The leaders of Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia have forged out an agreement for a ceasefire that will end weeks of intense fighting in eastern Ukraine. Following their all-night talks on Wednesday, 11 February in Minsk, Vladimir Putin, Russia’s President informed the press that the representatives of Ukraine and separatist rebels had signed a package of measures to implement the failed ceasefire agreement reached last September.
After a week of non-stop meetings by the Greek Prime Minister and his Finance Minister, Messrs Tsipras and Varoufakis, an apparent rift exists between Greece and Germany. With the ECB’s action to cut off the Greek banks from the ESM and instead use the ELA mechanism for liquidity, and Jeroen Dijselbloem’s outright rejection of a ‘bridge loan’, the situation is now at a standstill. While Greece sees the first demonstrations in support of its government, the current bailout programme ends on 28 February and Grexit re-enters the public discourse.
The EU central institutions seem to be stuck to what 19th Century Europe identified as “mission civilisatrice”, fuelled by an underlying sense of self-righteousness and superiority vis-à-vis others, while individual member states continue to pursue their narrow but concrete geopolitical and economic interests, which go in different directions. It should come as no surprise that EU members are steadily losing ground on the charts of state power and influence in the world, overtaken by more dynamic, emerging powers. Of course, with its ambition, innovation and flexibility the US remains steadily at the top, as would the EU as a whole, should it become really united.
France and Italy have managed to sidestep an unavoidable collision with the European Commission over their 2015 budgets by pledging additional fiscal measures to cut their deficits. Meanwhile, Britain is forced to pay the additional £1.7bn it has been calculated to owe for the EU budget.
