THE EU IS WRONG TO ARM UKRAINE (Niamh Ni Bhriain)

Four days after Russia illegally invaded Ukraine, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced that “for the first time ever”, the EU would “finance the purchase and delivery of weapons… to a country that is under attack”. A few days earlier, she had declared the EU to be “one union, one alliance” with NATO. Unlike NATO, the EU is not a military alliance. Yet, from the outset of this war, it has been more concerned with militarism than diplomacy. This was not unexpected.