“The European Union is united and acting quickly.” So said Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, two days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February. At the time, the 27 member countries of the bloc had just agreed to adopt the first sanctions with the aim of deterring Russia.
This Thursday (2), before the conflict reached the 100-day mark, a sixth package of restrictions was approved, but a statement like that of Von der Leyen would need to resort to other adjectives. Cohesion in the bloc is increasingly difficult to maintain, and negotiations were not exactly quick, lasting a month.
Still, after ups and downs, along sometimes tortuous lines, it can be said that the EU is heading in the same direction – which, according to experts, would configure something unprecedented, in addition to an unexpected resilience by Vladimir Putin.
The sixth package of sanctions has as its main measure the banning of Russian oil that arrives by sea, which should suspend, within a period of six to eight months, 90% of imports made by the EU. “This will reduce Russia’s ability to finance its war,” von der Leyen said.
The consensus required a long road of negotiations, which involved the exemption for the product that arrives via the pipeline, in order to guarantee Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary extra time to reduce their dependence on the Russians. In the last few hours, another victory was won by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the EU leader closest to Putin. At his request, the name of Patriarch Cyril, head of the Russian Orthodox Church and close to the president, was excluded from the list of individual sanctions, which include freezing of assets.
“The European Union’s performance so far has been a positive surprise, especially given the compromise obtained with the sixth sanctions package,” says Eleonora Tafuro Ambrosetti, a researcher at the Institute for International Policy Studies in Rome who specializes in the bloc’s relations with Moscow. “Not because the result is ideal — it still isn’t — but because the EU is moving with unity and doing things that were previously unthinkable, from an economic, political and military point of view.”
As examples, she mentions the allocation of €4.1 billion to Ukraine since the invasion, the adoption of sanctions that have repercussions on the bloc’s economy, raising prices and generating inflation, and Germany’s historic decision to send weapons to the Ukrainians.
This view contrasts, in any case, with the mood of dismay with which authorities have come to see the most recent rounds of discussions, expressed by two prominent leaders of Germany, the EU’s largest economy. Robert Habeck, the economy minister, said on the eve of the European Council meeting that European cohesion was starting to crumble. Annalena Baerbock, Minister of Foreign Affairs, at a meeting of the Baltic Sea Council, defined the current moment as “of fatigue”.
“This risk exists and will present itself cyclically, as we move forward with increasingly tough measures”, says Ambrosetti. The Russian gas embargo is likely to encounter even more obstacles within the EU, with Italy taking the vulnerable position of the three countries temporarily exempted from the embargo — around 40% of the gas used by Rome is imported from Russia.
Other sources of tension include the role of NATO in European security: there are countries inclined to maintain dependence on the military alliance, concentrated in the east of the continent, and others, notably France, who defend the concept of strategic autonomy. And the bloc’s enlargement — in relation to Ukraine and those already in line, like Moldova, Georgia and the Western Balkans — is a German agenda.
“Cracks are starting to show, but so far the level of unity in the EU is unprecedented, given the historic divide over Russia,” says Marie Dumoulin, Paris-based director of the Wider Europe program at the Council on Foreign Relations. “It’s something unexpected by the Kremlin.”
The Frenchwoman agrees that the longer the war lasts, the harder it will be to keep Europe together. Sanctions tend to be increasingly polarizing, as they will always go deeper into important points in the economy of member countries, with varying effects between them. But she highlights a potentially tricky knot: the future relationship with Russia.
Dumoulin says the possible scenarios divide Europeans on the rapprochement with Moscow. If the meaning of the end of the war is a complete victory for Ukraine, that will also result in Russia, owner of a nuclear arsenal, defeated.
“In this scenario, can we guarantee the possibility of talking to the Russians?”, he asks. Finding a balance between the more morally correct and the existential threat is a key challenge facing European leaders today, she said. If the ceasefire is the result of exhaustion on both sides, countries will be divided on whether or not to resume involvement with Russia.
And, in the event that the end of the war involves territorial concessions by Kiev to the Russians — something that is not supported, for now, by any Western country —, again the building of a relationship with Moscow will bring noise.
Talks about the goals of the post-conflict EU, says Dumoulin, are still embryonic precisely because of the potential for disunity they embody. “It’s a difficult conversation, but it can be useful for the EU to understand its common interests and, in the long run, maintain unity.”
Ambrosetti also highlights the importance of this debate. “At some point, the leaders will have to sit down at the table and discuss what the possible relationship with Russia will look like.” After all, she recalls, the country will remain in the neighborhood. “Perhaps in the future it will not be the main energy supplier, but it will still be a power with an aggressive foreign policy. It is in the Europeans’ interest that it be stable.”
