Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher
The head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, revealed that his proposal to buy arms for Kiev after Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine was met with scepticism by European politicians, but in the end “that taboo was broken.” Effectively, Borrell is gloating that he turned the EU into a US vassal that contradicts its own supposed values.
Borrell, in a recent interview with the Financial Times, recounted how at the beginning of the war he started pitching the idea of buying arms for Ukraine to EU member states.
“Look, would you agree to use the European Peace Facility [EPF] to arm Ukraine? And: Silence,” he recalled. But Borrell said he knew it was a breakthrough moment in shifting EU policy, adding: “That taboo was broken.”
In his own words, he asked EU members to do something previously considered impossible: using shared EU cash to buy weapons for Kiev instead of projects for EU member states, such as those for “French dairy farmers and Polish highways.”
“The question was,” he recalled in the interview, “if we were able to use this money to provide support to Mozambique or to Mali or wherever, why the hell can’t we do that for Ukraine? ‘Explain it to me?’,” he asked the room. “‘Because we don’t provide lethal arms? Well, we don’t provide lethal arms because there is not a war. If there is a war, they need lethal arms, no?’.”
The Financial Times noted that the abrupt change in EU policy faced some resistance. In particular, as the article indicates, Hungary was initially opposed to the use of EPF in the context of the conflict in Ukraine. Eventually, Budapest relented and agreed to pay contributions to the fund on the condition that the weapons supplied to Kiev did not transit through Hungarian territory.
The newspaper wrote that some EU diplomats wondered whether the arms supply was in line with the EPF's stated mission to “prevent conflicts, build peace, and strengthen international security.” They also wondered whether focusing on Ukraine meant ignoring other countries in need of help. Even officials in strictly pro-Ukrainian member states were shocked when Borrell told reporters that the fund could finance fighter jets for Ukraine.
“A year on, it is still seen as too aggressive and a step that could provoke an escalatory response from Moscow,” the article stated.
Russia has sent protest notes to all states that supply Ukraine with weapons. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, for his part, warned that any arms shipment to Kiev will become a legitimate target for the Russian Armed Forces.
However, more than 12 months on since Europe started sending cash and weapons to Ukraine, scepticism across the EU remains. Steffen Kotré, an MP in Germany’s Bundestag, highlighted in the last week of February that weapons sent to Ukraine may end up in other crisis regions or even be used in terrorist attacks after the conflict is over.
“The [German] government itself writes about a ‘potential danger that weapons, ammunition or explosives from the territory of Ukraine could illegally enter the European Union [EU] and Germany,’” Kotré stressed.
In the worst-case scenario, according to him, the weapons supplied by Germany to Kiev will return unchecked to the EU or find their way to other crisis areas, where they will then “be misused for terrorist attacks.”
The official considers that the German government is aware of this danger but is “very negligent not to reach an agreement on the return of the weapons.” He said that delivering weapons to the conflict zone is “a serious mistake with unforeseeable consequences and does not lead to a shortening, but to a prolongation [of hostilities].”
Borrell, and other major EU officials like Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, have reasoned their decision to fund and arm Ukraine as a supposed defence of the union’s so-called “values.” However, despite the supposed values of universal human rights and democracy, the EU not only tolerates rampant neo-Nazism in Ukraine, but also ignores the people of Donbass and their democratic rights.
Rather, these are repeated mantras, with very little meaning behind them, which only serve the purpose of making Europe’s submission to Washington more palatable for ordinary European citizens. It is little wonder that Borrell boasted how “the taboo was broken” when speaking about overcoming Europe’s initial hesitation in offering military support to Ukraine.
This was first seen in Brussels as a watershed moment which demonstrated Europe’s transformation into a geopolitical power that was willing to use more than just economic methods to impose itself. What transpired instead is a Russian economy turning eastwards as Europe’s economies struggle and the slow but methodical demilitarization of Ukraine. But these are facts that Borrell will not mention.
