Category: Perspectives
Tom Kucharz, Raquel Luna - According to Pedro Ramiro and Juan Hernández Zubizarrieta, authors of the report, the European Commission's plan can be summarized as “militarisation, borders and extractivism”. The report describes the intersections between these three pillars, which are built on the defence, migration and trade policies of the EU. The report warns that the EU is transitioning from a green and digital capitalism to a green olive (military) one).[1]
The current geopolitical repositioning of the EU
“Pandemic and war have burst the seams of the EU”, the report begins, describing the EU as a declining power. At the economic level, the EU currently faces stagnation, inflation and indebtedness; at the social level, inequalities and poverty are growing; and at the environmental level, ecosystems are degrading, making it necessary to continue plundering other territories.
Under such conditions, “the reinforcement of the militarisation-frontiers-extractivism triad drives European policies, which are deployed internationally through a renewed normative package with which the EU tries to reposition itself in the global (dis)concert. Together with the increase in military budgets, reindustrialisation through arms manufacturing and the armouring of Fortress Europe through the externalisation of borders, the European Union has redesigned its soft power instruments to project itself globally”, according to Ramiro and Hernández Zubizarreta.
The EU's approach (from the energy transition to the reordering of international relations) continues to be ‘based’ on economic growth (impossible on a finite planet) and its discourse on the ‘dematerialisation of the economy’. Both are summed up in the externalisation of ecological and socio-labour impacts through relocation to third countries (especially in the global South). In recent years, the energy transition and digitalisation have been pushed as the two keys to corporate reorientation towards what the authors call a green and digital capitalism. Both processes continue to consume vast amounts of energy and mineral resources imported from abroad and deepen an imperial way of life that exarcerbates violence and sacrifices zones in the territories where they are extracted.
The report introduces the military-securitarian axis (in particular with the war in Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza) to the current ‘green’ and ‘digital’ capitalism at the heart of the current capitalist recomposition of the EU. This is latent in the warmongering logic of economic and political power, the increase in military budgets, the boom in arms manufacturing and the space industry as well as in the armouring of the EU's external and internal borders around the enemy ‘migration’.
The new Strategic Agenda 2024-2029[2] of the EU gives priority to security, defence, migration and militarisation policies. As the European Council stated, “if we want peace, we must prepare for war” and “move to a ‘war economy’”[3]. Ramiro and Zubizarreta reflect on how the term “’war economy’ is no longer just a metaphor used in the days of the Covid19 pandemic to justify state intervention in the economy, but it now operates in a literal sense”.
| The report is divided into four parts. The first part analyses the pillars, strategies, strengths and dynamics of the EU's geopolitical repositioning. The second part focuses on the trade pillar of EU geopolitics and explains guidelines and tools. The third part examines two cases, the EU's agreements with Chile and Mercosur, and concludes with proposals for action. This summary will focus on the first part. |
Pillars, strategies and ideas
At the discursive and communicative level, the EU has always tried to project itself as the friendly version of capitalist globalisation, ‘concerned’ about the environment and human rights in the world. This image contrasts with its history of colonialism, support for dictatorships, and a commercial diplomacy dependent on goods supplied by systematic human rights violations and sometimes wars (for example, fossil fuels). The EU's regulatory offensive today - be it on migration and asylum, raw materials, investment and trade, border control and externalisation, artificial intelligence, the electricity market, fiscal rules - continues to deepen the extractivist and neo-colonial logic that has caused the global socio-environmental crisis.
The report reveals three key pillars or axes of EU action: defence, migration and trade. These determine the political and legal architecture of the EU. The pillars are reinvigorated by updating the three strategies of militarisation, border control and extractivism in terms of policies. Ultimately, the strategies are justified by three ideas of power, namely strategic autonomy, security and sovereignty, which serve as narratives to justify all the harms of the geopolitical repositioning of the EU. See the chart below from the report.
Ramiro and Zubizarrieta describe an example of the dynamics as follows (see the graph below): the pillars of defence and migration work together with the current policy of externalising borders and the institution of Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency. Between 2019 and 2022, Frontex’s budget increased by 55%. On the other hand, the defence and the trade pillars complement each other through the the European Law on Fundamental Raw Materials[4], which includes titanium and aluminium in the list of strategic raw materials (in response to the military industry, aeronautics and the arms manufacturing lobbies). The third interaction is that between the pillars of migration and trade, which work together through strategic partnerships that combine border control with trade and/or cooperation treaties (especially in Africa), and the Global Gateway initiative, which moves in the same direction.
Defence pillar and militarisation strategy
This is the key to the EU's geopolitical redefinition. The invasion of Ukraine on eastern border of the EU has led European society to accept armed support for Ukraine and to increase defence budgets without reservation. This military shock doctrine has been accompanied by a militarist ideology, with the German Chancellor, for example, declaring that “we must move from manufacturing to mass production of armaments” and pushing for European-wide planning. Research by the Transnational Institute (TNI) analyses more than 40 EU military operations since 2003 (in Europe, Africa and Asia) and concludes that they are mainly limited to defending European interests while negatively affecting local communities.[5]
In 2023, a world record for military spending was reached: 2.44 trillion dollars (6.8% more than the previous year and 2.3% of world GDP)[6], still led by the United States (37% of total spending). EU countries saw the biggest increase since the Cold War, with 16%. The authors argue that this is precisely because EU policies are subordinated to the geopolitical and geostrategic interests of the United States, and, therefore, under the umbrella of NATO, which requires an increase in military spending: in 2014, European states belonging to NATO spent 235 billion dollars (1.47% of GDP on average); in 2023, it was 347 billion (1.85%); and in 2024, it is expected to be 380 billion (2%).
At this point, we must remember that since the Second Gulf War, and following the confrontation between the ‘Old Europe’ (France and Germany) on the one hand, and the United States on the other - supported by the United Kingdom (then still an EU member state), Spain, Italy, Portugal and part of the Eastern European countries (as part of the Security Council on the occasion of the invasion of Iraq and the division of NATO) - are part of a gradual recomposition of the transatlantic link and a realignment of the EU after the recent role of the US in the Near and Middle East (not without tensions). [7]
The European Defence Industrial Strategy[8], presented by von der Leyen, seeks this military reindustrialisation, which expects that by 2030 at least 50% of military procurement will be made within the EU. Furthermore, the EU's new fiscal rules consider public spending on armaments and security a priority to the extent that European states’ debt reduction plans (Stability and Growth Pact) have to specify how they the states will manage to shield military spending. Similarly, the European Defence Fund (EDF), a programme for financing military research and development projects, is another way of promoting militarisation.
Migration pillar and border control strategy
The control, militarisation and externalisation of borders have been a priority for the EU, so much so that at the end of 2023 the European Pact on Migration and Asylum[9] was ratified, applauded by the extreme right, conservatives and social democrats alike. This regulation makes the conditions for applying for asylum more difficult, increases detention periods, consolidates the externalisation of borders and enhances the criminalisation of humanitarian work.
This pact comes on top of existing cooperation agreements with other countries that restrict the few rights migrants have. There are more than 27 legal and political instruments underpinning border control, first at the borders of the EU and now extending to Africa and the Middle East, creating vertical borders by detaining migrants and asylum seekers in their country of origin or transit. See the map below.
One of the most recent agreements was signed with Egypt. It provides 7.4 billion (through the Global Gateway) to a military dictatorship to block displaced people fleeing the genocide in Palestine. Through these mechanisms, the EU outsources human rights abuses and violations of international law.
The EU also causes human rights abuses and violations through Frontex, an agency that is being accused of crimes against humanity. For example, it provided a paramilitary militia linked to the Wagner group with information on the location of boats in the Mediterranean, endangering the lives of hundreds of people. The report concludes that the strategy of militarisation and border control are closely linked, fostering a racist view of migration as a ‘threat’ to NATO and a potential ‘danger’ to the EU.
Trade pillar and extractivist strategy
The dominant discourse is that “much of the economic and social progress achieved” is due to “international openness”[10]. 10] Von der Leyen argues that the “economy will increasingly depend on international trade” and that the ecological transition requires the opening of markets and access to “inputs for the industry”.
Although the EU has withdrawn from the Energy Charter Treaty, thanks to civil society campaigns, the European Commission is pushing for many other similar agreements with Mexico, MERCOSUR, Australia, India, Indonesia or the Philippines (as well as new energy infrastructures, such as ‘green hydrogen’). In addition, there are dozens of agreements in force that should be abolished because they only serve to shield the interests of European multinationals.
Trade relations intensify extractivism in a context of growing competition for increasingly scarce resources (geopolitical tensions with China, India and Russia). With the Global Gateway investment agenda and the new wave of trade agreements, the EU is pursuing a clear objective: to secure access to markets and raw materials that are essential for European transnationals to develop the green and digital capitalism. The larger goal is to secure the EU's position in the supply chains of the new global geopolitics of energy and resources that trade the inputs of this green and digital capitalism. These trade relations create new conflicts and resource wars, in many cases in the global South.
The EU has adopted the European Raw Materials Act and signed ten strategic partnership agreements on raw materials. The EU has a particular interest in the lithium triangle (for battery production, among others), located between Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. After a year of negotiations, the trade agreement with Chile, the largest supplier of lithium, was renewed. One of the reasons for concluding the agreement with MERCOSUR is the supply of minerals (lithium, nickel and niobium), as well as agro-industrial products (soya, palm oil, timber, sugar cane, cotton, etc.). Even without a signed treaty, these minerals and goods are sources of violence, impoverishment and environmental destruction.
The report argues that the EU trade policy is a structural cause of the global environmental and social emergency, as well as of the systematic violation of human rights in the world.
The mantra that justifies everything: three ideas of power
The EU discourse has been marked by three mantras: strategic autonomy, security and sovereignty[11]. First, the militarist bet is reinforced by the idea of open strategic autonomy. Open strategic autonomy has more to do with the political economy than with its traditional link to the military sphere, as it boosts “important regulatory, fiscal and structural measures”[12]. This idea of power reinforces the control of borders, raw materials and trade routes. It redefines security to ultimately promote militarist and extractivist dynamics.
Second, the concept (and idea of power) of security is extended in three ways in order to give stability to the European middle classes. First, the logic of security (whether economic, political or social) is used by European states to justify “increasingly authoritarian, disciplinary and repressive policies” and repressive measures by qualifying certain groups or behaviours as security threats (such as protest or migrant populations). Then, with the warnings of the imminent danger of a Russian attack, the path of NATO (and the US) is followed, thus justifying militarisation at the European level. Security also extends to energy and material supplies, i.e. economic as well as legal security.
Third, in the face of international instability, the concept (and idea of power) of sovereignty serves to reposition the EU in supply chains and to differentiate itself “by rescuing international law” with European values. Sovereignty is contradictory as it results from dependence on fossil fuels and critical minerals abroad. The feasible scenario is that the EU has barely 10% of critical minerals within its borders. Hence the urgent need for trade agreements, in competition with China and other BRICS powers.
The role of the state
The state plays a key role in imposing the war and debt regime by privatising profits and socialising losses, including social cuts (austerity), capital bailouts and conditionalities (loss of labour rights, changes to the pension system, etc.) and a European fiscal framework that places the costs of the crisis on the backs of the majority of the population.[13] “The central states have intertwined their interests with those of the big corporations” as they revive the economy hand in hand with transnational capital and guide the capitalist transition to new business. In fact, the states are “the only lifeline of transnational capital”, the authors conclude. Therefore, the report calls for denunciation and mobilisation against the direction taken by the EU and the “way out of the crisis” narrative. The following sections of the report give tools and proposals for action, focussing in particular on the trade pillar.
**Tom Kucharz, activist and independent researcher, Madrid
Footnotes:
[1] ZUBIZARRETA, J. H., RAMIRO, P. R. (2024), “La Unión Europea y el capitalismo verde militar: materias primas y acuerdos comerciales para el extractivismo neocolonial”, Ecologistas en Acción and Observatorio de Multinacionales en América Latina (OMAL) - Paz con Dignidad., 3 July 2024, https://www.ecologistasenaccion.org/317260/la-ue-y-el-capitalismo-verde-militar-materias-primas-y-acuerdos-comerciales-para-el-extractivismo-neocolonial/ (viewed 25 September 2024).
[2] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/european-council/strategic-agenda-2024-2029/
[3] European Council (2024), ”If we want peace, we must prepare for war”, 19 March 2024, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/es/press/press-releases/2024/03/19/if-we-want-peace-we-must-prepare-for-war/ (viewed 25 September 2024).
[4] https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal/green-deal-industrial-plan/european-critical-raw-materials-act_ens
[5] Ni Bhriain, N., Valeske, J. (2024), “Under the Radar. Twenty years of EU military missions”, Transnational Institute, 20 May 2024, https://wri-irg.org/en/story/2024/under-radar-twenty-years-eu-military-missions (viewed 25 September 2024).
[6] Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (2024), Global military spending rises amid wars, rising tensions and insecurity, 22 April 2024, https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2024/global-military-spending-surges-amid-war-rising-tensions-and-insecurity (viewed 25 September 2024)
[7] FERNÁNDEZ DURÁN, R. (2005), “¿CONSTRUYENDO ‘EUROPA’ MANU MILITARI. Dismantling the ‘Clash of Civilisations’ and halting the securitarian and militaristic drifts, in order to move towards other possible worlds”, in: The complex construction of “superpower Europe”(epilogue), Virus editorial, San Juan de Alicante, Spain.
[8] Directorate-General for Communication of the European Commission (2024), First-ever European defence industrial strategy to enhance Europe’s readiness and security, 5 March 2024, https://commission.europa.eu/news/first-ever-european-defence-industrial-strategy-enhance-europes-readiness-and-security-2024-03-05_en (viewed 25 September 2024).
[9] https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/promoting-our-european-way-life/migration-and-asylum/pact-migration-and-asylum_en
[10] Said by Pedro Sanchez a few months before the Spanish presidency of the EU Council. La Moncloa (2023), Pedro Sánchez: “Impulsar la Autonomía Estratégica Abierta será una de las prioridades de la presidencia española de la UE”, 6 February 2023, https://www.lamoncloa.gob.es/presidente/actividades/Paginas/2023/060223-sanchez-autonomia-estrategica-abierta.aspx (viewed 25 September 2024).
[11] Ursula van der Leyen slightly modified the mantra during her speech to the European Parliament on 18 July 2024 to ‘defence, competitiveness and housing
[12] Spain’s National Office of Foresight and Strategy (2023), Resilient EU2030. A future-oriented approach to reinforce the EU's Open Strategic Autonomy and Global Leadership. 25
[13] With the EU Stability and Growth Pact. See https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/economic-and-fiscal-governance/stability-and-growth-pact_es and https://commission.europa.eu/document/d ownload/a73a05d4-8afd-4d92-a748-3248ee00e170_en?filename=COM_2024_600_1_EN.pdf
