Insight
Four questions on how the Russian assault on Ukraine will affect Europe by Sophia Besch, Ian Bond, Camino Mortera-Martinez and Luigi Scazzieri, 1 March 2022 CER experts provide answers on the off-ramp for Putin, Germany’s defence spending, how to deal with refugees, the internal battle over the rule of law and the impact on the EU’s neighbourhood. Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine will change Europe in many ways. The West’s first priority is to stop the war, and use Europe’s considerable political and economic power to force Putin back to the negotiation table. But the EU will have to quickly change other policies too – its refugee and asylum policies, as up to seven million Ukrainian refugees might cross the EU’s border; its defence policy, to uphold the security of Europe in combination with NATO; and its neighbourhood policy, given the risk that Putin will seek to destabilise other countries on the EU’s borders. Putin has shown where ‘illiberal democracy’ can lead – and the EU’s liberals have a chance to press their advantage in the internal battle over democratic values and the rule of law. Below, CER experts provide answers to pressing questions on how the Ukraine war will affect Europe. What is the off-ramp for Putin (or for Russia, which might not be the same thing)? There has been a persistent belief among Western policy-makers (going back to the annexation of Crimea in 2014) that the West needed to offer Putin an off-ramp to resolve the continuing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. There has never been any sign that Putin is looking for one. Putin sees the world in zero-sum terms: someone has to win and someone has to lose. Outcomes designed to offer both sides something that they can portray as a win are alien to him. He either sees them as a trick or a sign of weakness. Thus he claims that NATO ‘cheated’ Russia over its enlargement in Central Europe, when NATO felt that with the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997 it had offered Russia important assurances that the expanded alliance would not threaten Russia’s security. And thus he seems to have regarded the obvious anxiety of Western countries to avoid war in Ukraine, and the assurances they gave him that NATO forces would not get involved, as an indication that he would have a free hand. French President Emmanuel Macron and others, meanwhile, presumably thought they were offering Putin an opportunity not to launch a costly invasion, and to address some of his security concerns through negotiation. CER INSIGHT: Four questions on how the Russian assault on Ukraine will affect Europe 1 March 2022
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