Chronicle in Swedish Radio, June 11, 2023. AI-translation

UKRAINE AND EUROPE

The EU that Sweden is chairing for a few more weeks is a product of a war.
Of the devastating war that almost ended Europe.
And of the Cold War that seemingly forever drew an iron curtain through it.
The EU is the product of a near-death experience of what a fragile idea Europe is.
For Europe, more than anything else, is an idea, or a vision, or a dream, or a hope, that the many peoples, with the many languages and cultures that separate them, all crowded onto a small patchy peninsula on the western edge of the Asian landmass - can live together without periodically clashing and killing each other.
Anyone who has a problem with different languages, religions and cultures living in close proximity, in close contact with each other, basically has a problem with Europe. The multicultural congestion is not a malicious invention of Europe's enemies. Multiculturalism is Europe's destiny and challenge, whether Europeans like it or not and no matter how many borders they have tried to fortify between themselves throughout history.

In truth, Europe thereby has a problem with itself because the Europeans (whoever they are) have not yet managed to make a common home out of their destiny. Many peoples and cultures have their home in Europe, but the European Community or Union has not yet become a home for anyone. Despite the flag and the parliament and the court and the euro, the EU has remained a place where the national parts are bigger than the European whole.
Moreover, until February 24 last year, there were signs that the EU edifice was falling apart. The United Kingdom had dramatically withdrawn and more or less slammed the door behind it, and in country after country, including Sweden, nationalist and anti-European opinions were growing strong by promising to take back national control over everything, not least immigration, in the spirit of the Brexit campaign.

The EU certainly has its weaknesses and shortcomings and suffers from a problematic democratic deficit, but it is by far the most democratic and successful attempt of the many nations in Europe to build a common European house. Without a European house, so the designers and architects thought, a well-trodden path to conflict, war and self-destruction would once again open up on the patchy peninsula with too many peoples on too small an area.
And so successful was the European construction at first, and so many nations eventually wanted to move into it, that it was easy to forget how vulnerable it was.
Vulnerable to populist and nationalist discontent from within when times got tough.
Vulnerable to divisive and disruptive attempts from the outside as competition between major powers intensified.
Vulnerable, in fact, also through its security policy dependence on a United States that might once again elect a president prepared to leave Europe to its security policy destiny and break away from NATO, perhaps giving Ukraine to his friend Putin.
So perhaps it was high time for the many nations in that small space to be reminded once again of the geopolitical conditions for their freedom and independence. Which is the reminder I think they got when Putin's Russia launched its unprovoked war of aggression not only against Ukraine - but against the entire security order that Europe's democratic nations, large and small, had until then taken more or less for granted.

But now nothing is given anymore, neither security nor freedom nor independence, the tide has turned, as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, somewhat shocked, put it three days after the Russian invasion.
And once again, Europe's many states, large and small, received a brutal reminder that if they cannot by themselves maintain - and if necessary defend - a common European house, there may be no house left to defend.
Just a collection of disparate nation states with a long history of internal conflict and war, each too small and too weak to assert themselves in a world where nuclear power has been allowed to become law, which is the world to which a Putin victory in the war against Ukraine would open the door.
Which is the main reason why the cause of Ukraine must remain the cause of Europe.
And why the nations of Europe must urgently strengthen their common house instead of weakening it.