"The alternative [to a common EU defence] is disaster"

Once the USSR had collapsed, peace and freedom were supposed to reign on the European continent – even if the Balkan war still caused bloodshed between the peoples of the former Yugoslavia until 1999. The 2000s were to be the years of renewed stability, culminating in the massive enlargement of the European Union from 15 to 27 countries, with the accession of the Baltic States, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria, not forgetting Cyprus and Malta. And then to 28 with Croatia in 2013. A serenity overshadowed by Russia's intervention in Georgia in 2008 and its annexation of Crimea in the winter of 2014, expressions of reinvigorated imperialism. And dissipated for a long time to come by Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Quite spectacularly, this geopolitical earthquake has changed the way the EU looks at its Eastern European members, which still had the cliché of being recent democracies and less protective of European values than their elders. Criticised for its reforms tainting the independence of the judiciary and its anti-LGBT measures, Poland suddenly appeared to be a solid bulwark against Russia and an unfailing supporter of Ukraine and its refugees. "What was more dangerous and less in line with European values, Poland's conservative government which was clearly at odds with Western European values when it came to the rights of LGBTQ people? Or the policy of 'Wandel durch Handel' (change through trade, which relies on the fact that trade relations end up favouring a democratic transition in the target country, in this case Russia, ed.) of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel?" points out Josip Glaurdic, director of the Institute of Political Science at the University of Luxembourg. "I would say that it was undoubtedly Merkel who was the most dangerous for the European project. That's what we realised in February 2022. It was a short-sighted policy, which was ultimately even anti-European and set us back several decades."