UNDER REGISTRATION

Updated Saturday, March 2, 2024-00:04

In Ukraine, Europe defends its freedom, prosperity and values ​​from the existential threat of an imperialist Russia in the midst of a crusade to impose its autocratic model.

These two years of war on the border have put the continent before a mirror that reflects a global reality different from that which prevailed in the decades after the Cold War:

a fragmented and multipolar world that has altered the old balances and multiplied the risks

of war .

, hybrid and technological.

Nuclear

Even if we take into account the threat that Vladimir Putin issued this week, warning of the possibility of escalating the war to the atomic level if NATO, as Emmanuel Macron suggested, places its soldiers on the ground.

Such a scenario forces Europe to refound itself on stronger security pillars that allow it to preserve a democratic model and a way of life that can no longer be taken for granted.

"If we do not support Ukraine, everything we inherited risks falling apart"

, stressed yesterday the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, at the International Forum of EL MUNDO.

In his speech - in which he recognized the contribution of this newspaper "to Spanish and European democracy" - he warned that the Union, which was born from the bloody birth of two world wars, "does not have guaranteed peace" and needs to shield itself with the means necessary to defend it: energy, economic, cybernetic, military...

Only a strong Europe will be a Europe at peace

, as demonstrated by the growing aggressiveness of Russia, which is increasingly emboldened.

As the head of the Commission admitted this week, "war is not impossible."

The EU faces a Russia that tries to bury liberal democracy at the root of European construction, as yesterday it buried the only opponent who could stand up to Putin:

Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic prison in the style of the Stalinist gulag.

And it maneuvers to destabilize the internal politics of the European partners by boosting the populist forces that are bidding to win seats in the crucial elections in June, in their desire to dynamit the institutions from within.

At a historical moment of enormous challenges, the EU needs unity to confront the illiberal forces that within and outside its borders are fighting to destroy a political project to which we owe our welfare state and our freedoms.

It is time to act with one voice on foreign policy, providing Kiev with seamless support and accelerating the production of weapons and ammunition it needs.

This turning point should also serve to elaborate

a new European security architecture

focused on strategic autonomy compatible with the NATO umbrella, but that allows the EU to defend itself if Trump from the White House threatens to withdraw it.

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