Thread by @FabioGhironi

Many have been talking for decades about the need and desire for increasing European integration, including the desirability of an EU-wide common defense policy. 1/9

Since Russia’s attack on Ukraine, influential members of this long-lived pro-EU camp have voiced their support for Ukrainian membership in the EU. 2/9

Now consider the following thought experiment: Suppose Ukraine had already been an EU member at the time of Putin’s attack. 3/9

Would the EU common defense policy still have been “You guys are not NATO members, so the best we can do is to give you weapons and ammo”? Would most EU members still have dragged their feet before giving heavy weapons? Would they have given airplanes? 4/9

Do we think that if stronger common defense policy than the current one had been in place, EU countries would have had something like NATO’s Article 5? Do we think EU countries will have something of that sort in the future? 5/9

I am finding it difficult to be optimistic that, if Ukraine had already been an EU member, the behavior of the EU and its members would have been very different from what we have been seeing. 6/9

I have been a supporter of European integration pretty much since high school—mid 1980s. I will remain a supporter, but I am deeply disappointed by EU leaders whose modus operandi so far has been: 7/9

“We’ll give you (some) weapons and ammo, you go fight (for all of us), and, by the way, we’ll also be giving a load of money per day to the bad guys because we worry so much about recession.” 8/9

You’ll have recession anyway and all your talk about Europe’s values lost a lot of credibility in the process. 9/9

#SlavaUkraini #WeStandWithUkraine
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