Ukraine War Prompts Copernican Revolution in Europe
Also — Sanctions, New Candidates for Accession, SGP, Russia Today
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A Week, Unpacked
On Thursday, 24 February 2022, Russia launched a large-scale ‘special military operation’ — a war — in Ukraine. The European Union (EU) underwent a Copernican revolution in the following days, culminating in the announcement that the block would deliver lethal weapons to Ukraine and the second, beefed-up, package of sanctions announced on 28 February, the same day Ukraine formally applied to become a member of the EU.
FOREWORD • Up until the war started, it was far from obvious that this was ‘our war’. Some feared that support for Ukraine might threaten energy security or handbags exports. The Ukrainian resistance, the remarkable leadership of President Zelensky, the escalation on the Russian side, the guilt over the moral and historic cost of inaction have rallied support for an EU-wide response to war at its borders, pushed Germany to flip its most long standing foreign policy doctrines upside down, and led Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia to apply for EU membership.
FORBIDDEN WEAPONS • On Thursday, 3 March, British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace accused Russia of deploying thermobaric weapons systems in Ukraine — a missile with two fuel containers which causes blasts of incredibly destructive force. “Those near the ignition point are obliterated. Those at the fringe are likely to suffer many internal, and thus invisible injuries, including burst eardrums and crushed inner ear organs, severe concussions, ruptured lungs and internal organs, and possibly blindness”, according to Human Rights Watch, an NGO. Ukraine and some EU Member States have accused Russia of using such weapons, although there has been no official confirmation yet.There were allegations of Russia using this type of weaponry in the 1999 Chechnya war and later in the Syrian war — from 2015 onwards.
CHERNOBYL 2.0 • On Friday, 4 March, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant shut down after a Russian air strike hit the station. As a result, a blaze started in Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which also accounts for 20% of Ukraine’s energy supplies. “If there is an explosion - it will be the end for everyone. It will be the end for Europe”, said President Zelensky. The press service of the nuclear power plant confirmed that there was no leak and radiation levels remained stable. As of today, after shelling and a later military offensive, the plant is under the control of Russian troops.
NO NATO FLY ZONE • On the same day, Friday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced that NATO members “are not part of the conflict”, thereby rejecting calls to introduce a no-fly zone over Ukrainian skies. He argued that it was the responsibility of NATO to prevent any further escalation which would cause even more suffering. Still, NATO promised to supply Ukraine with more humanitarian aid, essential supplies, and military support.
SOVEREIGNTY • On Saturday, 5 March, President of Russia Vladimir Putin commented on the “special military operation” – the war – saying that “if Ukraine continues to behave this way, its sovereignty will be in question”. He concluded that if this happens then the responsibility will be on the side of the Ukrainian government. The Ukrainian government did not comment but the Minister of Defence of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov announced that Russia was running out of military supplies, and that this would lead to a logistical collapse. According to Forbes Ukraine, Russia has already lost 3 billion dollars worth of military equipment.
THE HELP PACKAGE • To give substance to the European Commission's announcement to send military equipment to Kyiv, Member States are employing the European Peace Facility — 450 million euros — as well as the civil protection mechanisms and RescEU.
The Commission will facilitate procedures for individual aid and support provided by the EU 27 Member States to Ukraine. Belgium and Germany decided to send 13,800 tons of fuel, anti-tank, and anti-aircraft means. To complement the assistance provided by the Czech Republic consisting of sending handguns and assault rifles, Poland and Norway are sending several thousand pieces of ammunition. Other countries, including France, have also embarked on this path. While Hungary has said that it will not allow the transfer of lethal weapons from its territory, Poland is playing a key role in channelling aid to Kyiv. The Commission also expressed its intention to facilitate the provision of fighter jets to Ukraine. While Bulgaria rejected this hypothesis, Poland is considering it, in coordination with the United States.
The goal of lethal aid to Ukraine is clear: it aims to force Russia to cease its military operations and accept a ceasefire to resume dialogue. The delivery of weapons will take time, however. The Member States' armament stocks are tight, and the logistics are challenging, due to the difficulty of transporting weapons by air to the war zone.
SANCTIONS • The EU has imposed a series of new sanctions in relation to the war in Ukraine.
On 2 March, the Council approved the suspension of the broadcasting activities in the EU of the news outlets Sputnik and Russia Today — more on that below. Besides the exclusion of seven Russian Banks from the SWIFT system starting 12 March 2022, a ban on selling, transferring, or exporting euro denominated banknotes is in place. Switzerland aligned with EU sanctions against Russia for the first time, ensuring the efficiency of the current restrictive measures. In response, Russia has more than doubled its key interest rate and is blocking interest payments to foreign investors.
Belarus’ involvement in the invasion was not forgotten. The addition of several high-ranking members of the Belarusian military on the sanctions lists was agreed by the Council on 2 March. In addition, key sectors of the Belarussian economy were targeted by trade bans, with existing restrictions being expanded in sectors such as the potash, petroleum and tobacco sectors.
SANCTIONS, EXPLAINED • The EU has almost forty sanctions regimes at its disposal. By unanimity, and on a joint proposal from the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and the EU Commission, the Council of the European Union decides on the type of restrictive measures — such as asset freezes, visa bans, and sectoral sanctions — and approves the list of individuals or entities targeted by the sanctions. The vote results in a Decision under the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) which applies to Member States and a Regulation which applies directly throughout the Union.
The sanctions have the effect of prohibiting any EU citizen or entity registered in the EU from engaging in transactions with the listed foreign individuals or entities. Unlike embargoes, these targeted measures are intended to limit the effects on those not responsible for violations, but the economic consequences are nonetheless significant, since all EU companies must comply.
The EU was able to adopt new sanctions almost immediately following the Russian invasion because it could build upon the sanctions regime which it had put in place after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Moreover, the long build-up which preceded the invasion gave Member States sufficient time for extensive coordination.
UKRAINE, MOLDOVA, GEORGIA • Following Ukraine’s application to join the EU on a ‘fast-track procedure’, the European Parliament passed a historical resolution calling on the EU institutions to grant Ukraine EU candidate status on 1 March. Moldova and Georgia followed suit, calling for the EU to follow a ‘fast track’ procedure.
REFUGEES • According to the United Nation’s High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the war in Ukraine has displaced 1,5 million people in ten days of conflict. “This is now the fastest growing refugee crisis since World War II. In the coming days, millions more lives will be uprooted, unless there is an immediate end to this senseless conflict”, said the UNHCR in a tweet. Most refugees are headed for neighbouring countries, such as Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Hungary. Poland is taking the lion’s share of refugees fleeing war in Ukraine.
The number of asylum seekers is already higher than the 1,3 million that arrived at EU borders in 2015, when war in Syria triggered a humanitarian crisis on the shores of Europe. Measures are being taken at EU and Member State level to facilitate the relocation of Ukrainian refugees on EU territory, including removing administrative paperwork for asylum seekers.
PARIS • President Macron officially announced that he is running for reelection on 4 March, waiting until the last moment to make his candidacy public, roughly a month before the first round. The president-candidate is at the forefront of diplomatic efforts to get Putin to halt his military operations, including a nearly-two-hours-long phone call on Sunday, 6 March.
Emmanuel Macron will welcome fellow heads of state and governments in Versailles on 10-11 March, for an informal summit organised as part of the French Presidency of the Council of the EU. The summit will revolve around the EU’s response to war in Ukraine, including sanctions, energy security, and concrete steps to build ‘strategic autonomy’, a concept championed by the French President since his 2017 Sorbonne speech.
BERLIN • As refugees continue to flee Ukraine to reach neighbouring countries, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said last Sunday that Germany will welcome people regardless of their nationality. This comes as the Council of the EU announced the activation of the Temporary Protection Directive, for the first time since its creation, in a coordination effort across Member States to grant protection to Ukrainian citizens and permanent residents. So far, over 15,000 people fled to Germany to escape the war, relying on shelters and supplies provided by the government and the local population.
Germany is still processing the shockwaves sent by the Bundeskanzler’s speech, which marks a clear break in the Federal Republic’s mantra of change through trade — ‘Wandel durch Handel’. As Noah Barkin stressed in The Atlantic, this marks the end of an economic-growth-dominated political agenda and a breakaway from the Ostpolitik first put in place in 1970s West Germany — promoting ‘engagement’ with China and Russia.
Berlin’s weight in the EU makes this U-turn even more spectacular. Germany’s defence-driven fiscal expansion will have significant spillover effects on the current debate about reforming the EU’s debt-and-deficit rulebook. Its decision to prolong nuclear power plants to look for alternatives to Russian gas will change the outlook on the EU’s energy mix. Its defence spending programme will strengthen NATO, if Berlin sticks to its atlanticist stance, and give some substance to the EU’s ‘strategic autonomy’.
WARSAW • Poland has offered to become a logistic hub for channelling EU military aid, amid the Hungarian refusal to allow lethal weapons to transit its territory. Poland has welcomed over a million refugees since the beginning of the war, according to the border authorities. At the border with Ukraine, volunteers have been handing out free food, drink, medications, blankets and sim cards, while others have offered free accommodation across the country.
While defence Minister Mariusz Błaszczak has announced on Thursday that Poland, a NATO member, will increase its defence spending from a planned 2,5% to 3% of GDP in 2023, Warsaw and Washington are discussing a deal to get fighter jets into Ukraine. If the deal is reached Ukraine could receive MiG-29s from Poland — on which Ukrainian pilots are trained. Poland would, in turn, be given F-16 fighter planes by the US.
As Jan Cienski went to press for Politico, “Poland has gone straight from being the EU’s bad boy to star pupil thanks to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine”. Wartime unity will likely not push the European Commission to drop its charges against Poland in the rule-of-law spat which opposes Brussels and Warsaw.
BUDAPEST • This week, the communication strategy of the Hungarian government seems to have stabilized. On Friday, Viktor Orbán gave an interview to the state-owned Kossuth radio. The PM said, that he ‘does not know what on Earth is happening in Brussels’ and expressed his disappointment that Hungary has not received any funds related to the migrant crisis and still awaits financial support to manage new arrivals from Ukraine. On that note, he explained that 70-80% of people crossing the border from Ukraine only transit Hungary. According to the UN, nearly 250.000 refugees will arrive to Hungary before the end of the war (until now, more than 170.000 people have entered).
Later that day, the Prime Minister posted on Facebook, accusing the opposition to be standing on the side of war, as they support the idea to ‘send weapons and soldiers to Ukraine’ while the government supports peace. The leader of the united opposition said in an interview, that Hungary would follow NATO, even if it meant the use of force. This was used by Orbán to accuse the opposition of warmongering. In Orbán’s view, this strategy would endanger the Hungarian community in Ukraine and the country would risk ‘to become the enemy of the state against whom the weapons have been used, God knows for how long’. Moreover, he underlined the importance of further military investments, as ‘those who believe that NATO can itself protect us is wrong’.
The opposition demanded that the government stopped lying in its communication related to the war and attacked Orbán for his Janus-faced foreign policy, as the PM is acting in the interest of Russia. A new opinion poll four weeks before the election gives the governing party a comfortable lead.
As a result of the ongoing war, the Hungarian stock market has crashed last week and the Hungarian forint hit record low against the euro. Concerns regarding energy prices remain, while the government stresses that the Paks 2 nuclear power plant project (built from Russian loan) will go ahead as planned, despite the deteriorating relations between the EU and Russia.
VILNIUS • Support for Ukraine is strong in Lithuania, which has been warning NATO allies about Russian threats for over a decade. The Baltic State shares borders with Russia and Belarus, and has always been concerned about Russia’s desire to connect its Kaliningrad exclave, sandwiched between Poland and Ukraine.
BEIJING • China’s Xi Jinping expected the Tiger Year to start with a successful international PR campaign, the Winter Olympics, where he reaffirmed the ‘no-limits partnership’ uniting Russia and Beijing.
On 2 March, China was one of the 35 countries which abstained in the vote on the UN General assembly resolution on Ukraine demanding Russia to “immediately end its invasion of Ukraine and unconditionally withdraw all its military forces from that neighbouring country”.
China’s abstention at the UN could signal a decline in the Popular Republic’s support to Putin, says Pierre-Antoine Donnet in a blog post for Asialyst, quoting Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s call to respect the “territorial integrity of all countries”. Moscow’s unsolicited aggression and new pariah state status have made Beijing nervous. It does not sit well with Beijing’s non-intervention and state sovereignty doctrines.
However, vague statements about sovereignty and Chinese mediation could also mean that the Sino-Russian friendship would not be ditched that easily in the face of negative public press, according to an unnamed Chinese government advisor quoted by the Financial Times.
China opposes the US and EU sanctions, but is very concerned about the economic and financial consequences of Russia's economic isolation, including on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), its landmark infrastructure investment plan.
China’s businesses may think twice before investing in Russia, because of the country’s deteriorating prospects — not even to mention hypothetical secondary sanctions from Washington or Brussels, which few EU insiders have even considered, according to Politico’s Stuart Lau. Beijing has taken good note of the Western unity on sanctions, with an obvious lesson in case of a ‘special military operation’ on Taiwan.
EU Seeks To Prevent Russia From Using Crypto To Evade Sanctions
Analysts and officials suspect Russia is looking at cryptocurrencies as a means to bypass the strict sanctions regime imposed by the EU and its allies.
ECOFIN • EU economy and finance ministers collectively decided to review the possibilities offered to the Russian financial sector by cryptocurrencies — a technology that is barely a decade old and whose potential remains difficult to fathom. While work on the digital ruble continues, Russia could fall back on cryptocurrencies that are already widely used, like Bitcoin, Ether, and Monero.
CRYPTO • Since the wave of sanctions that followed Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia has sought to diversify the mix of assets used as reserves and for international transactions, away from the dollar and towards euros, yen, and gold. A major objective is to circumvent the extraterritoriality of American retaliatory measures, which leverage the international dominance of the dollar to dissuade most countries and companies from violating US sanctions.
Whatever Russia’s efforts to ‘sanction proof’ its economy, the decision by Western allies to isolate Russia’s financial system, notably through the exclusion of some of the country’s major banks from the SWIFT system, will still have a deep impact. Russia will have to accelerate current efforts at finding new ways to bypass sanctions. Cryptocurrencies may find a prominent place among the options under consideration. It is more difficult - if at all possible - for Western states to control the use of the blockchain technology on which they are based than it is to police traditional commercial transactions.
UNKNOWN KNOWN • Whether cryptocurrencies could allow Russia to conduct international transactions at scale despite Western sanctions is uncertain, but the potential is there. Existing platforms are already at the centre of global trade networks that Western agencies find difficult to monitor. For instance, the Hydra trading platform, accessible via the dark web, oversaw 1 billion dollars worth of trade in Russia in 2020.
UNCLE SAM • To mitigate the possibility of evading sanctions through cryptocurrencies, the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) has set up a specific group, the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team. Its mission is to monitor the behaviour of cryptocurrency users.
URSULA • The European Commission says it is aware of the risk that crypto-assets constitute “a possible way of circumventing” sanctions. After the ECOFIN meeting, which brings together EU finance ministers, Bruno Le Maire, the French finance minister, announced that the EU would include crypto-currencies in its sanctions against Russia. No tangible decision has however been taken so far. European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde has called on EU lawmakers to approve a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies, a concern shared among members of the G7.
EU Candidate List Now Counts Moldova, Georgia after Ukraine Bid
After Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia are now candidates for accession to the European Union.
KYIV • Following the signing of the formal application for Ukraine to join the European Union on 28 February, the European Parliament passed a historical resolution supporting Ukraine’s EU candidate status the following day. Ukraine is asking for a ‘fast track procedure’ to be followed, to recognize Kyiv’s status as a candidate for membership.
CHIȘINĂU & TBILISI • Two days later, on 3 February, Moldova and Georgia followed suit, also filling in the application form. On the same day, the Georgian Prime Minister, Irakli Garibashvili, and the Moldovan President, Maia Sandu, signed a request to start the ‘fast-track procedure’ aimed at recognizing their respective countries as candidates for EU membership. In the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it represents the strong desire of both countries to continue their European integration course.
Moldova and Georgia are members of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) initiative of the EU. In 2014, they signed the Association Agreement with the Union and have currently in place a visa-free regime with the EU. They also benefit from strong financial support from the EU.
IMMEDIATE ACCESSION? • The Ukrainian President demanded ‘immediate accession’ to the EU. This is legally impossible under the EU Treaties. However, the stakeholders could agree to speed up the procedure. The Council, which represents the Member States, will need to make a decision on whether to ask the European Commission for an urgent opinion on accession. It is then for the European Commission to ascertain whether Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia can be recognized as ‘candidate countries’ — a lengthy process which, from previous experience, can take up to eighteen months.
“Joining the EU is not something that can be done in a few months ... it involves an intensive and far-reaching transformation process”, said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. Eleven EU Member States — mainly from Eastern Europe — support Ukraine’s candidacy. The Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also expressed support in a speech in the European Parliament, although she did not commit to a specific timeframe for accession. Some have expressed concerns, notably in Germany, France, and the Netherlands.
JOINING THE CLUB • However, admission to the EU is a lengthy and demanding procedure. Candidate countries must satisfy the Copenhagen eligibility criteria to join the EU, a set of requirements as to the candidate country’s respect of governance and human rights best practices. Matching the criteria demands many reforms and takes time — as the talks with Albania, Northern Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Turkey have shown.
There are concerns about quick accession — Ukraine has been labelled as a ‘hybrid regime’, with a fragile democracy and poorly enforced rule of law. The question of the occupied Eastern regions and Crimea could further complicate the issue. In 2014, tensions in Ukraine were already linked to the country’s Association Agreement with the EU.
Granting Ukraine a fast-track candidate status would set a precedent for Georgia and Moldova. Indeed, other candidate countries might conclude that the EU’s values, expressed in article 2 of the Treaty on European Union, are context-dependent. This would weaken the Commission’s position in the rule-of-law legal fight with Poland, which stands accused of democratic backsliding in its judiciary.
EU Seeks WTO Action to Further Isolate Russia from World Trade
On Friday, 4 March, EU Member States reached a political agreement over a common determination to ban Russia from the most-favoured-nation (MFN) treatment.
CONTEXTO • One of the cornerstones of the WTO, the MFN clause provides that member countries impose baseline duties that are the same for everyone. Excluding bilateral agreements, the EU applies average tariffs of 5,1%. Countries may suspend the most-favoured-nation clause if they appeal to the exemption of “essential security interests” in the GATT (WTO’s foundational treaty).
Canada already banned Russia and Belarus from the MFN on Thursday, 3 March, and Washington is considering activating the security clause as well. In contrast to Canada however, the EU has no alternative tariff system to fall back on, meaning that, should such a decision be formally taken, tangible effects would take some time to develop. Since 70% of EU’s 95,3 billion euros of imports from Russia are fuel and mining products — oil and gas in particular —, the scope of potential new tariffs will likely be the subject of tough negotiations at the Council.
PRECEDENT • The WTO panel recently issued a ruling over a country’s activation of the national security clause, considering against the Russian and American opinions that it could review the grounds of actions taken under the clause. In the case under review, Russia had banned Ukrainian goods following the outbreak of conflict in 2014. This ruling should not be a deterrent for the EU however, given the strong case that can be made about Russia’s threat to European security.
Economic Consequences of War Hit the Debate on EU Debt-and-Deficit Rulebook Reform
The upcoming 10-11 March summit in Versailles was meant to be about the reforms to the EU’s debt-and-deficit rulebook — the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) —, according to the initial agenda of the French Presidency of the Council of the EU.
SGP REFORM • War in Ukraine is obviously changing the discussion. The EU’s heads of states and governments will convene in Versailles for an informal meeting to discuss how to mitigate the economic consequences of war.
Nine Member States are now calling for defence spending not to be accounted for in deficit calculations, in a push prior to the Versailles summit. Berlin’s openness to discussing the SGP prior to war in Ukraine gives hope to critics of the EU’s debt-and-deficit rulebook. The Dutch Finance Minister, from the pro-EU D66 party, told Politico on 6 March she favours “reform and modernization” of the SGP. France and Italy have been the most vocal advocates of SGP reform, culminating in a common Christmas op-ed in the Financial Times.
PRICE OF WAR • On 2 March, the European Commission released its fiscal policy guidance for 2023, which provides Member States with broad guidance for the conduct of fiscal and budgetary policies for the upcoming year and sets the key principles behind the Commission's assessment of Member States' stability and convergence programmes due in April.
The Commission warns that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine risks impacting growth negatively, including through the repercussions on financial markets, further energy price pressures, persistent supply chain bottlenecks and confidence effects.
For countries with high debt levels, the Commission recommends a gradual fiscal adjustment to begin in 2023 underpinned by investment and reforms that relaunch growth potential in order to stabilise and reduce debt ratios. On the other hand, countries with low or medium debt levels were urged to maintain a neutral or expansionary fiscal stance and prioritise investment to support the green and digital transition.
SGP FLEXIBILITY • Given the high uncertainty, the Commission will take a more lenient approach in its assessment of compliance with EU fiscal rules, contained in the SGP. Most notably, no excessive deficit procedures will be opened for countries breaking the SGP’s 3% deficit limit. Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said that Member States will not be asked to abide by the 1/20th debt reduction rule of the difference between their debt levels and the SGP’s 60% target.
Commissioner for the Economy Paolo Gentiloni said that the Commission will take a decision on the deactivation of the General Escape Clause — which suspended the SGP’s debt and deficit rules during COVID-19 — mid-May when it presents its spring forecasts.
The Commission will probably announce a relaxation of state aid rules, which prohibit Member States to grant subsidies that distort free and fair competition within the internal market. State aid rules were suspended to cope with the economic consequences of the pandemic, notably to help EU governments to pay their way out of a Russia-dependent energy mix model.
European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde issued a statement on 25 February saying the bank will conduct a comprehensive assessment of the economic outlook as the basis for its Governing Council meeting on 10 March.
MILITARY SPENDING • In light of the current crisis, Germany and Denmark have both committed to ramp up military spending to 2% of GDP and more EU countries are likely to follow suit with similar spending commitments.
In order to decrease their over-reliance on Russian gas, EU Member States will need to speed up energy and climate-related investment. Increased spending needs combined with the requirement to bring down fiscal deficits to pre-COVID-19 levels poses a conundrum for the future design of EU fiscal rules and will likely influence the current debate on the reform of the SGP and new EU-level instruments
NGEU 2.0 • According to Le Monde, the creation of a mutualisation fund to absorb the shock of the war in Ukraine is on the table in the run-up to the 10-11 March summit in Versailles. French sources indicate that EU funds would not be made conditional on rule-of-law considerations, thereby allowing to disburse money to Poland while the 36 billion euros it is meant to receive under the NGEU package have not been unlocked by the Commission.
The time is ripe for more common borrowing to finance assistance to Ukraine and cope with the economic consequences of the war, on the lines of the EU’s pandemic relief plan, Max Bergmann and Benjamin Haddad consider in an op-ed. They argue for a second NGEU-like plan of 400 billion euros earmarked towards EU defence and security.
In an interview with Le Grand Continent, former WTO Director General and EU Commissioner for Trade Pascal Lamy argues that a new recovery plan would need to address the direct and indirect costs of this war, including defence spending, switching towards a new energy mix, and providing shelter to one to five million refugees from Ukraine.
War Turns Digital as EU and Russia Restrict Foreign Media
On 28 February, several US social media platforms announced the ban of state-controlled Russian media from their European platforms, while the EU imposed a ban on Russian ‘propaganda outlets’. Russia is also blocking Western media.
INFOWARS • On 27 February, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that two Russian media institutions, Russia Today and Sputnik — known for their close links with the Russian regime, would be banned from broadcasting and sharing any content in the EU. The entities targeted in Council Regulation 2022/350 are: RT English, RT UK, RT Germany, RT France, RT Spanish, and Sputnik.
“[...] in another unprecedented step, we will ban in the EU the Kremlin's media machine.The state-owned Russia Today and Sputnik, as well as their subsidiaries will no longer be able to spread their lies to justify Putin's war and to sow division in our Union. So we are developing tools to ban their toxic and harmful disinformation in Europe”, von der Leyen said on 27 January.
BIG TECH AT WAR • The EU sanctions are meant to cover all means of distribution, both traditional broadcasting and social media platforms, Natasha Lomas from TechCrunch was told. Social media platforms are legally bound to ‘de-amplify’ and take down RT and Sputnik content from their EU websites, but avoiding leaks and making geoblocking fully effective is going to prove a difficult business for platforms.
In a letter to the CEOs of Twitter, Google, YouTube and Meta dated 27 February, the Prime ministers of the three Baltic countries and Poland have explicitly asked tech companies to take immediate action to mitigate the risks of propaganda from the Russian state. Some have expressed fears that banning Russia from social media altogether could prevent Russian citizens from getting access to other sources of information — especially that coming from the West —, while banning RT and Sputnik in the EU will have limited impact.
TIT FOR TAT • After restricting access to independent local media earlier in the week, last Friday the Russian regulator for Communication and Mass Media — the Roskomnadzor —, retaliated and blocked Twitter, Facebook and YouTube from operating within the country. Vkontakte, the Russian social media that accounts for the majority of market share in the country remains active.
Following those developments, the head of global affairs at Facebook, Nick Clegg, stated they would do everything they can to enable people to “safely and security express themselves and organise for action”.
What we’ve been reading this week
Nils Redeker at the Jacques Delors Centre discusses EU Member States’ exposure to the economic consequences of war
Björn Alexander Düben examines the religious roots of the war
In The Atlantic, Noah Barkin tells the tale of Germany’s newly found international role
Meanwhile, Richard Fontaine tries to make sense of the events of our times and of their place in historyEconomist Shahin Vallée assesses the significance of the sanctions on Russia
In Le Grand Continent, Pascal Lamy discusses the impact the crisis has had on the European Union
Thanks to those who helped put this edition together — Marianna Skoczek-Wojciechowska, Hélène Procoudine-Gorsky, Dana Fedun, Cyril Tregub, Nurana Ahmadova, Briac de Charry, Lorenza Nava, Allegra Crahay, Andreea Florea, Andrei-Bogdan Sterescu, Adam Zagoni-Bogsch, Ghislain Lunven, Eloise Couffon, Maxim Betivu, Andrei Ciocan, Andreea Zofotă, Adina Ștefan, Maxence de La Rochère, Rogier Prins, Agnès de Fortanier and Thomas Harbor. See you next Tuesday !