Former journalist and correspondent for Le Monde in Warsaw, Washington and Moscow, Bernard Guetta has been a member of the European Parliament since 2019 within the Renew group, where he represents Emmanuel Macron’s French Renaissance party. In his latest book, The European nation (Ed. Flammarion, April 2023), the MEP recounts the transformation of the European Union over the past four years and pleads in favor of a dialogue with the Russian people to lay the foundations for “post-Putinism”.
L’Express: You believe that Europe is entering the “third moment” of its history. What do you mean ?
Bernard Guetta: The European Union is no longer the same as it was five years ago, thanks – or because of them – to Mr Trump, Mrs Covid and Mr Putin. When Trump declared, during his first presidential campaign, that if the Balts were attacked, before defending them, it would be necessary to check that they were up to date with their contributions to NATO, he broke a first taboo: that of European defence, which even the most Atlanticist of European countries then discovered the need for.
The Covid crisis lifts a second taboo when the 27 Member States together borrow 750 billion euros. Never before had there been any question – except for the French – of borrowing in common for policies approved by the Commission. A year later, Mr Putin attacked Ukraine. In less than three days, the European Union organized the shipment of arms to the Ukrainian army. And we are now, end of a third taboo, buying ammunition in common.
It is with astonishing rapidity that we have entered into the third act of European unity, that of the emergence of a political union. We already had a common market, common rules and a common currency. We are beginning to have important elements of common defence, the beginnings of a common foreign policy. Soon, Ukraine will join the Union, like Moldova, the Balkan countries and, no doubt, Georgia.
The European Union should thus unite the entire continent, or almost, with the exception of Russia. But with the current institutions, such a number of members would block the decision-making process. It is therefore necessary to imagine a system of progressive accession of these new States, around common projects. Enrico Letta calls it “the European Confederation”. The French president speaks of a “European political community”. I put forward the idea of a “three-stage rocket”. We are still looking for solutions, but the certainty is that European integration will continue. Watch how Emmanuel Macron now involves the European Commission in his biggest diplomatic initiatives. This absolute novelty shows the extent of the changes underway.
“Within 30 or 40 years, we will form the United States of Europe”
But would a Union with more than 35 members require institutional reform?
One day yes, but not immediately, because even at 27 we would not be able to agree on such a complex subject. As they have begun to do, the new European institutions will emerge from practice and not from consultations in chambers. You can only progress by walking.
A multi-speed Europe, then? Isn’t it even more complicated?
On the contrary ! We will have a community of states that will choose the degree of integration they want. I am convinced that within 30 or 40 years, we will form the United States of Europe but it is still impossible for a long time. On the one hand, many peoples and States do not want this; on the other hand, the levels of political and economic development within this group are currently too heterogeneous.
You believe that the European Union now has a common foreign policy. Nevertheless the outcry triggered by Emmanuel Macron’s statements in China shows that major differences remain…
Today, the conflict that determines everything is the war in Ukraine and, on this point, despite all the debates generated by other subjects, the objective is common. It is to help Ukraine repel aggression. In the Union, who today is against supporting Ukraine? Mr Orban? Yes, it’s true, but he opposes it in his speeches… While voting for the sanctions.
Apart from a “half-Orban”, there is therefore complete unanimity in the EU on the first fundamental conflict of this century. As for relations with China, the United States or Africa, they are obviously subject to debate, but where is the drama? During the Second World War, between the Allies, Roosevelt, de Gaulle and Churchill, the battle was permanent and much harder than today.
Regarding Emmanuel Macron’s positions on China, let’s not forget that the French president was the first to want the French – and therefore the Europeans – to be present in the China Sea and to organize a military resistance capacity at a possible Chinese aggression. Who torpedoed this initiative? The United States and Great Britain, through AUKUS [l’alliance militaire entre Washington, Londres et Canberra pour contrer la Chine, NDLR]. At the moment, off Taiwan, there is a French frigate, not Polish or Swedish but French. We can interpret Emmanuel Macron’s remarks as we want, but on Taiwan, France’s position is and will remain that of the whole Union: the defense of the status quo.
Is this sufficient to speak of a “common foreign policy”?
It is taking place and progressing spectacularly: compare our unanimity on Ukraine and the total division of the European Union on the American intervention in Iraq. It is no longer the same Union. Above all, finding a consensus at the level of a country is already complicated, it is only more so in a whole of the size of the EU. In the United States, several Americas clash over foreign policy. In France, General de Gaulle’s diplomacy was contested and the same was true under all his successors.
There is never, anywhere, a total consensus. There is a search for convergence and despite all their differences, the European capitals all understand that they have decisive interests in common. For example, we cannot miss the new industrial revolutions. We need common policies in this area so as not to allow ourselves to be crushed by the two behemoths of the 21st century, the United States and China.
“Russia will not win this war and sooner or later it will change its regime as a result of this failure.”
Does “strategic autonomy”, promoted by Emmanuel Macron, seem to you to be enough unifying in Europe?
Who first demanded the joint purchase of ammunition by the European Union? Estonia, not France or Germany. It is a Baltic country that made us take a decisive step towards a common defence. If we didn’t do it together, it would have been too long and too costly. Necessity made law. In the future, we will have differences: the more we advance in common achievements in defense and industry, the more violent our political debates and our economic rivalries will be. It’s inevitable. We will gut each other as we gutted each other at the start of Airbus because if we don’t argue, it’s because we don’t move.
What place will Russia have in this future continental architecture?
Nobody knows, there are so many question marks and I, for my part, only have two certainties: Russia will not win this war and, sooner or later, it will change its regime as a result of this failure. . Will she change it for the better? In any case, if the war against Ukraine lasts another year or two, it is plausible that the Russian Federation will experience the beginnings of a break-up. The question of the continental security architecture would then arise in a completely different way.
The other big unknown is the future of Turkey and China. In four to five years, will these two great neighbors of Russia be politically and economically stable? We don’t know, and I’m not sure.
In the meantime, we need to talk to Russia. We don’t have to talk to Putin, that would lead nowhere and this man is politically dead. Let us address the elites of Russia, intellectuals, academics, scientists, industrialists, to show them that their country has a future other than that of a vassal of China. If we were able to conclude, in the midst of the Cold War, the so-called Helsinki agreements on stability and cooperation, why couldn’t we seek a modus vivendi with a Russia which would have renounced aggression against its neighbours?
Where is this reflection in Europe on relations with “the Russia after”?
There is a debate on post-Putinism, in the European Parliament and throughout Europe. Some believe that a wall should be erected to isolate a country that is historically barbaric. Like many others, I think it is imperative to rebuild the relationship with a country which will remain, whatever happens, the closest neighbor of the European Union. Contrary to what is said, this debate does not separate two Europes, Eastern and Western. It crosses the whole continent.
You mentioned a possible break-up of the Russian Federation. One cannot help drawing a parallel with the collapse of the USSR and its consequences. Can we better anticipate this rupture, if it occurs?
I hope so, anyway. I dream that the 27 capitals of the European Union will outline what could be the modus vivendi of the European Union and Russia after Putin and propose it, from now on, publicly, to the Russian people.
When the day comes, we could even consider helping Russia to rebuild itself in democracy, as the United States did with Germany by proposing the Marshall Plan. The young urban middle classes of Russia, the future of this country, have nothing to do with communist times. They are deeply European in terms of culture, attitudes and political aspirations. It’s a different world that wants to link up with the rest of Europe.
Before considering a “Marshall plan”, shouldn’t we engage in cathartic work on post-Putinism, which was not done after 1991 on communism?
This is one of the main topics of debate among Russian opponents. What to do with the FSB? They do not know, wonder and are divided on this question. After 1991, some countries started a process of lustration. Others, like Poland, refused it. But Putinism, unlike communism, is not an ideology. There aren’t hundreds of millions of people around the world who believe in the benefits and happiness of Putinism! More than the end of communism, it is the end of Vichy and the Liberation that we must think of when the problem arises.
In recent weeks, shopping centers and local government offices have regularly been set on fire in Russia… Are we witnessing a rotting inside the bunch ?
Absolutely. How can we believe that this diet is solid? If he was, would he have needed to pass a law punishing fifteen years in prison for the use of the word “war”? Would he need to imprison so many people? Some still say that the DNA of Russians is submission, but that’s racism pure and simple! How many demonstrations have we seen in France against the Occupation? Did hundreds of thousands of people march against torture in Algeria?
If this regime were so solid, would the Russian media in exile have such an audience on the Internet? And what about Yevgeny Prigogine’s public attacks on the general staff, as if the president no longer existed or was not the commander-in-chief. It’s amazing! Nobody yet dares to attack Vladimir Poutine directly but when about fifteen big bosses “commit suicide” by falling by the window after having killed women and children, that means that they too cried with the madman. This regime is afraid, that’s why so many people are being murdered.