Europe’s tectonic plates shifting, post-Ukraine invasion 

SOME 100 days since Russia invaded Ukraine, it is increasingly clear that the war is shifting the economic and political tectonic plates of Europe.  This will have lasting impacts for the continent, from North to South, and East to West.  

In Northern Europe, the future military policy reverberations have been particularly keenly felt. Last Wednesday, Denmark voted overwhelmingly, in a landmark referendum, to end a three-decade old opt-out clause that kept it from participating in the EU’s common defence policy.  Meanwhile, Sweden and Finland have applied for NATO membership.  

Important as this military dynamic is in Northern Europe, however, the most important overall development may be in the East where that sub-region’s growing importance in the continent has been accelerated by Russia’s invasion. This is not just because these nations have been hardest hit by the conflict in several respects, including from the refugee wave.  More broadly, the war has accentuated a process already underway that is seeing political and economic influence in Europe seep eastwards.