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The choice to grant candidate-country standing to Ukraine is a crucial step in direction of strategic autonomy for the European Union in that it might display resolve on the a part of EU member states to maneuver away from their primarily nationwide strategic postures and as a substitute undertake a standard European method. Sadly, the conditional side is required since a press release by Mario Draghi, the Italian prime minister, on 31 Could: “The candidate standing (of Ukraine) is contested by virtually all the key EU states, I’d say all of them apart from Italy. Candidate standing for the time being is just not doable due to the opposition of those nations, however to think about a quick observe is. And it appears to me that even the Fee agrees.”
Main EU states, Germany and France, are proposing a fast-track path for Ukraine’s accession to the EU, however they’re refusing to grant it the candidate-country standing that’s the place to begin for any accession course of. An absurd scenario.
These two states – Germany and France – bear a very heavy duty for the Ukrainian tragedy. It was they who vetoed Ukraine’s entry into NATO in 2008. It was they once more, beneath the tutelage of Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande, who sponsored the Minsk agreements of 15 September 2014. It was they (and Mark Rutte) who had been the architects of the coverage of suspending sine die any concrete prospect of Ukraine’s accession to the Union, even after the Revolution of Dignity in 2014.
Germany was accountable for the political folly of Nord Stream 2, even supposing the nations of Central and Jap Europe had been crying out towards it. France, by way of its nationwide champion Complete, invested huge sums in Russia – a veritable scandal when one considers the digital silence of the media and the foot-dragging of France’s political and judicial authorities within the Margerie affair (1), regardless that the “accident” by which the group’s president died had the hallmarks of the Russian secret companies.
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The central function performed by the German-French condominium of connivance over the past 20 years is mirrored within the breakdown of arms exports to Russia since 2014, however the embargo imposed by the EU after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Germany and France took the lion’s share: 80% of complete EU exports. (2)
To not point out the numerous phone conversations of Chancellor Scholz and President Macron with the butcher (3) of Moscow, and President Macron’s ponderous insistence on the necessity to not humiliate Russia. As if Russia wanted others to humiliate it. The rapes, together with of youngsters, the murders and tortures and different atrocities dedicated by Russian troops and “blessed” by the grasp of the Kremlin, the deportations of lots of of hundreds of Ukrainians, the large destruction of civilian infrastructure, the numerous violations of the legal guidelines of struggle – these are the true humiliation of the Russian folks.
It would probably take a long time for the Russian folks to clean away this self-inflicted humiliation. Earlier than that, and as quickly as doable, Russia should lose the struggle and its military should withdraw from all Ukrainian territory.
These in Berlin and, above all, in Paris who believed they might perpetuate their condominium of connivance, with out imaginative and prescient and with none plan apart from that of some Pétainist lodging with the aggressor, now for the primary time face an organised opposition: 13 EU member states (4) have made it identified that, of their eyes, the precedence of the Union at this time is just not treaty reform however quite the query of Ukraine, together with the granting to it of candidate-country standing. That is additionally a reminder that it isn’t as much as the member states to outline the phrases and length of EU accession. That course of is completely within the fingers of the European Fee and the candidate nation. The function of the Council and the European Parliament is to evaluate progress on the premise of the Fee’s reviews and, on the finish of the method, to ratify or not the Fee’s remaining evaluation.
The political resolution to be taken by the European Council in June 2022 is due to this fact crystal clear – whether or not or to not grant Ukraine candidate-country standing. Clearly, the EU’s German-French condominium has nonetheless not understood this, simply because it has not taken the measure of the brand new growth that’s the emergence of a powerful blocking minority inside the 27.
To assist make issues clear to the Germans, French and different supporters of the Petainist possibility, the “13” and different member states could be effectively suggested to announce now that, within the absence of a choice to grant candidate-country standing to Ukraine, they are going to be compelled to resort to the institutional observe of the empty chair (5) pioneered by Basic de Gaulle – in different phrases, they won’t participate within the forthcoming summits of heads of state and authorities.
REFERENCES:
- Christophe de Margerie, CEO of Complete, and three crew members died on 20 October 2014 in Moscow in a aircraft crash because the plane took off from the airport.
- Ten European states exported arms to Russia after the 2014 embargo. https://www.investigate-europe.eu/fr/2022/dix-etats-europeens-exporte-armes-russie-embargo-2014/
- A merciless and bloodthirsty individual. A basic who is just not sparing with the lives of his troops.
- Non-paper by Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden. 9 Could 2022
- The coverage of blocking the European Financial Neighborhood pursued by Charles de Gaulle from 30 June 1965 to 30 January 1966 following proposals by the European Fee beneath Walter Hallstein for the applying of majority voting within the Council of Ministers which might permit for a reform of the Frequent Agricultural Coverage.
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