Jack Lane

“I believe that the European Union will find it extraordinarily difficult to ever be a union in any sense again” (17.8.2025)

Michael D’s statement about the EU must be considered a serious claim by any President of a Member State and one who happens to be about the most popular figure in public life in that state. He reflects a feeling that many have come to. Or at the very least a feeling or reflection that the EU has become something very different to what it was not very long ago. That the EU that was no longer exists. What has happened to it?  

We are used to a very benign narrative of what the EU is. Clearly he was referring to Gaza, and sees that the behaviour of the EU under Ursula Von der  Leyen  is anything but benign to put it mildly. But there are other reasons besides Gaza for  seeing the EU as anything but benign and they are as consequential for it as its support for genocide which can only be  seen as a total moral failing. 

There is also as realpolitik narrative  which gives the reason why the EU and its purpose have become problematic for its members and for the rest of the world. For example, it is committed to war with Russia which in its view is  not a matter of if but when. This has become an existential necessity for it.

How has this come about?  It was not part of the benign narrative. I think at this point it would be useful to recall Hegel’s remark about the Goddess, Minerva, and her sacred owl. Minerva was the Roman Goddess of wisdom and understanding and Hegel said   that “the owl of Minerva begins its flight only with the falling of the dusk.” The idea is that it’s  when historical events or epochs  are ending and only  then can it be understood as to what it was and what had occurred.

This is  very true but not  a sufficient conclusion from a political point of view  as history never stands still  and politicians  are always and automatically  faced with what to do next  in any situation. So it’s no use saying something is over, even if it  is, as politicians have to decide what the consequences are of it being over. 

What can be of some use is trying to  find how something ended and why and  how that may give  a clue as  to what is possible and feasible  to do next. Academics  will be  fully satisfied  and happy with telling us what happened but  that is a luxury politicians cannot afford. History can stop for historians but not  for politicians.

So how have we come this and what is to be learned?  

THE BENIGN STORY.

I think  what we are witnessing is the “dusk”  of the benign narrative  of the EU, which is the standard narrative that we are all familiar with.  That was that  the leaders of Europe  came to their senses and decided after WWII to avoid  more wars between themselves and aimed  to integrate the nations of  Europe.  And they created a supranational structure  to achieve this, the Council of Ministers and the Commission. This structure would avoid war and be a force for peace and  the economic progress of Europe  and be an independent   third force in the world standing between the two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the US.  

This is clearly no longer the case at  a time when the EU is dedicated to a war against Russia which has become its raison d’être. This is a high risk strategy  and if it  happens then the dusk analogy can be extended to one that  says  night-time darkness is falling rather than dusk for  Europe.

THE REALPOLITIK NARRATIVE

I suggest there is another narrative that is more accurate and helps explain why dusk is falling and night-time might be approaching.

We need to look at some very  basic facts  to appreciate this possibility.

After WWII two states dominated the world who were radically different  in their ways of life  and their conflict was the dominant element of world politics with each seeking to extend their power and influence.  The US looked at Europe in this framework and were determined that it be on America’s side. To do this the US insisted that European states stop their traditional wars and enmities in order to cope more effectively with its conflict with the Soviet Union. We should note that France wanted to continue the conflict with Germany  by attempting to pastoralise   and break it up as they had wanted to do after WWI. 

The US put a stop to this as a highly irresponsible attitude in  the circumstances  and forced them to ally together and with the US and insisted they should copy the US  and create a United States of Europe to cope  with the expanding role  of the Soviet Union in the world. The Dulles brothers were leaders in this  and  one of them actually published a pamphlet called The United States of Europe.   There had been notions about such a thing before but now it had the backing of the US  and what it wanted it got. Marshall Aid facilitated it further and then NATO was set up as a corollary of this project. Europe did what it was told and so the framework of the European project was set up and the  US did it.

Europe became a cosseted part of the US ‘Empire’ similar to Taiwan and South Korea and was  economically successful  under the US umbrella.

The Europeans created the EEC and  the Treaty of Rome  to formalise the new situation with  institutional structures of a Council of Ministers and a Commission to aim for the  integration of their peoples. The latter was very successful in harmonising  trade and economic relations between the  original  states. That is, doing the necessary nitty gritty work and this was  the one area in which the Commission had  and still has its one  sole competence hence it was called the European Economic Community (EEC)– trade[cw1] .

Britain was excluded which showed that that generation having experienced 2 world wars launched by Britain following its  traditional balance of power strategy towards Europe  knew it was high time that Britain was excluded from Europe’s  affairs.

Britain opposed  it vigorously and set up  an alternative, the European Free Trade Area, (EFTA).  But in a decade or so it  realised that the EEC was  economically succeeding and decided to join on the basis that if you can’t beat them then you had better join them despite de Gaulle’s very prescient warning, that Britain was a maritime  nation and  Europe was a land based entity. This admission of the UK was the most significant development in the evolution of the European project.

Britain of course never lost its attitude to Europe in that it was entitled to be an arbiter of European affairs. The first British leaders in the EU  like Heath and Jenkins were indeed Europeans of  a similar mind to the founders. But there was always the superior attitude  in  Britain that it was more than just another European state.  It may be in Europe but it was not of it. It was more than that and Europe deferred to this attitude.

That  attitude was well summed up by Harold Macmillan who was mainly responsible for changing  the British attitude  to  the EEC. But he argued for it with  the very clever and appealing argument to the British  that it would be to Europe what Greece was to Rome. Britain would provide the brains and Europe the brawn. It   gave solace for  the ending  of the Empire with another form of Empire.

And of course Europe did defer to Britain. A new generation   had come to accept  the Churchillian argument that Britain had saved Europe  from fascism – that it had saved it from itself.

Germany being the most abject case.  The  strongest economic power accepted responsibility for 2 world wars and a Holocaust  and looked on Britain as  saving itself from itself  more than any other nation. A nation afraid of itself is a sorry sight and is putty in the hands of a powerful adversary. (It was an attitude that permeated the Irish Free State). Germany  became the paymaster of the EEC and that was regarded by all, including Germany,  as in effect reparations for  its admitted war guilt. 

Now  we realise that the other secret of  Germany’s economic success, apart from the US guardianship and largesse, was cheap Russian gas. So Germany was made what it was by American political overlordship and Russian energy.

THATCHER

The next development that affected the European project was the arrival of Thatcher. To use a fashionable word, she had a transactional attitude to Europe. It was acceptable as an economic entity and should abandon all protectionist attitudes  and purely European approaches   to economic development  and become  a globalist player. Butter mountains and wine lakes were ridiculed though they made sense to Europeans who had experienced famine and starvation. To her, Europe should concentrate on expansion rather than focussing on further integration. Even Turkey should be welcomed as a member – she is still an applicant. She failed in one of her aims—that Germany should not be united—thanks to Haughey.

Due to European deference  to Britain these new globalist and expansionist policies were accepted and became its new raison d’être. Its new purpose for existence.

But Britain itself drew a line at the development  of an alternative currency with the Euro and the increasing political coherence  and  consequent encroachment on UK sovereignty especially in the legal fields. It decided to leave. 

VACUUM 

This left a political vacuum  or void at the heart of the EU because it had bought fully  into the globalist and expansionist vision for Europe and its mentor had left. Its mentor abandoned them.

This created a panic  amongst EU leader and they began to scramble around trying to reorientate themselves and the  EU.

TRUMP

This panic was added to by the arrival of Trump who upended the cosy relationship with the US a  bastion of the EU. He  no longer saw Russia are a threat and fully accepted that Russia was not the Soviet Union but a state behaving as states are expected to behave if independent and have to be respected.  He has zero ideological hang-ups. So the relationship with Europe becomes another transactional matter. He accepts a multi polar world and each country or political entity looks out for itself and US should be the most powerful amongst them.

ORPHANS

Suddenly the Europeans felt abandoned by Britain and the   US, two pillars that had shaped it to be what was. They were orphans. The Europeans having been taken care of by the US for over half century had forgotten what international relations actually were. They had developed a lobotomy in this area  and had to awaken from a sort of Rip van Winkle  sleep of half a century. They had to wake up and “smell the coffee.”

They did not know what to do with the EU in this scenario and what its purpose  now was. There was a scrambling around for a new purpose for the EU. Examples may be given from two of its leaders.

MACRON 

On taking over the Presidency  in 2022  Macron proposed   a consultation across the EU about what its aims should be and he concluded that it should be a European Political Community and introduced it  as follows.  (This met a few weeks ago in Denmark with 47 states in attendance and a crucial need was for the UK to be back at the centre of European affairs.

He explained:

“This new European organization would allow democratic European nations that subscribe to our shared core values to find a new space for political and security cooperation, cooperation in the energy sector, in transport, investments, infrastructures, the free movement of persons and in particular of our youth. Joining it would not prejudge future accession to the European Union necessarily, and it would not be closed to those who have left the EU. 

It would bring our Europe together, respecting its true geography, on the basis of its democratic values, with the desire to preserve the unity of our continent and by preserving the strength and ambition of our integration.”  (9/5/22, EP) 

In his introduction to the proposal he made a very revealing admission:

“In 1989, President François Mitterrand opened up this reflection when the Soviet Union collapsed, proposing the creation of a European confederation. His proposal did not bear fruit. It was most certainly ahead of its time. It included Russia in this confederation, which, of course, was swiftly deemed unacceptable for the States that had just freed themselves from the yoke of the Soviet Union. But it raised the right question and this question remains: how can we organize Europe from a political perspective and with a broader scope than that of the European Union? It is our historic obligation to respond to that question today and create what I would describe here before you as “a European Political Community”. 

Here he admits that a totally different relationship with Russia and Europe was possible  but prevented by Eastern European states. The existing EU states were not up to coping with this possibility that could have been opened up with Russia who was ready for a new relationship with Europe and the West. Putin  had even expressed an interest in joining NATO.

Here was an admission that Eastern European states  had  blackmailed Western Europe’s attitude to Russia which has continued apace since and who now set the EU’s agenda.

The following is a list of those attending the recent summit in Denmark and the anti Russia slant is pretty obvious. 

  Albania

  Andorra

  Armenia

  Austria

  Azerbaijan

  Belgium

  Bosnia and Herzegovina

  Bulgaria

  Croatia

  Cyprus

  Czech Republic

  Denmark

  Estonia

  Finland

  France

  Georgia

  Germany

  Greece

  Hungary

  Iceland

  Ireland

  Italy

  Kosovo*

  Latvia

  Liechtenstein

  Lithuania

  Luxembourg

  Malta

  Moldova

  Monaco

  Montenegro

  Netherlands

  North Macedonia

  Norway

  Poland

  Portugal

  Romania

  San Marino

  Serbia

  Slovakia

  Slovenia

  Spain

  Sweden

  Switzerland

  Türkiye

  Ukraine

  United Kingdom

DRAGHI

Next we can look at Mr Draghi. He is the nearest thing there is to a Mr Europe who put on his thinking cap  and  proposed “ a “pragmatic federalism” that would include ditching national vetoes and could involve treaty change. 

“We need a pragmatic federalism that encompasses all areas affected by ongoing transformations — from the economy to energy to security,” Draghi told the European Parliament in his first speech to MEPs as Italian prime minister. “If this requires the start of a path that will lead to the revision of the Treaties, we should embrace it with courage and confidence.” 

In light of  the war on Ukraine, Draghi called on capitals to give Brussels more power on defence and to abandon unanimity, which is required for EU decisions on foreign policy and other areas. 

“We must go beyond the principle of unanimity, which gives rise to an intergovernmental logic of clashing vetoes, and move towards decisions taken by qualified majority,” he said, prompting applause from MEPs.” (3/5/22) 

 In other words, in both cases,   the EU as it exists must be ditched and a new structure put in its place based on  majority voting to solve Europe’s problems. This is a standard view. But there is a fundamental flaw in this case. Majority  voting must exist in a context  that ensures the acceptability  of majority voting  by the minoeity and that is a European Demos. A Demos is  a community that legitimates  political power and control over its members in every aspect of their lives – even the most private. Only in a Demos will minorities accepts majority voting. Otherwise such voting  is considered dictatorial for the minorities.  Every viable nation state is built on a Demos – intangible but the most essential element of a nation evolving over centuries and sometimes millennia. It depends on consensus, not voting,  and no nation state was ever voted into existence as we should know very well. We tried that in 1918 and saw what we had to do if serious about creating a state. 

Without a Demos  Europe is nothing more than the sum of its parts  and that’s what the EU now is. A  Demos can only be built and developed on consensus basis  which was the approach of the founders of the European project as  they knew that  it would take some time and some unique achievements to have  integration of states whose major relationship had been war for centuries.  

The current leaders of men and women are in too great a hurry to adopt a consensus approach for creating a Union and  believe that democratic  ideology will do the trick. They are trying to run before that can walk and this is not a admirable stance.

This reference to a Demos  and majority voting may seem   a  bit esoteric but we have a very good example not far away where majority rule without a Demos can be seen in action and how disastrous it can be – Northern Ireland. There is no such thing as a NI Demos but there was plenty majority voting for generations. But there are two Demos  alive and well within the entity, an Irish one and a British one. But 2 into 1 does not go and we have  a unique structure created to cater for the minimum political interaction between the two Demos.  And it took a 25 war to achieve that. And all accept that what exists is transitory and experimental. And the jury’s out on its viability.

Will the 2 become one or will one be subsumed into the other?   I won’t hold my breath. One thing is certain it will not be created by the mechanical/mathematical  act of counting votes. 

Europe would have a similar but bigger  problem to make majority rule work.  27 Demos to be made into one?

This proposed institutional   and speculative remaking  of the EU showed a political    vacuum or even a void at the heart of the EU. 

URSULA’S COUP

But along  came  Ursula von der Leyen  who  organized a  very successful coup within the existing structure and changed it as she saw fit. While others proposed she acted. It was a remarkable achievement and can only be considered as a successful   coup d’état of the EU institutions.

 She became Commission President by default because  the existing method of appointing that President  broke down and she was the lowest common denominator among the candidates. 

She drove a “coach and horses” though procedures and rules  and is now the political leader of the EU. The  existing political leaders in the Council could not prevent  themselves being   usurped by her and thereby  proving their incompetence.  She is the leader of the EU.

In lieu of all the above speculative plans she has  now developed a new  clear vision for  the EU and Europe and that is an inevitable war  with  Russia – not if but when. 

WHY THIS IS RECKLESS   FOR EUROPE

War is the most problematic and consequential  action that any state can engage in. Nothing needs more clarity of purpose and action. It’s a life and death issue.  But  here we have a planned war by Ursula  with  an entity that is not even a state and  war on any state must be fought by another state or combination of states acting with the coherence of a state.

Does the EU under Ursula and the EU leaders qualify?  It is clear they do not as the above example of its current leaders  make clear  who want an alternative to the current EU and so do not agree  under what political entity they should fight this war.  The existing EU does not have the competence or the legal authority  to wage war or even to create an army. Only states can have armies in any legitimate sense.

The Commission has  granted itself incremental competences over the  years by stealth and Ursula  has done this in dramatic fashion but planning for war is qualitatively different from any other incremental increase in its power. An army cannot be created by stealth. She has created a Commission for Defence but has this been done openly and who demanded it? And of course as Trump has done it should be honestly called  a Commission for War as the British once had a Ministry of war now named  Defence. It  helps to call a spade a spade. Words should reflect reality rather than hide it.

Like many in the EU, for Ursula Europe is an abstraction.   She was born, reared and made in  the Brussels EU bubble  with its ideology about Europe. She is a test tube European.  She thinks that the EU is already and  automatically more than the sum of its parts because it exists to do certain things . But that does not necessarily happen. Politics and political power are an organic process not a  mechanical or mathematical counting numbers and votes. 

.

But like the case for majority voting  there is something missing –  there is not  a European Demos and its history of centuries of wars between its states does not augur well for its creation very easily.  And you certainly need a  European Demos if you go to war representing Europe against Russia. 

She is now  trying to make this abstraction into a reality  and create a  Demos that  will be something  more  than its 27 parts   by a war with Russia.  And her case for needing this war  is  presented like a medieval morality play with the requisite demon to hand in Moscow because of what he did in Ukraine. 

There is no acknowledgement that the EU itself  was crucially part of the reason for the  SMO because of its helping to launch the coup there  in  February 2014 that led to the 8 year war by the coup state  against the Russians of Ukraine at  a cost at least 14,000 lives. After much diplomatic effort by Putin to avoid a war,  which was   treated  with contempt, the SMO was launched. So the justification for the planned war is  inherently fraudulent at base. It is a contrived war by both the EU and the US.

So  I think it is clear that Ursula  and her colleagues do not appreciate what the EU  and Europe itself is and is not. 

But does Ursula and the EU elites understand their alleged enemy, Russia?

This is another crucial element in any war – know your enemy.  Certainly as important as knowing oneself.

She suffers from the traditional European phobia and incomprehension about what Russia is. She confidently predicted that its economy would be destroyed by sanctions imposed after  the SMO in Ukraine and it would therefore fail in that effort and fail as a state. Now she judges that Russia will take over Ukraine and will attempt to take over Europe. How can one brain hold such views simultaneously? But she is not alone in this double think-that  Russia is very weak and very powerful at the same time.  

The British propaganda machine gave us an illustration of this double thinking a few years ago. We were asked to believe that this demonically powerful  state led by a former KGB man   tried and could  not liquidate an ageing  sitting duck in Salisbury. 

She  may even   share the view that Russia is a state built  on a gas station.   Though an Anglophile she is more certain about Russia than Churchill who at one stage concluded that  it is  “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” Ursula sees  no such mystery. And when it comes to war she might note Montgomery’s considered advice  on the most basic law of all war “Never march on Moscow in the winter” and this was before Moscow became a nuclear power. 

Or to get some real idea about Russia   she might look  again at the European states in the past who waged war on Russia and who were then the most powerful states in Europe and  well experienced in war,  Napoleon and Hitler. And the result was the end of France as a serious state and the destruction of Germany.  Does she seriously hope the EU will do better?  Who would the bookies bet on? 

And she might note that Britain was on Russia’s side in both cases and gained most from its victory against the European powers. Czarism or Communism were beside the point. Ursula should be careful that Albion perfide is not  dead and gone.  So these war plans are a  high risk strategy, to put it mildly.

So in summary the EU under Ursula’s leadership is planning a war with forces they do not have  against an alleged enemy that they do not understand  and on  spurious grounds. It is built on fantasies and could be  disastrous  for Europe and to continue Hegel’s an analogy it  could become night rather than dusk for Minerva’s owl. 

She and her colleagues suffer from a very dangerous syndrome when it comes to Russia – double thinking. Most dangerous of all in war. Single-mindedness is crucial

I suggest that  we take note of something  attributed to Rosa Luxembourg  that “The most revolutionary thing one can do is always to proclaim loudly what is happening.”   People who do that today are the only people to be listened to, no matter what their origin as this is an issue beyond right, left or centre.

Jack  Lane

(Text of a talk at the Teachers’ Club  on   Friday, October 17^th for the Irish Political Review Group)

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