In Europe: change or perish (published by Tallandier on January 6), Nicole Gnesotto recounts the challenges facing the European Union in the 21st century: climate risk, conquering and authoritarian China, versatile America, democracy in peril… It is time, according to the vice-president of the Jacques Delors Institute, to make way for a strong Europe, a political Europe capable of exerting all its weight on the way the world works rather than suffering its crises and changes.
As the six-month French Presidency of the Council of the EU has begun and the omens are growing bleaker every day on the Ukrainian border, this expert analyzes for L’Express France’s diplomatic attempts and its role in the great European game.
L’Express: Vladimir Putin had chosen to snub the European Union in the Ukrainian crisis, first addressing only Joe Biden. Does Emmanuel Macron’s presence in Moscow mean that Europe is back at the table?
Nicole Gnesotto: The dialogue between Moscow and the European Union has not really existed since the crisis in Crimea in 2014. France was very concerned about the fact that Putin bypassed Europe in this Ukrainian crisis and only spoke master of the West, the United States. But our European partners, so worried to hear every day that America is only interested in Asia, are actually very reassured by Joe Biden’s personal investment in this file.
The Ukrainian crisis is an opportunity not to be missed for France and for Emmanuel Macron, as President of the Council of the EU. Europe cannot remain absent from this crisis because its own security is at stake and we are very lucky that France holds the presidency of the EU at such a time: France is a permanent member of the Security Council of the UN and it is a nuclear power. Russia respects both aspects.
Moreover, France and Germany were the two most reluctant countries to put Ukraine and Georgia on the list of future NATO candidates in 2008, and had won their case. Putin remembers that. And then, it was Emmanuel Macron who, in 2019 in Brégançon, spoke of the need to rethink “an architecture of security and trust” with Russia. At the time, everyone, including the United States, sent him away for his studies. But today it seems to be the only solution other than war. As President of the Union, Emmanuel Macron has a chance to put Europe back at the heart of discussions.
When Emmanuel Macron goes to Moscow and then to Kiev, does he go there as French president or spokesperson for Europe?
Definitely, both. This is what is interesting: it transforms an ambiguity into an asset. Putin receives him more as French president since for him, the European Union represents almost nothing. When he received the high representative of the EU, Josep Borrell, in February 2021 in Moscow, to try to resume a strategic dialogue, he insulted him. Emmanuel Macron is right to play on this strategic ambiguity: it is positive, it is constructive and so much the better if Putin lets himself be taken in by it.
What can Emmanuel Macron hope to obtain in this context?
He hopes for a sign of de-escalation. This does not mean that Putin will remove all his troops from the Ukrainian border, but there may be de-escalation on both sides. These last days, the two camps multiply at the same time military initiatives – the Americans send 3000 men in Europe, France places troops in Romania – and a very big diplomatic agitation. One shows one’s strengths to better negotiate, it is diplomacy par excellence. The idea is not to obtain a concrete result today, after a face to face “man to man” as they say. The Russians won’t move an inch if the Americans don’t move the same inch.
Is Europe showing a united face in this Ukrainian crisis?
Europeans are divided over Russia, and have been for a long time. The division has never been stronger than since the capture of Crimea, but Europeans appreciate Russia differently because there is a difference in history. Countries have been occupied for fifty years by the Red Army, they know what they are talking about when they talk about the Russian threat. While other countries, such as Portugal or France, have not been occupied or at war with Russia since at least the 18th century.
When he went to the European Parliament to make his EU Presidency speech [le 19 janvier], Emmanuel Macron proposed a new security order in Europe and an approach, which was to discuss it with the Americans, then to propose it to the Russians. The whole objective of this French presidency will be to get Europeans to converge on this idea that we must in one way or another rethink the European security architecture: we cannot maintain, in the 21st century, a strategy of pure confrontation with Russia.
Until the Crimea affair, we had created a partnership and cooperation agreement with Russia, divided into four areas of cooperation: economic, strategic, cultural and technological. We had a global strategy vis-à-vis Russia which worked for us. We could very well resume this model, provided of course that the Russians stop threatening Ukraine and their neighbours. But it is not impossible. France and Germany share the same line on this affair. It is not a question of settling the Ukrainian question but, in the next five years, of resetting the question of Russia’s place in Europe. Is Russia doomed to be a systematic threat on the European continent or can we try to influence its evolution so that it may become an adversary, but also a reliable partner?
After Donald Trump’s mandate, the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Australian submarine affair, we thought the transatlantic relationship would be damaged for a long time. But isn’t Vladimir Putin restoring to NATO a key role with this Ukrainian crisis?
When a crisis brings in the Red Army and involves the heart of Europe, the Atlanticist reflex of Europeans returns at a gallop. In a way, Putin is revitalizing this NATO he hates so much. The Atlantic Alliance was in a somewhat moribund state, especially after the snub inflicted on it by Joe Biden by withdrawing from Afghanistan in a month, when 14,000 soldiers under NATO command were there and learned the news in the press. NATO was really in a very bad position and all of a sudden, Putin, through the Ukrainian crisis, gave it back legitimacy, credibility and vitality when he was the first to denounce its imperialist policy.
But if there is a war with Russia, it is obvious that the Americans and the Europeans will be on the same side. Europe therefore has no military autonomy to build against Russia, but it must use its autonomy for its strategic thinking. In 90% of the world’s crises, Europe will have more or less the same policy as the Americans, because our interests converge. But in 10% of cases our analyzes will diverge and our interests will not be the same. Here, Europe must be smart and think about its own European security.
Can Europe make a singular voice heard in the Ukrainian crisis?
The role of the Europeans must be to say “neither NATO nor aggression”. Nor NATO because geopolitics exists and a country must follow the geopolitics of its geography: Ukraine cannot enter NATO because it is not to the west of Portugal, but to the west of Moscow. Nor aggression: Russia must stop intimidating its neighbors and recognize both the sovereignty and the integrity of Ukraine. This is a compromise formula that the Europeans could take up on their own.