Joe Biden is conspiring in the EU’s sinister attempt to take over Nato
Views (48)
As the situation begins to fracture in Moscow, we stand at a cross-roads in the pan-European war that Vladimir Putin started. It is a hot and bloody war for the Ukrainians and “grey” for its allies, as we experience cyber and information warfare attacks in which Russia is very skilled. This should be a moment for maximum cohesion in Nato which – with Finland’s arrival and Sweden’s soon to follow – is objectively at its strongest ever. Yet the alliance approaches this week’s Vilnius summit in a s
At such a critical moment, such musical chairs are worse than a crime. They are a mistake. And they point to a deeper and hitherto misunderstood threat to British national security; for we are under attack on two fronts.
Since 2016, and aware of their fading influence, Paris and Brussels have been aggressively seeking to revalidate the legitimacy of the French vision of federal union on firmer ground. That chosen ground is the most fundamental: defence and security. The instrument is a project known as “Permanent Structured Cooperation”, or Pesco, with an emphasis on the “P”. It is an instrument to deepen defence cooperation between member states, under French and EU leadership.
But Pesco is not a benign project. In fact, it is evolving into plans for an EU Defence Union that, in practice, would threaten a reverse take-over of Nato by Brussels. That is the meaning of Macron’s opposition to Wallace. Nothing could be more dangerous to UK national security and to continental European security at a time of grey and hot war.
Britain has not joined Pesco, but our ministers are being incorrectly briefed. They are told that it is safe for the UK to participate on a case-by-case basis, dining à la carte by signing up only to its Military Mobility project. This is not so. Like the devil, EU initiatives always dance through the details. The sotto voce battle cry of Brussels is: he who controls the details, wins.
Is the UK really about to throw this opportunity away, in favour of the dismal alternative vision offered by Macron, Von Der Leyen and Pesco? Or has 40 years of living as a member state within the EU so atrophied the mental sinews of the British political class that, now that the door to the cage has been opened, the canary dares not fly out to greet the sun of restored sovereignty?
It is imperative that ministers understand this; that they raise their eyes eastwards in order to preserve Nato correctly, by engaging pro-actively with the emerging Poland-centred alliance. They must cease to imagine that they can safely dine à la carte in Hôtel Pesco, when re-subordination of our sovereignty is the obligatory plat du jour.
Gwythian Prins is emeritus research professor at the LSE, a former Nato adviser, and author of ‘Protecting UK National Security from PESCO’, published by Briefings for Britain this week
0 Likes