Behold the mighty European Union, second only to the U.S. in economic heft. But also witness what a minnow it is in world diplomacy. Is it any wonder the world’s hard-nosed autocrats and nationalists, practitioners of Realpolitik all, don’t take the EU seriously, unless the subject is trade?
The ones laughing loudest right now are the presidents of Turkey and Belarus. Neighbors of the EU, each has been causing trouble. This week, Europe was supposed to impose sanctions against one of them, Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko, for his blatant manipulation of the country’s election in August and subsequent crackdown on protesters. Instead, Brussels did nothing. If that seems puzzling, ask the bloc’s third-smallest member state by population: Cyprus.
