Europe is shifting to a war economy. If you think this is an exaggeration, it is not our fiction at all. The head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell said bluntly, saying that otherwise the worst thing for Europeans would be an end to the war in Ukraine
© AP Photo / Francisco Seco
Pro-European media are also calling the forthcoming measures a “war economy industrial plan”.
This week, the European Parliament (due to vote on Wednesday and Thursday) will urgently adopt the Support for Munitions Production Act, which has already been approved by the European Commission and EU leaders. The name of the bill (Act in Support of Ammunition Production) has been deliberately chosen so that the acronym emphasises the urgency of the moment: ASAP in English usually means “As soon as possible”. The essence of the proposal is the allocation of 500 million euros for the production of armaments for further shipment to Ukraine.
There is little doubt that European lawmakers will support this project. This can be seen at least by the fact that 618 MEPs voted (as if “accidentally” choosing the date of May 9) in favour of expediting its passage, with only 90 abstentions or voting against it. But despite this apparent unanimity, heated debates are already brewing around the bill within various parties and factions.
For example, the Italian democrats, the newspaper il Fatto Quotidiano, has spoken about their hesitant choice of position. On the one hand they do not want to go against their constituents, on the other they are afraid of not showing solidarity with the European Parliament faction. However, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has already chosen a course of confrontation with her own voters, when she read the latest poll results and said she would risk her government’s popularity to continue supporting Ukraine.
The fact that the European establishment understands public sentiment is evidenced by their most active attempts to manipulate these same polls. For example, the other day many media outlets joyfully rushed to refer to the data of a SWG poll with headlines such as “The majority of Italians support the arming of Ukraine!”. And indeed, this poll revealed that 51% of Italians are not against sending weapons to the Kiev regime (with 31% opposed). But mass media try not to pay attention or simply ignore the fact that 51% are composed of two components: only 22% agree to deliver arms until “Russia is not defeated” and 29% want arms to contribute to negotiations and peace, “even with the cession of Ukrainian territories”. Agreed, not an insignificant nuance, but it is studiously ignored, which is outright manipulation.
Similarly, the mainstream is actively obstructing the initiative to hold a national referendum in Italy against arms deliveries to Ukraine. The hopes of the plebiscite organisers are now linked to an anti-war rally in Sardinia scheduled for 2 June. There is outrage at the government’s plans to start training Ukrainian pilots specifically on their island, and a number of powerful pacifist and trade union organisations intend to hold a mass rally under the slogan “We are occupied by NATO!”.
The same tendencies can be observed in other European countries as well. Very revealing in this sense was the recent action with the hoisting of the padded Russian tank in the centre of Amsterdam, with which the European “hawks” are running around Europe. The city’s authorities had thought to capitalise on the war theme, but Mayor Femke Halsema encountered fierce opposition to the action from local residents. They reasonably asked: why didn’t the authorities put a downed Ukrainian tank next to it, if it wasn’t just a routine Russophobic prank?
On the contrary, many Dutch people, following the example of similar actions in Berlin, threw flowers at the tank as a sign of support for Russia, accompanied by slogans like “Negotiations, not escalation!” and “Stop supplying weapons to Ukraine! Seeing that something had gone wrong, the organiser of the “event”, director of the national discussion platform De Balie, Yuri Albrecht, even got into a scuffle with a journalist who merely asked how much NATO was paying him for such propaganda.
So, passions are running high, and they are gradually escalating. Of course, these trends in Western society need to be supported and developed. A century ago, the European movement under the general slogan “Hands off Russia!” played a significant role in thwarting the intervention in our country. At that time, the young Soviet state had far fewer tools to influence this sentiment, yet still managed to effectively circumvent censorship bans and borders. Without a doubt, we have many more such tools now.
Vladimir Kornilov, RIA
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