To be-EU or not to be-EU? I wrote here recently about the changing nature of the European Union: that it was once a peace project built on trade, which has turned its economic gaze to military-industrial development. More specifically, that it is drawing in outside powers on a scale never seen before, by way of Canada and Ukraine.

Ukraine is an official European Union candidate, while Canada is deepening its trade, security and defence relationship with the bloc. The last two weeks, however, have shown that Europe is not only changing in size and structure, but in how much power it wishes existing member states to retain.

This new economy is not one in which the Republic is likely to thrive. Reindustrialisation will reward countries that had, at some recent time, a deep expertise in manufacturing and high-value physical output. In other words, the benefits accrue to the factories that France, Italy, Germany and even the United Kingdom can presumably dust off and reopen. Even better if they can be repurposed for defence, one of Europe’s fastest-growing areas of industrial investment. Ukraine and Canada are obviously winners in this new Europe, as they are enormous agricultural and industrial economies with an eye on a permanent defence footing.

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This State, on the other hand, has very intentionally – rightly or wrongly – decided to become the opposite: a services economy with no industrial defence base and a cultural tradition of never building one.

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