Euroviews. The EU must foster deeper defence integration with accession countries

Jean Monnet is remembered for having invented a smart technocratic gimmick – integrating the steel and coal industries of former enemies as the best way to ensure stable peace on the European continent. His technocratic method helped create the EU.

Now, as the EU prepares for future enlargements to the Balkans and East — with the bloc aiming to start membership negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova by the end of June — geopolitical and even military integration should take centre stage.

Before Jean Monnet could invent the EU, he spent a big part of his professional life developing war economies and helping democratic allies win two world wars.

In World War I he was heavily involved in looking for affordable wheat and boats, and in World War II he worked hard to find ways to boost the production of tanks and bombers through the so-called US Victory programme.

Before he could persuade the French Government to initiate the European and Steel Community in 1950, he first had to persuade US President Roosevelt to ramp up dramatically the production of tanks and bombers in the early 1940s to make European integration possible.

Peace, he knew, could only be won with weapons. Military victory on the battlefields made European integration and the "Monnet method" of technocratic integration possible.

As the biggest war on European soil since World War II rages on the continent and its outcome is uncertain, it is time for the EU to reinsert a sense of history into the usual process of technocratic integration.

It is time to remember that the EU could only be technocratic because of peace. And peace required military power in the shape of alliances and weapons. Weapons helped the democratic West and the EU survive, win, and defend