A chara, – The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, speaking at the European Council summit on Thursday, sought to reassure citizens of the EU by declaring that “War is not imminent. I’ve heard certain voices say war is imminent. Well, thank God, it is not imminent.”
But is Mr Borrell being economical with the truth?
On March 9th, The Irish Times reported that “European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is clear that the EU is preparing for war” (“As the EU prepares for war, Ireland sticks its head in the sand”, Analysis, March 9th). The author of the article, Pat Leahy, reported that he had recently “spoken at length to two senior members of the Government about this, both highly engaged at EU level. Both say the same thing: the EU is preparing for war.”
On Monday of this week, the European Council president, Charles Michel, declared that “If we want peace, we must prepare for war.”
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Are we to understand that the EU is merely “preparing” for war without expecting to wage it? Is this the meaning of Mr Borrell’s remark? Or is he genuinely perturbed at the bellicose rhetoric and militaristic posturing of a number of European politicians and EU officials?
Perhaps Mr Borrell has read Christopher Clark’s The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, a well-regarded analysis of the background to the first World War that should be required reading for all politicians. In it, Clark shows how the great powers each believed they could forestall war by outdoing one another in the arms race.
“In this sense,” writes Clark, “the protagonists of 1914 were sleepwalkers, watchful but unseeing, haunted by dreams, yet blind to the reality of the horror they were about to bring into the world.”
Will the Irish Government wake up from it own daydream and tell the EU to stop before it’s too late? – Is mise,
DOMINIC CARROLL,
Ardfield,
Co Cork.