Buoyed by Comity With Ukraine, British Premier Reportedly Eyes EU Alternative

Updated at 7:34 a.m. EDT, May 28, 2022ATHENS — The writing has been on the wall, or rather above British embassy rooftops, for some time now. Numerous British embassies around the world have been hoisting the Ukrainian flag alongside the Union Jack for several weeks. Newspapers like the staunchly pro-Brexit Daily Express run front-page banners that read “Proud to Support Ukrainians” in that country’s signature blue and yellow. So a new report that the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, is hatching a secret plan to wrest Ukraine not just from the military jaw of Moscow but from the bureaucratic maw of Brussels is less shocking than it might at first appear. Mr. Johnson may be on the verge of proposing an alternative to the European Union that would be called the European Commonwealth, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported yesterday. The organization would in effect be “a new system of political, economic and military alliances … that assembles countries united by distrust of Brussels and also of Germany’s response to Russian military aggression.” According to sources at the international economic forum at Davos, Mr. Johnson presented the plan to Volodymr Zelensky when he visited the Ukrainian president at Kyiv on April 9. The new European Commonwealth would be led by Britain, the report said, and in its inception would include as members Ukraine, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as potentially Turkey.The alliance envisioned by Mr. Johnson would unite states on the Continent that still “prize national sovereignty, espouse liberal economic policies and are determined with the utmost intransigence against the military threat of Moscow.” Mr. Johnson is clearly seeking to leverage growing cracks in the EU response to Russian aggression. The Italian newspaper correctly assesses that “the Ukrainian elite has become convinced that in the palaces of power in Germany and France very few are hoping for the defeat of Vladimir Putin: the delays on the sanctions and on the weapons to be sent have now dug a political moat.”No countries have stepped up to the plate of arming Ukraine against Mr. Putin’s belligerence more than America and Britain. The Germany-based Kiel Institute for the World Economy estimates that Britain so far has provided more wartime military aid and economic support to Kyiv than the whole of the European Union.That might explain an intriguing absence at Davos, where social and political worlds at the highest echelons of power are known to genteelly collide with repercussions felt long after the annual forum wraps up. While Ukraine’s minister of foreign affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, was invited to Davos and did indeed show up, he skipped the forum’s most high-profile happening. That was a dinner-style event Tuesday that had in attendance the prime ministers of Belgium, Greece, and Spain, the president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, the head of French foreign intelligence, and prominent EU officials. Mr. Kuleba’s absence, paired with Kyiv’s lack of comment on the purported British initiative, speaks volumes.The next EU summit takes place at Brussels June 23, a fact of which Messrs. Kuleba and Zelensky are no doubt aware. At the summit the EU’s current 27 member countries will decide whether to grant Ukraine candidate status for accession to the bloc, a step that would be necessary for formal negotiations to begin. When it comes to Brussels bureaucracy, though, in numbers there is not necessarily strength: Albania and North Macedonia have been clamoring for candidate status for a lot longer than Ukraine. Also, Mr. Zelensky is keenly aware that the EU has largely flubbed its response to Kyiv’s military exigencies, while Britain, under the leadership of Mr. Johnson and his stalwart defense secretary, Ben Wallace, has in the tradition of Winston Churchill stepped up to the plate with unvarnished alacrity and resolve. Whatever pressure Ukraine might bring to bear on Brussels ahead of the June powwow may be for naught, given that Ukrainian officials have said that fighting in the Donbas region is right now “at maximum intensity” and what Ukraine needs more than reassuring words is the kinds of working weapons that Britain is supplying. There are growing signs, too, of exasperation by some European countries with Brussels. Poland has issued stinging criticism of EU member France, saying its president, Emmanuel Macron, has failed to offer any genuine criticism of Vladimir Putin. Slovakia, an EU member that shares a border with Ukraine in the east, fears it could be attacked and, like Moldova, implicitly recognizes that the EU is incapable of defending it. Britain is reportedly on the verge of sending weapons to Moldova, which is not a member of the bloc. Developments such as these — and look for more to come this summer — could very well prod more European countries into taking up Albion’s stoic but reliable embrace.A spokesperson from Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office told the Sun that “the war in Ukraine has shown the importance of a strong international system and unity in the face of Russian aggression. The UK and likeminded partners around the world will continue to stand united in response to Russia’s illegal invasion, and we are committed to continuing our close cooperation with EU and NATO allies.” For now London is tight-lipped about what specific details that “strong international system” could entail, and also would not confirm the name. That said, “European Commonwealth” does have a nice ring to it — and often the best parties are those one doesn’t hear about until the very last minute.

Buoyed by Comity With Ukraine, British Premier Reportedly Eyes EU Alternative

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