In early 2013 the Ukrainian parliament agreed to make legal steps towards EU ascension
EU, unlike NATO, is not a military alliance.
You’re not thinking forth dimensionally, Marty!
Putin feared the EU because it was expanding far faster than NATO. EU expansion offered valuable trade links to former soviet countries and in turn required they implement anti-corruption legislation, and in the words of NATO secretary general Robertson above “changed every aspect of society”. That’s what Putin was afraid of.
Look at what happened to Georgia.
Old soviet regime runs economy into the ground. In 2003 pro-democracy NGOs help organise a peaceful student protests that culminates in the Rose Revolution. Autocratic government out, democratic government elected for first time, immediately start plans to align with EU to recover the economy.
2006 signs joint statement with EU on economic cooperation. Also opens pipeline cutting out Iran and Russia and delivering Azerbaijan oil directly to EU friendly Turkey.
So in 2008 Russia invades Georgia’s Tskhinvali and Abkhazia regions in an attempt to destabilise the country. Fortunately this fails.
2013 Georgia signs deeper level of EU cooperation. Ukraine parliament makes legal guarantees it’ll start to align with EU.
Putin was out of time, his Caucasus route to the middle East was closing forever, economic influence via the black sea was closing off, so he grabbed Crimea. It was the EU not NATO that surrounded him.
And that’s what the NATO secretary general said.
It was the EU not NATO that surrounded him.
Yeah like with rapists, I don’t really care for their reasoning. NATO is a military alliance, EU isn’t, so even if we assume that worrying about nearby military alliances is a “justified” reason to, idk, invade your neighbouring country, it still isn’t a justification, as EU is not a military alliance.
The EU treaties actually do have a military component much like NATO, and the “ever closer union” is actually making it a reality, with Western and Northern European militaries actually merging into blocks.
Actually the EU is a closer alliance, as NATO intervention allows for both the attacked party to not ask for aid, and the countries aiding to give as much aid as they deem necessary. The EU mutual defence clause gets triggered immediately on aggression, and requires assistance by member states with all the means in their power.
The US could technically drip-feed aid like with Ukraine, while Germany would have to send in the Bundeswehr immediately if Poland got attacked.
The have a mutual defence clause, yeah.
But EU is not specifically a military alliance, unlike NATO.
and requires assistance by member states with all the means in their power.
That clause doesn’t specify military assistance. It does mean it, but it’s not exclusive to it and leaves it up to the country to decide what is in their power.
The point is that EU is first and foremost an economical alliance, and Putin has no excuses for his crimes.
The common security and defence policy shall be an integral part of the common foreign and security policy. It shall provide the Union with an operational capacity drawing on civilian and military assets.
This is how the clause starts.
It is explicitly a military alliance. That said, Ukraine is a sovereign state, and they are the sole authorities on what military alliance they want to join, Russia has no seat in the Ukrainian parliament. Of course, Putin has no excuses.
I’m just being a dick about this because it’s actually an Eurosceptic Russia-friendly narrative that the EU is nothing but a trade deal, and has no bearing on common foreign policy, common defence policy, or the creation of a common geopolitical proxy. It is. The end goal explicitly is that - while inside the EU, member states may have their own politics - from the outside of the EU, it is one country, one partner.
So when Trump or Xi or Putin come over to talk, their counterpart is representing 420 million people and an economic capacity rivalling that of the US, and member states can’t be played against each other. I know realistically we are not quite there, but Trump really hated to talk to the EU instead of individual member states. There was a reason for that.
