Project Syndicates' van Rompuy and Laffan: Adding Ambition to Europe’s Unity
15 June 2022
The war in Ukraine has shown that only by acting together can the European Union hope to remain an effective player. At the June 23-24 EU summit, the European Council should agree to establish a “Wise Wo|men Group” tasked with identifying core policy priorities and governance reforms.
The European Union has reacted faster, more decisively, and with greater
unity to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine than to any previous crisis.
Together with its allies, the EU and its member states have provided
important military, economic, and humanitarian support to the Ukrainian
government and put severe economic pressure on the Kremlin to stop its
atrocities. But the difficulties the Union faced in imposing a common oil embargo against Russia reveal differences among national governments that also reflect diverging views on how to deal with the Zeitenwende we have been experiencing since February 24.
This is no moment for disunity. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war
of aggression against Ukraine has opened a new chapter in Europe’s
seemingly permanent crisis and represents a structural break with the
past, profoundly disrupting the continent’s security architecture and
undermining fundamental assumptions in most areas of EU policymaking.
EU leaders must have the political will and stamina to prepare the Union
for a new era – with no taboos when it comes to implementing major
policy innovations and establishing more effective governance
structures. To do so, they should continue to demonstrate both unity and
ambition along a concrete reform path....
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