EU, Ukraine, meddle, muddle.........

 

The blundering incompetence, ineptitude and downright stupidity of the EU in its  handling of the situation in Ukraine is a master class in how not to do diplomacy. It was Brussels, not Moscow, that created this crisis in the first place, when it started its courtship with Kiev. Ukraine falls within Russia’s sphere of influence. The Crimea is of vital strategic importance to Russia. Would the US allow a similar encroachment? The Cuban missile crisis answers that question.

 

The economy was in dire straits, partly due to the leaders milking the Treasury ever since independence. Russia was prepared to help out with a mega-billion aid package. Then Brussels stuck its oar in, but with no cash on offer.

 

The outcome for Russia could have been very damaging. The EU is not a free trade area. It is a customs zone. The effect of EU membership would be to erect tariff barriers between Ukraine and Russia. But since the Lisbon Treaty, it is now also a mutual-defence alliance. Did Brussels imagine that for one moment Russia would assent to restrictions on its trade with the Ukraine and at the same time tolerate the EU, and possibly NATO, at the gates of its most important naval base?

 

The EU has no internal borders; there is freedom of movement between member countries. But former arrangements with non-members for  free movement cease on accession. Ukraine would be closed off to free movement with Russia.

 

After the break-up of the Soviet Union, the EU lost no time in pushing across the former Iron Curtain into Central Europe. It brought into membership countries that have little in common with western Europe – in political tradition, rule of law, economic strength, even religion. Bulgaria and Romania are 68^th and 76^th respectively in the world GDPppp league table. They will be forever takers, dependent on EU money (British and German, actually), with nothing to offer except immigrants - Roma, dole-bludgers, and cheap labour.

 

So apart from aggrandisement, it is difficult to see what closer relations with Ukraine and eventual membership would bring  to the party. Its GDPppp ranks 106^th, below Namibia. It has nothing to offer the West. Cui bono?

 

What next? The prospects of serious sanctions is out of the question. In the first place, there is almost no prospect of agreement amongst the members of the EU because interests vary widely. A ban on Russian energy exports would not bother the UK or France, but it would be a disaster for some. Germany has huge trade with Russia that it can’t possibly prejudice. Politicians facing election (unlike the Brussels nomenklatura) are not going to sacrifice votes for dubious action ‘in a far-away country of which they know little’.

 

So far, the EU has totally failed to appreciate that ‘Putinism’ is not least about restoring the greatness of Russia. This entails bringing former Soviet Union countries back into its orbit, mainly through the creation of the Eurasian Customs Union. One tactic will be to use Russian clout to intervene in other countries to ‘protect’ Russian minorities. The precedent has now been set, thanks to meddle and muddle from Brussels. Putin projects ‘hard’ power; he has little time, as an unreconstructed old-regimist, for the ‘soft’ variety. Brussels can’t project anything else.

 

The EU is no longer simply inept. It is dangerous.