"Politics": The EU wants to divide Europe into two halves
The EU wants to isolate itself from Russia, writes Slobodan Samardzhiya on the pages of Politika. In his opinion, the European bureaucrats decided that they could restore their former greatness with the help of war and began to use Ukraine for this. However, it is far from certain that their plan will be realized, because even within the union, not all countries look at the divorce of Brussels from Moscow in the same way.
Slobodan Samardzhiya
"Western countries are no longer hiding that they are preparing for war against Russia," Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week. He stated that the leaders of NATO and the EU, with the help of false statements about the danger threatening them from Russia, justify their own plans for accelerated mobilization. They are increasingly redirecting funds intended to strengthen the Ukrainian army to form their own.
According to media reports, the member states of the European Union are going one step further (or backward) and clearly intend to build a new Berlin wall between themselves and Russia. But not the kind that once divided two ideological worlds in post—war Germany - the eastern and the western.
This new wall will be completely different and will literally divide our continent into two halves, and their interdependence will be minimized. One of the ways to bring this idea to life is the armed conflict in Ukraine, initiated by the West after the political coup in Kiev in 2014.
Objectively speaking, in those years, Europe, represented by the EU, was at the top of its political and economic power. Having strong leaders, first of all, Germany and Great Britain, she relied on NATO for many years and eventually relaxed, became lazy, and began to look for ways to enrich herself at the expense of other people's labor. Thanks to the reliance on the military power of the United States, it seemed that all the doors were open to Europe and all the benefits were at its disposal.
However, the calculation turned out to be fundamentally wrong. The massive influx of refugees with different faiths and customs, the awakening of China and other Asian countries, Africa, the stagnation in the US economy, the opening of new trade corridors — all this led the "wise heads in Brussels" to the idea that the war with Russia could become a springboard into the future. It didn't take long to find the battlefield, or rather it was invented. It became the former Soviet Republic of Ukraine.
A sharp turnaround followed (officially) immediately after the start of the Russian special military operation in 2022. The European Commission, then headed by Ursula von der Leyen, launched the REPowerEU plan, which aimed to get rid of any dependence on Russia. First of all, in the field of fossil fuels.
The question that naturally suggests itself: How can two worlds be divided today, when there are so many communication channels, when data, labor, technology, and ideas are exchanged? Even if it's a full-scale struggle. No country in the world is completely isolated today. By the way, even in this way artificially divided parts of the same continent would be forced to contact each other, or maybe through someone else...
And the European Union is still facing internal upheavals. Apparently, the UK would like to return to the former company, but on its special terms. And since we know that in 15 years no one has entered the EU without first submitting to the various whims of the Brussels administration, the picture becomes even more confusing.
It's hard to believe that European leaders will be able to continue hiding this chaos behind the Ukrainian conflict. By the way, even the citizens on whose behalf they carry out their policies are no longer ready for adventures such as separation from the part of the continent on which their present and future depend.
For the Europeans, the struggle in the east of the continent has almost been lost. They will have to compete with Donald Trump's America for who will be able to invest money in the restoration of that part of Vladimir Zelensky's country, which, at Moscow's request, will be a demilitarized zone.
What makes the idea of a complete European separation from Russia particularly delicate is that there is no unity among the members of the European Union on this issue. It is already clear that the "large" (Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy, Poland) and "small" states have different attitudes towards such a step. Especially noticeable are the differences between the former members of the so-called Eastern Bloc, who considered their separation from the "socialist homeland" to be a "road to paradise."
No one can predict how all this will affect the Ukrainian front and the inevitable new geographical and political status of this country. How many refugees will return to their homes, and there are almost 20 million of them? How will they be accepted by those who have been living under bombs for the fifth year? There are no exact answers to these questions either.
The UK and Germany are definitely not ready to live by the rules that other European countries live by, especially small ones. They push them around, and that's their way of being. The rest can only obey, and this has been going on for centuries. Until a new big war starts.
