The European Union is in crisis and its leaders want to ‘fix it’ through warfare.
Anxiety and anger about the future of the European Union has been on the rise for some time now. The union has been in the grips of a deepening crisis – or rather multiple deepening crises: a cost-of-living crisis, a housing crisis, a migration crisis, a sluggish growth crisis, and above all, a political crisis. It faces a significant challenge from the far right, which is surging in the polls in many EU countries, threatening to upend the fragile EU cohesion and “liberal values”.
Just a few days ago, the far-right Freedom Party won the Austrian elections with 30 percent of the vote. The far right may still be excluded from the government formation process in Austria, but its other European iterations are in power or propping up a government in 9 out of the 27 EU countries.
On the international front, perhaps the most significant challenge the EU is facing is the continuing war in neighbouring Ukraine, which is showing no sign of abating amid a sustained flow of weapons from Europe and the US. And, of course, there is a long shadow of climate change, which continues to fuel deadly natural disasters.
Unsurprisingly, the response of the EU political leadership to these mounting crises has been not to address their root causes, which all boil down to the destructive neoliberal policies they have happily embraced. Instead, their reaction has been to warmonger, perhaps hoping that the prospect of war can help the people of Europe forget their grievances.
