As many as 17 European Union (EU) member-states — joined by Norway, Ukraine, Macedonia and Albania — announced they would expel a total of 50 alleged Russian spies in a coordinated response to the chemical weapon poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.
European reactions are what matters the most. The EU has become anathema to Russia for many reasons, not least because it embodies a set of norms that run counter to the very nature of his regime, and because as an economic bloc it can in theory exert leverage on Russia, as none of its other international interlocutors can.
Unsurprisingly, the spate of expulsions did not involve all EU states; Greece and Austria were conspicuously absent. But the nature of the support — which encompasses countries that are either candidates for membership or strategically interested in rapprochement with the EU (Ukraine) — arguably said more about European convergence that it did about divergence. Interestingly, Hungary, a country whose leader Viktor Orban has a notorious track record of pandering to Putin, immediately joined the fray. Nor are these announcements the end of the story: European officials say more measures are yet to come.
The key point is that no European government has expressed any doubt about Britain’s assessment that Russia was responsible. As such, this was nothing like the 2003 debate over the presence, or not, of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. That involved significant dissent: France and Germany never took the bait.
Though British intelligence briefings made available to European partners had an undeniable impact, diplomats were struck that Britain initially refrained from reaching out to the EU as a whole — and attributed this to the awkwardness created precisely by Brexit. Instead, British diplomacy worked at a bilateral level, engaging in particular with eastern European and Baltic states whose hostility towards Russia is well known. That piecemeal approach carried more risks than benefits.
In the end, three factors leading to a strong common EU statement and the withdrawal of the bloc’s ambassador in Moscow were crucial. First, British weakness came to be seen as a vulnerability that was shared, not something anyone could possibly gain from in dealing with Russia. Moscow had targeted Britain because it was Europe’s frailest part, the country whose isolation could most conveniently be exposed. Anyone doubting this ought to pay attention to the way Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman reacted to the recent expulsions: This was, said Maria Zakharova, “a conspiracy of anti-Russian solidarity imposed by the British” on EU countries.
Secondly, Franco-German resolve was decisive, according to European sources. French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Theresa May met ahead of last week’s EU summit, to parade their unity. Later, when all 28 member states’ leaders gathered, Macron pushed vehemently for the strongest possible collective response. France had long seen itself as playing a leading role in denouncing chemical weapons use in Syria by the Bashar Al Assad regime, Russia’s ally, and it made the case that impunity in the face of such acts was intolerable.
Risk of exposure
But the third and perhaps the principal explanation for Europe’s decisiveness was that EU member-states saw a clear new threshold had been crossed. Unlike the 2006 killing of Alexander Litvinenko in London by Russian agents (who’d dropped polonium in his tea), the use of Novichok was seen as an indiscriminate attack on innocent civilians — not just a targeted assassination. May highlighted this fact, when she confirmed that 130 people were at risk of exposure. Novichok is reportedly the most deadly nerve agent ever produced, five to eight times more lethal than VX. Entire buildings and squares in Salisbury have to be decontaminated.
This put Salisbury into an entirely different category from previous Russia-connected eliminations of dissidents: In a category closer to terrorism. Novichok, to that extent, was a unifier for Europe — a matter of all for one, one for all. And yet the comfort to be drawn from this is limited. After Crimea, war in Ukraine, nuclear sabre-rattling and cyber-attacks, Russia’s behaviour has taken on an entirely new and baffling degree of recklessness — one that can put anyone in danger. And while they pulled together, European officials noted again the absurdity of Brexit, with Britain’s self-inflicted loss of influence and ensuing vulnerability plain for all to see.
— Guardian News & Media Ltd
Natalie Nougayrede is a French journalist and columnist who had previously served as executive editor and managing editor of Le Monde.
