The downing of Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine is at least as much a European tragedy as a Malaysian one, and it demands a far more forceful and united response to the conflict in Ukraine than Europe's leaders have so far been willing to take.

Two-thirds of the 298 innocent men, women and children killed on the Boeing 777 were from Europe, mostly the Netherlands. And while it remains uncertain who fired the missile that downed the airliner, the circumstantial evidence that it might have been Russia-backedinsurgents is piling up. That should be sufficient to impress those European Union leaders who until now have considered the Ukraine crisis insufficiently important to take any action that would risk their countries' lucrative Russian contracts.

Predictably, Russian President Vladimir Putin is blaming Ukraine for the deaths, arguing that if it hadn't been fighting the rebels, the Malaysia Airlines plane would have reached Kuala Lumpur safely. This is hypocrisy of the highest order: Russia manufactured the conflict in eastern Ukraine. It is largely led by a former (perhaps current) Russian intelligence officer and supplied with Russian weaponry and fighters -- supported, recent evidence suggests, by rocket batteries from across the border. Putin's failure to respond to the tragedy by moving quickly to bring the war to a close is only more evidence, if any were needed, that Europe must act more boldly.

David Fuller's view

The European Economic Community (EEC) a stepping stone on the way to the European Union (EU), was created to prevent European countries from killing each other, as they had for centuries, and most tragically during the two World Wars in the first half of the 20^th century.  That was a noble aim, but it also created a pacifist union of European democracies. 

With a pacifist credo and minimal military budgets, EEC countries could not stand up to the Soviet Union.  Fortunately, the USA could and did, and the EEC, soon to become the EU, outlasted the Soviet Union.  However, Vladimir Putin believes and said in 2005: The break-up of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20^th century.”  

With NATO in place and most Eastern European countries determined to avoid the old KGB apparatchik’s military embrace, Putin could not recreate the Soviet Union.  However, he obviously wants at least Ukraine.  So far, he has been cynically playing the West and particularly the EU for fools.

The EU is similarly empire building, albeit peacefully rather than by coercion and conquest.  It hopes to outlast Putin, and it almost certainly will.  However, under current economic policies it is likely to become an ever more unwieldy empire. 

I will be enthusiastic about the EU’s future when Switzerland joins it.  I am not holding my breath.