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Ukraine Puts European Rearmament to the Test

From the series European news

On February 3rd, the new president of the European Council, António Costa, organised his first summit of the heads of State and government. It was an informal meeting dedicated to defence, with the aim of reaching a consensus on a synthesis that will be included in the new White Paper in April, and that will provide a basis for possible decisions at the official European Council in June. In the current context, however, it was also about “sending a signal to the president of the United States that the Europeans are prepared to increase military spending” [Handelsblatt, February 3rd].

British “reset”

One unusual feature of the summit was the presence of Keir Starmer. For the first time since Brexit, a British prime minister was present at a meeting of the European Council. According to Le Monde, this could signal “the start of concrete negotiations on the topic of defence, against the backdrop of Donald Trump’s return to the White House” [February 4th]. One open question is to what extent European funds can be used to purchase non-EU military equipment. For the French newspaper, British participation in EU military funding should not be ruled out, nor should the possibility that the way forward may be a military rapprochement between the UK and the EU through the creation of a European pillar in NATO.

Rumours reported by the Times [February 5th] also suggest that the issue of defence could be Britain’s opening for strengthening its European ties again. London and Brussels have reportedly formally initiated negotiations not only on military issues, but also on broader issues, including the revision of the Brexit trade agreement which has been in force since 2021. A UK-EU summit is further scheduled for May. Meanwhile, newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail, and The Sun have all criticised Starmer’s presence at the EU summit: the alarm raised by the Eurosceptic British press can be seen as indirect confirmation that the rapproche ment between Britain and the Union is not merely cosmetic.

The European agenda — already shaken by the Trump administration’s statements in the preceding weeks was further disrupted on February 12th, when the new American president, after a phone call with Vladimir Putin and without warning his allies, announced the immediate start of peace negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.

Unilateralism and American bullying

On the same day, Trump’s Defence Secretary Petr Hegseth declared that it was “unrealistne” for Ukraine to return to its pre-2014 borders or to join NATO, Europeans must now “take responsibility for the conventional security of the continent”, because any guarantees for Kyiv will have to be “backed by capable European and non-European troops”, but no American troops will be deployed to Ukraine. In addition to this, at the Munich Security Conference, Vice-President J.D. Vance made a vitriolic speech, accusing Europe of betraying freedom and democracy with its measures to obstruct far-right parties and its censorship rules on online platforms.

The European bourgeoisie has not been so brutally confronted with its military dependence on the United States since the bloody conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990s, which we defined as the “wars of European unification”. The political outcome of those massacres was to give impetus to proposals for an EU defence and rapid intervention force. But the US’ war of choice in Iraq in 2003 subsequently split the Union, freezing plans for a continental army for over two decades. It seems that the debate on military centralisation is now back to where it was before 2003. Caroline de Gruyter, columnist for the Dutch newspaper NRC [February 15th], sees the war in Ukraine as “Bosnia squared”.

Lotta Comunista, February 2025

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