A new Europe is emerging from the war in Ukraine and the two family photos of fall 2022 are full of promise. On the first in Prague, on October 6, the heads of state and government of 44 countries pose on behalf of a continent attacked by the Russian army, in apparent solidarity with kyiv. It is the European Political Community conceived by Emmanuel Macron, aware that “our historical obligation” is “to organize Europe from a political point of view and broader than the EU”.
In the photo from Prague, “bad boys” and “bad girls” mingle with EU leaders: Turkish autocrat Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Europhobe and short-lived ex-British Prime Minister Liz Truss, Serbian President aligned with Moscow Aleksandar Vucic, the Azerbaijani dictator at war with Armenia, the representatives of the three countries of the European Economic Area (Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein), Switzerland, the Balkans, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia… The family has decided for the occasion to forget its incompatibilities, displaying unity against Vladimir Putin while including those who, like the Serb or the Hungarian, refuse to apply European sanctions against Russia. But in the historical context of Putin’s declaration of war on the West and the aggression of a nuclear power on European soil for the first time since 1945, this meeting was a beautiful symbol, if not a real start.
On this momentum, a second historic photo was taken in Tirana on December 6, in this relative haven of stability that has become, in the midst of Balkan turbulence, Albania led by an original: the social-liberal Edi Rama, former professional basketball player, painter who studied at the Beaux-Arts in Paris and was elected Prime Minister three times in a row. From the top of his two meters, the Blairist from the Balkans easily dominates the tribe he welcomes, that of an EU/Balkans summit whose primary objective is to calm the wrath of the latter. Seeing Ukraine obtain candidate status from the EU had moderately rejoiced those who, for years, have been accumulating reforms to meet the membership criteria. Once again, the arrogance of old Europe, preserved from communist totalitarianism by the chance partition of the continent after Yalta, was questioned by their less well-born cousins.
Since February 24, the West has been forced to review acquired habits from top to bottom. In Prague, the message of a more or less united continental bloc was sent. In Tirana, the appeasement operation succeeded. Links have been rewoven, a billion euros paid to cushion the energy crisis, facilitated telephone networks, universities included in the European network. To tell the truth, there was urgency: in the new world born of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, Europe must expand and unite in the face of the Russian danger, but also the Chinese one. If it does not spare the Balkans, they will give in to the enterprises of ideological and economic seduction already begun by the powers hostile to democracies and determined to overthrow the world order. In the European awakening at work, there is the realization that it must integrate its eastern flank.
Stand up to blackmail
It remains to be seen how. Four of the six Balkan countries have started their accession negotiations. Their effective entry is not for tomorrow. With a Union of 27 already subject to the whims of the vetoes of a few, how can it be conceived with 33 commissioners and as many members of the European Council, if unanimity is not called into question by a modification of the treaties? How, to reconsider the unanimity, to obtain a unanimous vote, endorsed by referendum in 33 countries?
The most prohibitive foil to any enlargement is called Viktor Orban. Allied with Serbian Vucic for his Putinian tropism, the Hungarian Prime Minister spends his time taking advantage of the European Union while brandishing his right of veto at the slightest annoyance.
Learning to stand up to a country’s blackmail is for the EU the first condition for any enlargement. This is what the Member States have finally done by deciding to withhold 55% of the cohesion funds intended for Hungary (6.3 billion euros), for breach of the rule of law. By financially sanctioning one of their own for the first time, the Europeans gave another dimension to the photos of Prague and Tirana.