In the midst of the ongoing
military invasion by Russia in Ukraine, countries in Eastern Europe could hardly
afford to dwell on the past and react against each other at the
expense of being proactive and united in pushing Russia back to within
its borders—coloring within the lines rather than unrestrained. Therefore, the
E.U.’s parliament can be criticized for having spending time and effort on 8
July, 2026 on a resolution that criticizes Ukraine’s then-sitting president,
Voladymyr Zelenskyy, for having renamed an elite military unit after the World
War II-era Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). Even though a large majority of
representatives in the Parliament voted in favor of the resolution, the legislative
chamber could have been oriented constructively to combatting Putin’s push
into Ukraine rather than play into his hands by stoking division between Ukraine
and the E.U. state of Poland. Generally speaking, European culture may be criticized
for putting much weight on the past at the expense of the present and future. “The
past will never change, but tomorrow is still open” should be taught in
European classrooms as a maxim. In 2026, as in the immediately preceding few years,
the E.U.’s self-handicap in responding sufficiently to helping Ukraine militarily
can be chalked up to not letting go of the past to embrace the present in a way
that is oriented to the future.
Regarding the resolution that
a vast majority of elected representatives in the European Parliament viewed as
being worth their time and effort, whereas in Ukraine, “the UPA is widely commemorated
for its role in opposing Soviet rule and fighting for Ukrainian independence,”
in the E.U. state of Poland the UPA “is widely associated with the Volyn
massacre of 1943-45, during which tens of thousands of Poles were killed under
Nazi occupation. Poland has recognized the massacre as a genocide, a label Ukraine
has rejected.”[1] Debating
whether it was or was not a genocide, and, moreover, how opposing Soviet rule
stacks up against the Volyn massacre is a luxury that Europe’s anti-Russian
powers could not afford when Ukraine was still being occupied by the invading
Russian army and eastern E.U. states fretted that they might be next for dinner
by the empire-hungry Russian bear. In fact, engaging in a historical obsession
rather than moving on to the twenty-first century implies that the E.U.’s political
elite was not taking Putin’s invasion seriously enough. It was not as if dislodging
the Russian army from roughly 20% of Ukrainian territory would require just little
thought and a bit of easy effort, so the opportunity cost to thrashing over the
previous century was high. An opportunity cost (in economics) is the benefit that
is given up from an alternative course of action that is not taken. Besides the
opportunity cost in terms of lost time and energy devoted to thwarting Russia’s
invasion, squabbles between Ukraine and a state of the E.U. stood to benefit Putin’s
military position and strategy because both thrive if the opposition is
divided. As the old adage goes, a house divided cannot stand.
Zelensky had recently admitted
to some “difficulties in our history,” and yet urged all parties opposing Russia’s
invasion to live more “in the future than in the past” by uniting against
Russia rather than turning on each other.[2]
To be sure, he could have easily obviated the diplomatic tension by not having
renamed the elite military unit after the UPA; more important than a name is
how well a military unit performs on the battlefield. Also, no shame goes with
publicly admitting a mistake and moving on, for we are all human.
The proclivity in the European
psyche—an admittedly cultured entity, which I admire “across the pond” as a
native, gruff Midwesterner—to hold onto the past even when it is antiquated and
thus obstructs a stronger present and future has impaired the European Union’s
federal system. Most crucially generally and especially in terms of the foreign-
and defense-policy domains, the E.U. really needed to reform itself by losing
the paralyzing veto that the state governments still held in the European
Council and the Council of the E.U. (i.e., the Council of Ministers) when the
resolution against Zelensky was passed in the parliament (by qualified-majority).
Because unanimity was still required for a federal policy or law to pass in
foreign policy and defense, the E.U. can be said to be holding itself back, as
if having one arm tied behind the back, from adequately supporting Ukraine’s
military efforts, especially given the Trump Administration’s preoccupation
with Iran, given the extraordinary power of Israeli money in Washington. How,
then, is the state veto in the two Councils tied in with the European tendency to
hold onto the past?
The very existence of the veto
can be viewed as a residual from when the E.U. states were fully sovereign, before
they delegated some of their governmental sovereignty to the Union. Qualified-majority
voting itself is such a delegation of sovereignty because a state on the
losing side of such a vote is still subject to the federal policy, law, or regulation.
Even in the case of having considerable discretion in how to implement
directives, the states still have to implement them. Were the states still sovereign,
as the U.S. states were before and under the Articles of Confederation (1781-1789),
the E.U. states could legally ignore even E.U. laws. Such a lapse in
understanding of the dual-sovereignty feature of the E.U.’s federal system had
been repeatedly demonstrated by Viktor Orbán when he governed the E.U. state of
Hungary. It is no coincidence that he abused the power of his state’s veto in
the federal councils, for the veto itself was established to reflect the
sovereignty still retained by the state governments in the Union. Similarly,
but not as extreme, the filibuster in the U.S. Senate, which is roughly
equivalent to the Council of the E.U., is a hold-over from the full sovereignty
that U.S. states enjoyed before 1789.
I contend that holding onto the
time when E.U. states were fully sovereign countries, even though the future of
E.U. decision-making could benefit greatly in turning to qualified majority voting
instead of unanimity, is itself a significant problem. In other words, besides
the obvious governmental conflict of interest that exists on questions of
whether additional sovereignty should be delegated, the resistance of state-level
officials to relinquishing the veto at the federal level can be said to at
least be intensified because they hold onto the political past excessively. Because
the E.U. stood to enlarge in 2026 by adding additional states in the future,
the Union could ill-afford to hold onto the “old-sovereignty” veto because it
had already been too obstructionist (e.g., Viktor Orbán) at the federal level
in the councils. Just as division between the E.U. and Ukraine played into Putin’s
hands, the historically-based rationale for retaining the veto power put the
states at odds with the Union, essentially handicapping the E.U. from within. A
self-inflicted wound predicated on not being willing to let go of the past,
politically. Looking backwards while walking forwards, a person is likely to
trip and fall. Similarly, self-inflicted political weakness is never good. In
his text, On the Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche points to the
self-imposed (i.e., voluntary) self-abnegation of impotent Catholic priests as
the epitome of weakness. Relative to the U.S. Senate, which admittedly is too
prone to political sloth and stalemate at the expense of action, the obstruction
occasioned by the veto in the Council of the E.U. and the European Council
beats that of the filibuster, which, incidentally, can be overridden by 60 out
of 100 votes. Qualified-majority vote is thus consistent with a nod to state
sovereignty—plena in the past and non-plena in the present. Perpetuating
history need not stand in the way, especially while an invasion is in progress
close to the eastern border.
