The re-election of Donald Trump as the President of the United States has made the questions of the future of the war in Ukraine and the European continent in general more pressing than ever before. Will Europe be able to become a more autonomous player globally and will it be able to provide more support to Ukraine? And what do the current circumstances mean for the EU enlargement?
European Western Balkans spoke on this topic with Thomas Gomart, Director of Institut français des relations internationales, at the Belgrade Security Conference 2024, which was held this week. Gomart participated in the opening panel discussion of the Conference, on the world after the U.S. and the EU elections.
European Western Balkans: A topical issue these days is the decision of President Biden to allow Ukraine to use long-range U.S. missiles against Russia. Do you think that this will have serious consequences? What is your assessment of that situation?
Thomas Gomart: I think that this decision was made after two recent events. The first one was the phone call made by Chancellor Scholz to President Putin. Just after, Russia responded with a massive attack on the Ukrainian energy infrastructure, which is something that is not really new. The fact is that long-range strikes have been made by Russia for many, many months now and President Biden was reluctant to do so because of the so-called risk of escalation. In fact, it’s Russia which escalated with North Korean troops, plus systemic strikes on Ukrainian infrastructures and certainly made this decision because now that President Trump is reelected, Ukraine is no longer a direct political issue regarding the presidential elections.
EWB: What short-term consequences do you think this decision will have on the dynamic of the war?
TG: The real strategic surprise to me, since February 2022, is the level of Ukrainian resistance. We had two tactical surprises last summer – the Ukrainian incursion in the Kursk region and the absence of reaction of President Putin who decided to continue his very slow and life costly progression in Donbas. Certainly, it was important for Ukrainians in terms of moral boosts. It’s also important to send a message about the Kursk battle. And for the U.S., it’s also a message which is delivered to North Korea.
EWB: What do you expect the first steps of the new-old Trump administration will be when he takes office, regarding Ukraine?
TG: It’s difficult to say because it’s so unpredictable. We should of course be careful because he announced in 2019 that he would resolve the situation in the Korean peninsula in 24 hours. Six years after we have North Korean troops fighting in Ukraine.
Certainly, he will try to pressure President Zelenskyy, given the fact that he thinks it’s possible to make a deal with President Putin. In my opinion, it’s challenging because a possible ceasefire would not mean the end of the conflict given the fact that Ukraine understands pretty well what it means to him if Russians could go further.
EWB: How ready is Europe to be more active in support of Ukraine and to be a more influential geopolitical player globally? Which steps do you think it needs to take to get closer to this goal?
TG: In the strategic circles, there have been discussions for many months. There are basically two ideas. The first one is to say that Europe should be able, at the global level, to reconsider its balance between security and prosperity, to accept, which is not something natural for EU countries, to reinvest in its military defence and security capabilities. It’s not something in one year, it’s something in order to try to establish a sort of conventional deterrence.
Second, Europe should be clear in its capacity to financially support the Ukrainians further, and yes, there are discussions which are not ready to be described right now, what sort of security guarantees could be expected.
EWB: President Macron for many years was very persistent in promoting this idea of strategic autonomy and that Europe needs to become more autonomous globally, more self-reliant. Are his policies now more likely to succeed given the current environment?
TG: There are two different things. At the core of the French strategic culture since 1945, and especially after the comeback of General De Gaulle in 1958, you have this idea that in the future, one day, the U.S. can retreat completely or partly from Europe. So it is at the core, not only of our strategic culture but also of our political and military organization. That’s why France decided on its own to go for nuclear deterrence.
So that’s one thing. That leads to the assessment or analysis that what was decided more than seven decades ago is still relevant.
Now, European strategic autonomy – it is not something new. On the panel we were with Federica Mogherini – when she ordered the Strategic Review in 2016, European Strategic Autonomy was the keyword. What is new now, is the fact that other Europeans do understand that we are very challenged by China, now we have the war coming back on the European continent, because of Russia’s aggression on Ukraine and we now have a much more unpredictable U.S. ally. In these circumstances, European strategic autonomy is a need and it’s certainly a need also in geo-economic terms with the Draghi reports. This idea is that if Europe does want to stay in the global competition, it should work much more on its competitiveness.
EWB: We heard during the panel discussion that in the current environment, it’s maybe more likely now that the EU will enlarge and accept new members. How do you see this interpretation of the situation? Do you think that enlargement is now more likely than it was before, especially considering the fact that it requires a unanimous decision?
TG: Yes and no. Yes, because for the Western Balkans, the EU perspective was something very important in convincing different parts to stop the war in the 1990s. That’s something we should not be forgotten by Europeans.
No, because I think that the problem of enlargement is to try to think that enlargement is the only appropriate response to any type of geopolitical or geoeconomic tensions. It’s something tricky. It’s something challenging. It is also something difficult to be organized. We see how difficult it is to, stay, for instance, united regarding Ukraine – it’s down, but for instance, regarding the war in Gaza or in Lebanon, this unity is not visible. So my point is to say, there is a sort of reflex to say we should enlarge, and I think there is certainly a need to address these countries, which are on the European continent, but also to understand that enlargement can also fragilize you very quickly.