It is often argued that the European Union has maintained the peace over the last 50 years, but is this true?
The EU’s founding institutions were created as a Cold War instrument. After WW11 the US was seeking to stabilise Western Europe economically as a preliminary to the formation of NATO and the creation of a military bloc capable of defeating the Soviet Union. Its original members, France, Netherlands and Belgium, were involved in colonial wars while Germany and Italy were defeated fascist powers in which the US wielded disproportionate influence in alliance with collaborators of fascism. Britain and the US were both waging devastating wars across previous colonial territories in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and also Latin America.
Yugoslavia and Ukraine
In 1991Germany’s economic and diplomatic support for the separatist movements in Slovenia and Croatia destabilised the Yugoslavia’s federal structure. This brought the rise of Serb nationalism which in turn led to EU and US intervention and the NATO bombing of Serbia.
In Ukraine, a key destabilising factor was the pressure for the country’s associate membership of the EU. Extreme nationalist and fascists dominate the post–coup state apparatus and, together with the EU agenda for privatisation, this has played a major role in precipitating a still unresolved war.’
“Compatibility with NATO”
Britain’s membership of the EU carries with it obligations under the Lisbon Treaty to participate in the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy. Article 42 requires ‘compatibility’ with NATO military planning and under the mutual defence clause, Britain could be obliged to come to the military aid of our Nato “partner”, Erdogan’s Turkey.
The establishment of new military command centres in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania shows how far the integration of Nato and the EU’s war fighting capacity has gone. The EU’s collective subordination to US strategic priorities is demonstrated by the fact that six Nato countries, including Britain, are now committed to the high-speed mobilisation of 25,000 troops on Russia’s borders within a week.
Disentangling our country from these military structures would be the act of a genuinely peaceful sovereign state.