in arms control, combined with the delivery of Russian tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, creates a plausible case for certain European officials, beginning at the Member State level, to enter into a dialogue with Minsk as a matter of continental security – even if only quietly at first. This dialogue could serve as a basis for incubating ideas on the extent to which a future continental arms control architecture should be based on existing or new mechanisms. With time, Member States could designate individuals at the European External Action Service to take this process forward if it begins to show signs of progress, ensuring that the perspectives exchanged reflect the security interests of the EU27 as a whole.  Given the degree of closeness between Minsk and Moscow, the ideas discussed could eventually filter into the Russian elite as well, thereby preserving a backchannel through which momentum for renewed arms control can be built, as well as attenuating the lack of information and confirmation bias which currently exacerbate the Russia-West security dilemma. It is worth remembering that while Russia has withdrawn from several arms control regimes as its relations with the West have deteriorated, Moscow has not rejected the usefulness of arms control in principle. Belarus would relish the opportunity undertake such a dialogue and minimally restore the East-West bridge status that it held until the 2020 protests. Russia, for its part, would have little to fear, given the current extent of Belarusian dependence on the Kremlin and the fact that EU political recognition of Lukashenko would not necessarily be forthcoming.  Finally, while the purpose of the newly formed European Political Community (EPC) is ostensibly to build a platform for pan-European cooperation without Russia, at this point it remains unclear the extent to which such a rationale for its existence will continue to be manifest once the hottest phase of the war has passed. Once the structure and focus of the body have been further consolidated, however, EPC leaders should hold discussions on a possible timeline and conditions under which Russia could be admitted as a participant. This could occur at an EPC summit in a non-EU and non-NATO country such as Serbia or Switzerland in 2025 – timed to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act. While consensus among all participating states may not be reached, the mere act of deliberating this topic could spawn certain ideas which may eventually prove worthwhile and/or achievable. CONCLUSIONS The moves outlined above will not succeed where all parties over the past three decades have failed – namely in creating a pan-European security order which Moscow has a stake in upholding rather than undermining. However, they offer to preserve or create platforms and avenues for policy cooperation or dialogue which can bolster the idea of a continental RBIO. They also offer the EU an opportunity to act autonomously in the pursuit of collective goals, to develop a wider-ranging toolbox for addressing security challenges in its neighbourhood, and to strengthen its image around the world as an actor committed to inclusive, rules-based security-building.  With all of Europe west of Russia (except for Belarus) now in some kind of integration process with the EU, it is certainly tempting to reinforce the Brussels-centric character of the continent’s normative order – as seen in discussions over how to strengthen the credibility of the enlargement agenda for Ukraine, Moldova and the Western Balkans, and how the nascent EPC might complement this process.  This, however, is but one side of the policy coin that EU leaders must consider. The West and Russia may not operate a shared security system in Europe, but this does not obviate the need to consider the integrated nature of security dynamics in the pan-European space. In a world of mega-regions, Europe will remain intertwined with Eurasia irrespective of the degree to which agreed-upon norms can be operationalised. The question is whether the connections between these two spaces will preserve a modicum of orderliness. At the global level, the LIO’s expansion has been halted and the RBIO is in transition, even as it demonstrates elements of flexibility and resilience. But at the juncture of Europe and Eurasia, both the LIO and RBIO’s futures are profoundly uncertain. In both the short and the long term, the EU cannot afford to ignore this challenge.  

Since GLOBSEC opened its doors in 2008, many political leaders and officials have spoken at the Bratislava Forum, but unless I am mistaken, no French President. That was no doubt an anomaly. And it would be even more of an anomaly today, in the context of Russia’s war against neighbouring Ukraine when, quite simply, the future of our continent is at stake, and with much playing out in this region. This is particularly true at the cusp of a month that sums up the magnitude of our strategic challenges, with the European Political Community Summit in Chișinău tomorrow, then an important European Council meeting for the future of our Union in June, and last the NATO Summit in Vilnius. Before these milestones, I think it is worth explaining my thinking, with great freedom in the tone, when it comes to the moment which Europe is living on the geopolitical stage. Almost 20 years ago, our Union opened its gates to Slovakia and other countries freed from the Soviet grip. That was not merely an enlargement of our Union: it was the return to our family of those from whom we had been separated for too long. I do not believe there is a “Western” Europe and an “Eastern” Europe, an “old” Europe and a “new” Europe. That would mean perpetuating the artificial border imposed for decades by the Soviet Union. There is only one Europe. A single weave of intertwined histories and diversity, but with the will for geographical and geopolitical unity and to build, ultimately, a common narrative. I believe that is what unites us all behind this project, that does not erase our national identities and national projects, but rather enables us to conjugate them in an overarching narrative. Let us remember the last words of the director of the Hungarian press agency, just minutes before he was crushed by Russian artillery in November 1956: “We will die for Hungary and Europe”. The curtain was falling across our continent, and it was already our unity that was at stake. It announced decades of forced separation, decades of a “kidnapped West”, to borrow the excellent words of Milan Kundera that we can make our own today. And I would like to add, as I speak to those who are here today, that even after Slovakia and many other countries joined the Union, we did not always hear the voices you brought, calling for recognition of your painful memories and history. Some told you then that you were missing opportunities to keep quiet – but I believe we sometimes missed opportunities to listen. That time is over, and today, these voices must be all our voices. So my message is simple. In the times we are living in, we must not let the West be kidnapped a second time. We will not let Europe be kidnapped a second time. The challenges we face are considerable, with war at our borders. The war of aggression against Ukraine isultimately an extreme manifestation of a challenge to our European unity that has played out in the last fifteen years, and a show of fragility. Fifteen years of Russian attempts to overturn the whole European security architecture, to reshape it in its own terms. We all know the milestones: Vladimir Putin’s speech in Munich in 2007, the aggression against Georgia in 2008, that against Ukraine in 2014, and again against Ukraine in 2022, and the rampant transformation of Belarus into a vassal state. Ultimately, what Russia demands, and what it sought to codify in the draft treaties it brandished on the eve of its invasion just over a year ago, is the weakening and neutralization of Ukraine and, ultimately, for a whole part of Europe to be made vulnerable in return for minor and largely unverifiable commitments. In this context, it is true, we failed to provide a European response, or to organize an architecture to protect ourselves, via the OSCE or the other projects envisaged at the time, against these attacks. As for NATO’s response, it was too much or too little: perspectives offered to Ukraine and Georgia, exposing the two countries to Russia’s wrath, but which did not protect them, and which came with guarantees that were far too feeble. And we lacked coherence as Europeans. So we provided insufficient guarantees to certain countries at our borders. We did not engage with Russia in a security dialogue for ourselves. Ultimately, we delegated this dialogue to NATO, which was probably not the best means to succeed. And at the same time, we did not break free of dependencies on Russia, particularly for energy, and indeed we even continued to increase them. So we must be clear-sighted about ourselves. We were not coherent in our approach. In coming here, I am aware of the experience many of you had during the Soviet period, and I know why everyone is determined, for good reasons, to ensure that does not happen again. That is my commitment too. Every country has the right to choose its alliances, and opting for freedom, democracy and transparency is never a threat to one’s neighbours. And as I saw powerfully, with the major G7 partners in Japan a few days ago, the foundation of the Charter of the United Nations remains sovereign equality: it has never been limited sovereignty. And it is in this respect too that what is happening in Ukraine today is not merely a European issue, but an issue for the international order and global peace. What the war in Ukraine shows is not merely that these attempts to subjugate part of Europe are illegal and unacceptable, but also that, in the harsh light of power balances, they are now unrealistic. In Kyiv, in Kharkiv and in Kherson, whole Russian armies have retreated, before being squandered in Bakhmut and elsewhere for the slightest of gains. The war is far from over, but I believe I can say today that one thing is clear: Ukraine will not be conquered. And now what was, a little over a years ago, a “special operation”, has led to date to a geopolitical failure and to the accession of Finland and soon, I hope, Sweden, to NATO. And so a closure of Russia’s access to the Baltic, and also heightened distrust among all neighbours, as well as a loss of standing for Russia in the concert of nations due to failure to respect the Charter. The situation on the ground gives Russia no credibility to seek by threat what already no right could justify. There is no place in Europe for imperial fantasies. It is very important to recognize that, and that is a precondition, in my eyes, for any future organization of peace. How we got here says several things about us. We must remember them as we seek to build the future. The first is the strength of our alliance: from the very first days of the fighting, NATO ensured the security of its borders most effectively. Article V played its full role, and I am convinced it holds Russia at bay, and in this respect we owe gratitude to our American allies who have provided a major share of material and intelligence support to Ukraine. In December 2019, I made a severe comment about NATO, highlighting the divisions that, at the time, as you will recall, were present within it between Turkey and several other powers, describing it as “brain dead”. I dare say today that Vladimir Putin has jolted it back with the worst of electroshock. The second thing that strikes me is the exemplary role of the European Union, too. We have been united, swift and clear and I believe that very few, starting with Russia, expected the European Union to respond in such a way: €67 billion in total, including €14 billion in military aid, sanctions and emergency assistance, as well as taking in millions of refugees. We completely and profoundly reorganized our energy system, which was highly dependent on Russia, in just a few months. And that was a demonstration of unity and strategic clarification. It happened under constraint, and should have been done sooner, but we must be satisfied. I also welcome the adoption of a clear doctrine. Europe has chosen strategic autonomy and European sovereignty. And the Versailles Agenda that we defined in March 2022 is ultimately a long way from what people described five years ago as a French whim when I talked of European sovereignty at the Sorbonne. So I believe the second thing that we should take away from recent months, in addition to the strength of the alliance, is the unity and the ideological clarification of our European Union, and its clarity in terms of military, humanitarian and economic support to Ukraine. France has played its full role in this respect, and I can discuss this further during question time. I will also come back to the subject in the coming weeks and months. However, this collective effort will be for nothing if it is not sustained. Looking forward now, in light of what I just said, and of analysis of the past and the situation in recent months, I would like to imagine our future. Moscow must certainly be very tempted to hope that, where its armies have failed, time will come to the rescue, perhaps when elections are held or as public opinion fatigues. I think we need to be very clear about what we have to do in the short and medium terms. Today, we need to help Ukraine, by every means, to conduct an effective counteroffensive. That is essential. That is what we are doing, and we need to step up our efforts, as what is at stake in the coming months is the very possibility of chosen and therefore lasting peace. The second thing is that we need to be very clear about what we call peace. Peace in Ukraine and on our continent cannot mean a ceasefire that enshrines the current situation, re-creating a frozen conflict and, if you will, accepting the seizure of territory in violation of all the principles of international law. Because ultimately, such a frozen conflict would definitely be the war of tomorrow or the day after, and would weaken us all. Only one peace is possible: a peace that respects international law and is chosen by the victims of the aggression: the Ukrainian people. That is a peace that can last and that therefore respects these balances, bolstered by, and I will come back to this, credible guarantees. And so we need to prepare very clear-sightedly for this conflict and I will come back to this, credible guarantees. And so we need to prepare very clear-sightedly for this conflict to last, and for the consequences of the conflict to last. I hope the coming months will enable us, following a victorious counteroffensive, to bring everybody back to the negotiating table and build lasting peace, under the conditions I just set out, chosen by Ukraine and in accordance with international law. But we will have years and years of reconstruction and a humanitarian situation to manage, as we know already. We must also, to be credible in Russia’s eyes, put ourselves in a position, ourselves and our public opinions, to support Ukraine longer-term in a high- and medium-intensity conflict. That means working with all our partners to review and re-analyse this summer the very nature of our support and what is needed to achieve the result I have described. At the same time, we need to convince the global South, because there is, in the context I have discussed, a fragility that we must be clear about. It is that today, while thanks to the engagement of Japan and a few others, this is not simply a Western war, many emerging powers consider that it is not their war. Even if they recognize that it is an aggression and contrary to the Charter of the United Nations, they barely murmur it, because they consider that their main problems are fighting poverty within their borders, that they are subject to enough constraints already, that there are double standards, that their own security is not addressed, that they are facing the consequences of this war head-on, and that when their own security was threatened, we did not respond with the same vigour. We must heed that message. Otherwise, the risk is that all these countries will be seized upon by others to build an alternative international order and become, by choice, clear-sightedly or in fact, by composition, objective allies of a sort of Russian way. And so we must absolutely, as we make efforts to support the preparation of lasting peace, do this work to convince the countries of the South and several emerging countries, and thus re-engage in the assistance that we have a duty to provide them in the clarification of our agenda. Now that I have said all that, let us look at our future. The question we face is ultimately what future is possible for our Europe, in the long term, and how our Europe can rebuild lasting stability, peace and security for itself. We have responded very well in the short term, thanks to the commitment of States. NATO has shown its credibility on its Eastern Flank, and the European Union through its efforts. But is that enough in the long term? Today, we should be pleased to have an American Administration that has stood with us, that has made as many efforts as the Europeans, and that very clearly increases our collective credibility. We should be grateful and thankful to the United States of America. Will that Administration always be the same? Nobody can tell, and we cannot delegate our collective security and our stability to the choices of American voters in the coming years. At the same time, the Americans have been asking us for years, each successive Administration, to better share the burden and to make greater efforts for our security and our neighbourhood. And so yes, a Europe of Defence, a European pillar within NATO, is essential. That is the only way to be credible for ourselves, to be credible in the long term, to reduce our dependency and to shoulder our legitimate share of the burden. Because, whether we like it or not, our geography will not change. We will live in the same place, and Russia will remain Russia, with the same borders and the same geography. We need to build a space that, tomorrow, must be this space of lasting peace, because the rights of the Ukrainian people will have been respected and international law will have been restored. That space must allow us to cohabit as peacefully as possible with Russia – but with no naivety. I repeat, this project is not one of naivety with regard to Russia – I have never had such naivety – but it is aboutbnot denying geography and not considering that we should make our choices as if there was an ocean between Russia and us. And my goal is in no case to try to replace NATO with something else. I want to debunk all these ideas here because I know how they can be repeated and distorted. I do not want to replace NATO with a sort of Franco-German condominium. No. I believe that it is a broad, powerful Europe, with countries like yours, like Poland and many others, that need to play their role in this Europe of Defence, a Europe that increasingly ensures its own security and addresses its own neighbourhood issues. To do so, we now, urgently, need to speed up our strategic choices and the implementation of what we have started to decide. And that agenda is part of what we must build for this common destiny. Firstly, we need to forge a more sovereign European capacity when it comes to energy, technology and military capabilities. That is part of the Versailles Agenda we launched in March 2022. We now need to swiftly, and very tangibly, implement that agenda: meaning we should increasingly build European, buy European and innovate European. When it comes to military capabilities, that also requires a national effort that we have to make. France did not wait for this war. We stepped up our efforts with the military programming law in my first term and we are currently increasing it by €100 billion compared to the previous period, to reach a total of €413 billion under the current draft law. Alongside the prospect of reaching 2% of GDP, we also need to achieve tangible goals, with deployments and real capabilities to ensure the credibility of this collective effort, as France did a few days after Russia’s aggression against Ukraine by deploying forces to Romania. Less than eight days later, we had hundreds of soldiers in Romania. This is about the credibility of a European Defence within NATO. later, we had hundreds of soldiers in Romania. This is about the credibility of a European Defence within NATO. But a sovereign choice is needed, with capabilities, expenditure and deployment mechanisms. This strategic autonomy and military sovereignty also requires an industrial effort. We have clearly understood, in recent months, while emptying our arsenals, that we own with certainty only what we produce. We must learn lessons from this and act accordingly. And when I see certain countries increase their defence spending to massively buy non-European, I simply say: “you are creating yourselves your own problems for the future”. We need to use this opportunity to produce more in Europe. We have been inventive together, creating something new concerning ammunition, a great progress in support of Ukraine. We need to go much further. We need to harmonize our European standards, because there is too much competition between us. There are far more different standards between Europeans than there are within the United States of America. But in doing so, we must develop a genuinely European defence technological and industrial base in all interested countries, and deploy fully sovereign equipment at European level. We need to reduce our dependence and we need to continue building strategic proximity in this collective effort. I have in mind, of course, the European Intervention Initiative we launched five years ago, and that is still every bit as relevant today. Several of you accompanied us in fighting terrorism in Africa, showing that solidarity is two-way, and for that we are grateful. Even if the French presence in Africa is changing, the need to continue to be engaged together remains. And therefore we need to explore possibilities for cooperation in all these spaces and build capacity among Europeans by building on NATO’s interoperability, yet going beyond that, knowing how to engage together common action forces in new theatres of operation in our neighbourhoods, but also in cyber space, in space, in maritime areas, etc. More broadly, as you can see, this first pillar is, ultimately, to strengthen our military sovereignty. This means that we must take a look at the situation in which we live. It is up to us, as Europeans, in the future, to have our own capacity to defend ourselves and to deal with our neighbourhood. And in this regard, let’s not only focus on capabilities to manage past or current wars or to manage conflicts that are simply those that are emerging today. Dealing with our neighbourhood does not concern our Eastern Flank alone. It also concerns the Mediterranean, the Eastern Mediterranean and Southern Mediterranean regions, and new spaces of conflict including cyber space, space and maritime areas. They are at least as important as land wars on our continent that we have seen re-emerge because of Russian aggression and that we thought were disappearing, but that do not dispel the new forms of conflict that will grow in number. Therefore, let us have this strategic lucidity to prepare future conflicts that are bound to happen. In addition to this focus on sovereignty that is therefore European, technological and military, our second challenge is to see to it that Europe becomes a fully-fledged player, instead of being on the receiving end of strategic evolutions in its environment. In these last few years, I have been struck by the fact that we Europeans have not changed our status of geopolitical minority. It’s very hard for a French President to say this so bluntly. This generates irritation and annoyance. But I had the experience of going to a NATO Summit with another US Administration that liked us less, and which, with hardly any notice and in coordinating things with Europeans in a very bureaucratic way, informed us that it was withdrawing from the INF Treaty saying that “the Russians are no longer complying with it”. In 2019, we Europeans discovered a treaty that covered us against missiles that landed on our soil, and that Russian non-compliance and the US decision could leave us exposed and somehow naked, because we were not a party to it. The same thing happened when Russia methodically suspended implementation of the New Start Treaty last February, then clearly violated the NATO-Russia Founding Act in March, etc. I say this very clearly, we Europeans must be active players of these treaties that cover our security and build the future framework. If we delegate our role to others, Russia, the United States or I don’t know who, we will never be credible players. And therefore, yes, we must build these diplomatic solutions for the future.  To do so, we must first fully control arms, which refers back to what I was saying about our industrial lucidity. Europe was absent from treaties such as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the New Start Treaty, despite the fact that its security was at stake. Therefore, it must now weigh in. And it will have much more credibility if it is a player, and not a spectator, in these balances. That is why I called on Europeans to acquire a deep-strike capability, which will bolster our security, and also give us a card to play in all future negotiations. I wish to launch discussions with the European partners that are interested in exploring cooperation in this area. The second, which is related, is air-defence. The war in Ukraine has shown its vital importance. It’s a strategic issue before being an industrial issue , but very clearly, it must build on a balance of offense and defense. It should clearly take nuclear deterrence into account. That is why, as I have pledged in Munich,  a conference will be held on this issue on 19 June in Paris. I invite all defence ministers of the European countries represented here today to attend. It will give us an opportunity to pursue our work. The third, more broadly, is the way in which Europe can secure its environment. We must build these new treaties as fully-fledged players around the table. And in doing so, let us be very clear, the issue of security with our neighbours will be raised. We will undoubtedly discuss this again during question time. But securing our environment is a key component of this credibility and of a Europe with a full role. We should provide Ukraine with solid security guarantees to put an end to repeated destabilizing actions. If Russia wants to continue destabilizing Europe, it must be ready to pay the geopolitical price. I have listened to all of our debates, but we would be strange geopolitical players if we were to say “we are massively arming Ukraine, but we do not want to include it in any strategic security debates.” I was reading something Henry Kissinger said recently, who we all know is not the least experienced diplomat. He was right when he said: In a year, all those who, with good reason, have helped Ukraine, have made it such a powerful player that it would be best to bring it back into these existing security architectures. I tend to share this vision. Therefore, if we want credible lasting peace, if we want to have influence with respect to Russia, and if we want to be credible vis-à-vis Ukrainians, we must give Ukraine the means to prevent any additional aggression and we must include Ukraine, in a structure, in a credible security architecture, including for ourselves. That is why I am in favour – and this will be the subject of collective discussions in the coming weeks ahead of the Vilnius Summit – of providing tangible security guarantees to Ukraine, for two reasons: Ukraine today is protecting Europe and provides security guarantees to Europe. The second reason is that Ukraine is now armed to such a point that it is in our interest for it to have credible security guarantees with us in a multilateral framework, with multilateral support or bilateral support. This is what we will discuss. We must today be much more ambitious than we sometimes are in discussions on this topic. Over the medium term, it is clearly our Europe’s stability and security that we will need to build on the basis of this solid peace in Ukraine, of these security guarantees in our neighbourhood – and tomorrow the question of Belarus and others will be raised – and of a transparent framework of trust making it possible to avoid the escalation of capabilities in the future to exit, at some point, this state of war when peace will be negotiated and stable. Yet we have armed our Eastern Flank so much and Russia has deployed so many arms that we will have to rebuild - I am talking here about the medium term - a framework for de-escalation. But it will be up to Europeans at that time to really build it in a transparent framework in which we must be players of these treaties, we must be around the table in order to negotiate, and around the table in order to determine their effective compliance and their evolution, as opposed to what has been done in the past. That is why, within this framework, we must also think of a wider Europe and I will end my remarks with these points. This Europe is one that I wanted to propose just over a year ago in Strasbourg, that of a European Political Community. Why? Because we need to consider our Europe, not only from a security standpoint, within the framework of NATO, and not simply within the framework of the European Union. That is why the European Political Community does not compete with NATO, nor does it replace enlargement. It is a framework for strategic discussion needed by all countries to build, I hope, an innovative and new institutional architecture, regarding energy and interconnection, mobility, security, strategy, and coming up with common solutions without waiting for enlargement to be completed and without merely taking a NATO-based approach. We will pursue this at Chișinău and we will express our willingness to go as far as possible in this format where cool-headed discussions can be held and topics of common interest can emerge. Among other topics, I will have an opportunity to propose the extension of the European Cyber Reserve to include all EPC countries because it is in our interest to be inclusive in order to safeguard our security. In this regard, the European Political Community is a geopolitical lab, if you will, and we need to continue down this path. But as I have said, it does not replace enlargement. For us, the question is not whether we should enlarge – we answered that question a year ago – nor when we should enlarge – for me, as swiftly as possible – but rather how we should do it. Several of you may remember that France advocated a change in the enlargement method in 2018. However, ultimately the war in Ukraine and today’s worsening situation in several areas of the Western Balkans have shown us one thing, which is that our current method is not working. Yet I believe there are two mistakes we should avoid making. The first is to tell ourselves that the situation is worsening, stay as we are, and give hope to Western Balkans, Ukraine and Moldova, and then procrastinate. We are very familiar with this tactic, we’ve been using it for a long time. If we do this, I think that we would actually give more space to those who want to destabilize Europe and I think that we would wake up in a few years to a situation that is considerably worse. A second mistake would be to say “let’s enlarge, it’s our duty and in our geopolitical interest, I think we need to anchor Moldova, Ukraine and the Western Balkans to our Europe. Let’s do it. We’ll reform later”. This would also be disastrous because it would create a powerless Europe, burdened at times by heavy bureaucratic procedures, slow, and with divergent trajectories. You can clearly see that in Europe there are ultimately two deep forces. They are both respectable. One that says: we need more geopolitical unity, to anchor the Western Balkans, Moldova and Ukraine to this Europe. It needs to be united. It needs to think of itself in this space in terms of security, geopolitics, energy and migration. On the other side, we have had a preview, but we need to coordinate economic policies to a greater extent, have more requirements regarding the rule of law and it creates a somewhat centrality that some States do not always accept. We need to think about this paradox, which is that our European Union was not designed to be enlarged at will. It was designed to always be deepened and to move towards a more integrated project. We need – due to the times in which we are living and the fact that everything is happening at the same time to a certain extent – but that’s how it goes – a very great moment of theoretical and geopolitical clarification of our European Union. Yes, it should be enlarged. Yes, it should be rethought very extensively with regard to its governance and its aims. Yes, it should innovate, undoubtedly to invent several formats and clarify each of their aims. It is the only way to meet the legitimate expectation of the Western Balkans, Moldova and Ukraine, which should become part of the European Union, and to maintain effectiveness in the geopolitical field, but also with regard to the climate, rule of law, and the economic integration the EU is now experiencing. And therefore, we need to re-articulate and rethink the balance of intergovernmental versus communitarian, and also understand what happens in Member States when they no longer understand Europe and the path that it is taking now and for the time being. And we will be working on this with several of our partners in thecoming weeks. I have already spoken too long. Please accept my apologies. These were the points I wanted to discuss. And therefore, as you have understood, our ability to build a just and lasting peace in Ukraine without any weakness is at stake, along with the future of our continent. I truly believe this will happen in the months and the two or three years ahead. Not much more. I believe Europe has experienced a conceptual and strategic awakening. But is must learn all the possible lessons from the past for itself and its neighbourhood. In this context, I think you’ve understood that is why I’m here. You can count on France. France is sometimes seen as being arrogant or faraway from or not interested in this part of Europe. As for me, I visited every EU Member State during my first term in office. Every one, because I considered that the European Union is not just Brussels, but all the capitals. It is this constantly plural dialogue and the absence of hegemony. But you can count on France over the long term. I also know that France can count on you so that we can together build a Europe that is stronger, more sovereign and more capable of ensuring its own security. And this cannot be done with just one, two or three countries. We will do it with all 27 and even more, by including in this strategic debate all those who will join us tomorrow in Chișinău, in this capacity to have frank, open, far-reaching, powerful, ambitious dialogue, by accepting our differences, respecting them and clearly setting out our aims. Ultimately, let us recognize together that our Europe must be a great democratic, diverse, but united power. Thank you very much

I. ABSTENTION. KEYS AND EFFECTS In view of the early elections in Spain, it seems appropriate to review the political situation in Europe through a series of analyses that will cover the current health of political formations and movements, strategies and conditioning circumstances. I will begin this week with a transversal aspect: participation/abstention. 1. PREVIOUS CONSIDERATIONS a) Scope of analysis. Before proceeding to the presentation of the data and the consequent analysis, it is convenient to make a series of methodological considerations and some clarifications. I have established two geopolitical reference areas: -the first, by proximity and common legal-political framework, the European Union (27 countries); -the next is made up of three countries outside the EU but members of EFTA (Norway, Iceland and Switzerland) and, of course, the United Kingdom, which until just a couple of years ago was part of the Brussels club. All of them have economic, cultural and even military ties with the EU (except Switzerland).I leave out the Balkan states aspiring to join the EU (Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo) and those belonging to the former USSR, because their political reality is very different. In any case, their participation data are similar to those of the ex-communist countries of the EU.In order to make comparisons, I have considered in the first instance the turnout rates of the most recent election in each state. But to provide a broader perspective, I will also refer to developments since 1990, when liberal democracies were established in the former communist countries (the ex-Soviet Baltic states, the central-eastern satellite countries of Moscow and the two former Yugoslav republics). b) The French case  I will focus on general elections, which not only establish parliamentary majorities, but also prefigure the respective governments. But the case of France is particular. As it is a presidential Republic (established in the 1958 Constitution), the head of State is also the head of the Executive and, among other powers, appoints the Prime Minister. In 2022, the difference between the turnout in the presidential and legislative elections was over 26 percentage points, the highest gap in the current political system. The most obvious cause, but not the only one, is the overloaded calendar. In recent years, the two elections have been held consecutively with a span of barely two months. Moreover, in both cases there are two rounds of elections, which allows us to think of the "fatigue effect". For governance purposes, the presidential elections are the most influential in defining the political course of the country, which is why they will have priority in the analysis. In any case, in order to be more rigorous, I will take into account the participation in the legislative elections. c) Compulsory voting  I must also recall that in five of the countries followed, voting is nominally compulsory, although it is a formality of relative practical importance. These are Luxembourg, Belgium, Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria. Failure to comply with this civic obligation is punishable by fines and, in some cases, minor prison sentences. It may be thought that this distorts the participation figures. But, in reality, the regulation has little practical effect, at least in the Mediterranean countries, let alone in Bulgaria, which has the second highest abstention rate. In Western countries, a certain bias in electoral behavior must be taken into account and should be noted.  d) COVID effect? On the other hand, another factor that, a priori, could have had a negative impact on electoral participation was the pandemic. However, I have compared the results of the elections held during the health emergency with the previous ones and we have not observed a general downward trend. With one exception, Romania, where abstention increased by almost eight points. But this must be attributed more to the deterioration of the political system than to the deterrent effect of COVID-19. 2. PARTICIPATION DISPARITY BY GEOPOLITICAL REGIONS The first thing that stands out in the review of the data is the wide gap existing between the countries with the highest and the lowest participation.  Even if we exclude the first two because of the formal compulsory nature of voting (Luxembourg and Belgium), the gap between them is about forty percentage points. For purely indicative purposes, I have extracted the average voting in the most recent elections in each country under study (considering the presidential elections in France for the above-mentioned reasons). The figure is 68.05%.The other distinguishable element is the geographic proximity of the states according to their turnout levels.    ​Of the twelve countries that exceeded the European average turnout in the most recent elections, six belong to the West-Atlantic zone, five to the Nordic zone (i.e. all of them), only one to the South (Malta) and two to the East-Central zone (Slovenia and Hungary).  But if we raise the bar just one point above 70%, all the states that exceeded it were in the West-Atlantic or Nordic zones. The exception is obviously Malta, a very small country with a population of less than 400,000 inhabitants (like any populous district of a large European city) and an electoral system that favors a two-party system. High turnout is common in small political entities. On the other hand, the 17 countries with turnout equal to or less than 71% are located in the other two differentiated zones: central-eastern and southern. This geographical selection is also observed if we introduce into the analysis the electoral evolution since 1990.The pronounced drop in turnout in the central-eastern countries is very relevant. We divide this block of countries into three graphs for the sake of clarity.   The political enthusiasm after the collapse of the communist regimes, expressed in turnout rates above 80% in the first years of democracy, has been extinguished. The average for the period does not reach 63% and that of the most recent elections does not even reach half of the electorate. Three decades after its incorporation into the liberal order, it does not seem that its citizens have been satisfied with electoral democracy.  The same downward trend is observed in the southern countries. With the exception of the aforementioned Maltese exception, since the early 1990s the decline has been enormous: 27 points in Cyprus, 24 in Italy, 20 in Greece, 16 in Portugal (which is now at the bottom of the list of southern Europeans) and 10 in Spain.    In contrast, participation has remained at a generally stable and high level in the Nordic countries. It has declined very slightly in Sweden and somewhat more in Iceland, the country that suffered, along with Greece, the most frightening episode of the financial crisis of the past decade in Europe. In contrast, in the other three countries (Denmark, Finland and Norway) participation has increased over this period.    In the western countries, turnout has remained at levels slightly below the Nordic average, but in any case, it has been stable and high, above 75%. France narrowly missed this level in the presidential elections and suffered a very sharp decline in the legislative elections. The figures were somewhat lower in the Anglo-Saxon countries, slightly in Ireland (2.5 points) and more notable in the United Kingdom, with a loss of 10 points.    3. POSSIBLE CAUSES OF PARTICIPATION/ABSTENTION There is a lot of research, work and also speculation and self-interested manipulation about the reasons for voting or not voting. I recommend the work of the IDEA Institute, Stockholm, which makes a very detailed follow-up of voting behavior around the world (https://www.idea.int).IDEA points out 16 factors that can influence participation, grouped in four blocks: - socio-economic (demographic dimension, population stability, economic development).- political (uncertainty about the electoral outcome, perception of the consequences of the elections, intensity of the campaigns, political fragmentation).- institutional (electoral system, whether or not voting is compulsory, concurrence of elections, ease or difficulty of voting, complexity of electoral procedures).- individual (age, education, political interest, civic awareness).For this paper, I have selected three indicators that can be relatively measurable and that, in some cases, combine the factors proposed by IDEA. They are the following: democratic health, relative economic potential of each country and social development. a) Democratic health  As a foundation for the strength of the formal democratic system, advocates of the liberal state cite strong institutions, clear rules of governance, low levels of corruption and sustained respect for the rules of the rule of law. One of the most commonly used indexes to measure these behaviors is that prepared by Transparency International. Certainly, this ranking presents an even picture of electoral participation.   Denmark and the Scandinavian countries are in the lead, followed by the Western-Atlantic countries, including Ireland, where, on the other hand, voting is slightly lower than in the other countries in their area.  On the other hand, the Mediterranean and Central-Eastern countries have lower transparency indexes, coinciding with their poorer voter turnout rates. Hungary under the ultra-nationalist Orbán stands out, whose negative score in transparency significantly worsens its result in electoral participation.There are two dissonant cases. The first is very striking. Estonia presents a very high transparency index in relation to electoral participation. Its small territorial dimension (45,000 km2) and its small population (1.3 million) only partly explain its specificity. The second is again Malta, which is in fifth place at the bottom despite its high turnout, which reinforces its exceptionality. b) Economic level In my perception, the factors that most decisively determine the level of participation are those of an economic and social nature.  We observe, in fact, that, in general, the subgroups established by geographic criteria are consolidated and reinforced under this other angle of consideration.  The countries with the highest HDI are the Western-Atlantic and Nordic countries, which have the lowest abstention rates. It is a circumstance, probably not by chance, that the two countries in the central-eastern and southern zone with the highest percentage of citizen voting (Slovenia and Malta) are those with the highest HDI in their respective zones. Here it is necessary to highlight two deviations with respect to electoral participation. Switzerland has the highest HDI in the world, despite its pronounced electoral abstention. And the United Kingdom, which surpasses Slovakia and Malta in human development, lags behind them in voter turnout.However, other benchmark indices modify this fixed picture of social development in Europe somewhat. Specifically, I am referring to the index of poverty and risk of social exclusion that has just been updated by the European Union, hence it only includes member countries.   The scale is composed in the opposite direction of the previous graphs. We observe that, contrary to the HDI, the countries with the worst results are not the same as those with low electoral participation, except for Romania and Bulgaria. Spain or Greece appear here in the worst positions, while the position of Portugal and Cyprus improves. The cases of France and Germany (in medium-low positions) or, on the contrary, of the Central European countries, which occupy the lowest risk of exclusion, are also striking. This is undoubtedly due to the effect of immigration. Immigrant populations are those who suffer the highest risk of exclusion and it is a group that, for the most part, does not have the right to vote; therefore, it does not increase the abstention rate.  4. BENEFICIARIES OF PARTICIPATION It is considered certain that a low level of participation, or a high level of abstention, generally favors the parties of the center-right spectrum. This consideration is supported by the generally more critical and nonconformist character of the left-wing electorate. From the conservative and liberal sectors, this and other traditional manifestations of the left are combated as part of the "cultural war" waged in the political arena. To better support the debate, we should review the data from the most recent elections held in each country.In the countries that registered an above-average turnout (68.05%) in the most recent elections, the most voted political options were the following: - Social Democrat: 6 (Belgium, Malta, Sweden, Germany, Finland and Denmark).- Liberal: 2 (Luxembourg and French presidential elections)- Conservative: 1 (Netherlands).- Conservative or identitarian nationalists: 1 (Hungary). As turnout decreases, the number of center-right or far-right political options that receive the most votes increases. In fact, below the average, only the socialists in Portugal and the left-wing nationalists (Sinn Feinn) in Ireland voted first. In the rest, conservative (5), conservative nationalist or identitarian (2) or liberal (1) parties won. On the other hand, if we take as a reference the average index for the entire period studied, we find that the center-left has not always won in the elections with the highest turnout. On the contrary, the center-right parties have won on twelve occasions, the social democrats on six, the liberals on five and the conservative nationalists on two. Even the now defunct communist parties triumphed in the early 1990s with very high participation rates.

With Trump's defeat at the end of 2020, the threat of national-populism was thought to have been contained. Russia's attack on Ukraine, with all the economic difficulties and uncertainties regarding European and global security, reinforced the perception that Putin's friends in Europe, namely populist nationalists, would have a harder time selling their proposals. NATO enlargement was pushed and capitalized on by supporters of the liberal order, whether conservative or social democratic. Some saw Marine Le Pen's defeat in May 2022 as the first confirmation of this downward trend.  Outside of Europe, Bolsonaro's embarrassing experience in Brazil was coming to an end, despite the desperate attempts of his supporters to disrupt Lula's inauguration, which crudely imitated the events of January 6th in America. The containment of the economic crisis after the initial months of panic over a possible energy shock, along with the advancement of Biden's "reconstructionist" agenda and the poor results achieved by the Trumpian Republicans in the US mid-term elections, seemed to dispel that threat. The stalling of Russia's special operation in Ukraine was another positive factor for liberal analysts. ONLY AN APPARENT SETBACK But alongside these "positive" signs, there were others of the opposite nature that suggested a more cautious evaluation. While Trump's protégés may have stumbled, the master himself, despite initial judicial setbacks, was strengthening his aspirations to return to the White House. His conservative rivals (DeSantis, Haley, etc.) were lagging far behind him in the polls, even though the presidential contest was still a long way off. Meanwhile, the Republicans were preparing for yet another hijacking of the political system with the artificial and irresponsible "debt ceiling" crisis (1), which had tied up President Biden's already limited political energy for weeks. The amicable understanding between Moscow and Beijing served as a compensation for the mistakes and incompetence displayed by the Kremlin and/or the Russian armed forces in Ukraine. In Europe, successive elections have been contradicting the predictions of a decline in national-populist enthusiasm. On the contrary, the far-right has been actively asserting its influence in a region that had long been resistant to their ideas: Scandinavia. The Social Democrats' narrow victory in Sweden and Finland has paved the way for coalition governments between the conservative right and xenophobic nationalists. In Italy, the comeback of the conservative triad was completed last fall, but this time led by the most explicitly nationalist party, the successor of fascism: the Fratelli (Brothers). Giorgia Melloni became the first far-right leader to head a government in Western Europe since World War II. In recent months, there has been a growing perception that national-populism, once considered a critically ill patient, is in robust health. This has raised concerns among academics and liberal analysts, prompting calls to strengthen centrist alternatives once again. The triumph of New Democracy in Greece (which will be further strengthened by the June rerun elections) should be noted, apparently due to the efforts of the conservative-liberal right wing represented by the European People's Party. However, Mitsotakis, despite his cosmopolitan image, liberal economic policies, and American education, has pursued a migration policy similar to that advocated by the far-right across Europe, with little opposition from his European counterparts. A similar narrative was once employed by Sarkozy in France. In December of last year, his party, Les Républicains, elected its new leader. Éric Ciotti emerged as the most extremist candidate in the race, bearing little difference from Marine Le Pen and hardly any from Éric Zemmour, the xenophobic propagandist with no political affiliation who failed in the last presidential election. Macron's challenges stemming from the severe social crisis caused by the pension reform have given rise to the resurgence of the ailing traditional right-wing party, now under the influence of its far-right faction. In Germany, polls indicate a rise of the xenophobic Alternative for Germany (AfD). And in Central Europe, which is so influenced by German dynamics, national-populism is not letting up either. It continues to hold firm in Hungary and the Czech Republic and may revalidate its dominance in Poland this autumn, although the ruling PiS (Law and Justice) is reinforcing its autocratic actions with the excuse of the war in Ukraine. The latter is the great exception as far as Russia is concerned. The ultra-conservative Polish nationalists of PiS are the most fervent enemies of Moscow in Europe, for well-known historical reasons, hence they have only empathized with right-wing populists alien to any pro-Russian fickleness. ERDOGAN, CHAMPION OF TRIUMPHANT NATIONALISM The latest election results at the two ends of the Mediterranean, Spain and Turkey, confirm the consolidation of this trend. Erdogan has won with an unqualified commitment to populist nationalism, in this case compatible with a pragmatic harmony with the Kremlin. The average Turk, and certainly the most popular strata, care little that their President is on good terms with Putin, even at the cost of irritating his formal NATO allies. Only Turkey's interests count, and that means an autonomous foreign policy, free of servility and dependence. This is Erdogan's discourse, together with other levers that have worked well for him in the past: the fallacious exploitation of the Kurdish terrorist danger, the manipulation of economic levers, the abusive use of the instruments of the State and other tricks typical of authoritarian regimes. Nothing has deprived him of obtaining in the second round what he lacked in the first round: the support of the extremist residual sectors with which to complete an electorate addicted to strong manners, to supreme authority, to the illusion of a country jealous of not obeying anyone's impositions. A liberal Turkish analyst, Soner Cagaptay, resident in the United States, affirms that Erdogan has assumed the "model of Putin's authoritarian regime", and points out its main characteristics: persecution of political opponents, absolute control of the media, emptying of the real functions of the institutions, purge of the apparatus of power, etc. In this ever closer confluence, according to Cagaptay, Erdogan's gratitude to his Russian colleague for having been the only world leader of weight to support him after the attempted military coup in 2016 has played a major role. The fact that the two countries have sometimes different geostrategic interests does not detract from a more than fruitful diplomatic and security cooperation. Erdogan sells drones to Ukraine, but does not participate in the economic siege against Russia and mediates in the crucial issue of Ukrainian grain exports. Where the West sees contradictions and even disloyalty, most Turks appreciate independence, security and firmness. The opposition has failed through a combination of bungling (misreading Erdogan's popularity) and impotence (stifling exercise of power). The challenger Kilicdaroglu believed that by imbuing his discourse with a nationalism of occasion and incorporating into his grand coalition extremist forces suspicious of the current President, he could attract a sector dissatisfied with the economic crisis and authoritarian abuses. This has not been the case. Once again, the copies work worse than the original.  AYUSO, BETWEEN CONSERVATISM AND NATIONAL-POPULISM The recent Spanish electoral result has its own profiles, as all of them, but it is not alien to this new growing trend of national-populism. And not only because of the rise of VOX, after a period in which it seemed to regress (like its counterparts in the rest of the West). Perhaps the great winner of the regional elections has been Isabel Díaz Ayuso. Despite being the leader in Madrid of the Popular Party (of conservative-liberal line on the European board, like the French Ciotti), her style of government, politics and propaganda is very similar to right-wing populism, although she is careful not to repeat the xenophobic clichés of VOX.  The relationship with his adversaries resembles the one practiced by Trump, because of his direct, apparently uncomplicated, confrontational registers and without the slightest concern for liberal political correctness. Like the former hotelier president, he had no qualms about stirring up the shadow of the "pucherazo" in the days leading up to the elections, just in case things went wrong. The president of Madrid is similar to Giorgia Meloni in her repugnance for ideological subtleties, but her discourse is more astute. Ayuso uses plain language, sometimes populachero, to show that she is not afraid to fight with the left in a priori adverse terrain. Against all evidence, he defends his management of essential public services, which he has significantly weakened. Meloni is already doing so, without delay. With Erdogan he coincides in brazenly using the invented complicity of his rivals with the "terrorists and/or separatists" (Kurds or Basques and Catalans, as the case may be), in order to discredit them. These are simplistic and fallacious messages, which count on the complacency of most of the media, hence they are effective, in times of tribulation and crisis, of exaggerated international threats and social anxieties derived from the effects of the pandemic. 

Kosovo was the last in the series of wars that destroyed Yugoslavia. More specifically, it was the conflict that condemned Serbia as the declared loser in a process of destruction unprecedented on the continent since 1945. The crisis of the unifying communist system after Tito's death coincided with the terminal paralysis of the Soviet system (of which it was not a part militarily and politically). Combative nationalism prevailed over liberal democracy as a mobilizing reference point for populations bereft of guidance and leadership. Many of the communist leaders, but also dissidents and opponents converted to the emerging nationalism.  Although Western historiography and political narrative tend to point to the Serb leadership as the main perpetrators of the tragedy, the truth is that the others were not innocent in the tragedy. The pro-Serb performance of the Federal Army (not surprisingly, the majority of the officer corps was Serb) only partly explains this biased analysis. The apparent Serb military superiority helped create a narrative of victimhood among the other minorities, which filtered through the media and changed an initially, if not neutral, then more cautious Western position. In Kosovo, the perception of Serb responsibility was greater, if anything, since it was not a republic but a province of Serbia itself, but with a majority ethnic Albanian and Muslim population. Ethnic confrontations began to develop in Kosovo in the early 1980s, and in Kosovo, the Serb defeat was sealed when Milosevic tried to put down the Albanian armed revolt with blood and fire, provoking NATO bombing and, as a result, the subsequent fall of the regime. Western support for Kosovo's independence was never unanimous (Spain is one of the countries that has not recognized the new state) and has remained controversial in the quarter century since the end of the war. The UCK, a guerrilla organization that opposed Belgrade, committed excesses and crimes comparable, at its level, to those perpetrated by the Serbs. The previous Yugoslav wars were replicated in Kosovo, with all their arsenal of manipulations, deceptions, falsehoods, and simplifications. In these almost twenty-five years, Kosovo has not had an easy life. Serbia has never admitted the amputation of a part of its national territory, which is precisely the most sacred because the collective imagination considers it to be the cradle of the nation. A PULSE IN THE NORTH The majority Serb population in northern provinces of Kosovo decided to boycott the municipal elections, fed up with the fact that the promised autonomy agreed in 2013 has still not arrived a decade later. Nevertheless, the central authorities went ahead with the electoral process. Turnout did not reach 4 per cent. At the end of May, the five elected councilors, all Kosovar Albanians from different parties, hastily took office but faced massive opposition from Serb activists outside the town hall (1). A fierce battle ensued, during which approximately 40 soldiers from the Western peacekeeping force (KFOR) were injured as they attempted to separate the protesters from the aggressive Kosovo Albanian police, as reported by the BBC  Faced with the high risk of escalation, Macron, Scholz and Borrell exerted pressure on the Serbian and Kosovar leaders to address the crisis and urged the latter to repeat the elections under conditions acceptable to the Serbs. Pristina promptly agreed. Washington took further action. Ambassador Hovenier announced the cancellation of Kosovo's participation in upcoming military exercises. Not only that, but he also threatened to "cease all efforts to help Kosovo gain recognition from those countries that have not yet done so and to encourage its integration into international organizations"  Rarely have the Americans taken such against Pristina. They were particularly frustrated by the lack of coordination with KFOR in containing Serb protests. The new US assertiveness has two main motives: one local and one regional.  The current Prime Minister of Kosovo is Albin Kurti, a prominent member of the left-wing faction of Albanian dissidence. He is a determined leader with little inclination for diplomatic compromises. During his activist days, he defied Belgrade's amnesty decree and refused to leave prison, as he did not recognize the authority of his jailers who had offered clemency. After Kosovo gained independence, he became a staunch opponent of corruption and the authoritarian tendencies within the Kosovar Democratic Party and other formations inherited from the former KLA guerrillas. Kurti is regarded as an uncompromising adversary by the Serbs, but his unwavering stance may unexpectedly benefit Belgrade, as highlighted by a Croatian media outlet in relation to the current crisism. VUCIC'S DOUBLE GAME The key regional issue revolves around the situation in Serbia, Moscow's strongest ally in the region. Following Milosevic's rule, the country experienced years of significant instability. After a brief period of leaning towards the West with a liberal orientation, a neo-nationalist regime took control. Essentially, Milosevic's successors managed to regain power that they had never completely lost. The current president, Aleksandar Vucic, previously served as the Minister of Communication in his previous government. The party he leads, known as the "progressive" SNS, has consistently achieved overwhelming absolute majorities. Vucic has employed constant propaganda and manipulation to circumvent Western opposition, intimidate liberal opposition groups, and suppress the weakened left. In relation to Kosovo, Vucic has adopted a nationalist role, albeit without unnecessary excesses. He has effectively utilized a combative and vindictive rhetoric (it is worth noting that the SNS also holds the majority in the Serb-Kosovar districts), while presenting himself as a proponent of dialogue and negotiation when dealing with European and American counterparts. This policy of double-dealing is not entirely fictional. Vucic, much like Milosevic in his time, is not an ideological nationalist. Nationalism serves as a tool for mobilization and control for him and his associates. Despite the deteriorating relations between Russia and the West, Vucic has managed to maintain a reasonable balance. He aspires to overcome the informal EU membership veto while maintaining privileged economic, energy, and trade ties with Moscow, Serbia's main ally in Europe by far. On the domestic front, Vucic has effectively managed his political, institutional, social, and media dominance with minimal difficulties. However, problems have recently started to accumulate, as is often the case in countries with authoritarian tendencies when least expected. Two separate incidents of deadly shootings, perpetrated by individuals with no organized affiliation or identified political motivations, have sparked an unprecedented social protest movement. These isolated yet tragic incidents have unleashed long-repressed social unrest. A significant public demonstration caught the government off guard. Vucic attempted a retaliatory response that proved disappointing to his own people. The public is on the brink of rebellion, but it remains challenging for the opposition to significantly weaken Vucic. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, Milorad Dodik, the leader of the Serbs, openly defies the central authorities in Sarajevo. He continuously threatens secession and makes decisions that exceed his jurisdiction, according to the European monitoring office. Dodik is a close ally of Putin's and maintains a fluid relationship with Vucic. However, each leader has their own agenda, and their priorities do not always align. The conflict in Ukraine has influenced the political strategies of Serbian leaders in the parent state and related territories. Washington is attempting to create a rift between Moscow and Belgrade, and Kosovo may present an opportunity to do so. This recent crisis reflects the political decay that has plagued the Balkans since the conclusion of the Yugoslav wars. The nationalists did not merely triumph over their ethnic or religious opponents in the wars; they also solidified their control over their own populations. This was achieved through collaboration with mafia networks that emerged during and after the conflict, all while Western oversight remained impotent and/or passive.