Toward the EU’s strategic autonomy: Key points for a sovereign Europe

cc. The following text was first published at the end of October 2023. It is the result of long and intensive exchanges of the authors. It addresses how the European Union can find a way out of the longstanding impasse that has left it too closely tied to the United States and its policies. The authors plead in favour of a strategically autonomous of the EU.

The following are the fundamental points of our argument.

• For centuries, the European continent has been shaken by violence, crises, wars, and two world wars with enormous human casualties and destruction. During the mid–Cold War period, détente and Ostpolitik provided a brief period of reflection. In our time, the war in Ukraine may turn out to be the harbinger of new calamities.
    The first and foremost principle of a realistic security policy must be the prevention of war. Now, more than ever, we need to prepare for peace, not for war. Any alternative security concept must focus on the unsuitability of European industrialised societies for war, because in the event of a major conventional or nuclear war, industry and the infrastructure necessary for survival will be largely destroyed and the environment will be poisoned, destroyed, and rendered uninhabitable over large areas. In densely populated industrial and high-tech regions, the complete failure of telecommunications networks for wired and wireless data transmission is foreseeable.

• After the dissolution of the Warsaw Treaty system (Warsaw pact) and the emergence of new states in Eastern Europe, the desire and will for a Common European Home to take Gorbachev’s memorable phrase, once again offered one of the few historical opportunities to finally bring about lasting peace. The Charter of Paris (1990) provided the foundation for this as a fundamental international agreement to create a new, peaceful order in Europe.
    Europe’s interests lie objectively not only in the peaceful, cooperative coexistence of the peoples and states on the Eurasian continent, but also with those of Africa, Latin America, and North America. Only in this way can the global transition to a multipolar world be sustainable and peaceful. Only in this way can threats be prevented and no longer – as is often the case with ethnic/religious differences – be instrumentalised for crises and wars. This will require not only a complete change in the EU’s foreign and foreign economic policies, but also change in the policies of many member states, including their domestic policies. There is no other way to build global trust.

• Developments since the failed implementation of the Paris Charter show that, despite cosigning it, it was diametrically opposed to the US claim to global hegemony. Europe’s interests cannot be pursued as long as the EU subordinates itself to the US Developments since 1990, notably NATO’s eastward expansion, the Indo–Pacific strategy, the NATO-EU cooperation agreement in January 2023 with NATO’s primacy, are striking evidence of this.

• We need global economic cooperation for mutual benefit, with the US and with the Eurasian Economic Union, the BRICS states, the African states, and those of Mercosur. We also need to abandon the thought of decoupling from China, or “de-risking” the relationship, as the currently fashionable term has it.

• China’s efforts to achieve closer economic cooperation with the EU will remain unsuccessful if the EU continues to subordinate itself, to its own detriment, to the global hegemonic interests of the US. Hegemonic endeavours, one-sided dependencies, and trade relations without mutual benefit must be rejected. They also contradict the spirit and content of the principles of the UN.

• There can be no peaceful Europe without democratisation of the economy and society. European economic policy must be freed from “shareholder value” and the dictates of the neoliberal financial sector. European sovereignty also means more autonomy with regard to the control and disposal of digital technologies and communication and payment systems.

• Internationalist policy is based on four principles: Peace through collective (UN) and common security, disarmament and structural nonaggression.

• Structural nonaggression capability at EU level means the withdrawal of individual member states from the military structures of NATO, strict defence doctrines, absolute adherence to international law and therefore strict compliance with the ban on the use of force in international relations as set out in the UN Charter. It also means commitments to disarmament, arms control, and the abandonment of nuclear weapons.

• In the longer term, Europe must replace the NATO military alliance with an independent, nationally organised European alliance and defence system without the US Defence planning, equipment, and the structure of the (partially) armed forces in the individual EU member states follow the principle of structural nonaggression (the principle of territorial defence instead of an offensive army) and the principle that the highly industrialised states cannot ultimately be defended by military means but only by nonviolent, civil, and social means. A defence system without the US therefore does not mean rearmament in Europe, an EU army, or an EU nuclear power.

• An independent peace and security architecture centred on the Eurasian continent is indispensable for a sovereign Europe. It must be based on a renewed and expanded Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, an “OSCE 2.0,” without the US and Canada but with the other existing members in accordance with the principle of common security. The OSCE’s current focus on the Eurasian continent should be expanded to include the neighbouring Mediterranean region (North Africa, the Middle East).

• Against the background of the history of power and violence on the European continent and the major powers responsible for this, it is essential that the interests of small and medium-sized states are given special consideration in a renewed and expanded OSCE 2.0 and that these are reconciled. Cooperation with the UN Economic Commission for Europe, the UNECE, has an important role to play here.

• The political goal of an OSCE 2.0 is geared towards a common security and economic area “from Lisbon to Vladivostok”. In the course of achieving this, mutual threats, military establishments and armaments will gradually lose relevance and become meaningless upon completion of this process.

• The global monopoly on the use of force must be centred on the UN, i.e., removed from national or alliance interests. To achieve this, the UN must be democratised, as it is currently dominated by nuclear weapons states, some of which are economically powerful and the largest armed and arms-exporting powers. Consideration should be given to expanding the UN Security Council in view of the growing role of the Global South. The central task of the United Nations remains the safeguarding of world peace, i.e., prevention, dispute resolution, and sustainable civil conflict resolution on the basis of international law. Troops for dispute settlement are deployed solely on the basis of decisions by the UN Security Council without automatism.

• The United Nations and international law are the most important institutions for peaceful understanding between the states and societies of the world. Conflicts are an obstacle to a common future on the globe for peace, security, the environment, climate, and sustainable development. The world must be completely freed from wars and armed violence. The UN General Assembly and nongovernmental organisations must be given more authority. UN institutions must be strengthened financially through state contributions so that they do not become dependent on individual states or private entities.

• It is not yet possible to predict how and where the EU will develop politically and structurally in the future. The failure of an “ever closer union” is also conceivable against the backdrop of a possible loss of global influence by the US and the development of a polycentric world order. In the future, the question could then arise as to whether the EU should be structured as a nation-centred system or as a cooperative confederal system. This question is beyond the scope of this paper and is reserved for a separate debate.  •

¹ https://www.manager-magazin.de/politik/weltwirtschaft/g20-gipfel-china-will-mehr-zusammenarbeit-mit-der-eu-a-af4e746a-e50b-4f53-b6ff-f52bfeb93bfd
² https://www.sipri.org/publications/1985/policies-common-security
³ Nicolai, Georg Friedrich. "Landwehr oder Kriegsheer" (Territorial Force or War Army), in: Die Biologie des Krieges (The Biology of War), Wiederauflage, Darmstadt 1983
⁴ https://unece.org/

(Translation Current Concerns)

* Dr Detlef Bimboes is the author of numerous peace policy analyses. Jochen Scholz was a lieutenant colonel in the German armed forces with NATO in Brussels and worked in the German Ministry of Defence until his retirement. Both are members of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s dialogue group on peace and security policy in Berlin.