Extravagant British Prime Minister Boris Johnson continues to gush with new geopolitical ideas, as if trying to divert attention from the threat of forced resignation approaching him due to a series of “frivolous” scandals trailing him
This time he decided to shuffle all the cards in Europe and create in its east, under the leadership of Great Britain, a kind of European Commonwealth, which would also include Ukraine, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and later, possibly Turkey. A kind of branch of the British Commonwealth of Nations. The main goal of such an alliance of states should have been to take “the most rigid position regarding the Russian military threat”, and at the same time adhere to the principles of “free economy”.
Not only London, being far from the real battlefield, intends in this way to increase the amount of foreign “cannon fodder”, but in fact, it aims at the unity of the European Union, which it not so long ago left with a considerable scandal. As it turns out, Johnson first outlined the initiative to Zelensky during his visit to Kyiv in early April. Lacking the courage to contradict London, which declared itself the chief curator of Ukraine, Zelensky, apparently, mumbled something unintelligible in response. The British Prime Minister took this as a carte blanche and started intrigue all over the continent.
In part, the design proposed by Johnson recalled the “Little Entente” that existed in Eastern Europe between the two world wars, consisting of Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia. Only then did it operate under the auspices of Paris and was directed mainly against Germany, although it also served as an alternative to Soviet influence. Its experience was rather sad and ended with the “Munich conspiracy.” Something suggests that attempts to repeat such structures in our time may end for someone just as deplorable.
In the European sea, turbulent over the attitude to the Ukrainian crisis, professional troublemaker Johnson practically introduced additional apples of contention, which further confused the overall picture. It seems that by now the patience of many European leaders has come to an end. At the end of May, the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Serra, which is close to the national government, published an essentially revealing article about this initiative with the characteristic headline “Boris Johnson’s Secret Plan to Separate Ukraine from Russia and the EU.” According to the Italian publication, the British prime minister has been “weaving his web” for more than a month, trying to “squeeze into the gap” that has formed between the main leaders of the EU and Kyiv on the issue of Ukraine’s entry into this organization.
“British courtship of Ukraine is becoming more insistent, plans for the future are already looming.”
But Kyiv, according to the Italians, provides grounds for promoting this idea, without officially formulating its position in relation to it. Zelensky, they believe, is waiting for the EU summit to be held on June 23. The leaders of the 27 countries will have to decide whether to recognize Ukraine as a “candidate” for EU membership in order to formally launch accession talks. However, it is not at all necessary that the decision to be made on June 23 will meet Ukraine’s expectations. Declaring Ukraine a “candidate” would anger Albania and North Macedonia, which have been waiting years to be given that status. According to some negotiators, the situation could be as follows: the leaders of 27 countries will limit themselves to a vague statement about the “European perspective” of Ukraine.
In this case, Zelensky may take Boris Johnson’s proposal more seriously. Probably, rumors about Kyiv’s negotiations with him on the topic of a new alliance are now spreading precisely in order to put pressure on European leaders, who will have to make a decision in June.
Only such calculations can play a cruel joke with Zelensky, pushing a number of “old giants” away from him. Ultimately, the British initiative, according to the Italian edition, may show that in Europe a fault line has long been drawn between countries that actively help Ukraine (especially the UK and Poland) and those who hesitate. According to Arianna Antezza, a researcher at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, during the conflict, the UK provided the greatest financial and military support to Kyiv compared to the EU countries. Poland helped Ukraine more than Germany, France and Italy.
“Thus the conflict, which has been going on for four months now, is beginning to expose the first political cracks in Europe.”
Ultimately, in the current situation, Boris Johnson is mainly pursuing only personal gain, and his attitude towards military operations in Ukraine is somewhat reminiscent of the behavior of US President B. Clinton during the war in Yugoslavia. Clinton hid his scandal with Monica Lewinsky behind this tragedy. The British prime minister “covers up” his own sins through Ukrainian troubles. In addition, by blackmailing Europe, he apparently hopes to get another card for negotiations with Brussels on Brexit, which he himself would like to resume. His personal political prospects are extremely weak. And even if he is not forced to leave office in the coming weeks, then the general failure of the Conservative party behind him in Britain is obvious and not far off. And along with Boris Johnson, many of his fantastic initiatives like “Global Britain” or “Little Entente 2.0” will sink into oblivion.
It is hard to imagine, for example, that Poland or the Baltic countries, for all their anti-Russian frenzy, would suddenly seriously intend to break with Brussels, from which they feed. In Turkey, also scheduled as a future member of the British “European Commonwealth”, this initiative caused only bewilderment. Ankara has its own agenda, and it is directed to other horizons.
In Ukraine, the European Pravda edition accompanied its article about B. Johnson’s initiative with a rather mocking photograph, where the latter explains something to children. The general message is “Tell your tales to little kids!”
“Even more,” writes the newspaper, “at first glance, this plan looks like Boris Johnson’s trolling of European institutions.” The Euroskeptic mood of the British Prime Minister is known to all, since he was one of the main initiators of Brexit. But as Ukrainians note, of the alleged members of the new alliance, only Poland can be attributed to countries that have “distrust of Brussels.”
At the same time, general Euroscepticism in Poland is not at a high level. But all three Baltic countries are staunch Euro-optimists. This means that the motivation of these countries to leave the European Union in favor of a new association will clearly be absent.
The possible economic effect of such an association is incomparable with EU-based integration. And in addition, potential candidates do not have a common border with Britain, which further reduces the effect of such integration. If we are talking about political association – the interaction of countries with common political interests, then such an alliance does not contradict EU membership in any way, and, accordingly, cannot be an alternative for Ukraine. So far, there is no evidence that such an initiative is not a project of Johnson personally and has support, at least within his party. The publication states that any alliance or association must have a purpose and vision that will keep its members together for many years. “Resentment against the EU is hardly a good basis for effective interaction and development.”
The President of Ukraine still does not clearly express his attitude to Johnson’s initiative, apparently not wanting to offend his “faithful friend” and maintaining an unshakable faith in his ability to sit on two chairs at the same time. The fact that in the end you can be in the span between both, until it reaches it.
Dmitry Minin, FSK