Gideon Rachman on the vexing question of the fate of 'Europe', in light of the German Elections.
Old Socialist attempts to dissect its 900 words...
The political cliché, some obvious, and others minted for the occasion, the refuge of a ‘pundit’ working against a deadline? Note that most of these quotes head paragraphs.
The coalition negotiations after the German election will be a tortuous business.
But the current surge in rhetoric about EU sovereignty, strategic autonomy and European armies has a fantasy quality.
This is not to say that strategic autonomy is a bad idea — or that the EU is doomed to geopolitical irrelevance.
Here is a gem that brought a paragraph to its shuddering end:
But economic power and moral suasion are not always an adequate substitute for military might. (As Stalin once reportedly asked: “How many divisions has the pope?”)
When it comes to hard security, the 27 nations of the EU are still heavily reliant on the US.
The political stability of the US can also no longer be taken for granted.
But the underlying strategic and political realities remain unforgiving.
More serious still is the absence of an underlying political vision to underpin a real defence merger.
For historical and geographical reasons, the strategic priorities of EU countries often remain very different.
France itself brings a different set of problems to the table.
It can seem as if Paris treats the other EU countries as a kind of foreign legion, to be called upon when France needs some extra muscle to back its own international goals.
For their part, the French are often exasperated by the strong streak of pacificism in Germany’s strategic culture.
Ulrike Franke of the European Council on Foreign Relations argues…
The structural, financial and political impediments to European “strategic autonomy” remain formidable.
The post-Merkel era in Germany will open up new possibilities.
https://www.ft.com/content/7f58536c-5005-49bc-a1e0-06065aa8b7f0
It’s as if Mr. Rachman had made a list of topics, that offered a space in which he could expatiate on the vexing questions of the fate of ‘Europe’ ! While ignoring the ‘vision’ of Jean Monnet, that evolved from a cartel to sell coal and steel :The Common Market, as check against Soviet power poised to engulf ‘Europe’, that never took place. The successor to the Common Market , the EU, that has produced bureaucrats like Michel Barnier, in the political present:
Bane of the Brexiteers
The diary of ‘the most dangerous man in Europe’
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/la-grande-illusion-michel-barnier-book-review-henri-astier/
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Headline: Michel Barnier demands return of France's 'sovereignty' from European courts
Sub-headline: Former EU negotiator accused of hypocrisy by Brexiteers after attack on European Court of Justice
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/09/09/michel-barnier-demands-return-frances-sovereignty-european-courts/
Does the political rise of Barnier, lend credence to Mr. Rachman’s nearly 900 word essay, or demonstrate the utter bankruptcy of the European Project? Is Barnier a political opportunist! or the respectable Right -Wing antidote to Le Pen? The questions!
Kudos to James Ferguson for his riff on ‘The Magnificent Seven’ a once favorite of mine, that demonstrated the valor of seven white men, rescuing Mexicans from their own indigenous oppressors. A sub-genre of American Imperialism’s virtue, in Cowboy Drag.
Old Socialist