ALWAYS BET ON THE NEW WORLD ORDER:

More attention is being paid to the way Putin's aggression has consolidated Nato's Trump-shaken unity, to the quandary of China and the possible consequences for Taiwan and the US's Indo-Pacific pivot, and to the heroic resistance of the Ukrainian armed forces and people--all important questions in their own right. But that European Question is up there in significance with the others and should not be overlooked, because we too are Europeans and will be profoundly affected by the way it plays out.

Consider the main ways in which Europe has been driven together. Occurring within the astonishingly short period of less than month, they include:The revolution in the foreign and security policy of the EU's largest member state, Germany, which has committed to achieving the Nato target of 2 per cent of GNI in short order, and taken the decision to send defensive weapons to Ukraine, financed in part by the EU itself. 

- The shaping of a fundamentally changed EU energy policy, designed to radically reduce dependence on Russian oil, gas and coal, without resiling from the Paris and Glasgow commitments on climate change. This includes Germany's effective cancellation of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

- The imposition of swingeing sanctions, including the exclusion of Russia's financial institutions from the SWIFT messaging system. The freezing of Russian oligarchs' assets including houses and yachts.

- A generous and liberal response to the surge of three million Ukrainian refugees--a figure dwarfing the Syrian and Afghan influx to the continent, which had defied all EU efforts to respond adequately and humanely.

- The complete disappearance of the usual Putin sympathisers in the EU (Hungary, Cyprus, Greece, Italy).

- The tabling of three new membership applications by Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, on which the Commission has been asked to provide an opinion.

 Each of these would in normal times have taken months of agonising debate.

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