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European Rearmament Seeks Money and Soldiers

From the series European news

In her acceptance speech for the Charlemagne Prize in Aachen on May 29th, Ursula von der Leyen argued in favour of her ambitions for a great unifying project with a view toward an independent Europe. According to the President of the European Commission, the current international disorder characterised by authoritarian powers ready to ruthlessly exploit our divisions or dependencies will give rise to a new world order in this decade. To avoid suffering the consequences, an independent Europe should be able to shape this new order.

Yet the victory of Polish nationalist Karol Nawrocki, backed by the Law and Justice (PiS) party, in Poland’s presidential elections has fuelled concerns among the European bourgeoisie about a new wave of victories for parties that are at odds with Von der Leyen’s ambitions.

The political cycle favours the right

The Polish president has limited powers, but he has the possibility of veto, and Donald Tusk’s coalition does not have the three-fifths majority needed to override him. For this reason, The Economist writes that Nawrocki’s victory may now cripple the government’s effort to repair the rule of law and that Tusk appears to be a lame duck [June 7th]. Due to the new president’s Euroscepticism and opposition to Kyiv’s accession to NATO, the Financial Times believes that Poland could become a less solid partner in the coalition of the willing that the United Kingdom, France, and Germany are assembling to bolster Ukrainian security [June 4th].

The 42-year-old historian and former boxer from Gdańsk defeated the candidate backed by the Tusk government with only 50.89% of the vote; nevertheless, the result sounds like a warning shot for 2027 when there will be general elections in Poland and presidential elections in France. The danger of Europe suddenly falling apart seems very real again, commented the Brussels correspondent of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. The PiS could return to ruling Poland without restrictions, while a president from the Rassemblement National could embark on a French Sonderweg, a special path. Add to this the Eurosceptic governments in Hungary and Slovakia, and potentially in the Czech Republic and also in the Netherlands, where the fall of the executive at the beginning of June has led to early elections set for October 29th.

However, this would not be a homogeneous group of Eurosceptic formations, as shown by their divergent positions on Russia. In this context, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Brussels has two decisive years ahead to build an independent Europe. Dramatisation in this case may also be functional, since the social-liberal newspaper calls for great courage to launch a common defence policy that irrevocably places national security in Europe’s hands, independently of the United States, and to implement European asylum reform, which will introduce great harshness towards migrants and is designed to discourage and prevent people from fleeing to Europe [June 13th]. The centrality of hateful campaigns against immigrants was also very evident in the recent elections in the United Kingdom, Romania, Portugal, and Poland. It remains implicit that, behind the law-and-order propaganda, European imperialism nonetheless needs to attract and regiment a vast immigrant proletariat.

American interference

Le Monde saw Nawrocki’s success as Trump’s first electoral victory in Europe, because the Polish candidate had the powerful support of the pro-Trump MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement. As the French daily recalls, Nawrocki not only had his picture taken with the US president but also benefited from the endorsement of the American Republicans’ CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference), conveniently held in Poland four days before the ballot.

At this event, US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem declared from the stage: Karol must be the next president of Poland, do you understand? If you elect a leader who will work with President Donald J. Trump [...] the American [military] presence will continue [...] and you will have high-quality equipment made in America at your disposal. Le Monde concludes: American interference, ineffective in the German and Romanian elections, has been successful in Poland [June 13th]. It should be noted that the pro-Russian positions of Alternative für Deutschland and presidential candidates such as Călin Georgescu and George Simion in Romania did not prevent MAGA support.

During Trump’s first term in office, Poland had already shown itself to be particularly receptive to Trump’s narratives, both for their Atlanticism and for their resonance with the Polish nationalism promoted by the PiS. In the countries of Central and Eastern Europe that were formerly members of the Warsaw Pact, the resentment inherited from overly rapid transitions, which have accentuated inequalities and frustrated appetites for sovereignty, goes well with Trumpist revanchism, wrote Sylvie Kauffmann in Le Monde. As a result, these countries are more easily seduced by Donald Trump’s anti-elite agenda, without realising that it is at the same time deeply hostile to the European project [June 5th]. One may recall that in 2017, for example, Trump’s presence at the Warsaw summit lent support to the Three Seas project, aimed at creating a geopolitical space stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea and the Adriatic. This was a hypothetical zone of influence for Warsaw, which was viewed with suspicion as a vain Polish ambition that could divide Europe, and in the end did not go much further than the drawing board.

It should be remembered that Brussels has its own leverage over Warsaw: approximately €137 billion in European funds earmarked for Poland have been withheld due to violations of the rule of law committed by the previous PiS government. After Tusk’s election, the green light was given for this funding, but a new procedure to block the funds cannot be ruled out.

“Guns versus butter”

While Washington is undermining European unity, it is also staking a claim for increased defence spending by its allies on the Old Continent. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who believes that Russia could be ready to use military force against NATO within five years, has obtained approval for a plan to reach 5% in ten years, a percentage of spending that includes 3.5% of GDP on core defence plus 1.5% for security-related investments.

The debate between defence and welfare, or guns versus butter, is evident in all European countries, but it is laid bare in the United Kingdom. While European countries are also crushed between the weight of debt and the requirements of rearmament, the UK is exposed to the markets without the protection of the European Central Bank (ECB). The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that interest on British debt will amount to 3.7% of GDP in the 2024-25 financial year, compared with 1.9% estimated by the ECB for the eurozone. The Financial Times notes that the timing of this military spending requirement is potentially awkward for the Labour government, which is trying to balance increased defence spending with tight public finances and a series of unpopular welfare cuts that have hurt it in the polls [June 4th]. In February, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced an increase in defence spending from 2.3% to 2.5% of GDP by 2027, financed by cuts in international aid. On June 2nd, presenting the Strategic Defence Review, the British Prime Minister expressed ambition, but not a firm commitment, to increase defence spending to 3% in the next parliamentary term. However, a glaring gap remains between ambition and money, wrote The Economist, warning that Germany could be spending twice as much as Britain by 2029 [June 7th].

While Germany is the European country least affected by tight public finances, it is also the one where the debate on military conscription is most intense. The draft law for a new form of conscription, which Defence Minister Boris Pistorius is working on, will be based initially on voluntary service. But, as reported by Handelsblatt on June 13th, it will put the numerical requirements of defence before the will of individuals. If there are not enough volunteers, a proportion of 18-year-olds will be forced to enlist. Will the great unifying project of imperialist Europe have its conscripts?

Translated from the original work by , published in Lotta Comunista, , p. 5.

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