Commentary

The United Kingdom is not only very unique EU member state, which has own international currency but it is also de facto the union within the union. Especially after adoption of Scotland Act 2016 [1] and the upcoming Wales Bill 2016-2017 [2], Scotland and Wales have a higher degree of sovereignty than any state in the Federal Republic of Germany, and high enough to run their own referendums on EU membership.

The recent events that occurred in Ukraine – the Russian invasion of the Donbass region and the Crimean referendum on joining the Russian Federation in 2014 – have resulted in Russia and the EU imposing sanctions on one another, heralding, some would have it, a “new cold war”. Russia is presented, in the EU and in the West more broadly, as a revisionist, expansionist and authoritarian power that oscillates between “progress” in terms of democracy and alignment with our interests on the one hand, and a “return” backwards to its old demons. Even worse, Russia is said to be attempting to “revive the Soviet Union”.