by Antonio R. Rubio Plo 03/12/201iiuju.
web: https://blog.realinstitutoelcano.org/caballos-de-troya-en-europa/
Traduction: Arkangel7d
On the eve of great enlargerment of the EU in 2004,a nd coinciding with the divergences of Europe and the US o the conflict in Iraq , some analysts and politiciians with few hairs in the tongue, populazed the expression «Trojan horses». They were refeerring, above all, to former communist conutries, from Central and Eastern Europe, accussed of being an isntrument of Washington, to «Americanize» Europe. The great European contribution to the world, the Welfare State, with its unique EU dimension, would be threatened by a handful of countries converted to neoliberalism, recently admitted to NATO and willing to spread the values of individualism as an extreme reaction to the collectivism that subjugated them for years. The passage fo time proved many fo those fears were unfounded. The new EU parternes also discovered the advantages of the Welfare Sate and its corresponding European funds, and in the porcess realized, especially with the Obama Adimisntration, that the US no longer had the same interest in the old continent as at the lime; not of the cold war but in the immediate post-cold war.
The most wodespread paradidm of the American «Trojan horse» was that of Poland. There are still those who remember teh image of Sheriff Kane, played by Gary Cooper in High Noom, on the Solidarity eclectoral flyers in the 1989 elections. But Donald Tusk’s Poland, while maintaining a privileged relationship with Washinton, was immediately aware that his foreign policy focus had much more to do woth his geopolitical sitaution between Germany and Russia. Poland remains one of the most por-European countires in the Union. Its destiny, marked by a trajed history, is inextricably linked to European values, and the same could be said of the three Baltic republics.
However, those who insist on seeing America Trojan horses in Europe have their sights set on the TTIP ( Free Trade and Investment between the US and the EU). Cardboard this spring to trasmit the messages of the anti.globalization movement. No to TTIP! Sovereignty of the peoples! They continues tompoint the finger at American enemy, and they hardly have to mention NATO as in other times, although with their populism they are helping to revive a nationalism believed to be extinct in the history of Eurpopean integration. The most curious thing that after making as profession of faith of sovereignty, populism ends up aproaching, at in the use of term, the «sovereign democracy» of today’ Russia.
There are also those wo perceive a Russian «Trojan horse» in the HUngary of the conservative Viktor Orban, although he sureky extends this quealification to te Czech Republic of the socialust Bohuslav Sobotka, to the Slovakia of the also socialist Robert Fico ir ti the BUlgaria of the center.right Boiko Borisov. None of the these politicians are prone to EU sanstion sagainst RUssia. No ne can now brand them as American «Trojan horse», although their attitide seems to weigh more pragmatic than idelogical reasons. Their energy dependence on Russia reaches a level similar to that of their respective nationalisms. Sources of energy, financing and historical.cultural links are strond enpugh for some former communist countris to llok to Moscow and become passionate about tradicional geopolitics, something that though to be surpassed with to EU. It is in a way certain return to the politics pf equilibrium, because, aftler all, as VIktor Orban stated: » Foreign policy strategies rest exclusively in the Hungarian people, Hungarian state and the Hungarian nation»
However, there isa third «Trojan horse» that few tend to notice. It is the Eurpean horse. Putin’s Russian did realize the risk. He demonstred this by mistrusting the Eastern Partnership, a Brussels inicative targting Belarus. Moldova and Ukraine in 2009, although his oppsition was not us to NATO enlargement. Moscow relected this European soft power and then openly showed its irritation by vetoing the EU’s Asspciation agreementhe fig with Ukraine with and trying to accelerate the spes toward a Eurasian Union. The promotion of a true market economy, democracy and fight against in terrotories of the former Soviet space pose a geopolitical threat much more serious than the expansion of the Alliance. The EU is here the Trojan horse of Moscow. Hence the well-intenioned proposal to endow Ukraine with a neural status similar to that of Austria, Finland and Sweden is doomed to failure. They are neutral contries, but at the same time pro-Western, something that us banned from Ukraine.
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