In mid-September, X was crawling with stories about these. Dozens, then hundreds, thousands of accounts reposted alarming claims about the “spread” across towns and cities. Every major news outlet picked it up, and the local press came in support.

And yet. The figures showed no surge compared to previous years. Reported cases remained in line with the usual yearly numbers. True, call-outs did increase but mostly because people panicked and demanded inspections they didn’t really need, messing with the actual numbers. Six schools were shut down nationwide, closures later deemed unnecessary. France typically sees about a million interventions a year, and 2023 only just nudged above that, notably due to the increase of intervention demands by worried people.

This could have been funny (without mocking the people that genuinely experienced a bedbug infestation, which is a miserable thing to live through) were it not so clearly part of the Kremlin’s playbook: disinformation and disruption, deliberately seeded in “unfriendly” countries. France’s Minister for European Affairs at the time, Jean-Noël Barrot, said as much in early 2024 that the bedbug hysteria was a textbook Russian operation.

Storm-1516 is the name French authorities gave to the massive disinformation campaign conducted by Russia in France, which has apparently been active in this form since August 2023. Unable to infest the beds of the French, the bedbugs had invaded their internet, a trial run of for what was to come, just as counter-interference services were beginning to track the operation.

But not all the attacks were virtual. That same autumn, dozens of Stars of David were sprayed on buildings in the Paris suburbs, home to Jewish families, in the tense weeks following Hamas’s terror attack and Israel’s assault on Gaza. Once again, these actions were amplified by countless bots on social networks, spreading the acts of individuals paid, directly or indirectly, by the Russian regime to socially destabilise the country. It would be dishonest to claim that it did not work: tensions flared, at least for a while, before the revelation that this was, yet again, foreign interference. A very similar action happened in May of 2024, where red hands were spotted on the Shoah memorial in Paris. The suspects were later found by the police to be Bulgarian and had just arrived in Paris.

On the 9th of September of this year, pig heads were dumped outside several mosques around Paris, sparking outrage and more online clashes.

The investigation, thankfully, moved quickly, helped by CCTV and witness accounts, allowed investigators to indentify that a Serbian-registered car had entered France, bought the heads from a farmer, dropped them at the mosques, then fled the country via Belgium.

Taken individually, these incidents were already worrying, but placed in the broader context of the Kremlin’s strategy, they take on a far more sinister dimension, that is undermining French citizens’ trust in their institutions and media, playing on identity fractures, and pouring oil on the dumpster fire that is the French political crisis.

General Thierry Burkhard, then Chief of the Defence Staff, said on the 11th of July that Moscow saw France as its “main enemy in Europe” and quoted Vladimir Putin himself to that effect.

Abroad, some shrugged this off as the French giving themselves too much importance yet again. But the point was well made. For years, Paris has been regarded by Kremlin-linked outlets and the Kremlin proper as a pivotal supporter of Ukraine.

The turning point was of course February 2022, when Russia invaded. Until days before, France was still trying to play the diplomacy card, in its long tradition as a “distant friend of Russia.”

In truth, French-Russian interests haven’t been aligned since 1917. Some would argue that they haven’t been since the Crimean War of 1853 considering the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1892 was more about France’s will of revenge on Germany and Russia’s need to balance German power in occupied Poland than outspoken friendship. The Second World War, of course, is another story.

Moscow’s diplomats were fond of cultivating the illusion of a “special relationship,” as it shaped French hesitation and inconsistency about Russia for decades. France still maintained its ground and had parts of its military and diplomatic establishment deeply sceptical of Russia, seeing it as a growing threat, as opposed to the more conservative, older generation that could see them as a “partner” for the future.

For a while though, France’s elites thought they had the hear of the Kremlin. Notably in 2008 when Nicolas Sarkozy’s shuttle diplomacy with Putin, following the invasion of Georgia, effectively froze the conflict, much to Russia’s advantage, cementing the separatist “republics” of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which served as general rehearsals for the future puppet states of Donetsk and Luhansk. This came at a time when Nicolas Sarkozy had actually been bullied by Putin in 2007, with him threatening him and France during their first meeting. Sarkozy famously looked distraught in the press conference shortly after.

The real break came only in 2022, after the assault on Ukraine, even though Putin had been received at Brégançon as recently as 2019, to the not-so-concealed irritation of France’s allies.

By April 2022, France expelled 35 Russian diplomats, suspected of running an espionage network from the Russian embassies and consulates.

France’s intentions not to humiliate Russia after the Soviet collapse came from good intentions and geopolitical goodwill. However, the oligarchs, who had pushed Yeltsin to hand power to Putin after the latter’s clever political manoeuvring, turned that goodwill into a tool for Moscow. The “special relationship” was, in truth, only going one way. Still, one could say, the French national bird is a rooster. And a rooster has claws. Paris’s sudden shift of tone caught Moscow off guard, and hybrid attacks escalated in response.

Now deprived of official diplomatic channels in France, Moscow has changed tactics, moving to the everyday and societal level. Imaginary bedbugs, hateful graffiti, decapitated pigs, bots, and fake media, even replicating sites like Le Monde, Le Figaro, and Le Parisien in 2024, now weave a web of not-so-subtle and pervasive attacks across the country. Networks of fake news online, often linked to far-right groups covertly directed by Russian services, exist globally, according to VIGINUM (the French vigilance and protection service against foreign digital interference).

Opinion manipulation is now one of the most serious threats to the French Republic, attacking its constitutional foundations and order. The very intensity of these attacks, online and offline alike, also betrays something else: Russia is hurting. Sanctions are biting.

France, being one of the keystones of European defence, is thus an enemy Russia seeks to destabilise. There is no need to defeat a country militarily when one can divide its society sufficiently and ensure that its agents thrive within the fractures it created.

The post Bedbugs, Pig Heads, and Chaos: France Under Russian Siege appeared first on My Country? Europe..

The 2023 shutdown of the last nuclear power plants in Germany, under Olaf Scholz’s chancellorship made a lot of noise on the continent. Some wondered if other countries were going to follow suit. But it seems that it will not be the case, and leaders of the nuclear sector in Europe, notably France and Finland, made it very clear that nuclear was gonna be the way forward and that Berlin would pay the price of what experts would call an incoherent energy policy. On the one side, Germany is indeed one of the global leaders of renewable energy, succeeding in the increase of wind and solar power where pessimists predicted failure, while on the other, they phased out their nuclear first, rather than their coal industry, which still accounts for nearly 25% of total electricity in Germany.

The Shift: The Nuclear Alliance and EDF’s victory

Indeed, since the closure of Isar 2, Emsland and Neckarwestheim 2 in April 2023 during the SPD-Grünen-FDP coalition, Germany’s reliance on imports has become a necessity to fulfil its needs. 8.66 TWh were imported that same year, ad well as a total of 25.19 TWh in 2024, with France filling the gap via EDF (Électricité De France, the state-owned and biggest French energy company), at the worst time of the energy crisis that hit Europe back then.

Notwithstanding the rejoicing of some of the European Greens that cheered for the dismantlement of the last German nuclear power plants, rather than more efforts focusing on shutting down the coal plants that make Germany’s electricity one of the least sustainable today in Europe, it seems the situation has evolved positively for the Nuclear industry in Europe. France has spearheaded that change and is now looking forward to strengthening its place in Europe, as the de facto head of the Nuclear Alliance, a group of 12 countries (France, Finland, Poland, Croatia, the Netherlands amongst others) founded in 2024, pushing forward for the development of nuclear energy as a key factor in decarbonization and energy independence efforts, something that has been in line with the french energy policy since the 70s.

In fact, it was only recently, after years of tensions with Berlin, that the new German chancellor, Friedrich Merz  clearly stated in May 2025 during a visit to France that Germany wouldn’t further block the development of nuclear power in Europe.

This warmed up relations between the two countries, as France and Germany underwent a relatively cool phase of their relations in the previous years, notably because of energy and defence policies that saw Berlin and Paris clash on multiple occasions. The lowest point of the relations was probably 2023 after it was revealed that two German foundations on the Bundestag payroll (The Heinrich Böll and Rosa Luxemburg foundations) were directly conducting efforts to hinder the development of the French nuclear industry, which sparked a diplomatic crisis between the two countries.

This comes as a double victory for the French nuclear industry, as the ARENH (Meaning regulated access to historic nuclear energy) scheme, which forced EDF to sell 100TW per year at the low cost €42/MWh is due to end by December 2025. The scheme, which had been implemented in 2011 during Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency, followed the European decision to break energy monopolies in Europe, had been widely criticised in the country, a lot of experts and people alike saying that neighbouring countries were using the scheme to provide themselves with cheap, carbon-free energy rather than accelerating their own transition. Germany was especially pointed, as the phasing out of their own nuclear industry was seen as highly hypocritical, as it was believed that they would need to import French power the moment their last reactor was turned off.

France did not defend its industry properly back then and has, it seems, learnt its lesson as EDF will quite literally regain a monopoly post 2025 with a much more favourable scheme.

Indeed, EDF will be free to sell its electricity at market prices, but if its volume of sales exceeds a certain threshold (based on historical “normal” profits or production costs), it will have to pay a tax going from 50 to 90% of that excess revenue to the French state.  If the ARENH provided French consumers with relatively low prices, EDF will now likely prioritise selling more abroad than raising prices domestically. This is seen as a great victory for the industry and the country as a whole as the feeling of the industry being “profited from” is eased, and hopes that neighbouring countries will invest more or rethink their phase out of nuclear rise.

This comes at a time when EDF is spearheading the replacement of existing reactors and the building of the new generation of EPR2.

Uranium back in fashion: The NZIA and its subsequent help to extending nuclear power in Europe.

All of this came after intense lobbying efforts on the part of pro-nuclear forces in Europe, which resulted in nuclear being included as one of the beneficiaries of the Net Zero Industry Act of June 2024, a crucial European text that recognises decarbonization and energy security as the utmost priorities, rather than competition. This would allow key industries in the sector to flourish and work in a monopolistic manner if needs be, towards these goals, as forced competition would only jeopardise them.

The NZIA was massively pushed by France and most of its nuclear industry firms (EDF and Framatome come to mind) as well as Finland. They all lobbied for the recognition of nuclear as a strategic tool that must be used to combat climate change alongside renewables and reduce reliance on fossil fuels. The war in Ukraine only helped their line of argument.

This was accompanied by Belgium and the Netherlands announcing in May 2024 new investments for nuclear at the same period. If Belgium “just” plans to extend the life of its existing reactor with Prime Minister Alexander de Croo saying at the time that it was “unrealistic” to hope to phase out nuclear if the country wanted to reach its decarbonization goals, the Netherlands clearly announced their intent to build new power plants in the 2030s as well as extend the life of the Borssele plant. This marks a serious turn in their nuclear policies, considering the fact that both countries planned for a phase-out in the early 2000s. Two new EPRs in the Netherlands would provide something on the order of 5 GW of low-carbon electricity

Germany dropping its opposition to nuclear in Europe altogether may also unblock the long-lasting crisis between them and Poland, considering the former repeatedly stalled Polish plans to invest in nuclear and open its first power plant with regulatory (Via the EU), diplomatic and economical measures, a bewildering move considering Polish energy is today the most carbon heavy (Averaging 653g of Co²/kWh in the last 12 months. France or Finland on the same period were only 25 and 45g, respectively) on the continent.

France and Poland signed a deal in May 2025 on this specific matter, with EDF hoping to secure its share of the future Polish nuclear market, directly competing with the US company Westinghouse, which also expressed interest in the matter. The German blockade of Polish nuclear developments has soured relations between the two countries, though the change of government in Poland in 2023 has seemingly helped re-establish a form of dialogue, made even more possible with Germany backing off its anti-nuclear stance on a European level.

The future?

The recent international situation, as well as the climate emergency, has helped change the narrative regarding nuclear in Europe, now being seen as an essential tool if Europe wants to achieve energy sovereignty, as well as the ambitious climate goals it is aiming for. France’s role on the matter has not only been one of pure benevolence, as it aimed to preserve its industry and one of its greatest champions. But France’s energy policy has itself been a victim of a lack of coherence, with nuclear being both championed and attacked since the 70s, which has slowed down its rollout and its efficiency at times. It has now benefited of a coherent support for a solid twenty years, with governments throughout the period attempting to defend the “Filière” (Industry)  and defending France’s role on the European level. The end of ARENH is awaited by EDF and companies of this industrial sector, as it’s expected to boost the sector’s revenue.

As Europe recalibrates its energy strategy, nuclear seems to be no longer a question of ideology and has, for now, it seems, defeated dogmatism. For the Nuclear Alliance, it is a needed cornerstone alongside renewable for both decarbonization and strategic independence.

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Much has been written, and is being written all the time, about the large-scale efforts to fight climate change, and why they hopelessly fall short of the mark. At the same time, however, this is not one single fight, contained to the realms of high politics.

Regular citizens, activists, people from all walks of life, have also been doing what they can to stem the tide, to make the world more prepared, to make it more sustainable. We have chosen to sit down with one of these people for an interview.

Meet Dr. Ruxandra Lupu. She is a distinguished researcher, with a PhD in film/video and photographic arts from the University of Leeds. Professionally, she’s been working at the intersection between business and academia for a long time. She describes herself as “a traditional printmaker and digital humanities researcher”.

In 2020, she founded Eithne, a company that allows her to marry her academic and professional knowledge of textiles and printmaking, with the push for sustainability. You can read more about her extensive background here.

More interestingly from our point of view, Dr. Lupu has been disseminating her hard-won knowledge. Together with international partners, Eithne is implementing Sustainique, a project that aims to teach advanced and sustainable textile production techniques to “VET providers, textile designers, entrepreneurs, employees, and trainers in professional fashion firms”.

Of course, supporting research, education, and knowledge dissemination is one of the things the EU arguably does best, and we also believe it’s one of the essential tools in building a shared European home. That’s why we sat down with Dr. Lupu for a chat about sustainability and textiles.

Question: Which aspects of sustainability does your work address?

Answer: My work initially did not explicitly focus on sustainability. As a printmaker, I engaged in craftsmanship through textile printing. My focus shifted to sustainability when I researched the impact of innovation for a British media cluster. This project highlighted the importance of greening media technology and achieving sustainability through creative storytelling and processes.

Since then, my attention has turned completely into sustainability in arts and crafts, both as a researcher and an independent entrepreneur. In the past two years, my work has concentrated on the craft and textile fields, exploring sustainability in competencies, technologies (like haptics), storytelling, and innovation practices.

I particularly focus on responsible and hidden innovation in relation to sustainability. My approach now combines multimodal and interdisciplinary methods to address sustainability in arts and crafts, with an emphasis on care and responsibility, especially in textiles and fashion.

Q: How do you describe sustainable textile innovations, and their role within a more responsible fashion industry?

A: From a theoretical perspective, textile innovations are novel textiles created through new materials, designs, or production processes. The concept of novelty can be tricky, since changes occur daily. For example, is a textile fiber from an ancient crop innovative? Is engineered yarn from orange peels innovative? Both can be seen as innovative, but ensuring these products are durable, caring, and respectful to the environment and communities is key.

Labels like GOTS and Oeko-Tex should certify products, but their transparency and scope, especially in addressing social and economic aspects like fair trade and worker safety, can be limited. While traceability is vital, it’s challenging due to the complex production chains in textiles. We need comprehensive sustainability measurements, considering cultural, social, environmental, and economic factors in developing textile innovations.

Q: What is the state of the art of adoption of textile innovations in Europe?

A: Europe has high ambitions for textile innovations. Initiatives like Master programs at IAAC Spain and Boras University Sweden, and EU-funded projects such as WORTH, DeFine, and Re-Fashion, support this goal. Institutions like Fashion for Change advocate for a more resilient industry.

However, impact measurement and consistency of innovations lag behind. Many new products are not widely adopted due to low market availability, high prices, and risks associated with new materials. Young designers are more open to these innovations, often for limited editions or unique products, but mass adoption remains distant.

Q: How can material libraries contribute to fostering the uptake of textile innovations? What are the challenges they face?

A: Material libraries are places of discovery, stimulating designers by offering textiles and materials instead of books. Europe has fewer than ten material libraries, mainly serving architects and engineers, with few focusing on textiles. In 2022, a project with the University of Florence showed that designers are curious and open to new materials. However, material libraries face challenges like staff shortages, lack of funds, and a need for specialised experts. Educational institutions, especially at VET level, play a crucial role in promoting sustainability and innovation in textiles and fashion.

Question: How should holistic education be set up in terms of fostering the uptake of sustainable textile innovation?

A: Holistic education should encompass both external and deep knowledge. Designers need to understand, not only the physical properties of materials, but also how they were created, by whom, and their environmental and social impacts. This multifaceted knowledge helps designers make informed, sustainable choices. Future designers should be educated to assess materials’ properties for their specific needs, and understand their broader impact on communities and ecosystems. This approach fosters a resilient and caring practice in the textile industry.

The post Sustainable Textiles: An Interview With Dr. Ruxandra Lupu appeared first on My Country? Europe..

The Vespa on the Amalfi Coast, the gelato in Florence or the colourful houses of the Cinque Terre—we all know the cliché images of Italy on travel portals. This is no wonder that Italy ranks fifth worldwide for tourists with around 64.7 million international tourist arrivals in 2019, just behind France, Spain, the USA, and China.

But in times of the pandemic, it is advisable to avoid crowds as much as possible. At the same time, however, we also deserve to free our minds from the virus for a few days after being locked down. This is possible even in heavily frequented tourist destinations like Italy, for example in the Marche region. Unlike Lombardy or Sardinia, the region located in the centre of the country rarely makes it into the international press or pop-up advertising on Google. However, the 1.5 million inhabitants enjoy 173 kilometres of Adriatic coast and little cultural treasures—and so do the tourists who “get lost” in this region! But what is there to discover?

Fermo – Between the Middle Ages and the Roman Empire

Turns out there’s more than you might expect. The town of Fermo is a small jewel of the region. Located on top of a hill, the balconies of the city offer a panoramic view. In addition, the narrow streets are adorned with medieval walls. Culturally, Fermo offers an art gallery full of late Gothic paintings and one of Italy’s most renowned libraries full of ancient books and manuscripts. The 18th-century theatre “dell’Aquila” is considered  to be one of the most beautiful in the Marche and hosts operas and plays.

Aside from its cultural offer, Fermo also hides a historic treasure: the large Roman cisterns are a patrimony of the Augustan age. The cisterns have a maximum capacity of about 15,000 cubic metres which makes them the largest ever built by the Romans when it comes to surface area. But what if nature is calling instead?

Conero Natural Park – The Two Sisters and the Black Sand

What sounds like the title of a fairy tale are actually two different excursion destinations in the Conero Natural Park, which is located on the Adriatic coast. While there are various corners to discover, the Spiaggia delle Due Sorelle has to be one of the most well-known. Its two cliffs are called “due Sorelle” (“two sisters”) because they seem to have the shape of two praying nuns. The beach, which can be reached by ferry, was named one of the 10 most beautiful beaches in Italy in 2013.

Another destination is the Sassi Neri near Sirolo. This beach is not a real sandy beach and rather it is a stretch of coast with many tiny stones. From the parking lot, it is about a half-hour hike to the beautiful waters. The rather steep path is tough but leads directly through the flora and fauna of the national park. Guess the unavoidable sweating is worth it! But what if the city is calling instead?

San Benedetto del Tronto – From Sightseeing to the Beach

San Benedetto del Tronto, a city on the Adriatic Sea is located towards the southeast tip of the Marche, just before the border with Abruzzo. Founded in the 10th century, the city hosts one of the most important fishing ports in Italy. Seafaring is of great historical importance as demonstrated in detail across the various museums in the city. If the sea was was conquered, the land would subsequently be protected by two castles which guarded the city from any possible threats. If it is too hot for sightseeing, San Benedetto del Tronto also offers an 8-kilometre-long sandy beach and there are approximately 7,000 palm trees in the city for tourists to admire.

To our dismay, traveling remains difficult in today’s time. But perhaps, the Marche awoke the distant dreamer in you. Once we can pack our bags again and cross mountains as if it was nothing, you might find your way to the Marche, Italy’s lesser-known region. Crystal-clear waters, cultural offers, and a fresh plate of pasta are waiting for you!

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To date, the only evidence that Pratasevich is even alive is a video broadcast on the dictatorship’s State television. Here, the journalist bears clear marks of torture and declares – rather unconvincingly – that he has been treated well. This is followed by a “confession” regarding the “crimes” the regime alleges he committed against them. If Lukashenka feels he can get away with it, Pratasevich will be executed by firing squad. It’s a rarely used method even in Belarus, but one the regime has been preparing the ground for by labelling the journalist a “terrorist“, which enables the harshest punishments under what passes for “law” in Belarus.

The fact that a country in Europe is waging such a campaign of terror and despicable brutality against its own people is simply beyond the pale. But Lukashenka isn’t stopping there, as he fights tooth and claw to retain a position of power the rest of the world recognises is not his to have.

To get at Pratasevich and Sapega, Lukashenka has committed an act of State terrorism, directed against an EU-registered plane on an internal EU flight, which was “escorted” by a jet fighter – an act of military aggression that implicitly threatened EU civilians and the plane’s crew with death if they refused to comply. As part of this terror attack, EU citizens were left stranded at Minsk airport until the plane was released. Two passengers who were exercising their right to freedom of movement inside the Union’s borders were brazenly kidnapped.

The gravity of this act would warrant extraordinary measures, but the EU lacks the legal and political mandate required to meet force with force. It does have other tools at its disposal to strike back at Belarus, but is not utilising them too effectively yet.

A Toothless Great Power

The action carried out by Lukashenka against Ryanair would have been unthinkable against an internal Russian or USA flight packed with Russian or American citizens. The jet fighter involved in the act of aggression would have surely been downed, and possibly the airbase responsible for the operation would have been put out of action as well.

Unfortunately, the EU is a peculiar type of Great Power, one endlessly hampered by weakness and internal disunity, and most critically by the pathological shortsightedness of its Member States. The timidity, opportunism, and domestic constraints of national leaders mean that the EU lacks the competencies to respond to the hijacking the way it should – with a military response to protect the lives of EU citizens, force Belarus to respect its own citizens, and punish the perpetrators. But the chronic political anaemia that has taken root in every European capital prevents this. The internal disunity is even worse when considering the issue of Russian involvement, which is even more divisive to Member States.

But if the EU can’t react the way a Great Power should, what can it do? Luckily, it can do a few things, and to some degree it already is. However, a different approach will be needed to exploit the EU’s leverage to the fullest.

The Response So Far

Following an emergency session, the European Council has pushed through a sanctions package that goes some way to inflicting pain on Lukashenka’s regime without overturning the apple cart. The essence of the move is to lock Belarus out of international aviation by banning Belarusian overflight in the EU’s air space, as well as access to EU airports.

The Council has also called “on all EU-based carriers to avoid overflight of Belarus,” and while this measure has largely been heeded, at the time of writing both Ryanair and Alitalia have failed to respect it. Overflight is an important – if secondary – source of precious income for Belarus, particularly on flights bound eastward into Asia. All told, the measure will cost Lukashenka’s regime anywhere between 50-70 million USD.

A carrot has been put forward with the stick: should Belarus embark on a path of democratisation, the EU has a 3 billion EUR aid package waiting in the wings. This message is of course intended primarily for Belarus’ political opposition, but it’s not realistic to expect them to be in a position to take the EU up on its offer anytime soon.

The sanctions also target individuals close to the regime, blacklisting them from various activities. More countermeasures are expected to be announced in the coming days. While effective in their own right, these sanctions are a sign that the EU still hasn’t given up on its wait-and-see strategy towards Belarus. This approach is understandable, since it’s driven by forces outside of the EU’s control, but it’s also misguided. Lukashenka is essentially walking away with impunity and will continue to stir trouble – unless we stop him.

The Russian Problem

Russia benefits from this situation more than anyone else involved. The more Lukashenka loses face in the West, the narrower his political room for manoeuvre becomes. Left with only Russia as a bridge to the rest of the outside world, as well as a patron in economic and military terms, Lukashenka has no choice but to hang on to Putin even tighter. This in turn puts him on an even more confrontational path with the West, in a positive feedback loop.

The EU has tackled this through, primarily, ambivalence. It has sought to punish Lukashenka, but not too harshly, always dangling the hope of a Euro-Belarusian rapprochement should Minsk change its tune.

Some Member States recognise this strategy has failed. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are spearheading a political effort to extend sanctions on Russia as well. This effort isn’t based on the analysis that Putin is the primary beneficiary of the current crisis, although that certainly plays a part. Rather, it rests on the (most probably correct) assumption that the Belarusian KGB lacks the operational capabilities to carry out the espionage operation required to keep tabs of Pratasevich’s trip to Athens without direct Russian assistance. France is also leaning towards this position, as President Macron has become manifestly frustrated with the timidity of European sanctions against its eastward opponents.

But the rest of the Union is a lot more ambivalent. Countries like Italy have a long history of opposition to new rounds of sanctions against Russia, primarily based on (largely imaginary) commercial grounds. Orban’s Hungary is of course always ready to cozy up with the Kremlin, a strategy Budapest calls the “eastern pivot”. Germany, torn by ambivalent political inclinations and its own commercial ties with Russia, is also a source of frustration for those wishing for a tougher EU response.

We Have Nothing to Gain by Waiting

That, however, doesn’t mean the situation is hopeless. Even ignoring Russia’s involvement and sticking with current sanctions against the Kremlin, and even within the current mandate of the EU, there is considerable room to manoeuvre and develop a better foreign policy towards Belarus, one much more effective at pursuing Brussels’ objectives and interests.

For a start, the loss of overflight fees will not bankrupt Lukashenka’s regime, but other countermeasures might. Large State-owned companies are the primary pillar on which Lukashenka’s regime lays its foundations. These oligarchs form the elite in the country, provide precious connections to Russia and the rest of the world, and bankroll the heavy militarisation of society required to maintain Lukashenka’s illegal hold on power. Hitting these companies would mean striking at Lukashenka where it actually hurts.

One such example is Belarusian mining and extraction company Belaruskali, whose employees are deprived of the right to strike – among others. Belaruskali enjoys strong connections with a Norwegian energy giant, Yara, which acts as a gateway into the European Economic Area – of which Norway is a member. Why should this situation continue, in a context where Belarus has clearly decided to douse its bridge with Europe in gasoline, and burn it?

The Americans, untroubled by the internal division and uncertainty that hampers the EU’s every move, have been following precisely this strategy, heaping so many economic sanctions on Belarusian refineries that Russia has been forced to cut its oil exports to Minsk. These oil exports, which are subsidised by the Kremlin, are the economic lifeline of the regime. Cutting it would do more to restrain Lukashenka’s bloodthirst than a thousand overflight restrictions.

Another low-hanging fruit that would make sure sanctions are not a half-measure would be to restrict the sale and holding of Belarusian treasury bonds. No financial institution inside Europe should help bankroll the regime that is going to put that cash flow into even more repression of its own citizens. Other key Belarusian economic interests, such as the illegal smuggling of cigarettes from and into the EU (which has reached truly dazzling proportions), would make for easy targets for any concerted response. It would also very quickly exert financial pressure on Lukashenka.

The only carrot Europe should offer to Lukashenka is to ease some of the restrictions if Minsk releases its political prisoners. This doesn’t mean Pratasevich and Sapega alone. There are now hundreds of political prisoners lost inside the depths of the Belarusian security apparatus, a number that keeps growing ever since the parody of national elections held last year. Only by de-escalating his war against his own people should Lukashenka be able to win some breathing room. And even then, the ultimate objective should always be his removal from power, by any means necessary.

Belarus has turned into a black hole of repression and State-sanctioned violence right at the border with the EU. The poison pouring out of Minsk is beginning to cross the border, threatening the lives and safety of European citizens as well as the opposition figures that, at this critical juncture, should enjoy our protection. It is clear that the strategy of half-measures has failed. Lukashenka will keep stirring up trouble unless he’s unable to, and it is up to us to make him stop. That will, unfortunately, require European national leaders to take their heads out of the sand. One wonders how bad things will have to get before they are forced to do so.

The post With Belarus, the EU Has Nothing to Gain by Waiting appeared first on My Country? Europe..

Between the 18^th and the 22^nd of May 2021, 39 countries will take part in the Eurovision Song Contest in Rotterdam. The national juries and the public will decide which song is the best – or at least, which song they prefer.

What is Eurovision Exactly?

At the risk of causing confusion, there are two different meanings for Eurovision. What we are talking about here is the Eurovision Song Contest. The annual competition is organised by a TV network also called Eurovision, which is part of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), an alliance of public service media organisations around Europe and beyond.

Any member of the EBU can participate in the Eurovision Song Contest. This explains why Israel, Morocco and Turkey have participated at least once. It also means that countries like Egypt or Tunisia are eligible to participate if they want to as they are full members of the EBU, but Liechtenstein cannot. The case of Australia is more special, as in theory they only have “EBU Associated Member” status, but in practice they have participated to Eurovision assiduously since 2015. The explanation is simple: they had an enormous audience, asked politely to join, and were accepted as guests that have come back every year since then.

With almost 200 million people watching it every year, Eurovision is a formidable stage for artists to reach a bigger audience both at home and internationally. This is the very same show that made Abba and Céline Dion famous worldwide, fuelling the dreams of renown to the participants.

Eurovision’s Identity

For many people that don’t really follow the song contest, Eurovision is merely a show of bad pop songs where only Eastern European countries win. This statement is partly true. Yes, there are a lot of pop songs, and yes, some Eastern European countries such as Moldova have a habit of sending entries that fit the Eurovision stereotype to a tee (see for references when they created the Epic Sax Guy meme).

The show is known, in fact, for making fun of itself in this regard. Think, for example, of the unforgettable Verka Serduchka, the Ukrainian comedian who makes regular appearances to entertain the audience with his iconic star-shaped disco hat. Or again, when presenters themselves described the recipe for a perfect Eurovision performance (which should include love, peace, memorable costumes and some strange old folkloristic instrument) when introducing the song “Love Love Peace Peace” in Stockholm back in 2016.

But the audience also loves powerful songs that do not necessarily have this ironic taint to them. 2016, 2017 and 2019 winners were far from being silly pop songs. Both moods go hand in hand, and this makes the beauty – and the identity – of the show. The stage can display a silly pop, a heart-breaking ballad, and a headbanging hard rock piece – that’s part of the fan appeal!

The Confusion over its Political Dimension

Technically, the contest is supposed to be neutral in terms of politics, and political statements are forbidden. Georgia was refused participation in 2009 with the title “We Don’t Wanna Put In” which was a barely hidden criticism of the President of Russia. Belarus was disqualified from this year’s edition for sending a pro-Lukashenko song allegedly mocking the protests and named “Ya nauchu tebya (I’ll teach you)”.

On the other hand, the stage is often used for societal messages, to favour equality, LGBTQ+ friendly messages, etc. The 2018 winning song, by Netta, had a strong anti-patriarchy message, for example. Austria won in 2014 with Conchita Wurst’s song, “Rise Like a Phoenix”, promoting acceptance for and giving a voice to the LGBTQ+ community. Since its first openly gay contestant in 1997, Páll Óskar Hjálmtýsson from Iceland, the show has made a sort of “coming out” by itself by defending values of tolerance, giving the spotlight and a chance to shine to these messages.

The Power of Music

Like clockwork, Eurovision always brings up arguments about how these societal messages are political after all, and that they shouldn’t have any space within a song contest. But has music ever been neutral? Music has been used to fight oppressive regimes, like “E depois do adeus” by Paulo de Carvalho, which was the secret sign to the military to start the Carnation Revolution against the Salazar regime in Portugal. Music is also used to express a feeling in society; things we love or things we hate.

If a song like “Rise like a Phoenix” won, it means that it resonated in people’s hearts and that it deserved to win. It is a mere reflection of society and if songs about love or dancing are popular, they are certainly not the only ones to exist. A song speaks to the heart, to the emotions.

By allowing the public to vote, it opens the door to societal messages that vibrate within the crowd. If we only wanted to have the best song in purely technical terms, the jury would be the sole judge. The current system is a good balance between technical skills and popular votes, which are based only on the heart. Without that, the show would be significantly less entertaining.

The European Soul of Eurovision

The Eurovision Song Contest is also a stage for European identity. People from across the continent gather on stage, in the stadiums, in bars (during normal times), and celebrate music. Europeans come together on a stage, perform and cheer on each other. Many of them choose to proudly display their culture and their language and everyone applauds.

This is a place where being chauvinistic is not a thing, because music is such an emotional and subjective feeling. It often leads to mitigated feelings or disappointment over one’s own country when the music does not fit his or her personal taste. Eurovision is about picking the country with the song you like the most and rooting for them, regardless of the country itself.

The show focuses on having fun and there are no borders. Cultures, languages, and accents cohabitate, and this does not seem to be a problem. We are united in diversity.

The show took a deeper European turn when the Berlin Wall fell. The countries recently freed from the USSR’s yoke had a strong desire to be recognised as European. Estonia openly stated that their path to the European Communities went through Eurovision as well. This cultural aspect seems to be taken seriously by most Eastern European countries, which often have strong contenders to the show. It may also explain why Ukraine never lost a semi-final since its first participation in 2003, and even won twice, the first time being only one year after their entry in the contest.

Of course, while the show has a very European identity, there is no direct correlation between it and European cooperation on a political level. After all, it did not prevent Brexit, and Switzerland, where the first edition took place, never had a sudden urge to join the European institutions family.

However, the show does create the possibility to be a part of Europe without the politics, without having to debate on rules, on trade, and all the nitty-gritty that comes with politics. It allows to be a part of Europe, as diverse and vast as it is, and to have fun with friends from all over the continent. If this does not convince you, then nothing will.

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Kundera In The East: A Life Across A Divide

Milan Kundera was born in Brno, in south Moravia, Czechoslovakia, now Czechia, in 1929. A committed Communist, he joined the party in 1947, shortly before enrolling at Charles University in Prague. A youthful indiscretion, apparently praising Trotsky, resulted in his exclusion from the Party in 1950, and he had to spend the remainder of his military service working in Czech coal mines.

During this time, Kundera also began work on his first two books, both poem collections, titled The Vast Garden of Man, and Last May. These garnered a positive reception, while critically not falling afoul of the Communist authorities. During the destalinisation programme of 1956, the Party rehabilitated Kundera, who gained much inspiration from the events of the following decade, and particularly the Prague Spring. He sang the praises of the independent Czech spirit in several works, like Miracle in Bohemia, The Pleasantry, and Laughable Loves, the latter two considered anti-totalitarian in outlook.

The Soviet invasion of 1968 – conducted with half a million men in arms, tanks, and a serious complement of artillery – put an end to unchecked freedom of expression in Czechoslovakia. In 1970, Kundera was again excluded from the Party, losing his teaching position in the Higher Institute for Film Studies, with the authorities going so far as to purge the libraries of his books. Having obtained a two-year visa to France, he left Czechoslovakia by car with his wife in 1975. Continuing literary success allowed him to stay in France, motivated by the jeopardy his continued existence in Czechoslovakia placed on his friends and all those who had assisted him in any way.

Kundera In The West: Bridging The Divide

Kundera’s stay in France allowed him to rise from merely national to continental relevance. Writing first in Czech and then in French, as well as receiving several important French literary prizes, he rapidly established himself as one of the most widely known writers of the period, from the late 1970s until the fall of Communism in 1989.

Kundera was first and foremost an avant-garde writer, exploring human sexuality and the evolution of gender relations in an environment where the women’s liberation movement was taking its first decisive steps forward. His position straddling East and West fascinated his newfound Western audience. He was – and remains today – an intellectual writer, heavy with reflections on the meaning of things, citing Nietzche and Ionesco, analysing his characters’ motives and feelings. But is he really an East or even Central European writer, aside from his geographic affiliation?

Reservations Of His Countrymen

Kundera was and still is a popular author in the West, and his work has been translated into many languages. In his own Czechia, this appears to not be the case. Aside from the question of how atypical a Central European writer Kundera is, there is one incident that goes a long way to explain his compatriots’ lack of interest in his literary production.

In 2008, a document emerged from a local police department. Dated 1950, the document detailed how Milan Kundera had denounced a fellow soldier, Miroslav Dvořáček, to the police. The accusation was one of desertion, accompanied by the presentation of false papers. Whether the accusation truly originated with Kundera or with someone else, the authorities’ investigation resulted in a long prison sentence for Dvořáček.

To this day, Kundera vehemently denies having made any such statement, or even knowing the man personally. At the time the documents surfaced, police forgeries were known to be used as a political tool to bring down individuals the government did not like. Kundera would be a big name to take down, and international personalities rallied to his defence. Whether or not Kundera had done this in his youth is not definitely known. What role the incident should play in judging the man and his literature is another question. Even before the accusation, Czech readers seemed to have some reservations about him and his work.

Is Kundera’s lack of wide following in the Czech Republic an indication that the writer has left his roots behind? Without having some intimate knowledge of the Communist period first-hand, or access to anecdotes from the generations involved, it’s difficult to venture an opinion – even more so when his Czech works have seen less attention than those he produced in the West.

There are reasons, however, to think this might be the case, as unusual as it might be. Czech and Eastern European readers will chafe at the Marxist label petite bourgeoisie in art, and yet there are many bourgeois elements in Kundera’s work that seem to transcend his upbringing or harken back to another time. His psychological understanding of human behaviour is profound and occupies the main focus of his work. Yet though he talks of couples, threesomes, sexual and romantic attractions, hardly any families figure in Kundera’s work. Society would not ‘reproduce’, to use a near-Marxist term, without families.

His characters live, like all bourgeois characters in similar microscopic dissections, in a world of sexual impulses, devoid of thoughts or even a word about contraception, pregnancy, childbirth, or abortion. And of course, nobody really works very much in his novels and stories. The focus lies entirely with their emotional life, suspended beyond any material considerations. Early in his life, Kundera had criticized ‘social realism’. It is clear he didn’t like it. Yet, still with all this, Milan Kundera is a marvellous and insightful writer. The only question that remains is if there is a Central European Czech writer named Milan Kundera, or only a French writer in the making.

Why Read The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting gives the reader ample occasion to judge Kundera’s vocation as a writer. The English translation by Aaron Asher for Harper is very readable, and available in paperback. Written late in his life while in France, there are in this collection of short stories many which deal with the period when Kundera still lived in Czechoslovakia under communist rule. They are seen through the lens of memory – another main theme in his works – of a man, now successful and living in the West. Yet much of his early experience remains.

Other stories explore gender relationships. These are more typical of his vocation as an avant-garde writer of contemporary mores. Here, like Nabokov, the sharp incisive knife of his pen dissects the characters’ motives. The writing is clear, without excess; the human drama is seen in a world in which God has been dead for a long time. But other things have died and been buried for this post-modernist. Whether looking at Kundera’s communists, unrelentingly bad, or his heroes and heroines, unrelentingly coupling, Kundera’s experience of communism has led him to replace the political project with the mundane. Life is the sum of its daily sorrows and joys. All projects have long ago been defeated and forgotten.

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The links between Morocco and the European Communities traces back to 1987, when King Hassan II sent an official demand to integrate his country in all three institutions: the European Coal and Steel Community, Euratom and the European Economic Community. His demand was rejected stating that the country was not European, a criterion written on the paper only 6 years later with the approval of the Copenhagen criteria.

Despite the rejection, Hassan II knew that his country had little chances of being considered as a potential candidate after sending representatives to test the waters in Brussels. However, this did not stop the two parties from collaborating. Many treaties were signed, especially on subjects such as fisheries, free trade, agriculture, and many others. These bilateral treaties, combined with the country’s membership of the Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Area, give Morocco today almost all the benefits of being a Member State of the European Union without having decisional power.

The European Union is Morocco’s main trade partner, with about 60% exports and around 57% imports, while Morocco does not make it in the top 20 biggest partners of the EU. Then why is the country so close to the European Union? In three words: strategy, oil, and fish.

Morocco today

Despite Spain’s apparent contentions with Morocco about its exclaves, both countries share a lot of information in terms of security, antiterrorism, border control, etc. France as well has multiple strategic interests in collaborating with the Kingdom. The country is a stable ally in the Maghreb and offers a door to the Saharan countries. It is also on the path of migration flows from Africa to Europe and acts as a gatekeeper on behalf of Europe, in exchange of financial compensation. The second aspect consists in the fisheries. The scenario here is simple: Europe sends money to Morocco and European fishermen are allowed to fish in Moroccan waters.

The final major aspect is oil. Western Sahara, or Sahrawi, is located in southern Morocco and it is believed that there might be major oil resources there. The first problem is that Western Sahara is a disputed land that is classified as a “non-self-governing territory to be decolonised”. The second problem is that there might not be any oil in that region. But an oil-endowed ally is in the interest of Europe, hence why the French company Total helped prospecting on behalf of Morocco, and why the National Norwegian Oil Fund invested in the venture. However, both companies pulled out due to international pressure from the UN.

Despite the help and the collaboration, there is contention over the three exclaves owned by Spain on the Moroccan coast: Ceuta, Peñon de Vélez de la Gomera, and Melilla. The European country refuses to address the issue while Morocco repeatedly tried to get control of the exclaves in the past. However, it became a comfortable issue recently for both countries.

With the increase in migration to Europe, Spain decided to build large walls at the borders to keep the waves of migrants out as much as possible. Europe is also paying Morocco to police the border on behalf of Europe, comfortably outsourcing the responsibility to the Kingdom. This heavy, external border control led to several deaths and caused NGOs such as Amnesty International to ask Spain to take responsibility for such events. Meanwhile, nothing is being done, with Morocco and Europe silently shaking hands.

Finally, the biggest and most embarrassing problem for both parties is the aforementioned Western Sahara. Morocco’s central power claims the land as its own, while the United Nations designated this land as an occupied country. The UN’s and the EU’s law forbid the latter to have a trade agreement including products from a territory whose status is the same as Sahrawi’s.

It is based on this law that the Front Polisario, a rebel liberation movement, sued the European Union at the Court of Justice of the European Union in 2016. The Court found the EU guilty and forced to annul the trade agreement.

The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs of the time, Federica Mogherini, dismissed the issue, and another trade agreement was found excluding specifically products (and fish) made on the Western Saharan land. Morocco briefly protested by cutting ties with the EU, but they were quickly restoed.

As of today, the status quo remains intact. The presence of a stable, cooperating ally in the region is a too good opportunity to pass for the EU. Especially when it gives the opportunity for Member States to relocate its migratory problems outside of its borders, just by closing their eyes on the spiky issue of Western Sahara.

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Vaccine Nationalism And Political Myopia

Let’s start with the fundamentals. The EU’s negotiating wasn’t slow, nor was it inefficient. In fact, the EU – AstraZeneca purchasing agreement precedes the company’s similar deal with the United Kingdom. The “British first” clause did not stem out of a commercial contract. It was the result of public funds made available to Oxford, which AstraZeneca gained access to once the two teamed up to develop a vaccine.

Deploying early funding to support a vaccine for the new coronavirus is undoubtedly a sensible move. Vaccine nationalism, conversely, was extremely myopic. The funding being made conditional on Britain receiving doses before anybody else might seem like a nation-state ruthlessly pursuing its interests while leaving the rest of the world out to dry, and to a degree this is true. But even if one handwaves this selfishness as acceptable, the fundamental point is missing: this logic makes it harder, not easier, to fight the pandemic.

Every new generation of the virus increases the likelihood that it will mutate. The more people are infected all over the world, the likelier it is that the virus will change. The more the virus changes, the less effective vaccines will be. Should the UK manage to vaccinate its entire population, and open up to the rest of the world, it would be confronted with a situation in which contagions still surge in the majority of the planet, leading to more and more variants, and presenting the spectre of a new wave in the UK itself, endangering all the work done so far. Only a global rollout of vaccines can properly stem the tide of the pandemic.

The World “First”, Europe “Second”

This is not fringe epidemiology. This fact was well understood as far back as January 2020. For all the uncertainty surrounding the new coronavirus, it was still a coronavirus – many in this clade are already known to science, and while there could be no certainty as to how fast the virus would mutate, it was fair to assume it would eventually produce variants, especially if confronted with piecemeal vaccinations. This is why, when Germany funded BioNTech like the UK did Oxford, the government in Berlin did not include a “Europe first” clause. Nor did the European Commission see it fit to intervene and request one. This attitude remained consistent when BioNTech partnered with American pharmaceutical company Pfizer. Meanwhile, the UK vetoed a partnership between Oxford and American company Merck, forcing a partnership with British AstraZeneca instead.

And yet, while the EU was making sound medical R&D decisions, and trusting its long-standing partners to do the same, worrying signs started coming out of the Atlantic. Then-president Trump tried to steal BioNTech from Germany to gain exclusive American access to the vaccine. The move failed, and even so, back then it caused an uproar. Why the same indignation is not on display now, with countries monopolising vaccine doses, is a great mystery of public opinion.

Export Bans And The Global Vaccine Supply Chain

Trump didn’t seem overly concerned with his failure to steal the BioNTech vaccine. Indeed, he didn’t even bother to sign Pfizer supply contracts. This is because he knew that most of the new partnership’s production capacity was in the United States; he only needed a legal excuse to seize doses present on American soil, or block them with an export ban, and he would get all the jabs his country would need. The absurdity of this beggar-thy-neighbour policy is that European vaccines are being used, not only in Europe, Japan, and South Korea, but also Mexico and Canada – the two countries bordering the Continental United States, who have no other option given their neighbour’s export ban on vaccines.

The legal cover for this – which the Biden administration is still using at time of writing – is twofold: one is Trump’s December 2020 executive order, giving Americans first priority to vaccines produced on American soil. The other, more substantial basis is the Defense Production Act.

We’re not discussing a trickle here, either: millions of EU doses have been used in the aforementioned countries, as well as in developing countries, while the United States and the United Kingdom simply seize EU doses produced on their soil and regularly purchased well in advance. This unilateral seizing is nothing short of vaccine piracy, and as mentioned, it’s making it all the harder to have a meaningful global impact on the pandemic. Should dangerous variants proliferate, it might even backfire, causing untold damage to the economy, as well as – and more seriously – additional loss of life. The United States alone has got its hands on over five million EU vaccine doses.

EU-UK Relations Take Centre-Stage

On the other side of the coin is the UK’s own vaccine piracy – primarily fueled by what the EU deems AstraZeneca’s breach of contract. Already on 29th January, AstraZeneca informed the EU that it would be unable to meet promised shipments due to “production problems” in its two European plants. This was because doses slated for the EU had been delivered to the UK instead. Brussels demanded AstraZeneca uphold its contract, which obliged it to make use of all four of its production facilities (two in the UK, two in the EU) to meet its obligations on deliveries. Shielded by the “British first” clause, AstraZeneca refused to bridge the gap with exports from the UK. The stage was set for a cross-channel battle of wills that is not yet concluded at time of writing.

Up to January 2021, the EU had included the UK in all of its anti-pandemic industrial coordination plans, making sure Britain was not isolated from the world economy on critical items such as ventilators and medical equipment during the first and second surges of covid cases. This has included as many as ten million vaccine doses exported from the EU to the UK. Britain’s current manipulation of vaccine exports has ended that cooperation. The Commission has retaliated and is moving ahead with its own export ban, and it is likely that additional countermeasures will be forthcoming. As more vaccines enter the market, AstraZeneca’s leverage will diminish. Legally, the battle might well last for years to come. Politically, the tide has already turned against them.

The Strategic And Political Bankruptcy Of European Member States

A final consideration should be made to close out this much-needed reframing of the vaccine narrative. It would be easy to draw the conclusion that the EU was naive to trust in its international partners to put collective long-term interests ahead of their own short-term benefit. This misses the fundamental point on two levels. First is the already explored medical argument: a piecemeal rollout of vaccines in select countries is an own goal, as the virus rages everywhere and the number of mutations increase. The failure to coordinate vaccine distribution on an international scale ultimately represents the failure of humanity to address this crisis effectively; it will lengthen it, not shorten it.

A narrower but equally important point is that the EU did not act naively – rather, it acted as it has always been intended to act, by design. It is completely unreasonable to expect the EU to act and think like a hard power, neorealist security institution, when Member States still jealously guard their monopoly on security and national defence. As we have emphatically argued before, Member States are in the driver seat when it comes to running the Union through the pandemic, and they’re making a terrible job of it.

The Catch 22 Vaccine Scenario

Healthcare is also a competence lying primarily with the Member States. Their refusal to equip the EU with the proper tools to handle security responsibilities has left this flank open to Anglo-American vaccine piracy. It is their political timidity which leads them to preserve this institutional status quo even in the face of a world-changing crisis. In addition, their pathological concerns with short-term gains over long-term strategy is what motivates them to use the EU as a scapegoat for everything they fail to accomplish.

Unfortunately, this is the “Catch 22” European institutions are constantly exposed to. Had the European Commission truly tried to force BioNTech to end its partnership with Pfizer and find a European partner instead, Member States today might be playing the blame game the other way, pointing to the failed partnership as the reason for the delayed availability and rollout of anti-covid jabs. This crisis has made it obvious that 19th-Century European nation states are not fit to govern themselves in a crisis.

If you want evidence of the need for true European integration, look no further than the vaccine rollout crisis. This is more than recrimination about the past – it contains a concern about the future. The end of the pandemic is not yet in sight. Even as immunisations mount, the process to make the virus both endemic and harmless will be long and arduous. Will Europe get through to the end of this great challenge still in one piece? How exactly do European Member States plan to survive climate change when the coronavirus has so thoroughly outmatched them? These remain, at the moment, tragically open questions.

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The Different Aspects of the European Project

At a time when the European project is demanding a renewed commitment from its citizens it is useful to examine the parameters of engagement to the nation and earlier forms of identity. From this, European citizens can take some useful aspects, but other parts they ought to discard if they are determined to fully pledge their allegiance to the Union.

The twelve starred flag on a field of blue, the ‘Ode to Joy’, and ‘Bella Ciao’ are perhaps the easiest parts of a ‘European’ identity. On the other hand, other aspects may prove a bit harder to assimilate: new languages, additional taxes, new political, geographical, and economic information. These come together with dilution of political agency caused by enlargement and federalism, with increased competition, and even new military and defense commitments. All of these are a few of the more noticeable demands placed on the would-be citizen of the European Union. Coming from a place rich in varying traditions, the ‘nation state’, these demands will be taken on with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Trying to understand the old allegiances can help prepare for the new.

The Myth Of The Nation

Of all the social myths one of the more difficult to reconcile logically is “nationalism”. Unlike justice, progress, popular democracy, or even heaven and the after-life, the ‘nation’ is supposedly a well defined, observable phenomenon of human societies. However, under-scrutiny this notion and its simplistic appeal fall apart to an unanticipated extent. This concept is perhaps as elusive as it is familiar.

What exactly is a “nation?” Is the nation a collection of borders that have changed numerous times, even in recent memory? A collection of peoples whose genetic mix is so great and diverse that they are hardly distinguishable from their neighbors and even related to such far flung ancestors as Central Asians, Turks, Semites, Africans, Neanderthals or Denizovs found the world over? Or perhaps it consists of a collection of languages but then how many to include? From this, it would seem that nationalism is one of the most vague notions we adhere to. However, it is still one of the most persistent and  troublesome myths in modern times. People will build their identity around it. As a consequence, we also define states, organise passions, start wars, and justified mass killings because of it.

The Dawn of the Nation State

In the modern era the birth of the nation state links to the decline of the Holy Roman empire, from about 1200 CE onwards. We ought to remember that Empires are not nations, they are made up of numerous ethnicities. Empires would normally recognise citizens of all different origins in one way or another. Peoples maintained their original identities even while being and identifying themselves as an integral part of the empire. Nation states are different. They may accept minorities within their borders, but may also insist on their assimilation. The boundaries of an empire are fluid things, expanding and contracting over time, those of the nation state are perceived as fixed for eternity, though in reality they are not.

A nation is more similar, but not identical, to a kingdom. A kingdom starts as the birthright of an individual and it evolves into a jurisdiction. The loyalty of the kingdom’s subjects is to the natural right of the king derived from God, even though the king is not a god himself. By contrast the right of the nation to exist is enshrined in natural law, not in the authority of a single person.

Somewhat akin to race, an even more nebulous concept, though a solid fixture of 21^st century vocabulary, the nation comforts, protects and gives us a sense of identity while it also exacts a psychological toll. It makes numerous demands of its adherents including ultimately death to protect its projection of power and its dominant class. However, a nation does not give it citizens unlimited access to its power and wealth in return. The share they get will depend on the socio-economic status. It can go from virtually nothing for the homeless to untold wealth and power for a fortunate few. Efforts to legitimise a ‘safety net’, a guaranteed income, constitutional or other birth rights and entitlements like universal education have come and gone in the nation state. They remain precarious.

War and Security, the Myth of a Nation’s Power

It wasn’t always that the nation was thought to be the guarantor of security for the community. In the feudal era, the feudal lord was responsible for the community’s defense. He ordered the construction of a defensive fortress where he resided and wherein the community took refuge in times of danger. The feudal lord organised the men who would accompany him to battle, assured the provision of their equipment when social custom didn’t require them to do so themselves, mapped out their strategy and led them into battle. They were also responsible for external relations of the community, making alliances where he saw fit breaking other alliances for the community’s protection or advancement.

When kings began to replace local feudal lords, the king’s armies, first in parallel with local forces and afterwards replacing them, became the principal guarantor of power. The identification of the king, though his domains would often be contiguous with what would later become the nation, was a process imbued with religion and faith as well as power and relationships.

From Kingdom to Nation

As God’s incarnation on earth the king’s existence imposed special loyalties and obligations on the subjects. Lese-majesteor, deposing a king was no longer a simple political matter but a direct affront to God and his power. But it was not directly an affront to the community or the nation.

During the middle ages and through to the modern period in Europe kings could and did come from other countries. The Monarchs of England are today from Germanic descent, Queen Elizabeth retaining only a minor lineal connection to the British kings of the past. The Austrian Hapsburg house ruled for long periods in France, Spain and the Netherlands as well as Austria-Hungary, they acquired those positions through marriage and conquest.

It wasn’t until later that the idea of nation, a legally bound territory with some consistency in ethnicity, customs, and laws started to become the principal repository of security. The predominance of the nation as a political organisation continues today. It has been eroded both from above and from below. From above by supra-national organisations, like the former Soviet Union and the European Union, and from below by strong regional independence movements such as in Scotland, Catalan region, or Northern Italy and Corsica.

The European Union An Empire or Supra-National State?

The current European Union presents itself halfway between some of the more ambitious alliances of the past and today’s somewhat tenuous notion of nation as a federation of regions.

In the past, however, national loyalties were constructed not inspired by treaties between different parties. France, the UK, Italy, and Germany were all built from regions who had little desire to join anything larger than themselves except on a limited basis in times of external threat. School curriculum, the clergy, the consecration of festivals, holidays, and symbols, all contributed to fostering national identity at a time when local loyalties were still stronger. Even Greek City states, so famously successful in attracting the loyalty of their citizens, were originally built on forced migrations from the surrounding countryside. In time, festivals, gods, and other attractions of the Polis would make their citizens feel Athenian, Spartan, Corinthian (or other) and then Greek. Similarly, European identity will need to be crafted as part of an ongoing, emergent process.

Moving Forward

Ultimately, the creation of the nation states and its allegiances was a gradual process that happened over time. With this in mind, the lack of initial wide-spread enthusiasm to the notion of Europe should not be insurmountable. However, we ought to be careful in relying on symbols, holidays, religious sermons, or even laws like universal conscription to build the sentiment of belonging to a European nation today. Times have changed too much, people are better informed, educated, and accustomed to individual freedoms. The key to success will be in choosing carefully sustainable values on which to build the Union. Many of these are already in place in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens and the European Charter. Respect for these values including the more divisive ones such as human rights, minority rights, immigrants’ rights, and territorial integrity, and the ultimate surrender of sovereignty will be key to the successful emergence of Europe. In contrast, allowing individual, regional, national, or religious interests to prevail will make the building of a successful union more difficult.

Stephen Sposato

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