The European Union Now Resembles The Soviet Union – OpEd |
By Finn Andreen
Considering the recent development of the European Union, it seems appropriate to look at a meme that has been going around for some time, namely, “EUSSR.” The implication is, of course, that the EU is starting to resemble the Soviet Union. Though this might sound like a bad joke on the face of it, there are in fact many common points between the European Union and the Soviet Union, and the EU planned direction—such as the Letta plan and the Draghi plan—will further increase the similarities.
In early 2025, US Vice President J.D. Vance warned Europeans of “old, entrenched interests” hiding behind ugly, Soviet-era words like “misinformation” and “disinformation.” Though this is clearly a case of the pot calling the kettle black, there is undoubtedly some truth to this, as the EU has been turning the screws ever tighter on freedom of speech (e.g., via the Digital Services Act and most recently with the probable ban of social networks for children).
Then, a few months later, while visiting Moldova, President Macron stressed that “the EU is in no way the Soviet Union.” This comment didn’t come out of nowhere: such a remarkable and unnecessary denial by the French president is full of meaning, at a time when the “EUSSR” meme is becoming more and more popular. In fact, a comparison between the EU and the USSR is not unwarranted. True, the European Union is far wealthier and more capitalistic than the Soviet Union ever was. But politically, the parallels exist, which is why the acronym EUSSR is now so often being thrown around to describe the inefficient, corrupt, and centralized EU administration.
It is important to note, though, that these similarities are not just a coincidence. In EUSSR: The Soviet Roots of European Integration (2004), authors V. Bukovsky and P. Stroilov exposed, with declassified archives in Moscow, “the secretive discussions between Western and Soviet Union leaders planning to create a collectivist European Union State.” A top priority for the USSR in order to counter the United States’ influence in Europe was to try to bring Western Europe—through an enhanced EU—closer to a reformed Soviet model. The Soviet leadership under M. Gorbachev introduced the socialist concept of a “Common European Home” which was to include Western Europe, the Warsaw pact countries, and of course, a reformed USSR.
The booklet shows that this idea was fully embraced by many Western European socialist leaders at the time, like President F. Mitterrand of France and Prime Minister F. González of Spain, who discussed the matter directly with M. Gorbachev in Moscow. Not surprisingly, both Mitterrand and González strongly favored further European integration at the expense of nation-states; they not only were proponents of the Maastricht Treaty (signed 1992), but also two of its most........