It has not been reported enough, but what has the Weimar Triangle, which the Guardian calls the Union’s “new powerhouse”, just declared? Well, last Wednesday, the foreign ministers of the three countries that make up the Triangle – Poland, France and Germany – concluded that the European Union should become a “real geopolitical player” – something that France used to call a “Power Europe”.
Radoslaw Sikorski, the head of Polish diplomacy, had already used the expression “geopolitical entity” to describe the Union before the Sejm. That was close, but this time the entity has become an actor and the European Union is becoming a political Union. Everything remains to be worked out, of course, but the turning point has been reached because there are powerful reasons for this rallying of Germany and Poland to an ambition that for so long had been exclusively French.
The first is that it will undoubtedly take several years for the Kremlin to give up its desire to regain Russia’s imperial borders and thereby impose its political domination on the whole of Europe. The second is that the instability in the Middle East is set to last, and that its implications will not spare the 27. As for the third reason why the two leading European powers and the richest of the new Member States, the East and the West of the Union, have now joined forces to assert the Union as a political power, it is that the Europeans can no longer count on the United States to ensure their defence.
American taxpayers and elected representatives believe that Europe no longer needs to be rebuilt or even reunited, and that it can therefore finance its security without any further help from them. This is obviously not untrue and, Trump-style or Democrat-style, brutally or courteously, the United States is turning away from Europe to better face up to a China that worries it far more than Vladimir Putin and his imperial nostalgia.
We are virtually naked. At a time when the dangers on our borders are increasing as never before since 1939, the Union has no defence other than the French army. We no longer have a choice, and that is why the Weimar Triangle awoke from its slumber as soon as the Poles sent their Germanophobic Right back into opposition. Necessity is the law, and that is why, far from causing the concern it would have done until recently, the declaration by Radoslaw Sikorski, Stéphane Séjourné and Annalena Baerbock seemed to logically respond to an indisputable need. We have not even heard the extreme right denounce this as a hidden federalist aim, even though they would have had every reason to do so…
Let us read on. “Our objective is to strengthen European sovereignty and resilience”. “We reaffirm the importance of European defence capabilities (…) contributing to transatlantic and global security, in complementarity and interoperability with those of NATO”. “We underline the importance of a strong European pillar within NATO” and then go on to set out the “essential elements for strengthening European security and defence” which are:
Firstly, defence budgets corresponding to “at least” 2% of national GDP and allocated in such a way as to “build the forces and capabilities necessary for our collective defence”. Secondly, “strengthening European capabilities in air defence, land combat capabilities, deep precision strike systems, drones, command and control capabilities, logistics and mobility capabilities, ammunition stocks and investment in future technologies”.
In short, it would be essential to strengthen common capabilities in almost all areas. Thirdly, it would also be essential to “give priority to defence industrial policies by stepping up concertation and standardisation efforts, putting in place long-term procurement contracts and (…) ensuring that these efforts lead to a broadening of the production base throughout the EU and benefit mid-sized companies in Europe”. Germany, France and Poland thus called for nothing less than the development of pan-European defence industries ensuring “lower costs and greater interoperability”.
In their 22 May declaration, these major powers, which were previously so divided on defence issues, not only advocate a common defence based on European defence industries, but they also intend to “guarantee a long-term European commitment to Ukraine”, “strengthen the coherence of the EU’s external action” and “adopt a Team Europe approach in the field of defence”; “working towards integrated security” in the fight against hybrid threats and transnational crime, and creating a “Green Weimar Triangle” to help drive a “just and orderly transition”.
“Words”, many will say. Yes, they are indeed just words, but apart from the fact that never before have such influential and different countries uttered them together, what forces could now prevent them from becoming reality? Neither the left, nor the right, nor the centre, nor the Greens would wish to do so, and the extreme right will find it hard to oppose our national armies organising their complementarity in such a dangerous world.
This does not mean that everything will be done quickly and smoothly. In terms of jobs and tax revenues, each country will want to draw maximum benefit from the investments to come. Inevitable conflicts of interest will slow down the march towards a common defence, but when we already see the Baltic countries closing ranks and the Union buying common munitions, how can we deny that the sudden coming together of these three countries is no other than the heralding what is becoming before our very eyes the third moment of European unity – political unity after the common market and the common currency?
