East vs West: which view of Europe will prevail once Putin has been defeated?
It is probably going too far to say that the moral leadership of Europe has moved east since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Poland in particular showing the way. But it is certainly true that the former East Bloc has set the pace over the last year when it comes to standing up to Vladimir Putin.
A year ago, the Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki, was widely condemned in western capitals for his errant behaviour in respect of such matters as press freedom, abortion rights and judicial independence. Today, he is seen as a fearless champion of freedom, ready to do whatever it takes to assist his Ukrainian neighbours to defeat Russia and recover their lost lands.
The only other European leader to have advanced the Ukrainian cause to anything like the same degree is Boris Johnson. But Johnson has been deposed. His failings, unlike those of Morawiecki, have long-since caught up with him – so much so that even Volodomyr Zelensky is said to be reluctant to endorse him as Britain’s “king over the water”.
Morawiecki, meanwhile, is powering ahead. Today, he is the undisputed leader of the old East Bloc, to which has been added the three Baltic States. Soft power, as represented by the European Union, is one thing. It has enabled the former Communist states to “level up” rapidly over the last 20 years, so that wages in Poland and the Czech Republic now rival those of the UK. But when it is hard power that is needed, the EU looks to be hardly worth a mention. Morawiecki despises Germany and distrusts France. Like Zelensky, he looks to Washington, London and NATO to stand up to Russia, not Brussels, Berlin or Paris.
As things stand, he is right – though all three, in their different ways, look to have learned their lesson and are now more fully engaged in the Ukrainian struggle. The long-term question is, to what extent will the East hold on to its leadership position once Russia is defeated?
There is an underlying absurdity about the idea that Europe, a wealthy continent of some 500 million people, should have to define itself against Russia, a backward, relatively impoverished one-time superpower led by a demented dictator whose reach, however red in tooth and claw, increasingly exceeds his grasp.
Tough times – murderous times – lie ahead for the East. But in the end, with peace will come the requirement to restore economic leadership, anchored in the EU, with Brussels once more as the milch cow, concentrating and dispensing the goodwill not only of Germany and France, but of the entire western half of the continent.
Rebuilding Ukraine is a task analagous to that of reconstructing Europe after the Second World War. It will cost billions – trillions even – and it will be to the West that the East will principally turn. The US will no doubt help out, as to an extent will the rest of the so-called Free World. But the great bulk of what is needed will come via Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Vienna and the rest, with Brussels acting as the indispensable central exchange.
It will take decades to rebuild what has been broken. So much has been lost, with more to follow in the months still in front of us. But it will happen, and when it does it will be overwhelmingly the liberal powers of the West that will come up with the goods.
At that point, it would make sense for the EU to rein in some of its more fanciful ideas. Its power and influence in the world derive directly from its industrial and economic strength, encompassed within the single market and customs union. Ever Closer Union, by contrast, is a slogan whose best years are probably behind it. Prior to the invasion of Ukraine, Morawiecki was perceived in western capitals as an embarrassment, with Hungary’s Viktor Orban as the imp on his shoulder. Does anyone imagine that is how he will be seen once peace is restored? His hour has come and with it an undeniable charisma. But equally, when swords have once more been beaten into ploughshares, and tanks into tractors, can we doubt that it will be the leaders of Berlin, Paris and the rest of the “core” EU that will have the loudest voices in the new Europe?
As for Russia, who knows? Churchill’s view of it as “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma,” has been replaced by the realisation that, shorn of its Soviet carapace, it is a country that failed totally to adjust to the 21st century. In its death throes as an imperial power, it will yet cause further havoc. But, once Putin has been removed, by whatever means, it must not be allowed to fester in darkness. We left it to its own devices in the years after 1989, believing, apparently, that democracy is a natural process that has no need of encouragement. We cannot afford to repeat that mistake.
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