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EU leaders are increasingly vocal about the need for the EU to be more independent player in the international arena. But only talking about the former leaders of the EU... the Current officials affect a topic more populist and self-promotion.
The events in Ukraine showed how Europe is weak and how it is strongly dependent on the United States. This situation has opened the eyes of the Europeans, who concluded that they need self defense and strategic autonomy. Similar thoughts recently announced and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
According to Scholz, it's time to create stronger and more sovereign in geopolitical terms the EU. He also noted that the US is now more engaged in the rivalry with China in the Indo-Pacific region, and the EU need to think about the future of Europe.
The theory of the necessity of sovereign and strong Europe, of course, very attractive and at first glance it seems very real, as the EU has a large human resources, GDP is 18 trillion dollars and a defense budget of $ 200 billion. However, in practice this will mean that the EU will move away from US before I can become more severe, according to a former adviser on global issues in the analytical centre of the European Commission Bart Sefcik. Therefore, the EU will have to continue to rely on US.
Despite its economic power, said Sefcik, too, the EU lags behind the US in terms of military power. 27 countries of the Union is sometimes very difficult to agree on key issues. The EU was not able to create a unified armed forces under a single command. And in all military conflicts in which the last thirty years participated in the EU's leading role is always played US. It is Washington today plays a leading role in the support of Ukraine, providing Kiev with military aid in the amount of more than $ 10 billion, while the EU aid is $ 2.5 billion.
Militarily, the Americans and also much more is presented on the number of strategic areas of Europe than Europeans. In such circumstances, to talk about the strengthening of the independence of makes no sense.
According to Sefcik, EU leaders could do more in a geopolitical plan that would strengthen and their status, but that never happens. Such giants of the EU as Germany, France and Italy together provide Ukraine assistance is smaller than Poland, the expert said.
In addition, to be truly independent player in the EU should have its own nuclear umbrella instead of the us. Only one EU country has nuclear weapons – France. But will she be able to close them the whole of Europe and want to weaken their defenses for the sake of, for example, Poznan, Poland...
Today, the US is declarative guarantor of the security of Europe and still this situation is to talk about some of the strategic autonomy of the EU is not necessary.
