Every nation-state in Europe has such a national historical narrative. Everyone has been taught about the people and events that built their nation. Perhaps most importantly, these narratives determine what lands and people belong within the state. For younger nations, this process resonates strongly in people’s minds. Most other European nations, however, established their own narratives long ago.

A frenzy is taking place among students, academics and intellectuals looking to rewrite the course of Ukrainian history in a way that empowers an independent, European Ukraine and, above all, denies Russia’s claims over its territory. This situation is highly understandable. After all, to justify his invasion Vladimir Putin concocted his own historical narrative about Ukraine. His long-winded article “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” written in mid-2021, depicted Ukraine (and Belarus) as culturally inseparable from Russia. For Putin, his piece serves to delegitimize Ukrainian nationhood and justifies Russia’s right to intervene. For Ukraine, refuting Putin’s narrative is paramount. However, the history of Ukrainian territory as a junction for cultural and political exchanges makes this an intricate task.

Caught between empires

As the American historian Timothy Snyder impressively illustrated over a 23-part lecture series in 2022 (all available on Youtube), throughout the last 2000 years up until the mid-20th century, different parts of Ukraine came under the control of different countries at different times. Despite this, three important periods stand out in Ukrainian history, which the country could draw upon to be cornerstones of its national story. Chronologically, these periods are Kievan Rus’ (c. 880–1240), the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795) and Austrian Galicia (1772–1918). This complexity means that drawing one narrative from one part of Ukraine may negate another narrative from another part. For example, stating that Crimea and Donbas belong to the modern Ukrainian nation, while also claiming a common history with Poland leads to difficulty. Identifying one single narrative of Ukrainian nationhood that encompasses all of contemporary Ukraine’s recognized borders is impossible.

Starting in the Middle Ages, the story of Kievan Rus’ marks the first major European state ruled from Kyiv. It was huge, stretching from the Black Sea to Finland, and was founded by Norsemen. This period saw the East Slavic peoples adopt Orthodox Christianity. However, as a pan-East Slavic state, its legacy is too closely shared with modern Russia to function as Ukraine’s main national origin story. At that time, the East Slavic peoples were much closer than they are today; they all spoke similar dialects and had similar customs. Crucially, Putin himself is currently using this story to justify his own narrative on Russian and Ukrainian unity.

Another period in question is Austrian Galicia, where a part of western Ukraine came under Habsburg control as part of the Austrian and later Austro-Hungarian empire. For the time, the region had considerable autonomy, and much Ukrainian nation-building, such as newly distinct Ukrainian literature, took place during this time and space. However, since most of modern-day Ukraine lay in the Russian empire during that time, Austrian Galicia was too small to be used as the main historical cornerstone for the whole Ukrainian nation. 

This leaves the period of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Another vast state stretching from the Baltic Sea almost to the Black Sea, the Commonwealth encompassed much of modern-day western and central Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Poland. Nominally a union between the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, towards the end of the period the state was also an early example of a constitutional, elected monarchy, characterized by great internal diversity. Indeed, most may not know that the state adopted Europe’s first written constitution — the May 3, 1791 Constitution — soon after the American and French Revolutions. Equally important is how the state met its end; between 1772 and 1795 the Commonwealth was carved up and partitioned by the absolutist monarchs of Prussia, Austria and Russia. Ukrainian lands were divided between the latter two. Poland and Lithuania would not exist as independent states again for another 124 years.

Lessons from the Commonwealth period

But where does Ukraine lie in all this? As an integral part of the Commonwealth, Ukrainians, referred to as “Ruthenians,” enjoyed certain religious freedoms, and Ruthenian lands and nobility were recognized as distinct and equal in rights to their Polish and Lithuanian counterparts. They were incorporated into a (proto) democratic European state, enabling them to draw on a legacy of Europeanness and democracy, but also victimhood at the hands of imperial Russia, by whom they were annexed. Whereas until 2014 Ukraine had been firmly tethered to Russia from a historical perspective, from this view Ukrainian history can be anchored externally in another neighboring country— Poland. As a modern, prosperous democracy in the EU, Poland’s success is what Ukraine also aspires for.

By granting Ukraine a degree of ownership of the legacy of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Poland will also benefit. Instead of another pro-Russian autocracy, like Belarus, Poland will have a friendly, democratic neighbor between it and Russia. Poland’s own history of Ukrainian oppression during the interwar period, perhaps its most painful source of historical guilt, will be overlooked in favor of common history and values. An example of this that comes to mind is when Poland and Ukraine co-hosted the UEFA Euro 2012 football championship, whose literal motto was “Creating History Together.” More recently, Poland’s overwhelming support for Ukraine has seen it take in millions of Ukrainian refugees and supply Ukraine with significant military and financial resources.

Maximum extent of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, c. 1619. Via Samotny Wędrowiec on Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Shifting narratives westward

What does this rethought historical narrative mean for Ukraine’s future? First and foremost, by cutting threads with Russia, Soviet and imperial Russian history will be viewed through the lens of occupation and oppression, but also Ukraine’s overall triumph. Meanwhile, the linkage with Poland (and Lithuania) has worked to convince Ukrainians and other Europeans of Ukraine’s rightful place in European institutions (mainly the EU), bestow it with some valuable democratic credentials, and hopefully secure it from future Russian aggression by building solidarity with the rest of Europe. Outside of this Commonwealth legacy, importantly, are Crimea and southeastern Ukraine — areas currently under Russian occupation — as these lands never came under Polish rule.

Historical narratives are used in every country in the world to achieve societal harmony as well as political goals. Ukraine is no different. To pursue a European path it is necessary to convince people of Ukraine’s “Europeanness.” By emphasizing cultural and historical ties to Poland and EU values of democracy and tolerance, Ukraine is succeeding in pegging its tent in the European camp.

[Stephen Chilimidos edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The (Re)Writing of Ukrainian History: Narratives and Legacies appeared first on Fair Observer.

The Economist’s choice of this year’s word of the year tells us what its editors see as the biggest challenge our civilization is facing. It isn’t the disastrous wars in Ukraine and the Middle East in which the Atlantic alliance is fully implicated. It isn’t even the destabilization of the global financial order so long organized around the unassailable status of the United States dollar. It isn’t rising temperatures causing climate havoc or the towering levels of debt that threaten, at a moment’s notice, to unravel the global financial system. No, for The Economist, dedicated to the ideal of “liberal rationality,” the real threat worth focusing on can only be… Donald Trump.

The “word of the year” article bears the subtitle: “The Greeks knew how to talk about politics and power.” Classical references always help buttress one’s case. The article cites Plato and Aristotle’s “political thinking,” which may be a subtle hint that there has been much of it in recent years. After seven paragraphs — punctuated by various interesting but not always very accurate details concerning history, philosophy and language — the article finally reveals, in three sentences, the identity of the mysterious word it has selected.

“So the word everyone was Googling was kakistocracy: the rule of the worst. The first root, kakos, is found in few others in English. ‘Kakistocracy’ is not found in ancient sources; it seems to have been coined in English as an intentional antonym to aristocracy, originally ‘rule by the best.’”

Today’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Kakistocracy:

The natural form any democracy will take when its political system is made subservient to the principles that undergird liberal, free market capitalism, in which the overriding authority of an anonymous class of wealthy individuals is rendered invisible thanks to the ruse of allowing unwealthy people to cast a vote in elections engineered by the same invisible wealthy class for one or another of their preselected representatives.

Contextual note

Our Devil’s Dictionary gloss obviously differs from — and directly contradicts — The Economist’s far more succinct definition. Let’s explore the reasons.

Our first objection to the content of the article may seem trivial, but is significant in that it points to something that strongly resembles “disinformation.” The article tells us that the root “kakos” in Greek means “worst.” In fact, it means “bad, inferior, worthless or poor.” Κάκιστος (kakistos), however, is the superlative of kakos and does mean “excessively bad” and in some contexts “worst.” The article also misleadingly informs us that kakos is “found in few other” words in English, but a notable example is “cacophony,” which obviously does not mean the “worst sound,” but simply bad, incoherent, unharmonic or disagreeable sound.

But let’s drop the niggling while trying to be charitable and forgiving in this season of good cheer. Apart from the venial sin of offering an inaccurate explanation of a Greek word, we should acknowledge that the magazine’s “word of the year” ritual is little more than an innocent exercise of holiday season levity. The article is essentially entertainment. It makes no pretension to be taken as serious scholarship… other than its annoying invocation of Plato and Aristotle, which actually does come across as pretentious.

Nevertheless, it’s there for another reason: to make a polemical political point. The Economist clearly sees Trump as a difficult morsel to digest. When the article informs us that kakistocracy is the inversion of aristocracy, we sense an undeclared nostalgia for an epoch in which the nation’s values reflected the refined culture of its nobility. The power wielded by the aristocratic caste disappeared with the empire, but not without regret. The free market’s new ruling class successfully promoted the culture of meritocracy to replace aristocracy. The author nevertheless reminds us that aristocracy is literally “the rule of the best,” just in case we allow ourselves to become too enamored of meritocratic upstarts. Still, The Economist’s readers will have no trouble empathizing with the idea of rule by the meritorious. This idea pretty much defines the social status of the majority of the magazine’s readership.

The choice of kakistocracy expresses the magazine’s pessimism, not about the state of the world — which is quite naturally becoming increasingly kakistocratic — but about the situation in the “indispensable nation,” the US. Its critique focuses on that particular embodiment of evil known as Trump. But in doing so, this liberal-minded British publication at least avoids the kind of alarmism that infects US media when it lays into Trump. Relying on irony rather than invective, The Economist bravely attempts to make an erudite joke. But, in this particular instance, it largely fails to where so many of its literary predecessors have succeeded, from Chaucer and Shakespeare to Jonathan Swift, Laurence Sterne, Lewis Carroll, Monty Python and beyond.

Here is one example: “Kakistocracy has the crisp, hard sounds of glass breaking. Whether that is a good or bad thing depends on whether you think the glass had it coming.” The synesthetic metaphor of breaking glass is intriguing. But the attempt at wit goes nowhere. It fails because there is no reasonable hypothetical case in which the reader might think that glass has “something coming.” Breaking glass, for almost everyone, including Greeks, is “kakos.”

Even worse is this attempt at an amusing analogy: “Last time round he [Trump] seemed to fire more officials than most presidents have trips on Air Force One.” What could possibly justify the comparison of fired officials to presidential trips on Air Force One? Talk about apples and oranges!

Historical note

The Economist is known for its ability to avoid alarmism, keep a stiff upper lip and confidently roll with the crises and disappointments that sometimes rock a world order the journal prefers to defend. Since 1843, it has promoted the central themes of a worldview characterized at the time as laissez-faire and today as economic liberalism, including its scion neoliberalism.

For the past century and more particularly throughout the “unipolar moment” in which the US, having assimilated the “political thinking” (ideology) of the Plato and Aristotle of our age — Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher — we have been living confidently in an economic utopia characterized by democracy and a “rules-based international order.” Enforcing the rules consisted in maintaining the belief that actions undertaken by the governments in our democracy were made in the name of the people and with their consent.

The double tsunami of 2016 — first Brexit in the UK, then Trump’s election in the US — began to sow a few doubts about the future of democracy. The voters could easily be persuaded to make the wrong decisions. In so doing, they were breaking down the force of the rules that had been put in place by the wise leaders elected in the past (especially Reagan and Thatcher). Their wisdom suddenly appeared to be called into question.

The door to kakistocracy was now wide open. It took a second Trump election, in which he won even the popular vote, to make it official. For The Economist, kakistos, the worst, is yet to come… and it will be installed on January 20, 2025.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of Fair Observer Devil’s Dictionary.]

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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The German traffic light coalition government of the Social Democrats, Free Democrats and Greens (respectively red, yellow and green) has fallen. So has the French minority government led by Michel Barnier of Les Republicains. Now, neither France nor Germany has a government or a budget. Note this has not happened before.

Social divisions and political polarization

Germany and France are the two beating hearts of the EU. They created the EU and still drive it. With both in political limbo, the EU is lost.

Internally, both these countries are no longer homogenous or cohesive anymore. They have experienced unprecedented levels of immigration. This has created problems of assimilation since, unlike the US, Europe does not have a tradition of mass immigration. In Germany and France, immigrants form a greater percentage of the population in the US. Furthermore, Muslim immigrants in these countries tend to be more conservative than the local population or even their relatives back home. For example, German Turks voted for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in much higher percentages than in Turkey. Many Muslim women also tend to wear headscarves in societies where sunbathing nude or topless is no longer a big deal.

Most people find change uncomfortable. Europeans are no exception. People do not like the way their communities are changing so rapidly. They may not be racist, but they want to retain their character. The French want to remain French and the Germans want to preserve their Germanness. Yet the political correctness that blights expression in the US also censors conversations in Europe. If someone is uncomfortable with headscarves or Turks voting for Erdoğan, she or he is denounced as a racist and an Islamophobe. People find such denunciation deeply alienating and often turn to the far right in revolt.

European economies are in big trouble

Economically, European countries are in trouble. They have huge debts, high deficits, slow productivity growth and low birth rates. There is no way Greece or Italy can pay back all their debts. Furthermore, the Russia–Ukraine War has increased energy prices, weakened industry and unleashed inflation in the economy. People are hurting. Naturally, they do not want to keep paying for a war with no end in sight.

In contrast, European elites have committed themselves to Ukraine’s defense. So, they want to keep spending on the war even as they seek budget cuts elsewhere. Naturally, legislators are unable to agree upon the cuts and governments are falling. At the moment, no resolution to the budget crisis in either Berlin and Paris is in sight.

The euro is not the world’s reserve currency. That privilege belongs to the dollar; so, unlike the US, Europe cannot print money to finance its deficits and prosecute endless war. So, Germany, France and the EU find themselves in a bind; their monetary and fiscal options are limited.

Europe has other problems too. Europe needs to increase the flexibility of its labor markets. Given an aging population, this can only happen with immigration and less rigid labor laws. The oppressive regulatory state is throttling growth and needs urgent reform. None other than German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has called for a war on red tape despite his socialist roots. European countries also have to reform and even shrink the welfare state. Only British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ever really achieved that in the last 50 years in Europe.

European economies have also suffered from external shocks. Chinese demand has declined and the US has taken a protectionist turn under both Republican and Democratic administrations. This protectionism will only increase once Donald Trump takes charge of the White House in January.

At a time of such upheaval, European political culture is in total flux. The traditional left and right are dead in France. They have been replaced by a constellation of pro-business centrists, the far right and a hodgepodge combination of leftist groups. German politics is also fragmenting, and the rise of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) shows the degree of disaffection with the status quo in a country still haunted by Adolf Hitler. Something was not right in the state of Denmark and some things are certainly not hunky dory in Europe today. A full-blown crisis is now underway.

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Exclusive: Why is the EU in Crisis? What Lies Ahead? appeared first on Fair Observer.

Macron’s many failures have been a recurring pattern since les gilets jaunes (“yellow vests”) movement erupted in France starting the winter of 2018. Only the pandemic stopped the movement from weakening the president further. Now, all presidential authority has evaporated thanks to a full-blown constitutional crisis.

What is going on?

Many of our readers have been following the US elections and have not paid France as much attention. So, let us lay out the bare bones of France’s crisis.

In June, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement national (RN) emerged as the largest party in the French elections for the European Parliament. In response, Macron called a snap parliamentary election to break the far-right fever gripping the country. In the first round of parliamentary elections, RN got 33.21% of the votes, beating Nouveau Front populaire (NFP) and Ensemble, which got 28.21% and 21.28%, respectively. In the second round, the left coalition NFP and Macron’s centrist grouping Ensemble combined to push the far-right RN into third place. NFP unexpectedly ended up with 180 out of 577 seats in the National Assembly. Ensemble managed to come in second and retain 159 seats. RN increased its numbers to 142 seats but was no longer the leading party in parliament. In this hung parliament, no one party could form a government and the French hosted the Paris Olympics whilst in political limbo.

After the Olympic summer, Macron appointed Michel Barnier prime minister on September 5. This was a rather surprising choice. Les Républicains (The Republicans), the traditional center-right party, got 5.41% of the votes and won 39 seats. Barnier was not among those elected to the National Assembly. In fact, in the lead-up to the 2022 presidential election, Barnier ran as a primary candidate for his party but was eliminated in the first round, getting only 23.9% of the vote. 

Like almost all French politicians, Barnier graduated from one of France’s elitist grandes écoles, the highly selective institutions that train the crème de la crème of France. Though not a household name, he is a highly competent public servant who held many important positions in Paris and Brussels. Like Macron, he is very much part of the French elite that governs the country and plays a big role in the EU. It is also now a highly discredited and increasingly despised elite.

Barnier tried to pass a long overdue budget but met strong opposition in parliament. Eventually, he used an executive order, Article 49.3, to pass the budget on December 2. Two days later, France’s far-right and left-wing lawmakers joined together to vote a no-confidence motion through. RN required a permanent consultative role in budget planning, increased spending in areas benefiting French citizens directly and opposed Barnie’s tax increases. Both RN and NFP opposed austerity measures, while NFP supported higher taxes on the wealthy. Their contrasting but complementary populist themes made inevitable their convergent choice to vote out Barnier. Now, France is about to enter 2025 with no government and no budget.

Three points are of note after the no-confidence vote:

1. As per the constitution, Barnier now has to resign.

2. Macron cannot call yet another election until June because the constitution sets out a 12-month waiting period after a snap election.

3. Macron is unlikely to find anyone acceptable to a majority of legislators in the National Assembly to succeed Barnier as prime minister.

Barnier was trying to improve France’s fiscal position by cutting the deficit from 6.1% to 5.0% of the GDP. France is growing by barely 1.0% a year and its debt-to-GDP ratio now stands at 110%. Therefore, Barnier proposed €40 billion ($42 billion) in spending cuts and €20 billion ($21 billion) in tax rises. Neither the NFP nor the RN found Barnier’s proposals acceptable. His effort to push through this budget through an executive order, overriding democratic process, led to his fall.

These are interesting times for France. Yesterday, the country experienced its first successful no-confidence vote since Georges Pompidou’s government fell in 1962. At that time, none other than Charles de Gaulle was president. He had inaugurated the Fifth Republic in 1958 and had immense political authority. Macron is literally and metaphorically a midget by comparison and his Sancho Panza Barnier has achieved the dubious distinction of becoming the shortest-serving prime minister in the Fifth Republic.

In the past, French political parties went through protracted bouts of arm-wrestling to agree upon a budget. With the implosion of the traditional center-right and center-left parties and the drift to populist anti-establishment positions, France’s legislators are now unable to arrive at a compromise. Instead, they are engaging in a bruising brawl. Fists are flying and not only has Barnier been knocked down but the French political system is on the floor.

On Sunday, Le Monde published a long, detailed article full of fascinating quotes from diverse members of the political class, both friendly and unfriendly to Macron. It bore the title: “Since the dissolution, the slow twilight of Emmanuel Macron.” Many are wondering whether he intends, in the words of Dylan Thomas, to “go gentle into that good night” or “rage, rage against the dying light.”

This is not the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic that a president has felt endangered. Far more spectacular were the events in 1968 — celebrated in France as mai soixante-huit —  when the world and the French population wondered whether they weren’t witnessing a second revolution à la 1789. Students armed with anti-authoritarian slogans such as “It’s forbidden to forbid” or, more poetically, “Sous les pavés, la plage” (“under the paving-stones the beach”) dug up these very paving-stones and threw them at the riot police. An estimated 500,000 people took to the streets and de Gaulle fled the Élysée Palace. A year later, the grand old general resigned but the Fifth Republic survived.

History is rhyming but not repeating itself

The difference between then and now is twofold. First, de Gaulle had immense stature as the leader of the French Resistance during World War II. Even though the war hero secretly fled to West Germany during the most fraught days of the unrest, he still commanded authority in much of the country. Upon his return to France, de Gaulle gave a resounding speech and called for a snap election. About 800,000 supporters of various ages marched through Paris and Gaullists won 353 of 486 seats while the Socialists and Communists managed only 57 and 34, respectively.

Second, France has now entered the brave new world where traditional politics of the left and right is dead and buried six feet under. In 1968, the Gaullists and the left offered two clear visions for France. Both had seasoned professionals and well-structured political parties. At the same time, there was a solid centrist bloc that could work with both sides of the political divide. Voters had a clear choice between the left and the right and, thanks to de Gaulle’s actions, the disorder of May became the new order of June.

The crusty old general succeeded in saving the constitution because he literally embodied it. In 1958, he had created the Fifth Republic after the collapse of the postwar Fourth Republic. Yet when he called for a constitutional referendum a year later, de Gaulle lost and duly resigned. Pompidou, his Gaullist prime minister, took over and the Fifth Republic endured.

Macron has consistently taken inspiration from de Gaulle. But to paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen in his 1988 vice-presidential debate with Dan Quayle, the appropriate response to the current president’s hubris would be: “Manu, you are not le Grand Charles.” The essayist Alain Minc, quoted in the Le Monde article, offered the most credible explanation of Macron’s personality in a discussion he claims to have had with Nicolas Sarkozy. Apparently, Minc told Sarkozy, “You’re egocentric. He [Macron] is a narcissist. Egocentrics need others. Narcissus is alone.” Note that a friend of the two authors who was a classmate of Macron at Sciences Po called Macron a pervers narcissique (pervert narcissist).

Even though Macron managed to cobble together a disparate group of followers and call them a party — initially, La République en Marche and later Renaissance — he has never succeeded. Monsieur Jupiter fails to understand that, by their very nature, political parties include a number of disparate interests who somehow combine to work together on multiple levels of policy and organization. All successful parties have some mechanism to make collective decisions.

In 2018, Fox News reporter Chris Wallace asked Macron what he liked most about being president, Macron replied that he likes making decisions. Note not solving problems, not negotiating complex issues, not even governing. Making decisions. Macron then defended himself against the accusation of being authoritarian, arguing that being “aware of all the consequences of your decisions and thinking that you have to stick to your decisions to deliver when it’s for the good of your country is not the same as being authoritarian or arrogant.”

Some credit Macron for being a political genius but forget that he benefited from spectacular good fortune in 2017. The blocs on the left and the right had lost their sense of direction. They had failed to produce political personalities whom the French saw leaders. Then, Macron was a young unknown. He was a recent addition to then-President François Hollande’s administration. Mostly as a result of Hollande’s political amateurism, he rose from the technocratic ranks to become finance minister. In the past, this important post was usually reserved for political personalities. That honor ennobled Macron in the eyes of the public and at the same time inebriated him. Hollande’s performance as president weakened the Socialist Party and Macron cannily played the card of continuity while betraying the party of his benefactor.

Elected in 2012, Hollande was the first president in the history of the Fifth Republic to visibly lack the force of personality and political muscle the French associate with the office of president. De Gaulle, François Mitterand and Jacques Chirac — each with his contrasting style — successfully embodied the image of Fifth Republic president. Sarkozy, despite his two discrediting epithets “bling-bling” and “Sarko l’Américain” (Sarko the American), thrived, at least for a while. He lived on his previously constructed image as a “tough guy” when he was Chirac’s minister of the interior.

Note that Sarkozy’s American reputation helped him initially. Even though the French constantly criticize Americans, they secretly admire everything American. This includes bling-bling and celebrity culture. Yet this appeal has its limits. Sarkozy ended up as a one-term wonder because they do not appreciate bling-bling in their leaders. Hence, the tough guy lost the 2012 election to Hollande, who had promised to be “normal.” In 2017, Macron promised a chimeric return to a Gaullist past but the callow president lacked judgment, experience and substance.

Macron survived a flurry of punches in the first seven years of his reign as jupitérien president for a very simple reason: His opponent in the final round of the 2017 and 2022 elections was the “unrepublican” Marine Le Pen. The notion of “republican” for the traditional political class has long been applied to anyone who fits into the traditional mold of a politician belonging to a party not too extreme to deserve banishment from polite company. Marine’s father, Jean-Marie, was the portrait of someone who was existentially unacceptable.

It has long been noted that the unifier of the left, François Mitterand, was the first to exploit the idea of using Jean-Marie as the ideal foil to create havoc on the right. It was a successful strategy but it proved risky in the long run. When Jean-Marie became a spent force, his daughter Marine took center stage as a softer and subtler version of her father. It wasn’t exactly King Lear and Cordelia, and there was far less drama to it. But a dose of cultural conflict between the two gave Marine the credibility Jean-Marie never had.

All this drama, from de Gaulle to Macron and Le Pen, has ended up producing the constitutional crisis playing out today. The founders of the Fifth Republic — de Gaulle and his cronies — crafted a document designed to avoid what is now unfolding before our eyes. They created a parliamentary system dominated by the spectre of presidential authority. The French presidency has a monarchic tinge to it because it was designed to prevent the instability that often afflicts parliamentary regimes of which we have seen two examples recently in Europe. Post-Brexit United Kingdom proved so unstable that Conservatives devoured their own prime ministers. In Germany, the traffic light coalition of Socialists, Liberals and Greens has just collapsed. Ironically, the Fifth Republic that set out to avoid parliamentary instability might itself be able to collapse.

In some ways, the current situation is very French and a product of a political culture that developed as a result of the French Revolution in 1789. France has been politically unstable since that fateful day when a group of rebellious citizens stormed the Bastille. Unlike the United States with its quasi-religious faith in its 1787 constitution that many still see as sacred writ, France has been through several successive constitutions. Each time, the French rewrote the basic rules of the state. France has experienced the First Republic, the First Empire, the Restoration, the liberal monarchy, the Second Republic, the Second Empire, the Third Republic, the Vichy regime, the Fourth Republic and then the Fifth Republic. Hence, the French do not see the Fifth Republic as magical, mystical, spiritual or even literary. To their eyes, it does not deserve immortality. The traditional political establishment, and Macron above all, disagree.

The rise and fall of Macron and the Fifth Republic

As noted above, the Fifth Republic was a stable two-bloc system for decades. However, the last 16 years destabilized the reigning equilibrium. Like many other first world countries, France was unable to deal with the 2007–2008 global financial crisis. Sarkozy, “l’Américain,” elected in 2007, as the global crisis was developing, took the right in an Atlanticist direction, alienating the proud nationalists who had inherited de Gaulle’s stubborn embrace of national autonomy and resistance to the US. Hollande, inspired by the examples of US President Bill Clinton and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, succeeded Sarkozy and dreamt — in the age of high tech and Silicon Valley prestige — of running a rational, technocratic regime. He failed to serve the middle or working classes and his party came to be perceived as champagne or caviar socialists.

Clinton and Blair’s Third Way tried to reconcile center-right and center-left politics by synthesizing economically liberal and socially democratic policies but ended up leaving the working class behind. The British Labour Party has only returned to power this year after 14 years of political wilderness. In the US, Democrats under Kamala Harris have just been defeated roundly by Donald Trump. Her defeat is much worse than Hillary Clinton’s who had the consolation of winning the popular vote.

By 2016, Hollande’s champagne socialism had made him unpopular with voters. Unlike Sarkozy, he did not stand for re-election. In the ensuing primary, Benoît Hamon triumphed. He was the most traditionally working class but, by now, Hollande’s Socialist Party was dominated by centrists. They rallied behind Macron who emerged as a third party candidate.

At that time, most people did not give Macron much of a chance. François Fillon, a former prime minister, was the frontrunner who was expected to waltz to victory. He possessed all the traits of a traditional leader. He was the establishment figure of the center-right but an embezzlement scandal involving his wife torpedoed his prospects.

This miraculous break in the clouds allowed Macron to emerge as a fresh young face promising a break from the past. Hamon and Fillon fell by the wayside and Macron and Le Pen squared off for the second round of the 2017 presidential election. Her party’s sulfurous, unrepublican reputation paved the way for Macron’s victory. In 2022, he again won because his opponent was Le Pen and because the Covid-19 pandemic gave him a break from les gilets jaunes. In the snap elections this year, his party only came third. The voters have sent him a clear message: “You may be president for another three years, but we no longer trust you to govern.”

As stated earlier, Macron managed to win two elections but he has failed to create a real political party. It has no truly political or even ideological identity. Ensemble is little more than a coterie of lukewarm loyalists bound for the advancement of their political careers to a talented but narcissistic leader. This leader has chosen technocrats with no political stature as his prime ministers. Édouard Philippe, Jean Castex, Élisabeth Borne, Gabriel Attal and now Barnier are not exactly household names in France. Macron clings to the fantasy that the weaker his prime ministers are, the stronger he will be. This has clearly backfired and led to an eminently avoidable crisis.

The constitution obliges Macron to find a new prime minister. The next elections cannot be held until July. Yet there is no personality on the left or in the center with enough authority to who can win the confidence even of a ragtag majority in a fragmented parliament. 

The urgent issue today, a day after the vote of no confidence, is to confirm a budget for 2025. But with no government to push a budget through, uncertainty reigns. With Trump waiting in the wings to take charge of the West Wing, uncertainty will only amplify. He is threatening 10–20% tariffs on European imports. So, France faces a risk of lower export earnings from the US market. It along with other European countries also faces the added risk of Chinese dumping because the Trump administration is planning to hit China with massive tariffs.

The war in Ukraine and the Middle East also cast a dark shadow on France. With no budget yet in either France or Germany, Europe can no longer back Ukraine. In any case, Trump has clearly signaled that he will be following a very different policy to US President Joe Biden in Ukraine. After tying himself closely to Biden, Macron will have to sing a different tune. Lebanon and Syria are former French colonies. They are in trouble and could end up in bigger trouble soon. This will cause Macron headaches.

In a nutshell though, the lack of a government and a budget poses grave risks for the economy. Fair Observer’s Editor-at-Large Alex Gloy points out that yields on French ten-year bonds have surpassed those on their Greek counterparts and the country’s credit rating could be downgraded soon. Bankruptcies have been soaring and the French stock market performance has severely lagged those of other countries. Since the peak in 2007, the French stock market index CAC-40 is up a mere 18% while the German Dax has increased by 148% and the US S&P 500 by 286%. 

Furthermore, like Germany, France has been hit hard by soaring energy prices, high inflation and rising interest rates after the war in Ukraine started in February 2022. There is no political consensus as to how to pay for current and future spending. Like many times in the past, France is now in a full-blown political and economic crisis. Macron’s jupitérien reign is ending in an unmitigated disaster and the Fifth Republic might not survive for too long.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Emmanuel Macron’s Embarrassing Hour of Reckoning appeared first on Fair Observer.

But mental health issues were not ascribed to a now-infamous unnamed mother from Cheshire, England. This woman trapped her baby in an underbed drawer for nearly three years, keeping her alive by feeding her with a milky breakfast cereal through a syringe. She afforded her child no medical care or proper food and did not permit her to leave the drawer for long periods. The woman had other children apart from this one; the number of children and their ages were not disclosed.

The hidden child was discovered only by accident, when the mother’s partner used the bathroom and heard noises in her bedroom. The child was suffering from malnutrition, dehydration and a cleft palate.

When questioned, the mother revealed that the baby girl had been born in a bathtub at her home in March 2020. She didn’t tell the father, as they had an abusive relationship. Instead, she kept the baby a secret from him and the authorities. So, the child was never provided with medical attention nor even registered at a register office. There was no legal record of the birth. Perhaps the most chilling court testimony came from a caregiver now looking after the child who said the three-year-old girl, once recovered, had needed to be taught to smile and “didn’t know what food was.”

The court’s neglected options

The woman’s defense attorney claimed her mental health, a volatile relationship with the abusive father and the Covid-19 lockdown had combined to create an “exceptional set of circumstances.” Regardless, the court sentenced her to seven-and-a-half years in prison.

Under Section 37 of the UK’s Mental Health Act 1983, if a defendant is found to be suffering from a mental disorder at the time of the offense, they can be sentenced to hospitalization rather than prison. The court might have sent the defendant to a secure psychiatric hospital if it deemed her unfit for a prison environment due to her mental condition. There were other options.

In England, if the court determines that a defendant’s mental health issues are present but not severe, it may issue what’s called a Mental Health Treatment Requirement. This order permits the individual to receive psychiatric treatment and supervision while living in the community, rather than serving a prison sentence. In some exceptional cases, the defendant can be found not guilty by reason of insanity if they are considered to have a mental disorder that prevented them from understanding the nature or consequences of their actions at the commission of the crime. This is not the same as having a mental health condition because it suggests an inability to comprehend the criminality of their actions.

None of these options were taken. The verdict’s implication is that the court considered the woman to be of sound mind, in possession of her faculties and had the capacity to think clearly. This strikes me as, in its own way, every bit as bewildering as the woman’s horrifyingly transgressive behavior. At a time in history when celebrities habitually claim to suffer anxiety, distress and miscellaneous other ailments associated with mental illness and are readily believed, how is it possible to conclude the woman is compos mentis (having control of one’s mind)?

Scant evidence shows the woman’s motivation. During an interview with police, she said she had not known she had been pregnant and was “really scared” of giving birth. Remember, she already had children. She added that the underbed drawer was never closed and that the child did not remain in it at all times. But the girl was “not part of the family.” Puzzlingly, none of her other children reported the extraordinary presence of the child in the drawer.

Comparable cases

As uniquely grotesque as this case is, it resembles several other instances of extreme cruelty, the most notorious being in Amstetten, Austria in 2008. In this gruesome case, Josef Fritzl kept his daughter Elisabeth locked in a cellar from age 18 to 42. During her time in captivity, Fritzl raped her thousands of times, fathering seven children with her. Fritzl was jailed for life by a court in 2009, but he spent the time in a psychiatric institution until 2024, when he was diagnosed with dementia.

That’s not all. David and Louise Turpin abused their 13 children at their home in Perris, California. The couple was exposed in 2018 when one child, 17-year-old Jordan Turpin, escaped and called the police. They pleaded guilty of torture and were sentenced to life in prison. There was no indication that the court found the parents to be suffering from significant mental health issues that would have mitigated their sentences.

Cases of cruelty to children by parents and stepparents are grimly repetitious. Ten-month-old Finley Boden was murdered by his parents, Stephen Boden and Shannon Marsden, in Chesterfield, Derbyshire in 2020. Eleven-year-old Roman Lopez was tortured and killed by his stepmother in Placerville, California, also in 2020.

In 2021, a 17-year-old girl was discovered in Floreat, Western Australia and admitted to Perth Children’s Hospital in Nedlands. She was severely malnourished, infantilized and kept captive by her parents, both female. The girl weighed under 62 lbs, well below the healthy parameters for a young woman of her age: 105–150 lbs. The girl was homeschooled and allowed limited interaction with peers at dance school. The parents will undergo psychological assessments before sentencing in January 2025. 

Sources of mental illness

All these cases elicit our incredulity. It’s difficult to believe let alone understand behavior that causes pain and sustained suffering to children from the very people who bore them. Explaining it in terms of the social circumstances of the torturers and killers is a tall assignment. However, we can sometimes discern patterns of intimate partner violence, coercive control and other kinds of domestic abuse, compounded by relative cultural deprivation and the failure of care organizations.

These are the kind of social conditions under which mental illness develops. Dysfunctional families, traumatic events, convulsions and conflicts are all potential triggers. Mental health maladaptation has its source in circumstances, but it manifests in a way that demands a particular response. Locking people up is a crude rejoinder.

In other words, mental illness, disorder or, to fall back on today’s favored term, issues, have their origins in social experiences. But they express themselves in thoughts and actions that persuade us they are purely individual properties. Perversely perhaps, mental illness often coexists with a rationality: People who harm or kill children typically employ manipulation, intimidation and isolation, all of which require some degree of planning and consideration of what’s likely to happen in the future. The perpetrators mentioned so far and, indeed, all other known or unknown child tormentors and killers behave in accordance with reason and even logic. This does not mean they are mentally well: They are not. They do have mental problems.

This should make us reflect when we say, “mental health issues.” Obviously, this is a kaleidoscopic term, not a description of a single malady. It is a constantly changing pattern or sequence of experiences and states. Describing perpetrators of violent crimes against children as “monsters” is trite and misleading. Their actions may appear inhumanly cruel and violate every known assumption we harbor about loving filial relationships. But they are unmistakably, harrowingly human and betray facets of family life we prefer to deny.

Every way I think about the hideous case at the center of this piece, I arrive at the conclusion that the woman, now presumably serving her seven-and-a-half years in prison, is not mentally well. And I mean genuinely. Her punishment seems more of a sacrifice than corrective or reparative action. 

We blithely use mental health issues to describe the relatively mild discomforts of celebrities yet avoid applying it to people who clearly are mentally unwell and often in dire need of treatment. My argument in no way removes the woman’s actions from what they are: abhorrent, sickening and unutterably loathsome. This should not preclude recognition that the perpetrator is afflicted nor closer examination of the sources of her affliction.

[Ellis Cashmore’s “The Destruction and Creation of Michael Jackson” is published by Bloomsbury.]

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post What Happens When We Ignore Genuine Mental Illness? appeared first on Fair Observer.

Both Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia often find themselves at the periphery of global decision-making, despite playing key roles in global events. For instance, while fighting fiercely for sovereignty, Ukraine has faced challenges in influencing broader political dynamics. Limited resources, military constraints and insufficient global representation contribute to this difficulty, a struggle also familiar to many Southeast Asian countries.

Strengthening ties between Eastern European countries such as Poland, the Baltics and Slovakia, and Southeast Asian nations like Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, could provide an avenue for mutual self-determination. This partnership would help smaller states align their interests in ways that larger powers often overlook. Global events like US presidential elections, the war in Ukraine and China’s aggressive economic policies have far-reaching effects on these regions, introducing risks that may not be the primary concern of dominant powers.

Pursuit of partnerships

While existing initiatives within NATO and the EU have laid the groundwork for some cooperation, they still operate under the influence of a few powerful states. To maximize their potential on the global stage, Eastern European and Southeast Asian nations must explore partnerships that emphasize greater independence and equal decision-making.

The EU has already fostered economic cooperation with Southeast Asia through agreements like the European Union–Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) and the European Union–Singapore Free Trade Agreement (EUSFTA). These agreements open up new markets and strengthen trade ties, providing a platform for Eastern European countries, such as Poland, to expand exports, especially in sectors like renewable energy technologies, machinery and chemicals.

In terms of security, NATO’s operations in the Asia-Pacific — primarily focused on counter-piracy and anti-terrorism have indirectly benefited Eastern European nations like Estonia and Latvia, which rely on secure international trade routes. Although NATO’s formal role does not extend deeply into Southeast Asia, there is growing collaboration in counter-terrorism and cybersecurity, which further strengthens the security frameworks of Eastern Europe.

Benefits of Eastern European–Southeast Asian cooperation

The economic benefits of cooperation between these regions are undeniable. Southeast Asia’s rapidly-expanding markets present a prime opportunity for Eastern European nations like Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic States to diversify their economies beyond their traditional reliance on Western Europe. Eastern European countries have strong industrial sectors, especially in manufacturing and energy, which align with Southeast Asia’s need for infrastructure, energy solutions and high-tech products. In turn, Southeast Asia offers an expanding consumer base and growing sectors in biotechnology, Information and Communication Technology and manufacturing — areas in which Eastern Europe can make inroads.

Both regions also share common security concerns. Eastern Europe faces direct threats from Russia while Southeast Asia grapples with challenges posed by China’s regional ambitions. Despite these differences, lessons learned from Ukraine’s resilience in the face of Russian aggression could offer valuable insights for Southeast Asian nations aiming to safeguard their sovereignty. Joint defense exercises, intelligence sharing and enhanced military cooperation could further improve security for both regions.

As Eastern Europe’s digital sector continues to grow, particularly in countries like Estonia, Southeast Asia stands to benefit from expertise in areas like e-government, cybersecurity and smart cities. Conversely, Eastern Europe can learn from Southeast Asia’s rapid advancements in mobile technology and e-commerce platforms, where Southeast Asia has outpaced many other regions.

Challenges and solutions

Despite these opportunities, several challenges remain. Eastern European countries often find themselves constrained within broader EU or NATO frameworks, with their foreign policy decisions heavily influenced by larger EU members like Germany or France. Similarly, NATO’s priorities are often shaped by the US, limiting the ability of Eastern European nations to fully engage in independent partnerships with Southeast Asia.

Moreover, Southeast Asia’s dependence on China complicates the situation. Many Southeast Asian nations are cautious about antagonizing China, which could limit their willingness to deepen ties with Eastern Europe, particularly given Russia’s ongoing role as an ally to several Southeast Asian countries.

To navigate these challenges, both regions should take gradual, incremental steps. They can begin by focusing on non-contentious areas like trade, technology and cultural exchange. Multilateral organizations such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum (ARF) and the EU–ASEAN dialogue provide platforms for both regions to build consensus on broader security concerns without escalating geopolitical tensions.

While the road to deeper cooperation between Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia is not without its obstacles, the potential for mutually beneficial partnerships remains strong. By focusing on economic, technological and security cooperation, Eastern European countries like Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic States can reduce their dependence on traditional allies and assert greater autonomy on the global stage. Leveraging existing frameworks like the EU and NATO while navigating the complex geopolitical landscape will be crucial in fostering ties that give both regions a stronger voice in global affairs.

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia Need New Alliances appeared first on Fair Observer.

The small former Soviet country, sandwiched between the European Union and Russia has to strengthen its state institutions if it is to stand any chance against the hybrid war Putin has been insidiously carrying out throughout Eastern Europe.

After winning reelection in a November 3 runoff vote, President Maia Sandu has now an even harder battle ahead that she cannot lose: renewing and changing a notoriously corrupt system. 

Why a strong justice system is a must

The age of conventional warfare is long gone. Hybrid attacks now represent the norm. Having a strong military is nothing without strong institutions capable of counteracting covert threats. Informational warfare, fake news, manipulation, vote-buying, bribing and acts of corruption are all far more insidious and capable of subduing a state’s defense than foreign garrisons threatening to invade. Here is where a functioning justice system should steps in, properly prosecuting those endangering the country’s security.

Without strong institutions, Moldova will be vulnerable to Russian attacks from within, especially with an unreformed judiciary plagued by corruption and interference.

Furthermore, justice reform has to happen for Moldova to have a clear path for EU integration. The fight against corruption is non-negotiable if the Republic of Moldova wants to join the European Union.

If Moldovans lose trust in the system Putin wins. The justice system needs tough reform, needs skilled and determined leadership that can rebuild trust and show that everyone is equally responsible before the law. Next year in September Moldova will hold Parliamentary elections which will test how much people really trust the country’s leadership. That means Sandu and her administration in Chisinau have less than one year to deliver on the campaign promise of zero corruption and an overhaul of the justice system.

The judicial system – Moldova’s Achilles heel

Ex-communist states have always struggled to reform their justice systems. For Moldova in particular, renewing it is as complex as it necessary. Sandu herself admitted in a televised presidential debate last month that the promised judicial reform had been slow and vowed such measures would be more efficient in the future.

Corruption and uneven judicial practices are hurting the system. One of the most jarring such dysfunctions is the 2014 banking fraud, which saw over a billion dollars disappear from Moldova’s financial system without any top officials being held accountable.

95% of Moldovan citizens backing EU accession consider that justice reform is an absolute must. Institutions tasked with making sure judges and anti-corruption prosecutors do their job are lagging behind.

In the wake of the presidential election last month, Moldova’s chief of Police Viorel Cernăuțeanu said that there’s significant proof Russia is using bribes, hybrid warfare and disinformation, the likes of which Moldova has never seen before, in its push to sway the public opinion. Police investigations have shown how oligarchs had been involved in vote-buying and illegal financing of political parties backed by the Kremlin. 

Failure to act by relevant anti-corruption judicial institutions has given pro-Russian groups leeway to jeopardize the election process. Sandu pointed out after the latest meeting of the Moldovan security council that the justice system needs to be reformed as Moldova continues to be exposed to the Russian hybrid threat. 

What can Moldova’s European allies do to help

Brussels needs to support and encourage strong and tough reforms needed to modernize Moldova’s judiciary.

Last year, the EU Parliament approved a 145 million package for Moldova aimed among other things at justice reform. Member of European Parliament (MEP) Markéta Gregorova from the Greens group said that only by making Moldova’s institutions less vulnerable can we spare the country from becoming the next Ukraine. Additionally, Romanian MEP Rareş Bogdan spearheaded an initiative in the European Parliament to secure €45 million (about $47.5 million) to help combat disinformation in Moldova, disinformation which also might influence judicial proceedings. Backing Moldova’s EU accession, Cristian Terhes, another Romanian MEP, believes that once Russia regains control over the Moldovan administration, it will be difficult to remove. That is why a reform of the justice system in the Republic of Moldova allows for a strengthening of the institutions and a better capacity to face the hybrid war waged by Russia.

Sandu needs all the help she can get to combat corruption. A overarching change within the system is critical with no time to waste. Much hangs on a successful reform of the judicial system, not least the European future of Moldova and the safety of its citizens.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Moldova’s Defense Against Putin: Strong and Reformed State Institutions appeared first on Fair Observer.

Fast forward 75 years. The world has changed dramatically, yet NATO persists as a relic of a bygone era. The Soviet Union is no more, replaced by a Russia with a GDP smaller than Italy’s. The European Union, along with the United Kingdom, boasts a combined economy nearly ten times the size of Russia’s. France and the UK possess their own nuclear deterrents. Yet, inexplicably, US taxpayers continue to foot the bill for Europe’s defense.

With Russia weakened, Europe is getting a free ride

Some argue that Russia’s actions in recent years, particularly its invasion of Ukraine, justify the US’s continued NATO membership. They paint a picture of a resurgent Russian threat, echoing the Cold War narratives of the past. But this comparison falls flat when we examine the facts.

During the Cold War, the US faced off against an empire of comparable might. The Soviet Union’s military and economic power posed a genuine threat to both Western Europe and US interests. Today’s Russia, however, is a shadow of its former self. With a GDP of about $2 trillion, it pales in comparison to the combined economic might of the EU and the UK, which totals more than $22 trillion.

Moreover, the population demographics tell a similar story. Russia’s population is less than 150 million, dwarfed by that of the EU and UK totaling more than 500 million. The combined military spending of the EU and UK stands at $370 billion, far outstripping Russia’s total defense budget of $130 billion. Yet, despite these advantages, Europe continues to rely on the United States for its security.

Ironically, the US’s persistent role in NATO may be making Europe less secure, not more. What matters for European defense isn’t raw might, but speed, agility and political will. NATO’s cumbersome decision-making process, requiring consensus among 32 members, is ill-suited to respond to modern threats. An army of motivated Polish and German fighters willing to fight and die to protect their freedom is a far greater deterrent to Russia than a US military that is truly awesome in its capabilities, but reliant on the whims of a foot-dragging US Congress for that to translate to the battlefield. The current arrangement doesn’t strengthen Europe; it weakens it, leaving the continent less prepared to address threats from Russia and elsewhere.

While US citizens shoulder the burden of NATO’s defense spending, Europeans have grown complacent. They’ve built generous welfare states where they enjoy long vacations, early retirements and universal healthcare. Meanwhile, US workers struggle with rising healthcare costs, minimal paid leave and relentless anxiety about how they will pay the bills.

This disparity is not just a matter of different priorities; it’s a direct result of Europe’s ability to skimp on defense spending, knowing full well that Uncle Sam will always be there to pick up the slack. It’s time to ask: Why should the US taxpayer subsidize Europe’s lavish lifestyle?

A new era demands new priorities

Proponents of NATO often point to the US’s nuclear umbrella as a critical component of European security. But this argument ignores a crucial fact: Both the UK and France possess their own nuclear arsenals, which was not the case when NATO was formed. These two European powers have more than enough nuclear capability to deter any potential aggressor. The idea that US nuclear weapons are necessary for European security is a Cold War anachronism that does not stand up to scrutiny.

As we approach 2025, the world faces challenges that were unimaginable when NATO was founded. Climate change, cyber and biological warfare and the rotting minds of our children addicted to social media platforms like TikTok and video games like Fortnite are the true existential threats of our time. These are the battles that will define the 21st century and beyond, not a rehash of 20th century geopolitics. If there is a new Cold War between rival superpowers, it exists across the North Pacific, not the North Atlantic.

It’s better for the US to leave

Some will argue that leaving NATO is too risky, that it could destabilize Europe and embolden Russia. But this view underestimates Europe’s capabilities and overestimates Russia’s. By continuing its outdated commitment to NATO, the US is fostering dependency and resentment, preventing Europe from developing the military self-reliance it needs.

Proponents of NATO often point to its invocation of Article 5 after the September 11 attacks as proof of the alliance’s value. However, this argument ignores a crucial reality: The response to the attacks would have happened with or without NATO. When faced with acts of aggression that demand a response, the United States has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to rapidly form and provide leadership to coalitions outside of formal alliance structures.

The First Gulf War in 1991 serves as a prime example. In response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the US quickly assembled a coalition of 42 nations, many of whom were not NATO members. This “coalition of the willing” included fighters from countries as diverse as Japan, New Zealand and Afghanistan. The swift and effective formation of this coalition underscores a fundamental truth: When genuine threats arise, nations band together to address them, which can be easier without the cumbersome framework of an organization like NATO.

Game theory offers another compelling reason for the US to leave: the strategic value of unpredictability. In a world of mass surveillance where concealing actions is increasingly difficult, being predictable can be a significant disadvantage. Consider a poker game where one player always has a pair of kings, while the other has queens or aces with equal probability. Despite each player having the stronger hand half the time, the unpredictable player will on average win more.

This principle applies similarly to military strategy. NATO’s rigid structure and well-defined protocols make its responses predictable. By leaving NATO, the US introduces an element of uncertainty that can serve as a more effective deterrent. Potential adversaries would no longer be able to rely on a known command and control structure or anticipate specific responses. This unpredictability can in turn force adversaries to be more cautious, preventing conflicts before they begin.

Moreover, while it is true that P implies Q does not mean the same as not P implies not Q, there is often an implicit assumption that it does. By the United States declaring “If there is an attack on a NATO country, there will be an overwhelming response from the United States” it suggests to potential enemies that “If there is an attack on a non-NATO country, the United States will not respond with overwhelming force.” This is clearly seen in Ukraine, where Putin is in plain sight employing the principle: “Ukraine not NATO, therefore Ukraine fair game.”

The reality on the ground is that the Iron curtain no longer exists and we live in a world with fuzzy borders and hybrid warfare. The correct response to this is illustrated regarding Taiwan. Will America go to war to defend Taiwan? It might. That should be the answer to every question of that form. Will America go to war over a sabotaged undersea cable or gas pipeline? It might. Will it go to war over an act of terrorism? It might. Will America go to war to defend Europe? It might. America should go to war when the American President and Congress decide that it should, not because of a treaty from three quarters of a century ago born of a different age. By withdrawing from NATO, the United States would put Ukraine on equal footing with not just Poland but also France and Germany, and be a masterstroke of expanding not contracting American influence.

In essence, by stepping away from NATO, the US would paradoxically enhance global security by keeping potential aggressors guessing about the nature and extent of possible responses to their actions.

It’s time to go

The time has come for bold leadership. President-elect Donald Trump’s landslide victory and Republican control of Congress provide a unique opportunity to reshape the US’s foreign policy. The nation must seize this moment to chart a new course. Leaving NATO will not only serve the interests of the US taxpayer, it will also help Europe by teaching it the pride of taking care of its own needs with its own hard work.

The US’s departure from NATO won’t be easy. It will require careful diplomacy, detailed planning and time. But it is a necessary step for both the US and Europe to address the real challenges of the 21st century.

And to those reading this in a nice coffee shop in a town square in Europe, I say this: If you want to continue enjoying your wine and your swimming pools, and your relaxed way of life, it’s time for you to fight for it — and pay for it — yourself.

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post It’s Time for the US To Bid Farewell to NATO appeared first on Fair Observer.

The budget battle that broke the camel’s back

Scholz is scrambling to save face amid approval ratings that have plunged to an unprecedented low of 14%. The SPD’s own approval ratings are similarly abysmal.

Polls of voting intentions show the party now tied with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) at around 16% — a dramatic drop from the SDP’s 26% support in the last election. The FDP faces even bleaker prospects, polling around 3–4%, just below the 5% threshold needed to enter parliament.

While tensions within the coalition were no secret, the breaking point came when a proposal by Lindner leaked. The 18-page document “Turnaround Germany – A Concept for Growth and Generational Justice” suggested cutting financial aid to low-income families and refugees, which panicked the SPD and Greens.

The election of Donald Trump as the next US president has raised fears the US will soon cut its support for Ukraine, forcing Germany to pick up the tab or risk the defeat of Ukrainian forces. Lindner claims he was pressured to agree to another suspension of the debt brake. He refused, afraid of embarrassment by the constitutional court. Scholz floated the possibility of new elections, which Lindner leaked to Bild while parties were still deliberating. This was the final straw for Scholz, who asked for Lindner’s dismissal. 

The economic headwinds Germany has been facing only add to the drama. Budgets crafted on the assumption of GDP growth that never materialized have left government departments strapped. Austerity measures have strained even the nation’s soft power as cultural icons like the Goethe Institute have been forced to close German schools abroad.

Related Reading

Is the German Economy Now Destined to Decline?

The crux of the budgetary deadlock is Germany’s “debt brake,” a constitutional limit capping new debt for structural deficits at 0.35% of GDP. While this debt brake was suspended temporarily during the pandemic and the Ukraine invasion, it has since snapped back into force, severely restricting the government’s freedom of action.

Who stands to gain?

With elections likely in early spring, Germany’s political map could shift drastically. The center-right Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU), currently polling at 33%, are poised to regain power, though their numbers fall short of a parliamentary majority. A coalition with the Greens remains unlikely due to ideological divides, and the SPD’s recent failure makes it a dubious ally. That leaves the CDU/CSU with only a handful of feasible partners — including an intriguing, if controversial, one in the newly-formed Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW).

BSW, led by former leftist Sahra Wagenknecht, has captivated voters disillusioned with mainstream parties but unwilling to embrace the far-right AfD. Known for her anti-immigration stance and advocacy for a negotiated settlement with Russia, Wagenknecht is a questionable candidate to offer the CDU/CSU a politically stable alliance. 

It should be noted that AfD came out as the party with the most votes during recent state elections in Thuringia (34.3%, slightly ahead of CDU 33.5%). It missed to reach that goal in Saxony, but only by a hair (34.0% compared to 34.4% for CDU).

Voter discontent in Germany, especially in the former East German states, has led to a surge in support for right-wing AfD. Due to Germany’s history, politicians are very aware of the danger of fascism, but they seem rather helpless in addressing the root causes (increased unemployment in rural areas, social anxiety, xenophobia, feelings of being second-class citizens).

Financial and global implications

The collapse of the German government sends shivers through markets already sensitive to geopolitical risk. Shares of Germany’s iconic automakers — BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and Volkswagen — have fallen sharply, anticipating the return of Trump-era import tariffs on European goods. With Germany’s political attention diverted inward, “budget sinners” like Italy, France and Spain may find relief, as former members of the hard-currency block, such as Germany, have historically pressured them to meet strict fiscal criteria under the Maastricht Treaty.

So far, little or no spread widening between German and other Euro-area government debt has been observed in reaction to the earthquake in Berlin. While the German 10-year government bond yield stands at 2.4%, France and Spain pay a clear premium at 3.2%, followed by Greece at 3.3% and Italy at 3.7%. Still, Italy (135% debt-to-GDP ratio) and Greece (162%) pay lower interest rates than the UK (98%) and the US (123%). Those yields only make sense if the political will to keep the Euro area together would galvanize politicians into further bailouts of countries should the need arise.

If no stable coalition emerges, Germany faces the prospect of another election, potentially plunging Europe’s largest economy into a period of prolonged instability. A caretaker government may limp along in the interim, but effective governance and ambitious legislative agendas will be on hold.

Internationally, the political crisis could have wide-reaching effects. As Germany becomes preoccupied with its own domestic woes, European allies such as Italy and France may gain breathing room in their own budgetary struggles, potentially facing less scrutiny from Berlin on debt under the Maastricht Treaty. However, any withdrawal from a Trump-led US could leave Europe drifting in the high seas without clear leadership, missing out on a potentially generational opportunity to determine the geopolitical direction of a future Europe unshackled from US dominance.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The Collapse of Germany’s Government: An Earthquake With Global Aftershocks appeared first on Fair Observer.

The last remaining free-flowing rivers in Europe exist in the Balkans, but they are in danger. Plans to build around 3,000 dams between Slovenia and Greece, along with diversions and urban developments, threaten almost every river in the region (this map shows what that number looks like in practice). Even protected areas are not immune, with around 1,000 of these projects putting vulnerable stretches of the river at risk. 

If the plans to build the new hydropower plants go ahead, the impact on biodiversity would be devastating. Critically, the damage does not just take place during construction when diggers cut directly into local habitats. There is also a downstream impact on endangered ecosystems. Water quality, declines in fish and bird populations and the dislocation of sediment are only a few long-term issues. In the worst cases, the harm is irrevocable: about 50 fish species could be faced with global or regional extinction. 

The local geology is also vulnerable to the change in river flow patterns from dams and diversions, which can erode land downriver and change underground water flows. During building work on the upper Neretva in Bosnia and Herzegovina, there were two fatal incidents from landslides. In many cases, the risk assessment prior to construction is insufficient.

Risky investment

From an economic point of view, hydropower plants offer an opportunity for growth and financial development in the Balkans. Investments from foreign project developers such as Chinese and American contractors bring much-needed money into the region, fueling development and providing employment opportunities.

However, investing in traditional forms of hydropower is risky. For one thing, the power plants themselves are increasingly victims of climate change. Droughts, unpredictable rainfall, heatwaves and reduced snowmelt not only inhibit the supply for drinking water and irrigation, but also reduce the resources available for generating electricity. Additionally, higher temperatures cause more water to evaporate from reservoirs, further wasting this precious resource.

The knock-on effects, when these hydropower plants are unable to meet demand, are substantial. Alongside electricity shortages leading to higher energy prices, the failure to supply energy-intensive industries can reduce economic output, cause job losses and increase poverty levels.

Furthermore, authorities can be lax in applying environmental laws, cutting corners in favor of project developers. The public, on the other hand, has minimal opportunity to get involved in the decision-making process. While this flexibility initially works in favor of the investors, it can later backfire when local communities start protesting. 

Making a splash

Public activism in favor of the rivers has been gaining momentum in the Balkans. Determined to stop the dams, the environmental NGOs Riverwatch and EuroNatur launched the campaign “Save the Blue Heart of Europe”. Over the last 12 years, activists have spread the word about the scale of damage that the rivers in the Balkans are facing. “The first step is to raise awareness,” says Ulrich Eichelmann, founder of Riverwatch. “You have to make it so famous that it’s too big to fail.” 

The biggest success was in Albania. After 11 years, activists — including celebrity Leonardo DiCaprio — managed to convince Prime Minister Edi Rama to create the first Wild River National Park. Crucially, efforts to raise awareness consisted not only of exposing the plans to build dams, but also of communicating the uniqueness of the river both to locals and politicians.

Managing the future

The appropriate designation and recognition of protected areas is a lifeline for sensitive habitats: this is the second step to turning hope into reality. While the Vjosa is now protected as a wild river, the delta is not included in the new national park, leaving it exposed to plans to build a luxury resort and even an airport. Urban development of this scale would devastate both the landscape and the ecosystems reliant on it.

Likewise, it is also essential that governments enshrine international conservation networks, such as Natura 2000, as well as European environmental regulations into national law. In an effort to help manage the situation, EuroNatur and Riverwatch published an assessment of the river network in the Balkans, showing which stretches of the river network are no-go areas for dams based on clearly defined environmental criteria such as biodiversity.

International funding bodies also play an important role in facilitating the effective management of protected areas by directing financial resources to the right places. While European development banks were previously planning to finance hydropower projects in the Balkans, they have now scrapped these plans after tightening biodiversity rules. Instead, financial establishments as well as the EU can show their appreciation of the unique value of these rivers by directing funding towards conservation and restoration. 

Economic growth in the Balkans is not dependent on building new dams. Nor will the energy transition fail if the last wild rivers of Europe are allowed to run their natural course. Indeed, the risks outweigh the advantages, which is why the fight to prevent the construction of traditional hydropower projects is not over yet. As long as the rivers are flowing, the battle will continue to keep Europe’s blue heart beating.

[Stephen Chilimidos edited this piece.] 

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The Dam Dilemma: Europe’s Natural Rivers in Crisis appeared first on Fair Observer.

The two largest parties followed: the centrist People’s Party (ÖVP) with 26.2% and the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) with 21.1%. The results mark a seismic shift in voter preferences. The ÖVP suffered the biggest loss for a governing party in history, dropping 11.2 points. The SPÖ saw their worst-ever vote since World War II.

The liberal NEOS, the only party without prior government experience, achieved its best result with 9.1%, gaining 1.0 point over its last showing. Meanwhile, the Green Party, which had served as the junior coalition partner over the past four years, secured just 8.2% of the vote, a loss of 5.7 points. The results are widely seen as a protest against the ruling coalition between the People’s Party and the Greens. Their shared 51% in the 2019 elections plummeted to only 36.6%.

The ÖVP-Green tenure faced undeniable challenges. Issues including the COVID-19 pandemic, high inflation and the Russian war in Ukraine plagued the partnership. The FPÖ capitalized on these crises by positioning itself as a vocal critic and, at times, leaning on conspiracy theories. In contrast, other parties aimed to cooperate with the government and avoided polarizing the public further. The FPÖ used its own platforms, such as YouTube and social media, to spread messages that would not appear in mainstream media. Voters viewing themselves as disaffected resonated with these messages.

When no one wants to govern with the populists

The FPÖ won the election, but just with a plurality of seats. Only the ÖVP sees a possible coalition with the FPÖ. However, they attached a significant condition. Karl Nehammer, the ÖVP chairman and current Austrian Chancellor, demanded that Herbert Kickl, the FPÖ leader, not be part of a coalition. This demand is unacceptable to the FPÖ. Kickl’s leadership was central to their record-breaking electoral success.

Winning the battle but not the war is a familiar scenario in elections across the region. Just a year earlier, Poland’s right-wing populist Law and Justice (PiS) party won an election by a narrow margin after governing for eight consecutive years. Although it was clear they would be unable to form a government, President Andrzej Duda still entrusted them with the task. Two valuable months were ultimately lost in negotiations destined to fail. In contrast, Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen took a different approach. He first met with all parties that passed the electoral threshold to discuss potential coalition intentions. Following these discussions, he confirmed what had already been stated publicly: No party was willing to form a coalition with the FPÖ.

As a result, Van der Bellen encouraged the three largest parties to explore coalition options among themselves. After both the ÖVP and SPÖ confirmed they had no interest in allying with the FPÖ but would consider working together, Van der Bellen formally tasked Nehammer with forming a new government. Unlike in Germany, where parties commonly work together to isolate the far-right Alternative for Germany, a cordon sanitaire has not been the norm in Austria. The FPÖ has previously served as a junior coalition partner on three occasions.

Austria’s future government

Currently, the ÖVP and SPÖ are negotiating with each other and seeking a third coalition partner. They hold exactly the 92 seats that are necessary for a majority. In reality, this is a tight bind. Potential illnesses or absences among MPs limit political maneuvering and efficiency. Therefore, a third partner is necessary. This too brings its own issues. Challenges arise between governing with either the liberal NEOS or the Greens. To reach a broad consensus, each party may have to compromise on key issues. The Social Democrats advocate for new taxes on businesses and inheritance, which the liberal NEOS oppose. A continued coalition with the Greens may be less advantageous politically for the People’s Party (ÖVP), as it has not been popular with voters.

The election result is a clear signal that change is needed in Austrian politics. Due to these policy differences, negotiations may take time, and a government might not even be formed before Christmas. Although the chances of a new election are low, they cannot be entirely ruled out. Electoral results in the federal state of Vorarlberg and upcoming elections in Styria put extra pressure on party leaders to come up with a solution. Vorarlberg has already shown the continuation of the good results for the FPÖ, although the ÖVP was able to keep their first place. In Styria, the situation could be reversed in the upcoming vote, which might undermine Nehammer’s refusal to work with Kickl. At the least, a strong FPÖ showing in Styria could spark a debate about his leadership within the ÖVP. SPÖ leader Andreas Babler is internally contested, leaving the third largest party with little breathing room. The FPÖ is already labeling the negotiations as being run by a “coalition of losers,” noting their decreased popularity from past elections.

One of the primary challenges facing the new government will be Austria’s struggling economy, which is projected to be in recession for the second consecutive year. National debt is also surpassing acceptable levels under the Maastricht criteria set by the EU. In these already unfavorable circumstances, there will be the task of proving that the new coalition can work credibly together for the future of the country. There have not been any experiences with three parties in Austria, unlike neighboring Germany. The German government proves the difficulty of balancing multiple parties’ interests. The recent collapse of the coalition does certainly not advocate for such a model. In any case, failure only benefits the FPÖ. Despite his loud protesting, Kickl most likely prefers the role of opposition leader to continue feeding his victim narrative and build on his election result. 

Austria’s international position

No matter what the next coalition in Austria looks like, we can already draw some conclusions: The far-right in the EU continues its success throughout the latest elections. The Patriots for Europe faction in the European Parliament has now received the most votes in national elections in France, the Netherlands, Hungary and Austria. The Czech Republic will likely follow next year.

Even if they are not part of the government in all of these nations, the far right is shaping the political discourse. This can already be felt on the European level. One issue is migration. Border controls have been reintroduced in Germany, where state elections have seen the rise of the far-right, even if they are not (yet) polling at the first place nationally. Another possibility is the emergence of a nationalist, anti-migration, anti-transatlantic party on the left side of the spectrum taking part of some of these state governments. Despite only being founded earlier this year, a party with similar policies joined the government in Slovakia.

What unites both left and right-wing extremists is their pro-Russian narratives. This is bad news for Ukraine, as they are losing support in Central Europe, a region that has mostly experienced Soviet occupation. Seemingly, everyone has forgotten their historical experiences. Pertinently, Austria lies only about 430 kilometers (267 miles) from Ukraine. With US President Donald Trump now returning to the White House, this might even result in abandoning support for Kyiv, coupled with shattering the security architecture in Europe. The external and internal threat coming from the Kremlin has the possibility to further erode democracy within Europe and the European Union, bringing it to the brink of collapse

Austria might just have been another piece in the puzzle if they cannot counter appropriately as mentioned above. A phrase from Karl Kraus comes to mind, who called Austria in the interwar period the “experimental station of the end of the world.” However, this has already been used to describe the inauguration of a new government a decade ago. But then there is another (most likely wrongly ascribed) quote from Kraus: “if the end of the world comes, I will go to Vienna, because everything happens there ten years later.”

[Stephen Chilimidos edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Austria’s Arduous Path to a New Government: Without the Far-Right appeared first on Fair Observer.

The war’s impact on Europe has been significant. Heightened energy prices have affected countries heavily reliant on Russian gas, such as Germany. European nations have also diverted resources and attention toward Ukraine and away from other crucial areas like social spending and healthcare. Most fundamentally, the war has shattered the last remnants of trust between the East and West, leading many European nations to up their defense budgets in anticipation of a potential direct conflict with Russia.

Switzerland in the middle of an increasingly anxious Europe

Reflecting this defensive attitude, EU High Representative Josep Borrell said that Europe is a garden and the rest of the world is a jungle. Germany has closed its borders, apparently to avoid the jungle taking over the garden. Switzerland takes a more moderate approach. While acknowledging migration and integration challenges, the country emphasizes the need for proactive and inclusive migration policies.

Right-wing leaders are in charge in many parts of Europe, like Robert Fico in Slovakia and Viktor Orbán in Hungary. In Germany, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party is on the rise, and in France, the National Rally party made a decent dent in the latest parliamentary elections. Switzerland finds the rise of right-wing, anti-immigrant populist movements across Europe to be a cause for concern. Unlike other European countries, though, Switzerland is a decentralized confederation. This offers a degree of resilience against nationalist trends that would seek to dominate politics at the countrywide level. Yet Switzerland remains uneasy about the deeper political and social crises of which the rise of the far right is a manifestation.

Switzerland the investor

In lighter news, Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway signed a free trade agreement with India in March. Swiss diplomat Ralf Heckner has received the credit for achieving what the EU, the UK and the US failed to do. The secret of Swiss success is the country’s independent position. As a non-member of major trade blocs, Switzerland has greater flexibility in forging agreements with emerging markets. Additionally, India’s status as a rapidly growing economy and Switzerland’s political commitment to strengthening economic ties played crucial roles in the successful negotiations.

Switzerland is looking east for economic growth, with China and India among its top export markets. However, the country has adopted a cautious approach toward China’s increasingly assertive foreign policy, economic slowdown and challenges faced by private actors. 

Switzerland the peacemaker

As a famously neutral territory for peace talks, Switzerland hosted a summit to resolve Sudan’s ongoing civil war. Yet Sudanese General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the Sudanese Armed Forces, decided to sit the talks out. Despite his absence from recent negotiations, Switzerland remains committed to facilitating dialogue and humanitarian access.

Switzerland has faced more than one setback in Africa in recent times. The cocoa crop in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana is facing its third tough year in a row. Chocolate-loving and chocolate-producing Switzerland may need to diversify its cocoa supply chain and include more suppliers from Latin America, with which it maintains cordial relations.

Finally, remaining in the Western Hemisphere, Switzerland views the current state of American democracy with concern, particularly regarding the deep political polarization and potential challenges to the peaceful transfer of power. The US is the preeminent global superpower, and uncertainty about its future direction adds to instability everywhere.

To manage these risks, Switzerland has adopted a flexible and open-minded approach, maintaining communication channels with both major political parties in the US. This proactive strategy ensures continued cooperation and stability in its relationship with the global superpower, regardless of the election outcome.

[Peter Choi edited this podcast and wrote the first draft of this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/podcast are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post A Swiss Perspective on World Affairs Today appeared first on Fair Observer.

News has always been a business. Back in that golden age, it was a risky business. The kind of truth the public took an interest in could potentially diverge from the particular financial and ideological interests of the owners. In recent decades, media owners have developed several techniques to limit that risk.

Expectations about what the public expects to find in the news have changed. In times past, the news cycle was punctuated by what we can call “moments of crisis.” These were typically dramatic developments in various kinds of political, financial or cultural power struggles. They might appear as showdowns, political shakeups, or even scandals. Crises generally highlighted specific moments of a conflict or sudden revelations.

I’m tempted to call some of those events “aristocratic crises.” In the US there was Watergate that brought down a president, the Church committee’s challenge to the CIA, leading to new laws restricting its actions, or President Bill Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky scandal that led to impeachment. Through those events, powerful people or institutions saw their authority challenged and their status modified. 

But there was another category I like to call “popular crises.” They resonate throughout society and affect the entire body politic. Unlike an aristocratic crisis that may lead to changes for the personnel of the ruling class, a popular crisis transforms the way society interprets the dominant narratives. One salient example took place around 1967. That was when the US public’s perception of the “meaning” as well as morality of the Vietnam War irrevocably shifted. It created political chaos for an incumbent president, spawned a massive protest movement as well as a backlash and changed the perception of the role of the US military, including transforming it into a professional army when President Nixon abolished the draft.

Because the owners of the corporate media have focused on reducing, if not eliminating risk by constricting and restraining the amount of unbridled truth-seeking reporting they permit, it is far rarer to see popular crises of the kind that dramatically challenged the US government’s policy in Vietnam or the French government’s control of higher education in 1968. It’s not that the truth can no longer emerge. If it is in any way disruptive, it simply won’t be mentioned in the legacy media. Instead, social media has amply filled in the gaps concerning truth-telling. But because social media is structured in the form of ideological silos, it can never achieve the scope required to change the general perception of a crisis.

This evolution in the culture of journalism has had a curiously transformative effect on the nature of the concept of crisis itself. UnHerd columnist Thomas Fazi highlights this phenomenon in an article dedicated to Europe’s incapacity to manage its culture of democracy. In his article, “Von der Leyen’s authoritarian plot: National democracies will be subordinate to her Commission,” Fazi describes an evolution, based on one woman’s ambition, towards a curious form of dictatorship that has the potential to destabilize Europe.

“Over the past 15 years,” Fazi writes, “the Commission has exploited Europe’s ‘permacrisis’ to radically, yet surreptitiously, increase its influence over areas of competence that were previously deemed to be the preserve of national governments — from financial budgets and health policy to foreign affairs and defence.”

Today’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Permacrisis:

A state of extreme and growing tension and aggravated contradiction maintained indefinitely by those in power as the means of avoiding any initiative aiming at the kind of resolution that might call into question their hold on power.

Contextual note

Two years ago, Collins Dictionary elected “permacrisis” its “word of the year.” The publisher’s head of learning explained that the choice was made because of “how truly awful 2022 has been for so many people.” The neologism first appeared officially a year earlier, when Europeans used it to describe the current era or a “new normal” characterized by “volatility, uncertainty, and a prolonged sense of emergency.”

Though some explain it as a consequence of the long drawn-out trauma of the Covid-19 pandemic, I see permacrisis as a cousin of another somewhat older neologism, “forever war,” a concept many commentators have identified as a prominent feature of the 21st century geopolitical landscape. The practice of forever war began in earnest when US President George W. Bush launched the infinitely expandable idea of his “global war on terror” and began applying it to multiple countries. President Joe Biden carried on the tradition when he solemnly promised that NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine would last “as long as it takes” and subsequently agreed to offer “ironclad” support to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war of extermination intended to last until the coming of the Messiah.

Europe is already three years into its latest forever war for which Ursula von der Leyen has demonstrated her enthusiasm. She has also thrown her institutional weight behind another war whose initiator, Netanyahu, clearly wishes to endure and become his own forever war.

Historical note

When author Naomi Klein formulated the theory called “the shock doctrine,” she described an approach to international relations that aimed at implementing Washington’s neoliberal economic agenda across the globe. It featured a strategy of “disaster capitalism.” By exploiting or even provoking crises in different countries, neo-liberal economic doctors could step in to provide cures for the disease.

Her theory made sense in the era predating social media, when a crisis was expected to last for only a limited amount of time. Each of the crises Klein describes was expected to lead to a predictable solution: typically, one that would play out following rules established by Milton Friedman’s Chicago School of Economics and correlate with the policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

It was a veritable system. Everyone agreed that there existed a universal cure, especially for complaints that a local leader sought to address with a local cure. Chilean Prime Minister Salvador Allende, for example, in 1973 set out on a path of economic reform that included the nationalization of industries including banks, agrarian reform, state control of the economy and health and education reforms. The US State Department considered those very cures to be the symptoms of a disease that required a universal cure.

Like a Hollywood studio that understands the tried-and-true value of remakes, the CIA invoked and executed the same scenario that had successfully played out 20 years earlier in Iran, when Britain and the US ganged up to oust a democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. Allende himself did not survive the coup. He may have preferred suicide to the type of cure his successor, the dictator Augusto Pinochet, was likely to administer.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the same pattern evolved into a sophisticated template called “color revolutions.” That trend continued and culminated in Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution in 2014. That was the occasion in which Victoria Nuland, a key operator in US President Barack Obama’s State Department, appeared to single-handedly engineer the intended outcome when she put her man, “Yats” (Arseniy Yatseniuk), in the catbird seat after chasing Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych from power.

It was shortly thereafter that the concept of the sudden dramatic crisis began to give way to the more efficient concept of permacrisis. In his article on the transformation of European politics, Fazi describes the ongoing coup engineered by Ursula von der Leyen, who today is entering her second term as president of the European Commission. Her plan consists of “placing loyalists in strategic roles, marginalizing her critics, and establishing a complicated web of dependencies and overlapping duties that prevent any individual from gaining excessive influence.” Perhaps more efficiently than Benito Mussolini’s March on Rome in 1922 or Adolf Hitler’s success when he merged the positions of Chancellor and President following President Paul von Hindenburg’s death in 1934, Madame Ursula is exploiting a prolonged state of crisis to exercise absolute power.

But unless she thinks NATO is under her command, she will be a dictator without an army, reminding us of Joseph Stalin’s famous remark: “How many divisions has the Pope?” And though, as I write, one of the pearls of German industry, Volkswagen, has fallen into a deep crisis manifestly linked to policies Washington imposed and Von der Leyen enthusiastically embraced — policies that have crippled Germany’s economy — she must certainly be gloating about her achievement, as she prepares, with increased authority, to reign over 27 countries for another five years.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of Fair Observer Devil’s Dictionary.]

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Will Queen Ursula’s Crisis Management Skills Make Her the Empress of Europe? appeared first on Fair Observer.

India is at a unique juncture in its history. No less can be said of a country with 1.4 billion citizens, the fifth-largest economy and the second-largest startup ecosystem. India is a leader of the Global South and enjoys a great deal of goodwill from other developing nations. Further, it has become a rival to its neighbor China, an aspiring global power. Thus, India is a desirable ally to other foreign powers.

India’s desirability as an ally can be measured in the liberty it claims from all its international partners. The US courts India as a potential ally, but India imports 36% of its oil and defense technology from Russia. Conversely, Indian mortar shells have made their way to the Ukrainian arsenal without substantial indignation from Moscow. India recently rejected a Western call for a collective ban on the Russian media outlet RT with the words “does not pertain [to us].” Simultaneously, it censured RT for “misleading” information about US diplomats in New Delhi.

The liberty on both ends has spilled over to the Russia–Ukraine conflict. Although India denied any formal neutrality, it righteously claimed “the side of peace”. Many nations, including the warring parties, have used this opportunity to call for its participation in the peace process. However, India’s complex web of transactions with the opposing sides hinders this request.

Undeniably, India seems to be the best mediator between the two sides. However, it would not be the first one making an attempt at peace. More than seven different talks have been held under mediation by countries like China, Brazil, Mexico and others, adding more pressure on India to perform well. 

India greatly benefits from dealing with all sides. However, in exchange, it needs to fulfill its partners’ expectations while being under the spotlight. Mediating a peace process in these conditions may not be the best bet.

Why won’t India work as the mediator?

India has little to gain and a lot more to risk by taking on the role of peacemaker. A ceasefire in the Russia–Ukraine conflict is imminent. However, it does not guarantee a successful peace process. Russia and Ukraine have provisionally achieved their goals on the battlefield. The conflict is now a war of attrition with both sides making unprecedented and unconditional calls for a cessation of fighting. Russians have met their target of capturing the Donbas and other territories up to Crimea. They claim to be capable of ensuring Ukrainian neutrality. Although a ceasefire appears to be imminent, the horizon of peace is far from visible in this conflict. Once a ceasefire is achieved, the status quo will only reduce the motivation to find common ground. Russia is also known for preferring frozen conflicts as an influence expansion method.

The Russia–Ukraine war is a complex conflict with ideological, territorial and secessionist elements. Russia has historically questioned the existence of Ukraine and its border and claimed the territory around the Sea of Azov. Arguably, 27% of people in this region, the Donbas Oblast, also choose secession to it. Self-determination, guarantee of collective security and compromise on territorial integrity will be the basis for any peace plan. It may also include exonerating President Putin and retracting his International Criminal Court warrant for war crimes in Bucha. Most of these issues are often touted as beyond the mandate of interventions by the international community.

India’s likelihood of disappointing either side is high with its limited experience and dependencies on all stakeholders. A position of comparative advantage and the ability to offer inducements is necessary for mediating and enforcing peace. However, India is far too dependent on both sides for their support elsewhere to remain unbiased. It has a $57 billion trade deficit with Russia. This constitutes approximately 36% of its defense technology and cheap crude oil. At the peak of the conflict, Russian oil to India was $12/barrel cheaper than benchmark prices. The discount continues to be nearly $6-7/barrel. The arrows in its quiver of strategic autonomy will be fewer.

Apart from recent financial gains, partnership with Russia is a longstanding neutralizer for India’s issues with China. The benefits predate the recent interest that the West has shown in this problem. India cannot afford to estrange a regional partner in Russia, especially with the Sino-Russian cooperation being at a record high. 

Ironically, all India can expect out of Russia, vis-a-vis China, is for it to not aid Beijing against New Delhi. Active support on this matter can only come from the West. Cooperation with the Western partners, particularly the US, has increased multifold with China’s rising influence in the Indo-Pacific. The US is also India’s largest export destination and a close collaborator in defense production. Approximately $186 billion worth of Indian exports out of $433.09 billion in 2023-24 were destined for the US and Europe. Co-operation from these trading partners helps India derive maximum benefit out of the China Plus One strategy of global manufacturing diversification. 

Most importantly, India needs Russia and the West to prevent being cornered by either on a regular basis. Thus, it would be important and equally tough for it to meet the expectations of special treatment from both ends. India must also not believe that the current leeways from the partners will continue once its actions are seen to be tipping the war in another direction.

Attaching itself to the outcomes of an already failed process could curtail India’s strategic autonomy. Uninhibited exchange with both sides over the past two years has garnered a lot of benefits and goodwill for it. Mediating the peace process will only burden it with the responsibility of being seen as unbiased. This could prevent India from achieving two of its supposedly short-term goals: obtaining a permanent seat at the UN Security Council and settlement of the Kashmir issue. 

Its actions in the course of the peace process could polarize the international community, thereby jeopardizing the more or less universal support for its UNSC permanent membership. As a mediator, India will also be expected to practice in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) what it preaches in Donbas.

Instead, only being seen as the peacemaker could keep its goodwill intact. India can achieve this label and much more, by advocating for humanitarian cooperation at the BRICS summit. 

Maintaining the image of peacemaker

India presenting itself as a peacemaker is more beneficial for it compared to actually mediating peace. It can do so by diverting efforts towards mitigating the impacts of the conflict. This strategy has worked well in the case of the Israel–Hamas conflict where India has consistently demanded a “humanitarian corridor”. A similar move also reaped goodwill at the G20 Summit that India chaired in 2023. It championed the cause of energy and food security in the Global South and the conflict affected zones. The result was a rare declaration agreeable to the West, Russia and China. 

BRICS appears to be a fitting forum to deploy this strategy. The group has a trans-polar appeal, evident in the interest it has attracted in the past five years. 30 nations have expressed their willingness to join the group. Memberships of Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have already begun in January 2024. 

Over the years, BRICS has moved past its identity of being a purely economic union and posited itself as a platform for the Global South. Particularly for those that have been historically excluded from the world’s “G” order. India’s foreign minister S Jaishankar recently said the BRICS exists “because you [the members] would not let us into the G7”. 

A lot can be achieved with 40% of the global population, a quarter of the economy and a numerical majority of developing countries. President Putin has also expressed a similar hope in his statement claiming confidence and close coordination with BRICS partners regarding the war. 

India’s National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval recently visited Russia for the BRICS NSAs meet. Doval also called-on President Putin along the sidelines of this event. There was much anticipation of a peace plan from the meeting that turned out to be “a briefing on Modi’s Ukraine visit”. Simultaneously, Modi spoke to President Biden “briefing him about his visit to Russia”. India certainly appears to be getting its balancing right. 

For the BRICS summit this week, India must target achieving substantial humanitarian relief through joint efforts by Russia and Ukraine. These could include ensuring free navigation for commercial vessels, developing humanitarian corridors, mitigating environmental impact or safeguarding nuclear infrastructure. 

Safe navigation for commercial vessels and a “bilateral” humanitarian corridor are the lowest hanging fruits on the cooperation tree. Ukrainian grain ships continue to be attacked in transit, while the Russian dark fleet sails heavily under-insured. There already exists a defunct humanitarian corridor agreement between the two parties, put in place with Turkey’s help in 2022. India can advocate for its reinstatement. This will particularly aid global food and energy security and relieve supply chain stress as global shipping freight tariffs are at an all time high. 

The international community has also expressed fear for the safety of nuclear infrastructure in the conflict zone. Missile attacks and power outages in proximity to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine have risked radiation fallout and failure of containment systems. Similar concerns have been raised regarding the war’s ecological impact. For instance, destruction of essential infrastructure such as the Kakhonka hydropower dam has caused heavy flooding and displacement in the areas downstream. India can propose that both parties collectively ensure prevention of such damages and mitigation of their spillovers, a move made easier by the fact that the aforementioned points are part of President Zelenskyy’s ten point peace formula. These measures can also get Russia some international goodwill with minimal strategic bearing.

A breakthrough in impact mitigation could prove to be BRICS’s rite of passage into global security and conflict management. By playing a key role, India will reaffirm that it cares about the developing world and not just its rising influence. Most importantly, it would be doing so in the presence of its regional competitor, China. Success at the summit can open many doors for India to steer BRICS and lead the Global South in the future.

[Kaitlyn Diana edited this piece]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Can India be a Peacemaker in the Russia–Ukraine War? appeared first on Fair Observer.

PACE is a key institution within the Council of Europe, the platform for cooperation and dialogue among Europe’s 27 nations. PACE focuses on promoting human rights, democracy and the rule of law across Europe. These are topics of universal interest one might expect United States news media and especially the US government, who spent so much time and money seeking Assange’s extradition, to be keenly interested in. But the story got little coverage in the West and practically none in the US. The last time The New York Times even mentioned PACE was over a year ago, in September 2023, in an article with the title: “In occupied areas of Ukraine, Russia is holding local elections that have been widely denounced.”

PACE not only monitors the implementation of Council of Europe conventions and agreements between member states, it also elects judges to the European Court of Human Rights. You would be justified in thinking of it as the “conscience” of Europe. Its role in human rights advocacy empowers it to adopt resolutions and make recommendations to improve human rights protection. In that capacity, following Assange’s testimony, PACE “expressed deep concern at ‘the disproportionately harsh treatment’ faced by Julian Assange and said this has had a ‘dangerous chilling effect’ which undermines the protection of journalists and whistleblowers around the world.”

Today’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Disproportionately harsh treatment:

The US administration’s chosen strategy for dealing with anything or anyone that in any way threatens or even criticizes its actions abroad.

Contextual note

Assange’s legal saga began in 2010, four months after the publication of classified documents on the war in Iraq. It lasted until June 26, 2024 when Assange entered into a guilty plea agreement with the US justice system.

In the opening act, the Australian journalist and founder of WikiLeaks was charged with a sexual offense in Sweden. The case was closed in 2017, as the evidence required for a conviction had not been gathered. Simultaneously, the US Justice Department initiated an investigation using the pretext of the 1917 Espionage Act, a tool that the administration of former President Barack Obama became fond of using against whistleblowers. Fearing extradition to the US, the Ecuadorian embassy granted Assange asylum in London, where he remained for seven years. Then on April 11, 2019, he was forcibly handed over to the British authorities after the election of a new Ecuadorian president, whom WikiLeaks had accused of corruption.

The denouement came after Assange had spent five years in a high-security Belmarsh prison in the UK. It is still unclear why Washington agreed to his release. It should however be obvious that the administration of current President Joe Biden — used to benefiting from European indulgence, if not solidarity with even the harshest of US foreign policy positions — was not expecting the conclusions reached by PACE following Assange’s testimony earlier this month. The Parliamentary Assembly pulled no punches as it reached a conclusion with potentially deep implications for the behavior of all self-respecting democracies, especially those that like to lecture other nations about human rights, freedom of expression and the need to respect a rules-based order.

PACE noted explicitly that Assange’s treatment has had a dangerous deterrent effect on journalists and whistleblowers worldwide. “Chilling” is the term it chose. For the sake of the future of democracy, it becomes urgent to ask ourselves on both sides of the Atlantic: After the Assange case, will journalists and whistleblowers be better protected? On the basis of this judgment, we should hope so, but at the same time we must ask ourselves: Are the politicians in the US and in Europe even listening?

PACE specifically called on the US to go beyond its concern for the protection of journalists by actively combating the tradition of impunity for state agents guilty of war crimes. Will this call be heeded? In the context of ongoing conflicts today in which the US has become implicated, and at a moment when a democratic US presidential candidate openly embraces and celebrates the “service” of former Vice President Dick Cheney, there is reason to doubt it.

Historical note

This episode underlines the perception most people have today that we are living through a period of rapid historical transition. The question of the survival of democracy appears to be on everyone’s mind. We easily understand that democracy can never be perfect, but now that it appears threatened from various sides, can we even find the means to preserve it? Should we consider whistleblowers like Assange and Edward Snowden servants of a citizenry focused on the integrity of governance or dangerous enemies of a system that must be protected not just from physical assault but from critical assessment of any kind?

At a time when the fight for information control has been in the headlines with new pressures on Telegram and Twitter, we should see PACE’s resolution as a strong signal of encouragement to journalists and whistleblowers and a warning to governments easily tempted to justify or paper over the most extreme acts of their militaries and allies in times of war. European governments should be the first to take its recommendations on board. Journalism is already threatened in its theoretical independence by the domination of the economic interests that control or influence the media. If the wheels of justice can be manipulated to suppress truth-telling, democracy cannot survive.

PACE looks beyond Europe and its media. It specifically addresses the US, a nation that has persistently and assiduously put Assange through more than a decade of confinement and even torture. That he is now free to circulate and speak publicly is something of a victory, but it is a victory in a battle that should never have taken place in a democratic society. The atrocities revealed by Assange in his WikiLeaks must not be hidden from the public in the name of a nation’s raison d’Etat.

If PACE’s resolution has any real impact, it means that a clarified legal context will make it more difficult for governments to gag the media and allow crimes committed by their agents to go unpunished. In 2010, WikiLeaks published incontrovertible evidence of atrocities committed by American and British forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Governments and armies will always attempt to conceal acts they find embarrassing. But the press must be allowed to uncover them and publish the truth, with no fear of legal repercussions for doing so.

In recent times, European institutions have been the object of justified and unjustified criticism. Europe today suffers materially and psychologically from its ambiguous relationship with the most powerful member of the Atlantic Alliance. Defining Europe’s “strategic autonomy” is an ongoing challenge. The Council of Europe is once again proving itself to be a major institution for the protection of human rights. In 2005, this same Council mandated the late Dick Marty to investigate the CIA’s secret prisons in Europe. In 2015 and 2016, the European Court of Human Rights condemned Poland, Lithuania and Romania for housing such detention centers.

The governments called into question by such actions will always react defensively to such initiatives. They are rarely “brought to justice” in the sense of holding individuals and institutions legally and formally responsible for identified crimes and atrocities and subject to punishment under the law. But such resolutions help to set standards that will reduce the amount of abuse meted out to independent voices seeking to keep the public informed.

Assange is a journalist whose career was interrupted at the height of his powers and his potential contribution to society and democracy effectively silenced. In Gaza and Lebanon today we are seeing other cases of “disproportionately harsh treatment” that for some political leaders appears to be their privileged form of governance, if not a way of life. Even “proportional” harsh treatment needs to be used as sparingly as possible. As a society, we need to bring the taste for disproportionality under control. For some, it appears to be an addiction.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of Fair Observer Devil’s Dictionary.]

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Europe Calls Assange a Victim of Disproportionate Harshness appeared first on Fair Observer.

Dr. Rod Berger: The entrepreneurial path is often as unique as the person behind the solo pursuit. Please share your transition from research to Over Easy Solar. 

Trygve Mongstad: I spent many years as a physicist, and about a decade ago, I was more comfortable in a lab with my dreadlocks. The transition wasn’t immediate, but I was drawn to challenges outside my comfort zone. I realized I wanted to do something impactful and saw an opportunity in solar energy that few had explored. The move was driven by a growing confidence and the supportive societal framework in Norway, which encourages taking risks.

Berger: When you were growing up, were you creative? Would you say you had an innovative spirit early on?

Mongstad: Growing up in Norway with educators as parents made my life quite typical. However, even as a child, I was fascinated by innovation. I remember sketching floating wind turbines at the age of ten. While I was a quiet and shy boy, the idea of creating solutions for environmental challenges was always there.

Berger: You have been public about the impact of your time In Malawi on the work you are doing today. How does the Norwegian ecosystem of support compare with your time overseas?

Mongstad: My experience in Malawi was transformative. It’s one of the poorest economies in the world, yet the enthusiasm and positivity of the people is incredible. I learned a lot about happiness and community values, which differ from Norway’s more structured support system.

Berger: Let’s talk about sustainability and its role in your path forward as a company.

Mongstad: Sustainability has been at the core of my mission from the very start. It’s not just about creating a product; it’s about contributing to a better world. In Norway, sustainability is part of the everyday conversation, and I hope to embody it in my company.

Berger: What challenges have been the most daunting for you as a CEO?

Mongstad: Coming from the research sector, understanding the language of investors has been a challenge for me. The financial climate is tough, and while there’s recognition of the need for sustainable solutions, bridging the gap between innovation and investment remains a daily endeavor. I am encouraged, though, by the increased awareness among investors about the long-term benefits of supporting sustainability-focused ventures.

Berger: How have you navigated the pressures of entrepreneurship while maintaining your stated mission?

Mongstad: It’s about perspective. I regularly reflect on our progress, which helps me appreciate the journey. While many might scoff, I enjoy writing monthly investor reports because they allow me to see our tangible progress. It’s a balancing act, but the drive to create meaningful impact keeps me motivated and focused on the bigger picture.

Mongstad’s understated presentation shouldn’t dissuade onlookers from honing in on Over Easy Solar’s rapid ascent. There is a quiet and engaging confidence about Mongstad that reminds us that it isn’t always the bluster of an entrepreneur that reigns supreme but rather the belief in oneself to constantly churn against convention and comfort toward a common goal.

[I have edited and condensed this interview for clarity.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Over Easy Solar CEO Trygve Mongstad Goes to the Roof appeared first on Fair Observer.

However, the rapid increase in EV adoption has presented significant challenges in scaling the electric vehicle charging infrastructure (EVCI) to meet the growing demand. The surge in demand has created a fragmented system that is concerned with the viability of the current power grid. 

A renewed focus on home charging stations has resurfaced following the tumultuous ride of Easee home charging units, a back-on-it’s-feet symbol of Norwegian innovation after a very public game of thrones with European regulators. Like any good competition, lessons have been learned among the splashy headlines across Norway and Europe over the last decade. 

Electrified 

Easee, the innovative Norwegian EV charging company with near-unicorn status, teetered on the fence of bankruptcy following compliance issues in the spring of 2023. Skyrocketing demand for chargers and favorable incentives across the EU had positioned Easee as the pacesetter in an exploding market. But sometimes more innovation and passion is needed to sustain startup dreams slamming against the market realities of compliance, regulatory bodies and competitors waiting for an inevitable slip-up. 

Easee isn’t alone. As tech-driven companies’ offerings continue to outpace 24-hour days, savvy navigation is required to build sustainable companies, regardless of the sector, over time. These challenges of personnel growth and market demand underscore the complex landscape tech companies must navigate to ensure product safety while fostering innovation. 

I wanted to learn more about the robust Nordic sustainability ecosystem firsthand. Oslo Innovation Week, presented by the Oslo Business Region, was the backdrop to an in-depth interview with the co-founder and former CEO of Easee, Jonas Helmikstøl.

Once an ambassador, now a case study

In the heart of Oslo, amidst the historic charm and gentle murmur of bustling streets, Jonas Helmikstøl shared a cautionary tale of overexuberance that took him to the brink. His journey is not unlike many entrepreneurs who identified a market need and unabashedly charged forward. Once hailed as a trailblazer in Norway’s burgeoning energy sector, Helmikstøl’s story is a raw testament to the ebbs and flows of life as an entrepreneur. 

“It’s easier to breathe now,” Helmikstøl begins. “Last year, it was like breathing through a straw. My head felt like it had been put in a microwave oven.” These visceral metaphors encapsulate the physical and emotional strain he endured during Easee’s public crisis that threatened to undo years of hard work. 

Helmikstøl’s journey with Easee was meteoric. From a modest start to being listed among Norway’s richest, he experienced exhilarating highs as the poster child for Norwegian innovation. “I was uncomfortable being listed at the top … almost being seen as a god was difficult.”

The unraveling of Easee was not just a corporate crisis entangled with regulators but a profoundly personal experience for Helmikstøl. As news broke publicly of Easee’s break with Sweden and then a handful of European neighbors in February 2023, Helmikstøl welcomed his second child into the world. “Everything was colliding at the same time. My son was born as my life was unraveling around me.” 

The startup world often celebrates meteoric rises but scowls at sharp descent. Easee, while being the toast of the Nordics, was growing too fast, even outpacing regulators, standards and best practices to date. The rapid rise exposed internal vulnerabilities within Easee. “Growing as fast as we did … it was like I was not in control,” a contrite Helmikstøl shared. In 2022, the company’s expansion from 250 to over 500 employees coincided with personal tragedies, notably the death of his father. 

Caught in the storm of success, potential failure and loss, Helmikstøl turned inward for answers. “I felt like the most terrible person in the world. How could I screw up this badly?” Helmikstøl’s critics cite his very public and defensive stance as part of the Easee story, something he is keenly aware of as he rebuilds himself and his reputation in 2024. “I’ve learned so much through the process of building a company. I’ve been forced to deal with traumas and honestly some unhealthy patterns,” reflects Helmikstøl, his tone laced with gratitude for the lessons gleaned from adversity. 

Helmikstøl’s candid reflections reveal the dark side of entrepreneurial life, where success in a new sector creates opportunities for great success and unfortunate failure. “I was too attached to the company,” he admits. “I was suffocating – I waffled between being Easee myself and Easee being my identity.” The conflation of self with business became an unsustainable burden for Helmikstøl, causing self-reported and pervasive bouts of paralyzing anxiety.

Fast forward to Oslo Innovation Week 2024. Helmikstøl beams with hope for a future centered on being a family man and an innovator. “I’m excited about maintaining my focus on the energy sector in Norway and across Europe while also maintaining balance with myself and my family.” 

Jonas Helmikstøl’s story is not just about the rise and fall of a burgeoning business empire and persona. It is an intimate exploration of resilience, self-discovery and the relentless pursuit of authenticity. His journey is a poignant reminder that riding on a horizon line bridging the past with the future requires a stationary bike approach built on solid ground for the race ahead. 

Like all tech sectors, the ecosystem of climate, energy and sustainability is not immune to the pitfalls of entrepreneurism woven into the fabric of a bustling global economy. The Nordics may be known as self-deferential in personality and promotion, but don’t be fooled. As they collectively stretch their metaphoric arms to the North Pole, they do so with a steely focus on winning the energy game for all of us.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Powerful Insight From a Norwegian CEO Into the Risky Electric Vehicle Business appeared first on Fair Observer.

In their joint effort, CIA Director William Burns and MI6 Chief Richard Moore must recognize the weakening of the Western security architecture and the rapid rise of China. And the reality of the international situation is graver than their piece expresses.

A fragile security framework amid global unrest

The intelligence chiefs deliver a sobering assessment of the mounting hardships facing the world today, particularly those compounded by rapid technological advancements. They argue that the international system is now more contested than ever, with unprecedented threats necessitating global cooperation and swift action. However, while they acknowledge the dangers that lie ahead, their call for a strengthened security architecture and partnership is open to scrutiny.

Simply strengthening the existing architecture may no longer be viable given recent failures: the breakdown of European security, growing instability in Asia, the US’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and the current crisis in Bangladesh. Each event has contributed to a growing wave of anti-US sentiment across several regions.

Although a strong partnership between the US and UK may work on a bilateral level, their vision of it serving as a reliable counterweight to the shifting geopolitical landscape seems overly optimistic at best. For Burns and Moore, the idea of such a partnership standing firm in the face of current global upheavals remains a distant hope.

Europe’s crumbling security net

Europe’s security architecture has been deteriorating for years. The US has experienced mounting pressure to provide a sustainable defense against the looming threats from Russia and the possible resurgence of ISIS. Despite widespread anti-Russian rhetoric across Europe, the region’s security response has been lackluster. Many European nations have failed to adequately fund their militaries. Critical arms deals, such as the pledge to supply 155mm artillery shells to Ukraine, have seen delays. Meanwhile, the US has received criticism from NATO for its military assistance to Ukraine, further straining relations.

Russia’s escalating offensive along Europe’s frontlines highlights the disjointed coordination between Europe and the US on both security and strategic fronts. The notion of preemptively halting Russia’s invasion no longer holds weight, as the post-invasion reality has seen the transatlantic alliance weaken, leading to significant setbacks for Ukraine. Even with occasional Ukrainian victories, sustaining the fight against Russia without US support appears increasingly improbable.

As the US heads into an election this November, Europe faces added uncertainty. In his campaign rhetoric, former US President Donald Trump openly criticized Europe’s failure to meet defense spending commitments, declaring that Russia can “do whatever the hell they want” about countries that don’t pull their weight. His words underscore a glaring issue: Europe’s defense sector remains outdated and underfunded, lacking the modernization necessary to confront modern threats.

On the economic front, Europe is equally strained. Former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi recently warned that the EU is at risk of “slow and agonising decline,” according to his scathing report. With Europe struggling to keep pace on both security and economic fronts and the US grappling with its own “American Decline,” the prospect of a strong transatlantic partnership to counter Russian aggression seems more like a political talking point than a realistic solution to bridging the deepening strategic gaps.

The US’s soft decline in Asia

The abrupt and chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 left South Asia teetering on the edge of security and humanitarian crises. Although the assassination of al-Qaeda chief Ayman al Zawahiri in 2022 attempted to salvage some strategic credibility, it did little to mask the US’s broader challenge: its diminishing influence in the region. As China’s rise continues to reshape Asian dynamics, the US has struggled to maintain its foothold through both strategic and tactical efforts.

US-led initiatives like the Quad and the AUKUS military alliance, aimed at containing China’s growing power in the Indo-Pacific, have so far delivered underwhelming results. Australia’s maritime defense remains underfunded and underdeveloped, despite the country’s capital of Canberra being a critical frontline for AUKUS. Politically, the Quad has also struggled, with consensus-building proving elusive. Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull added to the skepticism, pointing out that the US will not exacerbate its own submarine deficit by selling vessels to Australia — a decision Canberra residents have received poorly.

Even Europe’s stance on AUKUS has been fraught with tension. The submarine deal between the US and UK sparked fears that the transatlantic relationship could be undermined. These developments highlight a stark truth: Trust and transparency in defense alliances are far more difficult to build than they appear.

A recent report by the Lowy Institute titled, “Asia Power Snapshot: China and the United States in Southeast Asia,” paints an even grimmer picture. It concluded that the US has steadily lost influence to China in Southeast Asia over the past five years across key sectors, including diplomacy, culture, defense and economics. This soft decline, coupled with alleged backdoor politics and clandestine psychological maneuvers in countries like Bangladesh, underscores the depth of America’s waning influence in South Asia. Meanwhile, the UK grapples with its own politico-economic struggles, further complicating its role in transatlantic security and broader geopolitical challenges.

Intelligence and terrorism: a new battleground

Burns and Moore have underscored the growing dangers posed by artificial intelligence in their analysis of evolving warfare tactics, particularly in the Russia–Ukraine conflict. They argue that AI has dramatically altered war-fighting techniques, with implications far beyond the current battlefields. These threats, however, are not confined to Ukraine; they are global in scope and demand collective action.

Similarly, terrorism — despite facing setbacks in recent years — has seen a quiet resurgence. The re-emergence of ISIS in Europe’s periphery, coupled with recent terror incidents in West Africa and even the Russian capital of Moscow, has forced the US to reconsider its position amid the deterioration of European security.

Both the CIA and MI6 chiefs have also pointed to sabotage operations conducted by Russia and China, taking a firm stance on countering such threats. Yet even intelligence operations face significant challenges. The US has suffered setbacks in China regarding its covert presence, while Russia’s GRU intelligence unit has orchestrated several subversive activities across Europe, such as cyberattacks against NATO and the EU. The GRU’s meddling has revealed cracks in the Western security structure.

The fragile facade of the CIA–MI6 partnership

Despite the tough rhetoric, the CIA and MI6 chiefs have publicly endorsed ideals such as “trust, openness, constructive challenge, and friendship.” They assert that these qualities will sustain the US–UK partnership well into the future, and that the relationship will continue to serve as a pillar of “global peace and security.”

However, the hard truth is that these characteristics are in constant tension. The fragility of this so-called special relationship is apparent, as it has delivered few lasting results in recent years. While such words make for polished diplomacy, both spymasters must now grapple with the uncomfortable fact: Real progress in strengthening their partnership has been slow and insufficient. It remains to be seen if their renewed efforts can finally solidify the bond that has been repeatedly tested by mounting global pressures.

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post New Spymasters Piece Is Too Optimistic About a Foul Situation appeared first on Fair Observer.

Both global and domestic issues defined the election

The European election campaign is better understood as 27 individual campaigns rather than one common one. Campaigns typically focused more on domestic rather than EU-wide issues. This year, in several countries such as Germany, voters used the European elections to express unhappiness with the policies of the parties forming the current national government. 

Climate change had dominated the last European election campaign in 2019 when school strikers, inspired by the young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, brought the topic to the headlines. This time around, climate policy was hardly discussed. Instead, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 brought the topic of security and defense to the top of the agenda. In addition, domestic issues like the rising cost of living, energy prices and inflation took precedence amongst voters. 

Concerns over immigration likewise played a big role. This is not a new development, as immigration has been a major topic already for the last decade. Anti-immigrant rhetoric was used in a lot of countries, including in those in which there is actually not a lot of immigration, such as the Czech Republic.

The center-right has risen in the ranks

Domestic issues such as the ones above ultimately garnered intense support for far-right parties in the EU elections. However, despite the gains of far-right parties, the coalition of the center parties continues to hold a majority of seats in the EU Parliament. There has been a shift to the right, but overall the result of the European elections shows more continuity than disruption. This came as a relief to those predicting a far-right sweep of Parliament.

The European People’s Party Group (EPP), a center-right group bringing together Christian Democrats and conservatives, emerged as the clear winner of the election. In total, the group comprises 188 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), or slightly more than 25% of seats. The Socialists and Democrats (S&D) remained largely stable, winning 136 seats. As recorded in the outgoing 2019 Parliament mandate, both parties continue to be the two largest groups in the European Parliament. 

But the liberal Renew Group, which came in third in 2019, only won 77 seats and is now the fifth largest group after the extreme-right Patriots for Europe (84 seats) and the radical right Conservatives and Reformists (78 seats). Along with the Liberals, the other big loser of the elections were the Greens, who are now only the sixth biggest group with 53 members. Further, The Left in the European Parliament group and the extreme-right Europe of Sovereign Nations group comprise 46 and 25 seats respectively.

It is likely that the problem of the far-right on the European level will not play out in the European Parliament, but rather in the European Council, which assembles the heads of states and governments. Past mandates show that the far-right is a very incoherent bloc, especially when it comes to foreign and security policy. Internal disagreements make it difficult for the far-right to have any real influence on policy.

Already in the last few years, Viktor Orbán from the right-wing populist party Fidesz has often acted as a spoiler, or an obstruction, towards coherent policy.  He has made it very difficult for EU leaders to find agreements, particularly when it comes to supporting Ukraine. As more far-right parties join governments at the national level across Europe, the problem of fractured policies is only likely to increase. Creating a solution to this problem falls on the shoulders of Ursula von der Leyen, who won another mandate as the EU Commission President.

Von der Leyen faced a challenging re-election

Despite the fact that the EPP, von der Leyen’s party family, emerged as the strongest force, the re-election of Ursula von der Leyen was by no means a given. In order to become Commission President, a candidate must not just be nominated by the Council comprising the EU heads of state and government, he or she must also secure a majority of MEPs in the European Parliament. 

In 2019, the lead candidate of the EPP had been German Manfred Weber. But in the aftermath of the elections, some heads of state expressed concern with his nomination, pointing to his lack of executive experience. Instead, the Council nominated Ursula von der Leyen in a move that came as a surprise to everyone. She went on to secure a very narrow majority in the European Parliament, winning just 383 votes in a secret ballot — only nine more than the required minimum.

This time around, heads of state and government agreed on the nomination of Ursula von der Leyen relatively swiftly. As part of a package deal that included Socialists and Liberals, the Council further agreed on the nomination of the Portuguese António Costa as President of the European Council and the Estonian Kaja Kallas as High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

Political fragmentation will create a challenge

The real challenge von der Leyen faced was not the nomination — the problem lay in securing support from the European Parliament. The combined majority of EPP, S&D, and Renew, the traditional coalition of the center parties, is much smaller than in the previous mandate and several MEPs from those three groups explicitly stated that they were not going to vote for her. Von der Leyen faced a political conundrum — should she reach out to the radical-right Conservatives and Reformists, angering Socialists and Liberals? Or should she reach out to the Greens, angering her own EPP, which had turned against several Green policies during the last mandate?

In the end, von der Leyen pulled off the perfect balancing act. She managed to bring a majority of Greens to her side without turning her own party against her. In the speech that laid out her plans as Commission President, von der Leyen included promises to a lot of different groups. Ultimately, she was confirmed with 401 votes in favor. 

In her last term, Ursula von der Leyen significantly strengthened the role of the Commission, shaping the EU’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In her second term, she seeks to continue this work, this time with a special focus on bolstering the Commission’s role in the realm of defense, economic security, and economic competitiveness. 

But the next five years are unlikely to be smooth sailing. Europe’s changing political landscape will make her job harder. In the Parliament, the increasing political fragmentation will make coalition-building more difficult. An increasing amount of legislation will likely need to pass with ad-hoc coalitions that focus on specific issues instead of passing legislation through the traditional grand coalition of EPP, S&D, and Renew.

Henry Kissinger supposedly once asked, “Who do I call when I want to call Europe?” For now, this question seems answered. National leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have been weakened by the European election results, with their parties or coalitions suffering heavy losses. Instead, it is Ursula von der Leyen who has emerged with strength and confidence from the European Parliament election, ready to take on a leadership role as chief of the European Commission once more. Yet, the term ahead of her will be a challenging one. 

[Cheyenne Torres edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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May uses artificial intelligence (AI) to bring historical Amsterdam to life. What drives the creator of these photorealistic historical images, and how does he go about making them?

Making history come to life

May enters the historic building where the editorial office of Dutch historical magazine Ons Amsterdam is located. The first thing he does is ask me how old the small drawing of a boat on the facade of the building is. “Maybe it’s ancient graffiti. I’m going to put it online and ask my followers!” This enthusiasm is exemplary of how May absorbs the city.

“I had been to Europe before moving to Amsterdam,” May starts the conversation. “In Europe, you experience history much more than in the US, where I grew up.” In his homeland, he did not study history, but film. “During my studies in Germany — where I had to get my so-called Abitur diploma with an emphasis on history before applying to a university — I found out that although I found history extremely interesting, I was mostly interested in small details that colored it. The personal stories described in memoirs fascinated me much more than an essay on the economy of the Roman Empire,” May explains with a telling smile.

Unfortunately, he was not admitted to university in Germany, so he returned to his homeland. Between 2013 and 2015, May studied film at Northern Arizona Unversity and moved to Amsterdam after his graduation.

Making use of new technology

In Amsterdam, May worked as a film director and photographer. In 2021, when AI as a technology became accessible to private creators with the launch of programs like Midjourney, May immediately recognized that this might have been the technological leap he was waiting for.

“In the beginning, the AI technology that allowed you to generate images was very rudimentary, because it was untrained,” he says. “The images it generated were terrible; they almost gave me nightmares.” But the technology also allowed one to cinematically time-travel without investing tons of money in elaborate sets and period costumes.

Six months later, Midjourney was so well developed that May attempted to conjure beautiful images from it again: “When I noticed that Midjouney had leapt in its development, I started working with it intensively. The images it generated were now so good that I started sharing them on the Instagram account @legendsofamsterdam in June 2022.”

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A post shared by Legends of Amsterdam (@legendsofamsterdam)

For anyone running to their computer to get started with Midjourney, there’s more to it than just entering a few requests (“prompts” in AI jargon) using text or a pre-existing image, and, like magic, seeing a photorealistic image from the 17th century pop up on the screen. May happily explains: “I use my experience from film and photography to write prompts to, produce the right first image. If I don’t quite like the result, I will adjust the prompt and go back and forth until I’m happy with it. Then I use Photoshop to edit the image further. With Midjourney, I can now tell stories that I used to tell through film. My biggest challenge now is approaching reality.”

Can AI-generated images be historically accurate?

And with approaching reality comes historical accuracy, May says: “For me, it is essential that the images are historically accurate as far as that can be validated, of course. For example, there is a little tower in the first AI versions of the Palace on Dam Square. That, of course, is incorrect, and by now, the program has learned that the turret does not belong there. Also, some generated images show large ships in the city. However, these did not enter the city, I recently learned.”

But what can AI do for the visual historiography of Amsterdam? “AI can be used as a tool to create just about anything you can imagine digitally. With Legends of Amsterdam, I want to tell stories with few visual references and bring a new perspective of history, we may not have seen before. That way, we can fill in visual gaps from the past to create a world we could only, until now, imagine.”

The reliability of AI is something the medium has struggled with from its inception, as the debacle of Microsoft’s chatbot Tay illustrates. Tay had to be taken down a mere sixteen hours after its launch when it started delivering racist messages.

The question of how AI can paint a reliable picture of history is a relevant one for visual historiography. May links this to “old-fashioned” historiography: “I think it’s important for people to remember that history has always been subject to interpretation. Even before the advent of AI, ‘reliable’ historical information was mostly subjective. Even the visual references from different historical periods are subject to artistic freedom and interpretation. AI makes no ethical or moral decisions about the reliability or historical accuracy of what it creates. So, just as in the good old days before AI, the best way to test whether information is reliable is to spend time researching and working with experts and historians who know what they’re talking about.”

Midjourney updates appear weekly; the program keeps getting better and more precise. Staying up-to-date is vital to May, as is feedback from his now more than ten thousand followers on Instagram. “I used a type of window in the beginning that didn’t match the era. That’s the nice thing about social media; you get told quickly when something is off. So, feedback, especially from experts, is essential for me to get as close to the historical truth as possible.”

Telling stories to human beings

Asked about his primary motivation for continuing to polish the images generated by the program in Midjourney, May harkens back to his passion for storytelling: “By working with AI, I add the human touch to the history of the city of Amsterdam. As a visual storyteller, I see this as an indispensable ingredient to invite people into my stories and make them think about the history we are telling. I can share historical narratives with a direct connection to the present for people to converse about them. Because if we forget history, chances are it will repeat itself. I could tell stories about colonization, slavery and war in a way that engages people today and makes them think. But of course, I would also like to tell beautiful stories because light and dark have an essential place in our history.”

“For the near future, collaborations are important to me,” May explains. “I would like to collaborate with institutions, artists and people with great historical knowledge to tell stories that are as historically accurate as possible. This is part of my vision for the future, so I hereby call for these professionals to approach me. In addition, my interest lies in telling unknown stories, the legends, folklore, the stories where the truth has been subject to erosion over the years.” 

Of course, the most pressing question arises when it comes to the use of artificial intelligence: How great is the danger of AI? What will be the impact of this technology, which is only in its infancy? Harrison May doesn’t know the answer. But he will be happy to discuss it with you.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post How to Make History Come Alive With AI appeared first on Fair Observer.

Following the guide’s lead, we climb a hill to find one of many cave monasteries. This one is rather hidden, so most tourists miss it entirely. 

My guide showcases a cave monastery above the Răut River, where tourists rarely find their way. Author’s photo.

A picture from the inside of the cave looking out. Author’s photo.

The surrounding area is an unusual sight. The sloping bank of the Răut River emerges from a perfectly flat field, looking almost man-made. However, it is a natural reminder of how landscapes evolve. You can find perfect seashells on the limestone bank in a country with no coastline, much like on a sandy beach. Millions of years ago, the Răut River was part of the ancient Sarmatian Sea, just like the lands of today’s Moldova.

Scenic views of Old Orhei. One can barely see the river under the hill. Author’s photo.

My guide, Professor Sergiu Musteață, knows this site incredibly well. He is a renowned historian from Moldova and a professor at the Faculty of Philology and History at “Ion Creangă” State Pedagogical University. He has worked to educate locals about the history of Old Orhei and how to develop tourism businesses. He has also guided them in creating guesthouses and writing proposals for funding to build flushing toilets in their homes.

Old Orhei has been one of the main subjects of his research since 1996. “I know everyone in Orheiul Vechi [the Romanian version of the name]!” he laughs. He also knows all of the approximately 300 caves in the area and has personally researched many of them.

Professor Sergiu Musteață says that people working in Moldovan tourism need to understand that the basis of it is history and heritage. Author’s photo.

A scenic journey through unknown sites

Musteață leads us along a hidden path lined with cherry trees from an old student’s base. Researchers have been excavating this area for decades, as the unique landscape reveals layers of settlements dating back to prehistoric times.

“When we come here with students, we usually clean the neighborhood and cut the grass first,” Musteață says, pushing branches away from the path. If only tourists knew about this shortcut hidden in nature.

Professor Musteață peers through a rustic gate. Author’s photo.

“We have organized 20 years of summer camps for the locals during the excavations, including summer schools for local kids. Lots of students, both locals and internationals, participated!” he states emphatically.

Despite many efforts, only a few locals have made a name for themselves in the tourism sector. “I don’t know why. There is not so much interest. It should be the most prominent place among tourists,” Musteață comments.

Unlike other visitors, we walk past the Peștera cave monastery, the main tourist attraction of Old Orhei. The current underground tunnels date back to 1820. However, the caves in these limestone hills have existed since the 14th century. Orthodox monks found solitude and a place for spiritual retreat in this isolation.

“There is another cave monastery here. Locals know about it, but only a few tourists will visit it,” says Musteață. This is where we are heading.

We walk past the Peștera cave monastery and head off-road to find another lesser-known monastery. Author’s photo.

We walk on the bank, passing through the Church of Ascension of St. Mary. The view of the valley and fields is breathtaking. Turning left, the professor leads us onto an almost unrecognizable road downhill from the bank. Our slippers aren’t ideal footwear for this leg of the journey, but nevertheless, we climb down the limestone bank to a land of grazing cows.

Musteață guides us onto a new path, leading down the limestone bank. Author’s photo.

After walking, we climb again to another obscure cave monastery of Old Orhei, built above the Răut’s waters. There isn’t a single soul up here now, but historically, monks isolated themselves in this cave. As a result, the monastery is covered in signs of human habitation.

The church’s facade is engraved with Slavonian writing: “This church was built by the slave of Bosie, pircalab (Chief Magistrate) of Orhei, together with his wife and his children, to cherish God, to forgive his sins.”

The professor shows us around. We see where the monks would sleep and where they built their fireplace. All the caves are in remarkably good shape, with few signs of dripping rocks.

We view the monastery’s exterior, which has endured for centuries. Author’s photo.

This structure often goes unexplored by tourists. “It’s a bit too far and difficult to access. That’s why people don’t know much about it and wouldn’t end up here,” Musteață explains.

Musteață teaches us about the monastery. Author’s photo.

On the whole, Old Orhei is a fascinating, history site. And its antiquity is richer than one might expect.

Mankind has loved this region since ancient times

The surroundings have been populated since the Paleolithic era due to good location — the river protects Old Orhei from three sides. The land is suitable for agriculture and flowing water is nearby.

Archaeological findings suggest that the Getians built some fortresses and settlements in this region during the 4th to 3rd centuries BCE, taking advantage of the natural fortifications provided by the rocky outcroppings and riverbanks.

In the 14th century CE, Old Orhei became part of the medieval state of Moldova (Țara Moldovei) after the collapse of the Golden Horde, a Mongol-Tatar state that controlled this territory as well.

After the Tatar period in the 12th to 14th centuries, an Orthodox Christian community developed during medieval times. Political stability and the protective embrace of nature made Old Orhei an important center. Moldovan hero and ruler Stephen the Great, whose rule lasted from 1457 to 1504, appointed his uncle, Peter III Aaron, to rule there. The area was fortified with strong defensive walls and towers.

Life in Old Orhei slowly faded in the 17th century. The administration moved to neighboring New Orhei, and gradually, the monastic community began to disappear. The last monks are believed to have left Old Orhei at the beginning of the 19th century. By this time, many monastic communities in the region faced significant challenges due to political changes, invasions and pressures from the expanding Ottoman Empire. The decline in monastic life at Old Orhei was part of a broader trend affecting many religious sites in the region.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a new Virgin Mary Church was built atop the bank near a cave monastery to revitalize the area’s spiritual significance. It serves as a symbol of Old Orhei’s continued religious heritage, even after the original monastic community dispersed.

Though the region’s religiosity remains, Old Orhei’s authenticity, unfortunately, has recently declined.

The loss of authenticity in a historic land

Many historical sites in Old Orhei face the problem of random preservation efforts, which are not concerned with preserving the site’s authentic look.

In 2023, the road from Butuceni village in the Cultural-Natural Reserve was asphalted, which led to an investigation by the Ministry of Culture. It ruined the village’s authenticity but gave locals more logistical freedom.

Climbing on the bank, we notice a brand-new red-roofed dwelling that, from a logical viewpoint, should not have been built in the reserve. But there it is, like the newly constructed path to the Peștera cave monastery and the asphalted road in Butuceni village.

This modern tampering is one thing preventing Moldova from having its first United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site.

“There is too much industrialization in a place where authenticity is worshiped,” Musteață laments. The Old Orhei Reserve has been on the UNESCO tentative list for years but is not moving forward any time soon. “I don’t think there is much hope at the moment,” Musteață admits honestly.

The situation saddens him. He and other researchers have worked for years to put this site on the world map as a part of humanity’s historical cradle, to no avail.

“The landscape and the density of settlements since prehistory is special. You can see the changes in this part of the world, moving from East to West. The Golden Horde, the Islamic period, Christians — there is a huge variety of artifacts describing how people lived in this area,” Musteață explains.

Life has moved on from this relic. The Orthodox Church still holds significant power in the small country of Moldova, but only traces of the glory the church once had in Old Orhei remain. In the 1940s, the Soviet Union started excavations in the region, which also disrupted the old sites; they built a new road through the Golden Horde citadel and cut it in half.

“A historic road should go around the citadel. It’s completely doable,” Musteață says.

The professor feels that many of Moldova’s stories remain untold, even that of such a landmark as Old Orhei. “It is frustrating. We need to tell our story!” Musteață suggests.

He thinks the country itself should put Orhei at the top of the list of tourist destinations in Moldova. After all, it’s the most important tourist site in the country. “It should be declared a state priority, a national strategy,” he says. “People working in this field in Moldova need to understand that the basis of tourism is history and heritage.”

That is another reason why Moldova’s Old Orhei is not on the UNESCO list. “Our country overall is underrepresented,” Musteață believes.

According to UNESCO, the organization is not in a position to comment on what is missing for Old Orhei to receive its World Heritage Site title. Moldova first proposed the area as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008 but withdrew its nomination the following year.

In September 2015, Moldova submitted a new version of the nomination dossier as “Orheiul Vechi Archaeological Landscape,” a cultural site. Following the evaluation process and a recommendation by the International Council on Monuments and Sites, Moldova withdrew the nomination again.

Luckily, Moldova appears on the UNESCO list as part of a group of countries with the Struve Geodetic Arc, a chain of survey triangulations spanning ten countries and over 2,820 kilometers. This chain reaches from the world’s northernmost city — Hammerfest, Norway — to the Black Sea. The listed site includes 34 points across all ten countries, one of which is in Moldova. The country is eager to earn its very own World Heritage Site title, even if it isn’t Old Orhei.

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Moldova’s Old Orhei: An Amazing Site With Rich History appeared first on Fair Observer.

In its report, “1 an de Nettoyage Social avant les JOP 2024,” Le Revers de la Médaille defined social cleansing as the harassment, expulsion, and invisibilization of populations deemed undesirable by public authorities near Olympic venues. Paul Alauzy, a spokesperson for the organization, claimed that these individuals had been relocated outside the capital to beautify public spaces for the global audience expected in Paris. Officials, however, continued to deny these allegations.

How Paris relocated the homeless

Alauzy stated that France had implemented a system to relocate some homeless individuals to other regions in preparation for the Olympics. *Le Revers de la Médaille* criticized the mass evictions of homeless people from Île-de-France and the forced removal from occupied places and slums. Humanitarian associations observed a systematic nature in these operations, with more occupied spaces being evacuated by the police.

Weekly, one or more buses carrying 50 homeless individuals left Paris, relocating them outside the region. In France, Article L345-2-2 mandates state responsibility for emergency housing. While relocation was not new, the current method was unprecedented. Homeless people were directed to temporary reception centers (SAS), which operated from March 2023 to the end of 2024 in ten cities outside Île-de-France. The government denied that these centers were created for the Olympics.

De Clerck noted a significant acceleration in these relocations, which lacked alternative solutions. Previously, minors were not moved, but now they were included. Associations criticized the temporary nature of this system, which did not provide stable housing. Each SAS could host a homeless person for a maximum of three weeks. Afterward, 40% were directed to longer-term solutions, while 60% were sent to other emergency shelters, which were often already full. De Clerck explained that individuals were removed from the streets of Paris only to end up back on the streets in another city. Alauzy called for dignified, lasting, and unconditional solutions.

Targeting sex workers

De Clerck observed that the social cleansing efforts targeted all individuals in public spaces, including the homeless, sex workers, drug addicts, and food aid recipients. *Le Revers de la Médaille* reported increased administrative controls and police intimidation of sex workers.

At Bois de Vincennes, a public park in eastern Paris, undocumented immigrant sex workers, mostly Nigerian, faced violent police harassment. Aurelia Huot from the “Barreau de Paris Solidarité” association reported a significant increase in administrative checks on sex workers. Since June, police patrols had been notably violent towards Nigerian women, who were victims of trafficking.

In contrast, at Bois de Boulogne, a park in western Paris, sex workers who were mostly in regular situations experienced different police tactics. De Clerck mentioned that fines or prohibitions to practice were common, despite the repeal of the solicitation crime in 2016. Huot added that women were adapting their work methods, increasingly moving online, which made it more difficult for associations to distribute safety materials.

Challenges in Collaboration

Le Revers de la Médaille struggled to collaborate with the Prefecture of the Region and the Prefecture of Police. Police actions against drug addicts intensified, with permanent interventions in La Villette aimed at dispersing people. De Clerck believed these actions had a clear connection to the upcoming Olympics.

Despite this, the city of Paris remained cooperative. Alauzy noted that the municipality had always maintained an open door for the collective. Paris managed food distribution and collaborated with associations. Although there was initial resistance, food distribution was eventually coordinated to ensure aid during the Olympics. De Clerck concluded that cooperation continued to guarantee food aid even as the Games unfolded.

Now that the Paris Olympics have concluded, the impact of these social policies and their implications for vulnerable populations continue to be subjects of significant debate.

(Shreya Verma edited this piece)

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Invisible Victims: How Paris Used Social Cleansing Before the Olympics appeared first on Fair Observer.

That was April. Last week, on August 12, in anticipation of the interview Musk had planned with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Breton posted on X an extraordinary preemptive warning against the “amplification of harmful content.”

Today’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Harmful content:

Any words, expressions or ideas formulated by individuals certain persons or groups in a position of authority happen to dislike.

Contextual note

In his letter, Breton worries about the possibility of language that may have “detrimental effects on civil discourse and public security.” His definition of “harmful” applies to “content that promotes hatred, disorder, incitement to violence, or certain instances of disinformation.”

“Instances of disinformation” sums up the essence of Breton’s complaint. The idea that people may say things that are not true and that all instances of untruth should be suppressed has become a standard obsession of those who seek to wield power over the unenlightened masses.

Although he has no inkling of what would transpire in a conversation that hasn’t yet taken place, the commissioner clearly anticipates that Musk and Trump will spout the kind of odious ideas his authority has the power to punish. Like George W. Bush’s preemptive invasion of Iraq to prevent Saddam Hussein’s using the arsenal of weapons of mass destruction experts Hans Blix and Scott Ritter insisted didn’t exist, Breton prepared his own invasion of X to prevent Musk and Trump from saying things that, to his mind, might be politically incorrect.

As I pointed out in last week’s “Devil’s Dictionary,” the political class has even taken the idea of critical thinking, which implies openness to the consideration of a multiple perspectives before constructing meaning through exposure to all of them, and transformed the definition to mean the tracking and banishment of unconventional viewpoints. In other words, the idea of critical thinking is turned on its head in the service of authorized, conformist thinking.

Breton’s remarks highlight another feature of the new censorship culture that has been gaining steam since 2016, when it became the principal weapon for countering Trump’s obvious predilection for outlandish exaggerations and “alternate facts.” Censorship has become a transnational crusade across the defensive alliance of North America and Europe we call “the West.” In that sense, NATO enlargement has not just been about territorial expansion eastward to the borders of Russia but also the revival of the McCarthyist instinct that poisoned US political culture in the 1950s.

Europe managed to dodge the McCarthyist epidemic that successfully transformed the meaning of the word “communist” for Americans into the equivalent of “possessing diabolical intent.” “As the relevant content is accessible to EU users,” Breton notes, “and being amplified also in our jurisdiction, we cannot exclude potential spillovers in the EU.” He wants to protect Europeans from contamination. With the notion of “spillover,” Breton correctly highlights Europe’s current alacrity for imitating and adopting the worst political practices exported from America.

But Breton’s moment of triumph didn’t last 24 hours. On August 13, an article by The Financial Times sported the title: “Brussels slaps down Thierry Breton over ‘harmful content’ letter to Elon Musk.” Breton’s own masters judged that, with his comminatory letter, the commissioner had overreached. It was bad PR, making Europe appear to be something of a bully, a role usually exercised by Washington over Europe.

In a further irony, the FT quotes an EU official who explained that “Thierry has his own mind and way of working and thinking.” In other words, he’s a loose cannon, guilty, in his own way, of producing “harmful content” that might compromise the image of Europe as a culture committed to the respect of all citizens’ rights, including prominent US billionaires with one-syllable last names, like Musk and Trump.

Historical note

In the fourth and final book of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, a race of horses called the Houyhnhnms not only have the gift of human speech, they use it in the wisest way possible. They cannot say anything that is untrue. In their language — unlike that of Thierry Breton or numerous people in Washington, DC who have put “disinformation,” “misinformation” and “harmful content” at the top of their useful vocabulary lists — the Houyhnhnms don’t even have a word to express the notion of lying.

Breton and a new class of censors that wish to apply more and more rules concerning the way people speak in public appear to see Swift’s Houyhnhnm model as an ideal to be emulated. They are busy devising the mechanisms that will prevent anything they can qualify as potentially harmful — even before it is spoken or written — from being expressed in public. After all, there may be “spillover.”

The problem Swift noticed — and it drove his character, Lemuel Gulliver, mad — is that, as a master of the English language, he understood that nearly everything people say may be construed as not quite truthful. Even Oxford’s famous linguistic philosophers of the 20th century, who reduced philosophy itself to the question of what language is capable of expressing, concluded that there is no principle that can establish the truth of any proposition. Bertrand Russell could prove that the sentence, “the king of France is bald” is false — even though in theory it could be true — but no philosopher has found a way of proving any assertion is true.

The debate is now raging in the US about whether the freedom of expression so unambiguously affirmed in the first amendment to the US Constitution can have any meaning. A century ago, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes used the analogy of “shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater” to demonstrate that there should be limits on what one may express in public. The context of Holmes’s pronouncement was the debate on the constitutionality of the now notorious Espionage Act. Congress passed the law during World War I, when fear of German spying was a reality. Long considered irrelevant, recent presidents had invoked it repeatedly in recent years against whistleblowers and journalists, including Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.

The legal definition of disinformation is: “False information knowingly shared to cause harm.” Lawmakers have no capacity to define “harm” with precision, which means that potentially any discourse or act of expression can fall into a category of speech that must be suppressed. The campaign to brand critics of Israel’s policies and actions as antisemitic on the grounds that such criticism harms the sensibility of Zionist Jews is continuing and has proved very effective in the US and Europe.

Whatever disagreement may remain inside Europe between Thierry Breton and his boss, Ursula von der Leyen, there can be little doubt that the official assault on “harmful content” from both sides of the Atlantic will continue. A far more worrying case is that of British journalist Richard Medhurst, who was arrested by his nation’s police at Heathrow airport, detained under appalling conditions and charged under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act. His crime? Producing a style of harmful content known as factual reporting.

Future historians will face the challenge of finding an original name for an episode of history that began with Joe McCarthy, spanned a period that included President Joe Biden and, with the aid of AI, is likely to continue unimpeded into an undefined future. As the world awaits an impending civilizational showdown that will either define a new world order or culminate in a spectacular nuclear holocaust, we are all cast into the role of reluctant spectators, observing the prolonged crisis of democracy. The outcome will inevitably be scripted by a coterie of politicians skilled at protecting us from harmful content.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of Fair Observer Devil’s Dictionary.]

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post How to Make Someone Who’s Harmful Content appeared first on Fair Observer.

Madrid’s political focus on Catalonia has intensified since 2017. After holding what was deemed by Spanish authorities an illegal independence referendum, Catalonia’s President Carles Puigdemont and other officials fled to Belgium, prompting a diplomatic crisis. Spain then imposed direct rule over the region, with the EU backing its decision and citing the need for constitutional approval of referendums. In the aftermath, local support for Catalonia’s independence declined, offering Madrid a way in.

Spain’s separatist and autonomous movements are among Europe’s most well-known, and its management of them is watched closely across the continent. Many other European nations, particularly in larger countries, have autonomy movements seeking devolution, self-government or outright independence. The perceived failure of European-level efforts to resolve these issues has led countries to maintain their own policies. Although few movements are considered serious threats, attempts to assert themselves often provoke direct interventions by national governments — when these governments have the capacity to do so.

The struggle between nationalism and separatism

Many of Europe’s once-distinct regional identities have only waned in recent times. The rise of nationalism in Europe in the 1800s led to unitary states that integrated peripheral regions with the capitals, a trend known as “capital magnetism.” Additionally, increasing urbanization in other large cities weakened traditional ties to local communities and support systems.

Integration and assimilation pressure was also exerted on regional identities to create more national identities. At the time of Italy’s unification in 1861, for example, less than 10% of Italians spoke the Tuscan dialect which began to be promoted as standard Italian. Steadily, its use in public and administrative life, mass media and other methods led to a decline in the use of other regional dialects and languages. Similarly, French policies promoted the Parisian dialect as standard French, and the German Empire promoted High German.

Modern EU states face greater limitations on language suppression. The framework provided by the EU’s “post-sovereign” system implores member states to uphold minority language protections and other rights. Nonetheless, national governments have modernized their approaches to establishing national uniformity. Proficiency in majority languages is often a prerequisite for education, media and employment opportunities, while immigration favors majority-language learners. As a result, dozens of minority European languages are on the brink of extinction.

Nonetheless, autonomous movements in Europe do wield political power. Political networks like the European Free Alliance, a group of pro-independence political parties, operate in the EU parliament and serve as political outlets for separatist movements, using democratic processes.

Italy is constantly attempting to more effectively tie to itself its autonomous regions: the islands of Sicily and Sardinia as well as three northern regions. The 2018 transformation of the regional political party Lega Nord into a national one, Lega, demonstrated some success. The autonomy movements, however, were similarly adaptive. Other northern Italian parties recently rallied to vote to approve legislation approving them greater autonomy in June 2024. South Tyrol, Italy’s German-speaking region, brings the added challenge of receiving support from Austria. Austrian leaders have repeatedly proposed granting Austrian passports to German speakers, and, in January 2024, voiced support for further autonomy reforms, drawing a reflexive rebuke from Rome.

Hungary’s disputes with its neighbors are even more notable. The 1920 breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire left significant Hungarian communities across Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine. Today, the Hungarian government supports these communities by funding cultural institutions, providing financial aid and fostering solidarity, which has sparked tensions with these countries. However, as a smaller nation, Hungary struggles to exert significant influence, especially in EU member states like Romania and Slovakia, and it has also found limited success in Ukraine.

Western European states remain resilient

Aside from cases like these, EU countries generally tend to avoid interfering in each others’ separatist movements. This has helped France to consolidate its rule over its mainland territory. However, it hasn’t yet done so over the Mediterranean island of Corsica, purchased by the French in 1768. The rollback of the French Empire after World War II reignited historical tensions, further inflamed by the arrival of many French people and Europeans from Algeria to Corsica in the 1960s. Though violence largely subsided in Corsica after the 1970s, a ceasefire was not reached until 2014, and pro-separatist riots in 2022 show the situation remains tense.

Following the unrest, French President Macron raised the possibility of granting Corsica greater autonomy. Previously, in 2017, as tensions were building in neighboring Spain over Basque separatism, France raised the administrative autonomy of its own Basque territory by granting it single community status, unifying several local councils under one regional authority. Contrastingly, the merger of the region of Alsace in 2016 with two other French areas reduced its autonomy and integrated it more into the national apparatus. The different approaches demonstrate the diverse policies used by national governments to manage their regions.

Germany, the most populous country in the EU, administers several regions with aspirations for greater autonomy. However, its federal system, which grants states greater authority over areas such as education and language, has helped temper separatist sentiment and reduced the need for management from Berlin.

A federal system has not resolved the challenges faced by Belgium. The country’s Flemish-speaking and French-speaking regions have sought greater autonomy, with some advocating for unification with a greater Dutch or French-speaking state. While increasing regional autonomy has been part of the solution, the regions remain interconnected through the capital, Brussels, and its wider role as the capital of the EU.

That has not deterred breakup advocates from proposing a similar “Velvet Divorce” between Belgium’s regions, like the peaceful split between the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1992. Polls indicated a victory in June 2024 for Vlaams Belang, a party whose leader ran on reaching an agreement to dissolve the country or declaring Flanders’s independence. But their shock defeat ensured Belgium’s continuity and thus the stability of the EU.

Outside the EU, Europe’s autonomy issues are also in flux. In the late 1990s, the UK granted greater autonomy to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Scottish independence efforts were then disrupted after a failed 2014 referendum and the UK’s subsequent departure from the EU two years later. The Scottish National Party established a Brussels office to maintain EU connections, as did the European Friends of Scotland Group, founded in 2020. The Scottish Independence Convention plans to hold a convention in Edinburgh in October 2024 featuring more than a dozen European groups to coordinate their independence initiatives, though the participation of separatist movements within EU countries may limit the extent of EU involvement.

Brexit also reignited secessionist sentiment across the UK, particularly in Northern Ireland, but also in Wales. Even within England, regional parties like CumbriaFirst, the East Devon Alliance and Mebyon Kernow advocate for their own regions’ autonomy, and devolution within England has been increasingly discussed in recent years. London has struggled to counter these movements since Brexit, but it has succeeded in preventing a resurgence in paramilitary activity since it ended it in Northern Ireland in the 1990s.

In Eastern Europe, separatism is a persistent threat

Western Europe’s relative success in reducing armed conflicts over the last few decades contrasts with its resurgence in Eastern Europe. The region’s fragile borders and the emergence of weak states in the wake of the collapse of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union have seen separatist movements gain increasing power.

The EU and NATO played a pivotal role in the collapse of Yugoslavia and the emergence of new states, often at the expense of Serbia. In response, ethnic Serbian separatism has surged across Bosnia and Kosovo, with supporters citing the EU’s and NATO’s support for separatist movements in the 1990s as justification for their actions.

Russia has also inflamed separatism in parts of the former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union to counter EU and NATO expansion or to incorporate these regions into it. Beyond supporting Serbian interests in the Balkans, Russia has utilized, to varying degrees, separatist movements in Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Russia has long performed outreach to separatist movements in the West, including inviting representatives to conferences like the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, though largely consisting of fringe groups. Russia itself has its own separatist and autonomy movements, however, including in Chechnya, Tatarstan and elsewhere. These have found support from Western actors, including through the launch of the Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum. Turkey has also supported Russian separatist movements, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan meanwhile recently celebrated the 50-year anniversary of the Turkish invasion of EU member state Cyprus in 1974 in support of local Turkish separatists.

Most separatist movements in Europe lack the infrastructure to become independent states without external support but persist in their pursuit of independence nonetheless. And European countries with territories outside of Europe, such as France with New Caledonia or Denmark with Greenland, must manage their burgeoning independence movements. Access to the EU may be influential in convincing them to remain, but external factors, such as Azerbaijan’s recent support for New Caledonia’s independence, could potentially play a stronger role.

Related Reading

Making Sense of the Trouble in New Caledonia

A new concern for national governments may emerge closer to home. In the Baltic States, the tension between Russian minorities and national governments remains evident, and the situation faces uncertainty amid the war in Ukraine. The rise of the Alternative für Deutschland political party in the former East Germany has in turn highlighted the enduring divides within the country less than 40 years after reunification, and how new political entities can emerge to exploit such sentiments.

Islamic separatism is a live issue in Western Europe

Yet the most pressing issue appears to be emerging in Western Europe’s major cities. French President Emmanuel Macron, aiming to address concerns over what French authorities describe as “parallel societies” of Muslim immigrants and their descendants, proposed a law in 2023 to disrupt the education, finances, and propaganda networks of radical Islam, often from foreign countries. Macron labeled this phenomenon as “separatism.” He was referring to marginalized communities on the outskirts of major French cities in the famed banlieues, which are increasingly beyond state control and driven by domestic grievances and dissatisfaction with French foreign policy. While France’s situation appears the most severe, such sentiment is common across Western Europe.

Related Reading

FO° Exclusive: Make Sense of the Hellish Rioting in France

The EU’s handling of autonomous and separatist movements has frequently faced criticism from nationalist governments, and balancing separatism with nationalism remains a sensitive challenge. However, major countries like Germany and smaller ones like Denmark demonstrate it is possible to manage these issues within national frameworks. Switzerland, a non-EU state, shows similar success in keeping itself together. Clearly, despite nationalist policies, centuries-old communities are resilient and difficult to absorb and erase, even without outside support. Managing these long-standing issues, as well as emerging movements, will require continual adaptation.

[Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute, produced this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Separatism Remains A Challenge From Western To Eastern Europe appeared first on Fair Observer.

Jeremy Corbyn, the left-wing erstwhile Labour leader, is now no longer in the party. Under Starmer, Labour has moved resolutely to the center even as the Tories (as British Conservatives are called) have imploded into post-Brexit fratricidal bloodletting.

Related Reading

Keir Starmer – My Prime Minister, Member of Parliament and Friend

The UK has a parliamentary, first-past-the-post system. The candidate with the most votes becomes the member of parliament (MP) in each constituency. The party leader who commands a majority in the House of Commons becomes prime minister and governs the UK from 10 Downing Street.

The first-past-the-post system can lead to strange results. For instance, the Liberal Democrats won a lower percentage of votes than Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, but the former won far more seats than the latter in these elections. However, the Tories and the Scottish Nationalists were the big losers in 2024 while smaller parties flourished, as the table below demonstrates.

Unusually for any British government, the new Labour government is led by former civil servants rather than professional politicians. Starmer is a centrist who aims to bring back stability to the UK. Before his political career, Starmer was the head of the Crown Prosecution Service. His new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, worked in the Bank of England. Both have a reputation for competence and prudence. Like previous prime ministers Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Teresa May and David Cameron, Starmer and Reeves went to the University of Oxford. However, they did not come from affluent backgrounds or go to elite schools. They beat the odds to rise to the top.

Unlike leaders of the Left in many other parts of the world, Reeves is not promising any increased government spending. Instead, she is advocating supply-side economics to boost growth. In her first major speech, Reeves promised to make economic growth the number-one priority for her government through increased private investment, labor participation and productivity. Both Starmer and Reeves are fiscally prudent, which should lead the British economy to stabilize after a rocky eight years following the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Fund managers and business leaders in New York and London say that the risk premium for UK assets will go down because of the Labour government’s reputation for responsibility. They believe that Starmer and Reeves will steer a closer relationship with Europe, reduce frictions in UK–EU trade and give a fillip to house-building. In contrast to most other democracies, this party of the Left has won a thumbs-up from markets and business leaders.

Conservative meltdown facilitated Labour victory, now what?

As this author predicted in 2016, Brexit turned out to be “a damn close-run thing,” and what followed was madness. Prime ministers came and went with alarming frequency; Truss enjoyed less than the shelf life of a head of lettuce. Post-Brexit Britain could not make up its mind whether to become Singapore-on-Thames or a revived manufacturing power with rejuvenated northern cities. Immigration continued to be a problem. Shipping migrants to Rwanda did not excite the public. Johnson’s parties during the COVID-19 pandemic turned public chafing against draconian government restrictions into open anger. Sunak had the charisma of a dead mouse and demonstrated a gift for fatal political gaffes such as leaving D-Day celebrations early for a meaningless television interview. In a nutshell, the Tories screwed up so badly that a Labour victory was obvious long before the elections.

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Labour’s victory is massive. Yet it is a shallow one. Only one in five Britons voted for the party. Importantly, voter turnout fell from 69% in 2019 to 60% in 2024. In 2017, nearly 12.9 million people voted Labour. In 2019, this figure fell below 10.3 million. This year, a little fewer than 9.7 million voters cast their ballots for Labour. A graph by FOI, a political and geopolitical risk advisory, tells an interesting tale of voting numbers and parliamentary seats over the last two British elections.

British politics have become extremely dynamic. New trends are worth noting. The significant vote shares of the right-wing populist Reform UK Party — second to Labour in 92 constituencies — and the Green Party — second to Labour in 41 constituencies — put pressure on Labour to improve immigration and environmental policies, respectively. Recent riots all across the UK show that voters are concerned about migrants flooding the UK. The Starmer government will have to restrict arrivals. In fact, immigration was a key reason why voters chose Brexit in 2016.

During the election campaign itself, Labour promised a more effective approach to tackling illegal immigration and unveiled a plan to bring net migration down by training British workers. Labour threatened to block non-compliant companies from sponsoring visas for their overseas employees. On his first full day as prime minister, Starmer canceled the outgoing Conservative government’s plan to deport illegal migrants to Rwanda, saying, “I’m not prepared to continue with gimmicks that don’t act as a deterrent.” Instead, his government aims to curb small boats crossing the English Channel by hiring investigators and using counter-terror powers to “smash” criminal people-smuggling gangs.

On the renewable energy front, Starmer’s government has promised to accelerate the development of large projects by assessing them nationally, not locally, and ending an effective ban on onshore wind farms. The rise of the Green Party, as mentioned earlier, and the resurgence of Liberal Democrats (the party for the nice Tories of the shires) will make Starmer’s Labour more environmentally friendly than Sunak’s Tories. (As an aside, the Liberal Democrats’ victory in Tory heartlands saw them win seats held by five former Tory prime ministers.)

Most political parties with such a large majority would enact a far more radical agenda. Starmer is determined to do no such thing. Those close to the prime minister reveal that he is playing the long game and aims to be in power for at least two terms. Starmer is determined to win back Labour’s credibility as the party of responsible government after 14 years in opposition and the damage suffered under Corbyn’s leadership.

The country is now led not by alumni of the famous public schools (the curious British name for expensive private schools) but by leaders who hail from the working and middle classes. They are more self-reflective, grounded and rigorous than their Conservative counterparts. To put it in English Civil War parlance, Starmer and Reeves are Roundheads, not Cavaliers. After years of posh public schoolboys from Eton and Winchester ruling the roost, no-nonsense commoners are on top.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The Left Won Big in the UK — But Look Deeper appeared first on Fair Observer.

Brexit, a carefully orchestrated psychodrama fueled by the ambition of Boris Johnson, played out during a period spanning nearly four years. The British nation could finally affirm not only that it was no longer part of Europe; it had equally lost any sense of connection with the rest of the world.

Things have taken a further dire turn over the past ten days with a spate of extremely violent xenophobic riots spread across the “scepter’d isle.” Is the world witnessing the death knell of English culture, that for centuries fed and stimulated European and even world culture? John Donne famously told us that “no man is an island,” affirming that “if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less.” Has Britain now become that clod washed away into a state of utter irrelevance?

Events of the past week demonstrate that significant numbers of English men and women are willing to organize, demonstrate, assault, burn and destroy to prove that what unites their nation and defines their identity is essentially race and a skewed notion of national origin.

Britain’s new Labour prime minister, Keir Starmer will not have it. Leading the resistance, Sir Keir believes he is intent upon building “a ‘national capability’ across police forces to tackle violent disorder.” He believes it should include technology such as facial recognition. That should make average citizens feel safer and protected. What better way to defeat xenophobia than provide new pretexts for paranoia?

Others in Starmer’s government have identified non-technological solutions to the visibly degraded situation. The Guardian notes the approach of Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, who “said she was launching a review of the curriculum in primary and secondary schools to embed critical thinking across multiple subjects and arm children against ‘putrid conspiracy theories.’”

Today’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Critical thinking:

1. The opposite of conformist thinking, an ideal around which most national educational programs and curricula are designed in the interest of making sure citizens never become too curious about how their behavior needs to be controlled.
2. The single most important life skill that has traditionally been excluded from all national educational programs and curricula that have been crafted to promote conformist thinking and, though sometimes regretted, is unlikely to reappear.

Contextual note

One is left wondering what Philipson means when she says she will “embed critical thinking across multiple subjects.” Is she intending to build critical thinking into the learning process as a fundamental feature or simply add some new techniques aimed at spotting disinformation?

This is an important distinction. Critical thinking for learning can be framed as either a discipline unto itself — with its own rules, built on the grounds of epistemological reflection and logic — or as a useful gadget for categorizing things like “putrid conspiracy theories” and rejecting them as sources of disinformation.

The Secretary’s drift tends to suggest the second solution, which bears little resemblance to authentic critical thinking. It consists of providing a system for recognizing clues that something might be disinformation because of its apparent resemblance with officially identified conspiracy theories. But such a practice is the contrary of critical thinking. It is nothing less than propaganda.

When faced with insufficient evidence needed to account for a known problem, a disciplined scientist first constructs and then tests one or more hypotheses. Some of them may seem far-fetched, but truth is sometimes far-fetched. In contrast, when your aim is to identify and reject “putrid conspiracy theories,” correct hypotheses can be dismissed before being tested. This violates the basic premise of empiricism, the basis for scientific critical thinking.

Philipson explains, “One example may include pupils analysing newspaper articles in English lessons in a way that would help differentiate fabricated stories from true reporting.” If there was a serious method to what she proposes, this would certainly represent a much desired breakthrough in any nation’s approach to education. The first problem to recognize is that, contrary to her belief in something called “true reporting,” all reporting contains some bias. Here the notion of “true reporting” can only be a chimera.

Historical note

Let’s take a case from recent history to test Philipson’s suggestion. An interesting place to begin might be a slew of stories published by The Guardian starting in 2016. All were designed, in typical conspiracy theory fashion, to make the British public believe a falsehood: that because Jeremy Corbyn had expressed criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, he should be labeled a rabid anti-Semite. The problem with determining that these were examples of false rather than true reporting is that it would require not only reading dozens of articles over a period of several years just to deal with one specific case, but studying the various objective reports on, for example, Israel’s policies that appear to be similar to apartheid. Can we expect school children at any level to engage in that kind of research and then apply their skills of critical thinking?

The other problem with that example is that it could create confusion about the meaning of “conspiracy.” The standard notion of antisemitism, citing the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” as the incriminating piece of evidence, is that anti-Semites are conspiracy theorists. But a study of The Guardian’s anti-Corbyn campaign might reveal something else: that The Guardian may have been part of a conspiracy organized by Britain’s powerful Israeli lobby so brilliantly (and controversially) exposed in a daring documentary by Al Jazeera? Making such a suggestion about The Guardian might easily get one thrown into the basket of those who fall for “putrid conspiracy theories?”

Just to be clear, The Jewish Voice for Labour actually did explore the history of that anti-Corbyn campaign. “In March 2016, the Guardian published a column by Jonathan Freedland with the title ‘Labour and the left have an antisemitism problem.’ If we could identify any single article as the starting point for the whole controversy, this was it.”

This and other articles to follow effectively led to the shaming of Jeremy Corbyn. “By the second half of 2019, bigoted views of Palestinians were so pervasive in British public discourse as to pass unnoticed.”

The self-inflicted wounds of Labour helped set the scene for the election of Boris Johnson. It was deemed a cautionary tale that established a simple principle, applicable anywhere: Criticizing Israel is a cardinal sin and a clear indicator of antisemitism. This principle is still in force for a majority of politicians of all parties. It has served to excuse what the International Court of Justice called a plausible genocide in January. Since January, the level of plausibility has significantly risen.

Britain’s Secretary of Education is right in principle, even if the practice she recommends is likely to be aberrant. Yes, it’s time to put in practice critical thinking at the core of our curricula, or simply bring it back after a long historical exile. Nurtured by Greek philosophers two and a half millennia ago, Western thinkers practiced it in various forms, from the disputio dear the scholastics in the Middle Ages and the inquiring minds of the French Enlightenment. But with the Industrial Revolution the cultivation of critical thinking was banished from our schools. The future for today’s youngsters is not open, critical dialogue. As everyone should know by now, it is about coding… or maybe trading or banking, something useful and cash positive for the practitioner. 

Look at the world of “public debate” today. What dominates in both politics and the media? Monologue. The college essay represents little more than proving one’s skill at the art of monologue. Critical thinking is born of… critical talking, or at least of active and even interactive exchange. But this is an age that conducts international relations as a zero sum game. It has abandoned diplomacy — which requires dialogue — in favor of waging war to impose “inviolable” principles. Talking itself has adopted the unique model of monologue. You’ll find it everywhere on commercial as well as social media.

Anyone interested in Plato’s monologues?

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of Fair Observer Devil’s Dictionary.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Your Solution to Riots: Technology or Critical Thinking? appeared first on Fair Observer.

For example, in Germany, the ruling social democratic party was annihilated with only 13.9% of the popular vote. The Conservative Christian Democratic Union won with 30%. In a shocking turn of events, the far-right alternative party Alternative für Deutschland (AFD) came in second with 15.9%. Even though the far-right didn’t win outright, in the former East Germany region, the AFD increased their vote share from 5% to 16% among voters younger than 24. The result is a good litmus test to measure just how far Europe is sliding to the right. 

An attempt to break the far-right fever

France has also become an example of the far-right frenzy. During the elections, the far-right party Rassemblement National (RN) won 32% of the vote. That’s more than double the vote share current French president Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party received. Created in 1972 by the reactionary Jean-Marie Le Pen, the party is now led by his daughter Marine, who has moderated it somewhat. Although she curtailed the neo-fascist elements within the party, RN remains a nationalist, populist party focused on extremely strict immigration controls.

RN has already left its mark on the French market. Bondholders are wary because RN economic policies are weak and promise spending. France could very well be facing potential instability. Fearing this, Macron called for a snap election. He hoped to break the far-right fever dominating his country. If people were made to vote again, he reasoned, they may remeasure the RN. 

If the RN won, RN’s Jordan Bardella would have been declared France’s next prime minister. Because the French constitution allows the head of government to be from a different party than the head of state, Macron would face a fractured and unstable political situation. However, France appears to have avoided disaster for the moment. Leftist and centrist candidates were able to cooperate, dropping out in each other’s favor when one held the edge. In the final result, RN came merely in third place. However, they had still increased their vote share significantly.

Why is this happening?

During the Cold War, there wasn’t a call for concern regarding the far-right — most countries were more concerned about the rise of communism. Now, however, a mass reaction against uncontrolled immigration has contributed to the rise of the far-right. France, for example, needed North African immigrants for factory work. However, these immigrant workers were never integrated into the society and culture. This created a significant “us vs. them” chasm. Europeans feared immigrants would threaten their “pure” society.

The biggest issue, therefore, lies in assimilation. A new population or culture is viewed as exotic up until it reaches 10% of the dominant population. As soon as it reaches that point, the population is suddenly viewed as disruptive and is rejected from the dominant society. It also takes about three generations for an immigrant family to fully integrate. That’s a long time. Something needs to be done about integration and immigration quicker.

The far-right has chosen to point their fingers in the direction of immigration as the cause of sociological issues. In actuality, the blame lies with the political elites who have failed to formulate proper immigration policies. A modern fault line runs through politics: Politicians rely too heavily on spin and not enough on real problems to receive votes. The lack of leadership in acknowledging present problems, most notably immigration, has led to a rise in populist, far-right leaders. 

With the rise in inflation, cost of living, and unemployment, people turn to scapegoats to blame. They have found an easy one in immigration issues. So when a charismatic, populist leader comes along promising an end to such issues, it’s only natural that the voter population will begin to turn right.

As this trend continues, there will be a strengthening of nationalism. Such a rise gives way to a decline in protectionism and multilateralism. A new world order is asserting itself, and it seems like European social democracy is increasingly discredited.

[Cheyenne Torres wrote the first draft of this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Exclusive: Volatile Europe Catches New Election Fever appeared first on Fair Observer.

The EU initiated anti-subsidy investigations on Chinese EVs on June 12. From the moment these began, Germans from the government to industry insiders expressed opposition. Chancellor Olaf Scholz even publicly stated that the German automotive industry would be able to compete with Asian car manufacturers.

Typically, a company applies for an investigation. This time, the EU Commission initiated an investigation on its own. So why does European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen not even give the German automotive industry a chance for “fair competition?” The EU clearly had a pre-established position, and the results of the investigation are foreordained. It only targets China; one can only call it another witch hunt. 

The EU’s anti-subsidy investigation on Chinese EVs launched in October 2023. Von der Leyen warned that the vehicles would “flood” into Europe. This had the potential to destroy the continent’s automotive industry. It was a reasonable fear; from 2012 to 2013, China damaged Europe’s solar energy industry by selling and illegally dumping €21 billion (over $22 billion) of solar panels there.

Von der Leyen intended to use this new investigation to further transform the EU into a geopolitical institution, which has been a core goal of hers since she took office. Von der Leyen is running for re-election as EU Commission president, and if that fails, she could try for the position of NATO Secretary-General with French and United States aid. So she is simultaneously using the investigation to gather political support, as she presents herself as a hardliner against China in her campaign.

But at what cost is she doing all this? Perhaps the destruction of the Eurasian continent due to trade conflicts? That’s not her concern.

Right-wing protectionism attempts to protect European industry

There’s been a significant rightward shift in the EU’s politics, as evidenced by the results of the 2024 EU parliamentary elections. This change undoubtedly casts a heavy shadow over China’s tariff policy. Rising conservative European forces will inevitably use trade protectionism to defend their own industries and employment. In response, these member states have further strengthened their demands to protect their own automotive jobs. Currently, at least seven EU countries provide land subsidies for industrial investment and several more provide preferential loans to enterprises.

This move completely caters to right-wing populism. (What comes after the rightward turn? The last time Europe faced the storm of populism and trade protectionism was in Germany before World War II.) Given China’s cost and technological advantages in EVs and wind power, the EU’s restrictions will also delay its efforts in energy conservation and emission reduction. This further delays its goals to address global climate change, which is incongruous with the EU’s claims of leading global climate governance.

Trade protectionist policies initiated by the US have also propelled the growing protectionism within the EU. In 2022, the US introduced the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides up to $7,500 in tax credits for new EVs and loans for used EVs. This move raised concerns within the EU about the impact on its own automotive industry and has led to the adoption of trade protectionist measures.

Meanwhile, the US’s recent trade war and decoupling practices against China have intensified the EU’s concerns about its own industrial development and security. In May 2024, the US announced an increase in tariffs on Chinese EVs from the previous 25% to 100%. The European Commission immediately followed suit by firing at Chinese EVs. This was hardly a coincidence.

The EU’s discriminatory subsidies and weaponized tariffs

For a long time, China and Europe have maintained a “cold politics, hot economy” model of cooperation — ideological differences do not affect both sides as important trade partners. However, this new emotional prejudice will chill the few commonalities between China and Europe. Von der Leyen seems to have forgotten that it was Europe itself that initiated the subsidy era in the field of new energy.

On February 1, 2023, von der Leyen officially launched the Green Deal Industrial Plan. This relaxed restrictions on government subsidies to enterprises, which is usually prohibited by the rules of the EU single market. But under the current policy on batteries, EU member states can offer financial assistance to battery manufacturers.

This plan was originally intended to improve Europe’s competitiveness in the field of clean energy, but its actual implementation has created discriminatory subsidies. According to statistics, the EU has provided €3 billion ($3.2 billion) in subsidies to battery manufacturers.

This EU tariff investigation has exposed the division within the EU, with countries like Germany and Hungary expressing opposition. Meanwhile, countries that do not export their own cars to China, represented by France, support the EU’s imposition of tariffs. In fact, Paris plans to raise the threshold for Chinese EVs entering the EU market, forcing Chinese manufacturers to invest and construct factories in France. As early as May, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire publicly stated that he welcomes the automotive manufacturer BYD to build factories there.

Like France, those who support increasing tariffs on Chinese cars have communicated with Chinese officials and car companies, expressing their will to cooperate. These countries do not oppose Chinese EVs, but rather the fact that they cannot benefit from them. They hope the companies will cooperate to drive the development of Europe’s automotive industry.

Objectively speaking, this goal is not difficult to achieve. Before this tariff policy started, manufacturers such as BYD had already started building factories in the EU. However, if Europeans use tariffs as a weapon to force China to build factories on their soil, that is a different story.

Can the EU’s automotive industry really develop if Chinese EVs are kept away? The protective tariffs have achieved nothing but delaying the use of low-cost, low-carbon energy in Europe by a few years. The EU’s anti-subsidy investigations can’t solve the problems faced by the EU in related industries, but may further worsen the situation. European consumers welcome inexpensive electric vehicles as well as low-carbon energy; after the anti-subsidy investigation, the EU members may have to buy Chinese EVs at higher prices. The only group not grateful for the reduced carbon dioxide emissions because of China is the EU, which has chosen a tariff war.

Europe and China could cooperate

The cooperation potential between China and Europe’s automotive industries far exceeds their differences. With electrification and intelligentization — the use of artificial intelligence with decision-making capability — the proportion of the cost of chips in car prices will rise dramatically. Although the Netherlands has photolithography technology and Germany has polysilicon, the majority of the chip industry’s profits goes to the US and the non-European countries like Japan and South Korea.

In this regard, China and Europe have common interests. China must develop its own chip industry. With its production capacity, the chip prices will definitely be reduced followed by the increased proportion of its chips in the global market. This is already in effect.

From January to May 2024, China’s integrated circuit export amounted to 444.73 billion renminbi (over $62 billion), a year-on-year increase of 21.2%, even exceeding the 20.1% of cars. It became the country’s second-largest industry with year-on-year growth. China has already occupied the popular mature process nodes of 28-40nm. Most car chips use 28nm or 40nm chips, so cooperating with China to use its chips can greatly reduce the production cost. The two countries would gain a competitive edge over US and Korean cars.

If the European automotive industry can’t cooperate with China in this game, Europe cannot participate as a player. Rather, it would be more like a bargaining chip. Habeck’s visit to China is a signal that Berlin has reached a consensus with Beijing to “decrease the impact” while Paris is still facing choices.

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Launching Tariffs Targeted at Chinese Automakers? Not Right, EU. appeared first on Fair Observer.

Everything may seem unchanged–Josep Borrell Fontenes, The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, continues to focus on his prominent political issues. The leaders of France, Germany, and the UK remain in the primetime news spotlight. European media produce a considerable amount of content featuring prominent European leaders. Sadly, all of this is just a beautiful facade.

In reality, things are quite bleak for Europeans. Borrell seems unable to become the voice of a unified Europe on the international stage, although he still desires it greatly. It was well-highlighted by POLITICO-Europe, “Borrell has always condemned the Hamas attacks, called for the unconditional liberation of all hostages, for a humanitarian pause leading to a sustainable cease-fire, for the humanitarian provision and a two-state solution, along the same line of the European Council conclusions that leaders unanimously agreed in March.” Nevertheless “during a meeting of EU leaders, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his Austrian counterpart Karl Nehammer confronted Josep Borrell on his months-long outspoken critique of Israel as the death toll in Gaza mounted, according to two officials briefed on the exchange.”

It looks like the euro bureaucracy restricts Borrell’s freedom. He always feels free to give careless comments. E.g. he is notorious for his “garden vs. jungle” metaphor that made him the EU’s undiplomatic top diplomat.  Many times, he ends up in awkward situations. Now, hardly anyone can take him seriously and perceive him as an influential politician following his own policy. On the contrary, his behavior represents what the global West will become – noisy but increasingly irrelevant.

One after another, new nationally oriented African leaders asked France to leave the region. Following coups in those countries, neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso have already kicked out France’s forces. This has weakened its influence in its former colonies amid a wave of anti-French sentiment.

Paris does it without resistance, not even formally attempting to negotiate its interests. For more than two months, French President Emmanuel Macron took a defiant stance, ignoring the ultimatum set by the junta in Niger, who came to power in July after a military coup. France refused to engage with the junta leaders or move on their demands to remove French troops stationed in the country to fight terrorism.   

It withdrew its military contingents. Meanwhile, President Macron is trying to make history calling for an “Olympic truce” during the Olympics scheduled to take place from July 26 to August 11, 2024, in Paris.“We will do everything to have an Olympic truce, we will work on it,” Macron said in an interview with BFM television. But his voice is still weak and Europe is reluctant to listen to him, let alone Moscow. Macron pleads for an Olympic truce but suffers double rejection. What happens now does not align well with France’s international reputation and Macron’s ego.

Half of the German population opposes China’s influence. At the dawn of a new political era, the German population’s growing mistrust of China has significant implications for the country’s foreign policy. The other half “dreams” of Beijing coming to their country and “taking it over as an investor.”German business associations widely welcome China’s economic strategy.  

However, when Scholz arrived in China on an official visit this April, he faced a change in attitude toward him by the Chinese officials. Scholz was forced to deal with the low-level diplomatic reception. The Chongqing Vice Mayor Zhang Guozhi was the only official who met him upon arriving at the airport. It was a flagrant breach of protocol to receive foreign leaders or diplomats at the wrong level. It sends a negative message when you receive or offer to receive another country leader at a lower level. The MFAs of any country know that, but Scholz had no choice but to accept this reality. 

At Tel Aviv airport, air sirens forced Chancellor Scholz to lie on the ground due to a missile attack threat from Hezbollah. That was a severe blow to the image of the head of one of Europe’s leading countries. People in the Middle East will remember this episode for a long time. Video showed panicked German officials fleeing a plane amid a missile threat in Israel became top news. It is challenging to follow up the tough guy position during future contacts after such public experience, especially in the Middle East, where value leaders and individuals who uphold personal strength are challenging.

Despite Britain not being a part of the EU anymore, it maintains the first-line position among the leaders of Europe. London nowadays took a wait-and-see approach and preferred not to stick its neck out unnecessarily. The English have always been characterized by a healthy sense of caution. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is formally active and visible, traveling the world and talking even more. He says the right things, but they are not his thoughts and ideas. He repeats everything already said at various levels in Washington, not adding personal insight into the situation. This wise behavior allows him to avoid taking responsibility and escape unnecessary scrutiny of his personality.

The above is just a small part of what people in Asia and the Global South observe. And they are not at all happy about it. What these countries need is sustainable growth and development. Alongside North America, Asia is where the European Union and its member states are most deeply economically intertwined – through trade, supply chains, investment, financial flows, and mutual reliance on market demand.  

But it is only possible when a partner, even a stronger one, behaves consistently and predictably. As even Prince Michael of Liechtenstein admits, European countries say they base their foreign policies on values – but doing so has led to inconsistency in how they treat international partners.  Europe is gradually losing these qualities in the eyes of people living on other continents.

Many people in Asia have come to perceive Europe as a political open space leaning towards its decline. They still have money and technology, but long-term investors and manufacturing capacity are steadily moving to other world regions. The stability of the European economy depends more and more on China and Asia. The leaders of Europe are already rushing to the region and are looking back and forth at each other.

Europeans still influence global politics, e.g. as a global actor, the EU and the UK inspire countries worldwide and strengthen international development in many ways. At the same time, they have continued to fail to influence the end of the war in Ukraine. The conflict has been going on for three years, and European approaches still oscillate from bravado to panic. It is unlikely that Moscow or Kyiv will take such a political approach seriously. Europe should be more persistent and figure out its goals, ways and means more unambiguously, speaking with one voice to clarify its position for everybody.

Human rights continue to represent one of the core values of Europe. But in the face of the conflict in Gaza, many European countries are losing the moral right to lecture others on the issue. Although this is not just a European problem, the Europeans are not able to come up with an effective formula to stop the endless and merciless bloodshed on both sides.

The results of the European elections held over the past month — notably, the significant rise of right-wing parties — have sent another clear message. Europeans are tired of dealing with the consequences of current social and economic policies and want change. 

Calling snap elections in France for June 9, Macron described his decision as an “act of confidence.” However, his centrist Renaissance party showed a significant lag (21.27%) behind the far-right Rassemblement National (31.4%) in the first round. While he managed to squeak out of total defeat by working with the Left to exclude Rassemblement National, his position is seriously compromised. This suggests that Macron’s “confidence” stemmed from his erratic policies, which lost touch with the real issues faced by the French people. 

On July 4, Britain’s ruling Conservative Party was thrown out of government after 14 years of rule. Here, unlike on the continent, the establishment belongs to the Right, and it was to the Left that the people turned to express their discontent. The Labour Party won a landslide victory with 411 out of the House of Commons’ 650 seats. Voters deserted the Sunak-led ruling Conservative Party due to his numerous mistakes, which have led the country to its current state.  

Considering what is happening now, it would be understandable for Asian countries to seek more stable and predictable relations. That’s why so many governments are willing to join BRICS. Countries from Iran to Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Algeria, Indonesia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Cuba and Kazakhstan have considered joining.

China’s One Belt, One Road initiative also attracts an increasing number of supporters. There are 150 countries formally affiliated with the Belt and Road Initiative, and six more are considering joining it shortly. Cooperation within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Comprehensive Regional Economic Partnership is gaining momentum. Europe and Western countries participated insignificantly in all of this. Once again, in its history, Europe has faced the need to clearly understand itself and its role in the rapidly changing modern world. The emerging confrontation between the West and the East requires an adequate and balanced response.

Europe has to stop reflecting on the past. The old international world order is already fading into the past. The Global South is developing rapidly and demands fair consideration of its interests. Asia is closely watching Europe lose its power but dreams of its colonialism-based part of the US-led rule-based order. Europeans need to accept the new reality as quickly as possible and keep up with the times.

[Liam Roman edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Europe Needs to Find a New Path appeared first on Fair Observer.

Europe is in an even more dramatic bind than the US. The ambiguity surrounding Biden himself means that the likelihood of a new Trump White House has never been greater, despite Trump being a convicted felon thanks to the judgment of a criminal court that same June. Europeans are dreading the unpredictable consequences of a new Trump administration.

Even without that factor of ambiguity, Europe is immersed in its own problems. The major event of the month was the initiation of what may turn into a new French Revolution. Reacting to the disastrous showing of his coalition in the European parliamentary elections on June 9, President Emmanuel Macron, as soon as the results were announced, precipitously hatched his daring, potentially suicidal gambit. He called for new elections to “clarify” the balance of political forces in France. Already struggling to deal with the expense, uncertainty and disappointing evolution of NATO’s tragic war in Ukraine, Europe was thrown into a state of suspended animation as it awaited the outcomes of the British and French elections. Those took place in the first week of July.

On June 13, four days after Macron’s act of folly, Alex Gloy offered this “quick observation” based on the state of the global bond markets. He sees the unmistakable seeds of a European banking crisis.

“These are current 10-year government bond yields (except TYX, which is the US 30-yr). The focus here is on the difference, or spread, in yield between Germany and France. A week ago, that spread was 0.50%. It is rapidly widening, now at 0.71%. This is worrying. Why? You can purchase government bonds in the same currency but get different yields. This does not make sense unless there is a difference in default probability and / or exit from the Euro. Both of which would be catastrophic events for Europe.

Germany has fiscal deficit of 2.5% of GDP, while France is running at 5.5%. Germany has a debt-to-GDP ratio of 63.6%, while France stands at 111%.

Financial markets hate uncertainty, and the outcome of French elections is unknown, with the risk being a populist right-wing government ignoring the fiscal constraints of the Treaty of Maastricht (max 3% deficit, max 60% debt-to-GDP, both which are already being ignored).

France’s fiscal position is now worse than Spain (3.6% deficit, 108% debt-to-GDP). France should tighten its belt, but that would probably cause more social unrest.

The spread-widening in the government bond market has led to pressure on European bank stocks; BNP fell from EUR 72 to 60 and Deutsche Bank from 16.70 to 14.60. Banks usually have positions in government bonds. Another banking crisis is the last thing Europe needs now.

Still, it is worth mentioning that all Euro-members, including Greece, are currently paying less than the UK or the US.”

Related Reading

Money Matters: Revealing Who Is Holding Billions of US Banknotes

Our colleague Edward Quince offered his own reflections, provoked by another destabilizing event in the month of June: the presence of a Russian nuclear submarine off the coast of the US.

“Alex,

Mr. Putin ain’t dumb. The alarming part of his seemingly nonsensical attitude toward the USD is his informed confidence about what is to come next. Note that he almost always refers to the USD in the past tense. I’ll detail the not-so-secret weapon he has up his sleeve after I finish documenting the events surrounding the Russian nuclear submarine docking in Havana, Cuba today. The short answer, however, is ‘BRICS Bridge, blockchain, and gold derivatives.’

When I researched the work done by Russia and China since 2008 to establish a new, more equitable, and less risky finance and trade environment, BRICS emerged as the ultimate cooperation framework and platform. After having read a ton, it is apparent that a tremendous amount of very focused and deliberate work has been done since then. This 2015 Ufa Declaration describes the goals, the underlying strategy and some tactics behind the major finance and trade initiatives. The key framework there is the Contingent Reserves Arrangement. Nine years and several global crises later, Mr. Putin has told us just a tiny bit about what has been built on that foundation.

On a separate note, I’ve just finished re-reading Henry Kissinger’s ‘On China.’ The intricate political play that Kissinger orchestrated in the 70s and the 80s now looks like an elaborate short-term trap for China in the American long-term game against Russia. I can only imagine the depth of resentment and distrust towards the US in Beijing these days. Alternatively, it is possible that there has never been any such trust, and China played the long game knowing that one day the USA would inevitably turn adversarial once again. Nevertheless, since there is nobody resembling Mr. Kissinger in Washington now, there seems to be no going back to the status quo to which we all grew so accustomed.”

With the drama continuing to develop, on June 29, I offered my own testimony. I am a voter in the coming French election, and potentially the US election in November.

“As a dual citizen of two nations, each with a president clearly demonstrating suicidal behavior, I have to wonder about the continued political coherence and even institutional solidity of both. Tomorrow I will be voting in an election that in all probability will establish the contour of what promises to be twelve months of political and I expect even deeper cultural chaos. On July 8 France will most likely have a ‘hung by the rafters’ parliament and a situation of maneuvering that will take place as much on the streets as in the Assemblée Nationale.

The point of a presidential as opposed to a parliamentary regime is that at the core of government there is a human being who symbolizes the unity of the nation. Political wrangling is a permanent feature of all democracies, but there is always some kind of symbol that makes even the worst confrontations palatable. In the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium and even Spain, the monarchy plays its role in stabilizing the question of national identity. In presidential regimes, it can only be the president and the flag.

On Sunday, June 9, Emmanuel Macron miscalculated when, by announcing the dissolution the Assemblée, he effectively declared two things: 

• That any pretense of political unity for the nation was compromised beyond negotiable repair;
• That the president, as a lame duck because of serving his second term, had now become a non-entity, deprived of the quasi-absolute power De Gaulle had defined for the office.

Macron hoped to address the first point but he was in denial about the reality of the second one, despite its being obvious to everyone else, including his own inner circle.

For three quarters of a century Europe has developed as a zone of relative peace and prosperity in the shadow of the US nuclear umbrella and the US dollar, despite the launch of the Euro. In the context of the war in Ukraine, it has now implicitly embraced the growth of what Dwight Eisenhower – alone among all modern presidents – had the temerity to name: the military-industrial complex. 

Europeans have long worried about the role of what President Giscard d’Estaing called the “exorbitant privilege” but accepted the floating dollar as a feature of the new world order. De Gaulle led the campaign against the dollar that eventually led to Nixon’s decoupling of the dollar and gold, creating a new global landscape supported by the petrodollar and the Eurodollar. De Gaulle also dared to counter the US by withdrawing from NATO’s central command structure, with the futile aim of achieving military autonomy.

Europe is still struggling mightily with these two issues. It will be interesting to see how this year’s elections influence those developments.”

Previous episodes of Money Matters are available here:

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We invite all of you who have something to contribute to send us your reflections at dialogue@fairobserver.com. We will integrate your insights into the ongoing debate. We will publish them as articles or as part of the ongoing dialogue.

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[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

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Keir’s election has changed Britain’s trajectory and — hopefully — its standing in the world. As many others have said, after the ignominious prime ministerships of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, we at last have adults running our government. It is an event that I have been hoping and working for since 2014 when he sat at my dining table for the first time.

Let me explain. Keir and I live within the same constituency — Holborn and St Pancras, in central London. In that year, our local member of Parliament, Frank Dobson, announced he was standing down, opening the way for a new MP. Our constituency is a safe Labour seat and highly desirable. 

Our local party had three excellent candidates (as well as several also-rans) to choose from. They included the chair of Camden Council, our local administration. She was a woman, and we were keen to have more gender balance in Parliament. Then there was the chair of our own Labour Party — a fine young Asian lawyer, and we also wanted more ethnic diversity. And there was a very popular local doctor. We would have happily backed any of them.

Then, out of the blue, up popped Keir Starmer. Very few of us knew him. In his former role as Director of Public Prosecutions, he ran key cases across the country. It was a position that prevented him from being a member of any party. In November 2013, he stood down and rejoined Labour, of which he had been a member since his youth.

When Keir decided to stand for Frank Dobson’s seat, he began ringing local party members, asking to come and see them. And so it was that he arrived at my home for coffee.

Now, Keir is someone who listens more than he talks. But there is something about the way he does it that is entirely engaging. You know he is really listening, taking in your every word. Within 10 minutes I thought: “He’s not just our next MP, he’s our gift to the whole Labour Party.”

I have got many things wrong, but this was one I was right about. Keir took months off and embarked on an intense campaign of meeting and listening to as many local party members as possible. I went with him, knocking on doors, sitting in kitchens.

It was a strategy that none of the other candidates adopted. They spoke to party officers and relied on their local reputations. But Keir’s strategy paid off in spades. When the selection meetings took place, party members whom we had never met before came out in droves. Keir won hands down.

The fact that he was selected against apparently insuperable odds should tell us something. Our new prime minister is intensely competitive, intensely strategic and intensely hardworking. Once he adopts a course, he follows it, no matter how difficult it may appear. His focus is extraordinary. 

As his semi-official biographer Tom Baldwin records, Keir lived in a North London flat as a young man. It had a rotting floor and was above a sauna and massage parlor. One friend’s father was hesitant to visit the building as he feared others would think it was a brothel. One day, thieves broke in. Keir was so buried in his work as an attorney, concentrating on the arguments, that he didn’t notice.

There are many stories of hardship in Keir’s early days as a barrister supporting radical causes, but perhaps one stands out. It is the McLibel story. In 1986, a group of environmental activists distributed a six-page amateurish leaflet entitled, “What’s wrong with McDonald’s: everything they don’t want you to know.” It accused the giant corporation of a long list of evils, from producing unhealthy hamburgers to clearing the Amazon rainforest. McDonald’s decided to take them on and brought a libel case that, in time, the company would deeply regret. 

Most members of the penniless activist group gave up and paid a small fine. But two — Helen Steel and David Morris — refused, and the case went to court. It was to become the longest libel trial in British history, with experts flying in at their own expense from around the world to support them. But behind the scenes, they had another supporter. Keir Starmer gave them free legal advice for ten long years. Without it, they would hardly have won the final settlement which found that both sides had arguments in their favor.

There are many stories of this kind. Keir seldom refers to them. But a word of warning to anyone who gets to know our prime minister: don’t take him on at football. I have played against him in an unofficial game we used to have among Labour activists. He’s as tough as they come. I am a South African, and the only way I could survive was to use the tactics I knew from my early days playing rugby. He was a little taken aback, as I broke all the rules, something that Keir would never do.

I doubt that he will have time for this for a while, but one thing you can be sure of: He will continue his support for Arsenal — our local North London football side — and for the English team, no matter how well or badly they play.

Passionate, radical and doggedly determined, as well as astute and knowledgeable. That is the man that I have come to know and to respect.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Keir Starmer – My Prime Minister, Member of Parliament and Friend appeared first on Fair Observer.

“Policy learning” and Italy and Albania’s risky plan

A clear aim of the conference was to foster “policy learning” practices among participants. Italy, led by right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, serves as an example for other European leaders to follow.

The Italian government and Albania, led by Prime Minister Edvin Rama, have negotiated a five-year asylum deal. The plan is to build asylum processing facilities under Italian jurisdiction in Albania. They will receive asylum seekers coming via the Mediterranean route, and accelerate processing and repatriation of those whose asylum is declined.The plans are now already in the implementation phase.

By financing and remaining in control of these facilities, the Italian government aims to sidestep potential breaches of international conventions. The Rwanda plans promoted by Denmark and the UK have in fact faced difficulties due to international conventions that prohibit deporting asylum seekers to countries where their fundamental rights cannot be assured.

The Italian–Albanian contract highlights however the high costs of outsourcing asylum processes. They are projected at a minimum of €30 million (over $32 million) annually for basic operational expenses, with total costs far surpassing the initial estimate of €650 million (over $694 million). These financial burdens necessitated substantial cuts in other critical public welfare areas, such as education, health, public transport.

Several factors underscore the major costs, precariousness and inadequacy of such agreements. The contract is rather ambiguous. It will be difficult to monitor the centers’ humanitarian conditions, and there are high risks of corruption during the construction and management of the facilities. Additionally, political instability in Albania might cause the country to withdraw from the contract altogether.

The Social Democrats on asylum outsourcing

But with Rome and Tirana’s plan in the background, the Copenhagen  event served as a strategic platform for Denmark to re-propose its contentious scheme to transfer asylum seekers to a non-Schengen third country. The plan was influenced by similar initiatives in the UK that faced legal rejection from the Supreme Court over concerns of refoulement and severe violations of international law. It was previously negotiated in Rwanda in 2021, under a preliminary agreement by former Immigration Minister Mattias Tesfaye and Rwandan Foreign Minister Manasseh Nshuti. The plan followed the legislative changes to the Immigration and Repatriation Acts endorsed by the Danish Social Democrats (SD) and right-wing parties in June 2021. It has now stalled.

The conference signaled a reinvigorated attempt by the Danish SD and representatives of other EU countries to discuss and explore joint strategies for externalizing asylum reception and processing. This approach reflects a broader policy trend among EU right-wing populist and conservative governments; they commend the SD asylum model and recommend its replication and expansion. Additionally, the European Parliament elections, which tilted the political spectrum further to the right, suggest these viewpoints may gain prominence over the next five years.

Politicians are increasingly discussing and employing the outsourcing of asylum processing to third countries, but the practice raises significant humanitarian, economic, legal and political concerns. The great financial burden and potential political instability in these countries underscore the risks of such approaches. These factors cast serious doubt on the viability and long-term sustainability of these so-called solutions to asylum. They also suggest a strategic turn by the Danish SD towards more neoconservative and nativist right-wing positions, influenced by electoral dynamics and dissatisfaction among certain voter groups.

This shift also raises vital questions about the compatibility of such policies with established EU democratic and humanitarian values and the core ideals of social democracy. The Danish SD’s decision not to endorse the Party of European Socialists (PES) Berlin Declaration, which commits to resisting far-right influences in the European Parliament, marks a transformation within the party. It could exacerbate differences within the broader European political family.

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Copenhagen Now Brings a Risky Right-Wing Shift in Asylum Policy appeared first on Fair Observer.

Differing views on Russia within NATO

Not all NATO members share the same perception of Russia. While some Eastern European countries, like Poland, perceive Russia as a direct threat and advocate for a stronger military presence, others, like Hungary, adopt a more balanced approach, prioritizing diplomacy and national interests. This divergence in viewpoints highlights the complexities within the alliance and the challenges of reaching a unified stance on Russia.

The varying perspectives on Russia also reflect the influence of historical experiences. Countries like Poland, which suffered under Soviet rule, harbor deep-rooted fears and advocate for a more assertive approach toward Russia. In contrast, countries with less traumatic histories, or those prioritizing economic ties, may lean more towards diplomacy and cooperation.

The debate over NATO’s role and the perception of Russia extends beyond Eastern Europe. Western European powers, including Germany, France and the UK, have unique worldviews influencing their foreign policies towards Russia. Germany has frequently supported Eastern European nations and sided with the US because of historical guilt. At the same time, France has traditionally sought a more balanced approach, maintaining dialogue with Russia while supporting Ukraine. On the other hand, the UK has historically been more aligned with the US and has taken a stronger anti-Russia stance.

Recent developments, such as France’s consideration of sending troops to Ukraine and the UK’s training of Ukrainian soldiers, indicate a potential shift in the alliance’s dynamics. France’s position suggests a growing alignment with Eastern European nations, calling for a more assertive approach in light of its losses in Africa and the perceived threat posed by Russian mercenaries. The UK’s actions reflect its historical grievances with Russia and its close alliance with the US.

Economic Woes Hinder Defense Spending in Europe

The economic and political challenges European countries face further complicate NATO’s decision-making. Many European nations grapple with economic downturns, rising inflation and unbalanced budgets. The need to prioritize economic growth and social services may limit their willingness to increase defense spending or commit additional resources to military interventions.

Its members’ differing priorities and security concerns exemplify NATO’s complexities. Turkey, a NATO member, has played a complex role in the Ukraine conflict, balancing its support for Ukraine with economic deals with Russia. People have raised concerns about Turkey’s reliability as an ally and its potential influence on NATO’s decisions.

NATO can solidify its future by overcoming internal divisions and forging a common approach. Navigating varying perceptions of Russia, balancing member priorities and adapting to a shifting geopolitical landscape are crucial tasks. As the world becomes increasingly multipolar, NATO’s role and effectiveness will face new challenges. The alliance must demonstrate agility in adapting to these challenges while ensuring its core principles of collective defense and security cooperation remain robust.

[Peter Choi edited this podcast and wrote the first draft of this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/podcast are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Establishing Unity Within NATO by Bridging the Divide appeared first on Fair Observer.

The rapid purge of the prosecutor’s office and changes to the criminal law quickly drew criticism from Slovak partners and allies, including the European Commission and the US Embassy in Slovakia. The European Parliament recently passed a resolution expressing concerns about Slovakia’s capacity to combat corruption and safeguard the EU budget in the event that the proposed reform of the criminal code is approved.

Domestically, the protesters and opposition leaders consider the government’s actions to be part of a gradual dismantling of the rule of law in the country. Robert Fico, they argue, views the ÚŠP as existential threat to be removed. A petition organized by three opposition parties — Progressive Slovakia, the Christian Democratic Movement and the Freedom and Solidarity party — reads:

We, the citizens of the Slovak Republic, reject attacks on the rule of law, which must be inviolable in a democratic country. Therefore, we ask the Government of the Slovak Republic to withdraw the draft law by which it wants to abolish the Special Prosecutor’s Office, reduce the penalty rates for corrupt criminal activity and remove the status of protected whistleblowers from members of the Police Force.

The petition has gained 81,000 signatures so far.

Fico eliminates a threat to his power

Fico justifies the government’s proposal by claiming that the ÚŠP jeopardizes human rights. According to legal experts, that allegation is just an artificial cover-up for the fact that prosecutors were pursuing organized crime involving people in Fico’s immediate circle, including his party members.

Related Reading

Robert Fico Returns: Will Slovakia Become the New Hungary?

Along with the abolition of the ÚŠP, other “reforms,” such as the reduction of punishments for corruption and economic crime, are also set to be implemented. President Zuzana Čaputová has warned that the proposed changes will take place through an expedited legislative process without expert discussion. Čaputová considers the abolition of the ÚŠP a significant alteration to the existing framework of law enforcement agencies in Slovakia, contradicting the principle of the rule of law.

Following Fico’s proposal, prosecutors involved in ongoing investigations would be transferred to regional offices of the general prosecutor. However, experts point out that the general prosecutor’s office has shown in the past a tendency to use a notorious legal provision (Paragraph 363) to halt entire processes without the possibility of resuming.

Additionally, regional offices lack the resources of the ÚŠP, which had 30 specialized prosecutors dedicated to combating organized crime, with impactful results.

As I wrote in Fair Observer the day before the new government was appointed on October 25, the erosion of democratic institutions, oppression of minorities and the shrinking of the civil society environment is slowly (or, indeed, rapidly) becoming the new political reality in Slovakia.

Proposed personnel changes in key state institutions go beyond the usual post-election transfer of power. They represent systemic changes transforming the entire institutional state. The affected departments are mainly those that Smer wants to get back under its control, those where there is an ideological-cultural struggle or those which present an opportunity for political revanchism.

For example, Fico has changed police leadership, including internal affairs. He has subsequently purged more personnel, laying off investigators who dealt with cases of political corruption. He has also replaced three members of the Judicial Council, a constitutional body that oversees judicial independence.

The new government has carried out many other measures in line with its nationalist ideological agenda. It has reorganized the strategic communication departments and departments for the fight against hybrid threats by firing experts dealing with pro-Russian disinformation narratives. It has also taken control of funds meant for the culture ministry, along with marginalizing artists whose messages the government deems unacceptable.

Finally, the government has announced that it will no longer be officially communicating with four leading media outlets that are critical of Fico. State-owned enterprises will no longer advertise with these outlets. The government is also withholding grants from non-governmental organizations whose ideological orientation it opposes.

Joining the troublemaker club        

Fico’s government has already earned comparisons from Slovak observers to the former Slovak Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar, under whose government in the 1990s Slovakia faced criticism from the West due to the deficit of democracy. According to former Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda, Fico resembles his Hungarian counterpart, Viktor Orbán.

At the EU level, the situation in Slovakia has already become the subject of discussion. Just after the September 30, 2023, Slovak legislative elections, the European Socialist Party suspended the membership of Smer and its coalition partner, Voice — Social Democracy. It did so due to their positions on the Russian war against Ukraine, the rule of law and the LGBTIQ community.

Now, the proposed criminal reforms have raised alarm. The EU public prosecutor’s office sent a letter to the European Commission condemning the proposed changes as a serious threat to the rule of law. The letter also noted that the measures would impact the financial interests of the EU.

The EU faces a new test. How far will it prevent Fico from going with his illiberal plans? It remains to be seen how tough a position the EU will take and what consequences the international community, particularly the EU, will draw from the new domestic situation in Slovakia. At the moment, Fico’s motivation to undermine the rule of law and democratic principles is still high. This might change if the domestic protests and international pressure continue.

On March 23, 2024, with a second round on April 6, Slovaks will vote for their next president. Whether the president comes from the opposition or from the government camp will play a significant role in the further domestic development in Slovakia. President Čaputová currently represents, in the eyes of the opposition parties, the last of the institutional barriers against the implementation of Fico’s nationalist agenda.

“At this pace, no one can stop us.” Robert Fico said in December last year. But Slovakia is still a functioning democracy based on an active civil society and citizen engagement. Not all Slovaks voted for Smer, after all. Indeed, Slovak citizens are the ones who can stop him. Given that they forced Fico out in 2018, it would not even be the first time.

[Anton Schauble edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico Is the EU’s Latest Headache appeared first on Fair Observer.

European diplomats are now routine in their assessment that Erdoğan’s Turkey is not the kind of place — considering the state of human rights, freedoms in public life, freedom of the press, separation of the institutions of state — that can seriously expect to return to accession negotiations. Yet there is considerable shortsightedness in this “moral high ground” approach to Turkey’s long-stalled EU accession.

Certainly, to take just one example, the treatment of the country’s Kurdish minority since at least the failed coup attempt of 2016 has been repressive in the extreme.

Many supporters of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) are keen to point out that the only reason the opposition lost the recent elections in May 2023 is because they pandered to terrorists, in the form of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), a political party aligned with Kurdish interests, and connected with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) separatist insurgency.

However, this narrative is a false one. If engaging with Kurdish political groups were so electorally suicidal, how is it that the same Recep Tayyip Erdoğan led a thawing in the cultural and political climate for Kurds in the late 2000s, including peace talks with jailed leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, and yet continued to win elections? This fact reveals Erdoğan as a far more opportunistic, and less dogmatic, leader than is often supposed. And why did he support this engagement with Kurdish political figures? A key driver was the reform agenda of the EU accession negotiations.

FO° Live: Making Sense of the Turkish Elections

The trouble with the EU

The truth is that the EU itself swung Turkish politics decisively in a nationalist and repressive direction. The reason lies in the fact that many in the EU — most conspicuously France and Austria — were never genuine in their promise of accession to the bloc. The strain of Islamophobia in both states, and to a lesser extent in Germany and elsewhere, made even a squeaky clean Turkey unpalatable within what many still see as an essentially Christian club. 

Brexit was, ironically, a further blow to Turkey. The year 2016 stands as the moment the EU slipped irrevocably from Turkey’s grasp. With the departure of the UK, a key supporter of Turkish accession, and the attempted coup d’etat in Turkey, the fate of the nation was sealed. It is a singular irony that, in the run-up to the Brexit vote in the UK, the Leave campaign distributed leaflets warning Britons that Turkey would soon join the bloc, sending millions of poor Turks to British shores. Nothing could have been further from the truth. 

As a result of European disingenuousness, the goal of EU accession has lost its appeal. With it, the incentive to reform dissipated. The incentive provided by EU accession is an invaluable asset of the European project, as is being observed in Ukraine today. In Turkey, it was a powerful force, with membership being hugely popular not only among elites but among ordinary Turks as well. With no prospect of membership, Erdoğan’s ruling AKP turned to hardline nationalists to shore up its parliamentary majority. The result is a Turkey that looks far less palatable to the bloc than the one it quietly rejected in the late 2000s. 

This moral high ground approach to foreign policy is still counterproductive for the EU, even at this late, late stage. When Turkey set out on its quest for EU membership in the 1950s, it was far from a model democratic nation. Indeed, it went through several coups and repressive military juntas, and the treatment of vulnerable groups such as the Kurds was easily equal to the treatment administered by the current government. Accession talks were not based on what Turkey was, but what it might become. The same could easily be applied today.

Ukrainian exceptionalism

It is striking that Ukraine, which is now seeking EU membership in earnest, is in many respects a more unpalatable prospect than Turkey would be. And yet it appears less of a stretch for the European imagination. In much the same way that Greece and Cyprus received membership despite serious shortcomings in terms of economic and political governance, Ukraine appears to find itself in a different passport lane from Turkey. The worry is that this double standard may be rooted in cultural perceptions that do not ultimately serve Europe’s best strategic interests. 

One cannot turn back the clock. And yet, if the EU at least observed where its strength actually lay and where its best interests lay, it might start to approach even the Turkey of Erdoğan with a little more of the long-term strategic vision necessary to avoid the inevitable repercussions of lost influence. For many decades, the carrot of EU accession served as a powerful tool in EU relations with Turkey and many other states. Without it, the ultimate result is likely to be long-term EU decline, while its borders become ever more insecure, its internal population more paranoid and introspective and its ability to project power abroad weaker.

[Anton Schauble edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post This Is Why Turkey Won’t Make It Into the EU appeared first on Fair Observer.

“Chad, you surely remember that back in 2019 the Trump administration made the extraordinary decision that a man called Juan Guaidó, who had never been elected or even considered as a presidential candidate, should be recognized as the legitimate president of Venezuela. Donald Trump justified this by claiming the democratically elected President Nicolás Maduro was a dictator who had managed democracy in his favor. After his withdrawal from the Paris climate accords and the Iran deal, Trump had acquired a reputation for making peremptory foreign policy decisions. Astonishingly, the European Union despite having made known its discomfort with Trump’s policies and personality, followed suit, recognizing Guaidó as Venezuela’s president. Two years later, in January 2021, just before the end of Trump’s term, the EU quietly withdrew their recognition of Guaidó. How can we explain the Europeans’ willingness to do something so obviously arbitrary and undemocratic?”

Chad surprised me by immediately resorting to a familiar strategy designed to dismiss probing questions.

“It’s important to note that the issue of recognizing Juan Guaidó as the legitimate president of Venezuela is a complex and multi-faceted one, and opinions on this matter can vary.”

Usually Chad takes some time before reaching the conclusion that there are too many contradictory opinions to take any one of them seriously. This time I had to react.

“Stop, stop! Please, Chad. I understand. No need to continue. Once you’ve trotted out your patented ‘complex and multifaceted,’ there’s no reason to add any other arguments to it. Case closed.”

Chad paused, stared at me for a moment and then insisted on adding this reflection. “The decision by some European nations to recognize Juan Guaidó may have been influenced by pressure from the United States. Historically, the United States has had strong ties with Europe, and there may have been a desire to align with American policy, particularly under the Trump administration.”

The Trump factor

Now the alacrity of Europeans  to follow the Trump administration surprised me, so I followed up with this question. “Why would you think the Europeans are ‘particularly’ inclined to follow Trump’s lead? That sounds contradictory to me.”

Chad apologized for giving a wrong impression and clarified by asserting that “the United States has historically been an important ally and partner for many European nations, and there is often a desire to maintain a close relationship and align on key policy issues. Despite concerns and disagreements with certain aspects of the Trump administration’s policies, European nations generally value the transatlantic relationship and may have felt compelled to maintain some level of cooperation or alignment, including in matters related to Venezuela.”

Now we were making some progress. The real question concerns what kind of relationship is implied when one party fells “compelled” to fall in line with another party’s arbitrary policies. This evoked in my mind more recent events and shared my .thought with Chad.

“Would that justify French President Emmanuel Marcron’s recently expressed concern about European nations falling into the role of what he called vassals of the US on the Taiwan situation with China.”

“Yes,” Chad responded, “the concerns expressed by President Emmanuel Macron about European nations potentially becoming vassals of the United States are valid and reflect a broader discussion within Europe regarding strategic autonomy and the balance of power in international relations. Macron, along with other European leaders, has emphasized the need for Europe to assert its own interests and pursue a more independent foreign policy.

Chad then surprised me by another assertion. “European nations, including France, have expressed the view that they should maintain their own strategic interests and make decisions based on their own assessments of geopolitical risks and opportunities.”

“Wait a minute,” I exclaimed. “I admit that France has insisted on strategic autonomy at least since De Gaulle, and maybe Germany has at times shown tendencies in that direction. But I don’t see any other European countries taking that stance, especially now that they have aligned behind the US as the leader of NATO in confronting Russia, despite the damage not just to their sense of autonomy but also their economy. Germany in particular has abjectly accepted policieis and acts by the US that have had the effective of crippling its economy.”

NATO’s strategic ambiguity

Chad’s response was predictable.

“It is important to note that European countries also value the transatlantic relationship and recognize the benefits of cooperation with the United States, particularly within the NATO framework. NATO serves as a vital alliance for collective defense and has played a crucial role in deterring potential security threats, including from Russia.”

“As Trump himself pointed out,” I retorted, “Europeans have become complacent with a situation in which the US makes the essential investment in their defense. But that has impeded even the hope of autonomy. And now they are enduring the consequences of Washington’s aggressive policy aimed at weakening Russia. This has produced a profound feeling of malaise. Although, no one seems willing to rock the boat for the moment, the economic consequences will eventually take their toll on European solidarity. I know you don’t know the answer to this, but, given your understanding of past historical trends, at one point will either the governments change course or the people revolt? Or will they only change course if the people revolt?”

I knew Chad would both acknowledge my point and find a way of avoiding a direct answer.

“The economic consequences of certain policies or actions, as you mentioned, can certainly impact European solidarity and influence public sentiment. Economic factors have historically played a role in shaping political landscapes and driving changes in policies. However, it is important to remember that political decisions are multifaceted, and a range of factors, including geopolitical considerations and national interests, come into play.”

I should have known that this would lead to the inevitable “multifaceted” defense strategy. If there’s one thing Chad will always teach us, it’s that whenever are crucial decision needs to be made, those who see no interest in challenging the status quo will always have a sledge hammer response that is specifically intended to sound delicate and nuanced.

I couldn’t, however, disagree with Chad’s final conclusion.

“Ultimately, the future course of European governments and the responses of the people will depend on a complex interplay of political, economic, and social dynamics.”

It’s always about interplay, a concept far more interesting, dynamic and instructive than simply noticing that issues tend to be “complex and multifaceted.” The very idea of interplay contains the concept of play, which means that something will have to give and history will see an outcome. That outcome will produce another instance of interplay.

In other words, Francis Fukuyama was wrong. There is no end to history. The vassals can continue to hope they will one day be free.

*[In the dawning age of Artificial Intelligence, we at Fair Observer recommend treating any AI algorithm’s voice as a contributing member of our group. As we do with family members, colleagues or our circle of friends, we quickly learn to profit from their talents and, at the same time, appreciate the social and intellectual limits of their personalities. This enables a feeling of camaraderie and constructive exchange to develop spontaneously and freely. For more about how we initially welcomed Chad to our breakfast table, click here.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Breakfast with Chad: the Vassalization of Europe appeared first on Fair Observer.

One of the report’s authors was the distinguished Irish barrister Richard Boyd Barrett, who once worked in the Irish attorney General’s office. The EU is a system of rules, and the EU can only survive if its rules are fairly and uniformly enforced by the courts of the 27 member states.

National Courts’ Role in the EU’s Common Market

The EU is a common market because it has a common system for making, interpreting, and enforcing common rules that apply to the citizens of its member states. The national courts interpret these common rules in each member state. 

The integrity of national courts is vital for the EU. This issue lies at the heart of the difficulties the UK is experiencing as it tries to leave the EU and enjoy the benefits of the EU’s common market for goods without taking part in the common system for making, interpreting, and enforcing the rules of the common market. 

Poland’s Judicial System and EU’s Call for Independence

The root cause of the disagreements between the EC and Poland and Hungary is whether their judicial systems are independent. If one lives or does business in Poland, going to the Polish courts is the only way to get one’s common market rights. This course should be open to you, whether you are a Polish citizen or not, and whatever political opinions or status vis-à-vis the government of Poland.

The EU insists courts be independent so everyone can enforce their rights as equal EU citizens, anywhere in the EU, at all times. This rigorous insistence on the rule of law is one of the reasons many European countries want to join the EU to get the EU seal of approval for the rule of law in their country and be attractive to overseas investors and other visitors.

I visited Serbia and heard Prime Minister Ana Brnabić stress that accession to the EU was the top priority for countries in her region. She said the rule of law and transparent administration, demanded as preconditions for Serbian membership of the EU, are crucial to winning foreign investment and access to cheaper finance for Serbia.

Politicizing Polish Courts

If the Polish courts were allowed to become politicized and were no longer seen as objective in interpreting EU law, it would damage the EU and harm Polish citizens. Such a scenario would discourage investment in Poland and remove one of the fundamental reasons for the existence of the EU: the rule of law.

The EC started proceedings against Poland under Article 7(1) of the EU Treaties over aspects of the restructuring of the Polish judiciary. On an application to it by the EC, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ordered the Polish government to stop appointing many new judges to its Supreme Court in recent weeks. 

The ECJ feared the new appointments might politicize the Polish courts. The Polish government can propose this large number of new appointments because it is retiring up to 40% of existing judges based on introduced upper age limits.

The age limit will only be applied in some places. The government can grant discretionary extensions to some judges whose judgments it likes. The well-founded fear is it will replace these retired judges with judges sympathetic to the views of the present government.

The independence of the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in Ireland was an important reform made in the 1970s, which successive taoiseach have since protected with the merger of the minister’s offices for justice and the public prosecutor. The merger creates fear that politicization will affect prosecutorial decisions. 

Venice Commission’s Report on Polish Judiciary Reforms

The Polish “reforms” provided that the president of the republic, not the court, would establish the rules of procedure for the Supreme Court of Poland, determining which categories of judges would hear what sort of case, which is unacceptable political interference. The Venice Commission’s report, coauthored by Barrett from Ireland, concluded that the Polish government’s proposed mechanism for an extraordinary review (and possible reversal) of past judgments was “problematic.” Such a conclusion is an understatement. 

The report noted it was retroactive and allowed the reopening of cases decided before the proposed law was to be enacted. The Venice Commission concluded the proposed legislative and executive power to interfere in a severe and extensive way in the administration of justice.

It is important for the EU that the Polish government realizes that more is needed for free elections. A country cannot enjoy the benefits of EU membership or democracy unless it respects the rule of law in Article 2 and Article 7 of the EU Treaties. The credibility of the EU and the integrity of the EU single market are at stake in the Venice Commission’s dispute with Poland, to a greater extent than with the UK’s attempt to “have its cake and eat it” on trade!

[Conner Tighe edited this article.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post What You Need To Know About Brussels’ Proceedings Against Poland appeared first on Fair Observer.

Feffer is absolutely right to notice a parallel between Bosnia and Ukraine today. But why stop at only one? Describing his reaction at that moment in history, Feffer recounts that he “roundly criticized the knee-jerk ‘pro-Serbian’ analyses of some leftists who parroted the propaganda of strongman Slobodan Milošević’s government just as naïve leftists unwittingly follow Kremlin talking points on Ukraine today.”

Feffer makes no clear case to justify his characterization of leftists as naïve, nor does he explain why those same leftists “follow” rather than simply happen to share what he calls “Kremlin talking points.” His shortcut shouldn’t surprise us. That imagined connection has become a fixture of the pervasive “Russiagate culture” that has infected so much of US media since Donald Trump’s election in 2016. It relies on accepting a pseudo-logical rule that if two people provide the same analysis of any political situation, one must be echoing the other or, worse, be programmed by it. That kind of guilt by coincidental agreement and “associative xenophobia” are well-known symptoms of a deep-seated pathological trend towards binary thinking at the core of US culture. It systematically seeks to polarize every difference of opinion or point of view.

How It Took Six Years to Achieve the Victory of Polarization

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An astute reader, curious about logic and semantics, might even ask what it really means to “unwittingly follow.” If you don’t know you’re following someone, can it really be called following? In evoking the “naïve leftists,” Feffer himself seems to be following the often-cited idea of “useful idiots,” a phrase traditionally attributed to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. In the preceding sentence, I used the verb “to be following” in the strictly chronological sense. It indicates that one event occurred later in time (Lenin’s phrase came before Feffer’s evocation of it). It does not necessarily imply that the second event depended on, was inspired by or even connected to the initial event for its formulation. Propaganda often exploits this ambiguity of the verb follow that confuses its chronological and causal sense.

Comparing different lessons

Feffer’s article clearly explains the lesson he claims to have learned from the history of Bosnia. But other observers, not necessarily “naïve leftists,” have taken away very different lessons. It might also be instructive to consider these when attempting to decipher the contemporary situation in Ukraine.

The best place to start would be the letter Sir Alfred Sherman, an adviser to Margaret Thatcher, sent to the UK Prime Minister. This is how he summed up the Bosnian war for Mrs Thatcher:

“The war in Bosnia was America’s war in every sense of the word. The US administration helped start it, kept it going, and prevented its early end. Indeed all the indications are that it intends to continue the war in the near future, as soon as its Moslem proteges are fully armed and trained. How it did so is common knowledge. Why it did so, and the implications for American defense and foreign policy generally remain to be elucidated.”

Feffer could have used the opportunity to fulfill Sherman’s wish and elucidate American policy then and now. But that is one of the lessons Feffer prefers to leave to others, perhaps to naïve leftists who appear, paradoxically, to be “following” the right-wing Alfred Sherman’s talking points.

25 Years On, The Dayton Peace Agreement Is a Ticking Time Bomb

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Then there’s the analysis of Sean Gervasi, one of John F Kennedy’s economic advisers, who wrote a book with the title, NATO in the Balkans. In it he explains the fundamental logic of the entire Yugoslavian drama.

These powers carefully planned, prepared and assisted the secessions which broke Yugoslavia apart. And they did almost everything in their power to expand and prolong the civil wars which began in Croatia and then continued in Bosnia-Herzegovina. They were involved behind the scenes at every stage of the crisis. Foreign intervention was designed to create precisely the conflicts which the Western powers decried. For they also conveniently served as an excuse for overt intervention once civil wars were under way. Such ideas are, of course, anathema in Western countries. That is only because the public in the West has been systematically misinformed by war propaganda. It accepted almost from the beginning the version of events promulgated by governments and disseminated through the mass media.

Can any open-minded reader of these lines today not see possible parallels with the situation in Ukraine? This might be worth debating, but it appears that there aren’t many people in the West today curious enough to publicly engage in such a debate. Gervasi’s comment about the role of the mass media is echoed by contemporary commentators. Critics such as former New York Times journalist Patrick Lawrence or the former diplomat, Chas Freeman. Medea Benjamin and Nicolas Davies quoted the latter in their recent book on the Ukraine war: “This war in Ukraine is the most intense information war humanity has ever seen. There are so many lies flying about that it’s totally impossible to perceive the truth.”

In another paper presented in 1996 with the title “Why Is NATO In Yugoslavia?” Gervasi wrote: “By any standards, the sending of a large Western military force into Central and Eastern Europe is a remarkable enterprise, even in the fluid situation created by the supposed end of the Cold War.” So why did this happen? Gervasi explains that “the sending of NATO troops into the Balkans is the result of enormous pressure for the general extension of NATO eastwards.”

What can Bosnia’s fate really tell us about Ukraine?

Might any of Sherman’s or Gervasi’s remarks have any bearing upon the events in Ukraine? Not for John Feffer. Perhaps he considers those two men from the past examples of naïve rightists (Sherman) and leftists (Gervasi) bent on following Kremlin talking points. Since he is interested in “lessons,” does Feffer even acknowledge that the issues they raise merit analysis and discussion that may be applied to the situation in Ukraine today? Apparently not. There are US State Department talking points he prefers to follow.

Will Bosnia and Herzegovina Ever Rise Above Its Ethnic Divisions?

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In 2015, investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed stood out as someone who had taken the trouble to process the testimony of Sherman and Gervais. He synthesized it in these words: “The most important lesson from Yugoslavia is not only that all NATO nations lied in the most totalitarian manner, used false flags, fabrications and extremist Mujahideen mercenaries there. The most important lesson is that the War in Yugoslavia made NATO and the Western nations into a single completely cynical totalitarian info- and war machine.”

Feffer would be right to signal that such a judgment, made in the year following the February 2014 Maidan revolt that ousted an elected president, could only please the Kremlin. But does that mean Ahmed was “following” the Kremlin? Award-winning British author and journalist, Jonathan Cook describes Ahmed as “that rare breed of journalist who finds stories everyone else either misses or chooses to overlook; he regularly joins up the dots in a global system of corporate pillage.” In other words, not the kind of journalist people inside the Beltway are likely to “follow.” They prefer to follow the New York Times, always attentive to themes defined by the US security state.

But even the NYT had this to say back in 1993:

Almost a year and a half ago, the United States opposed a partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina that had been agreed to by leaders of the republic’s Serbs, Croats and Muslims. The idea was to stave off a civil war.

Now, tens of thousands of deaths later, the United States is urging the leaders of the three Bosnian factions to accept a partition agreement similar to the one Washington opposed in 1992.

Can anyone fail to notice a parallel here with Ukraine? It was a Ukrainian news service, Ukrainska Pravda, that revealed in April UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s strict instructions to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy not to negotiate a peace deal with the Russians. Will the deal that is eventually signed to end the war two or three years down the line — following tens of thousands more deaths — be a carbon copy of the one Johnson rejected?

No one knows the answer to that question, just as we don’t know whether such a dramatic situation, if forced to continue, may not descend into nuclear war, well before any negotiation begins. The fact that decisions are made in Washington DC means we will have to wait. Sometimes for decades, as we did in Afghanistan. The George W Bush administration could have accepted in 2001 the offer of the Taliban government to cooperate in arresting Osama Bin Laden as a response to 9/11. It didn’t because it saw the attacks on New York and Washington not as a crime to be solved but as a pretext for overthrowing the Afghan government. Instead, 20 years of war conducted to spread the truths NATO believes in ended with total victory for the Taliban, and in thoroughly degraded conditions. 

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Complicated Puzzle

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Bosnia’s political troubles today, which John Feffer accurately describes, may, as he concludes, be the result of a bad peace agreement, but the two years of additional conflict caused by US Ambassador Zimmerman’s refusal to consider a peace agreement certainly contributed to the hopelessness of the current situation. Harvard Law School summarized the reality of that episode in a case study with the title, “Conflict Resolution: Lessons from the Dayton Peace Process.” The author of that study makes the point that, whereas at the beginning of the war, 20% of Bosnians had “ethnically mixed parents” and “as few as 17 percent of Bosnians considered themselves religious,” the unnecessarily prolonged war had long-lasting deleterious effects. The case analysis concludes with this devastating observation: “fueled by propaganda, the Bosnian War reconstructed BiH’s identity groups.” It is that identity conflict that explains the dire state of contemporary Bosnian politics that Feffer accurately describes.

The Minsk accords were officially meant to find some way of attenuating the cultural divergences between ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russian speakers. They aime at fostering conditions of mutual tolerance by granting autonomy to the Donbas. We now know, thanks to the confession of Angela Merkel, that despite sponsoring those accords, Germany and France had no intention of applying them. They were designed to gain time for a NATO buildup in Ukraine. The result: eight years of sporadic civil war degenerated into a full-fledged war initiated by Russia. So, yes, we all need to follow Feffer’s lead and think about when the rest of us might learn the lessons of Bosnia. And after doing that perhaps also apply them to Ukraine. The debate is open. Let’s start by going after all the facts, not just the ones that are convenient for anyone’s argument.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post From Bosnia to Ukraine: A Deeper, More Worrying Lesson appeared first on Fair Observer.

Such unequal mercy would be no surprise from nations like Ukraine’s neighbors Hungary and Poland, controlled by nationalist parties that have rarely welcomed anyone not white and Christian. However, the same thing is happening in Western Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, and here in the United States, the very democracies sworn to protect those fleeing war and persecution and that, in the case of America, sometimes turned those people into refugees in the first place. Our Global War on Terror alone has displaced an estimated 37 million people since we invaded Afghanistan in 2001.

One of the worst examples of this unequal mercy is taking place in Greece, a major gateway to Western Europe for anyone fleeing the Middle East or Africa. Between February and mid-April of this year, some 21,000 Ukrainians made it to Greece — more in three months than the total number of asylum seekers who entered the country in all of 2021. There, the Ukrainians were instantly granted temporary protection status, giving them access to medical care and jobs, subsidized housing and food allowances, schooling for their children, and Greek language classes for adults.

Germany Lacks Political Courage to Welcome More Afghan Refugees

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This is an admirable example of how all people who flee danger and war should be welcomed. But I’ve been visiting Greece for years now to research my new book, Map of Hope and Sorrow: Stories of Refugees Trapped in Greece, and I know a lot of refugees there who have found no such generosity. Most are Syrian, Afghan, or Iraqi, but some are Kurdish or Palestinian, while others come from African countries, including Cameroon, Eritrea, Gambia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and the Republic of Congo.

They, too, escaped war, violence, and other kinds of persecution. In fact, the Syrians, just like the Ukrainians, fled Putin’s bombs when he was helping Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, hold onto power. Yet unlike the Ukrainians, these refugees are forced to languish for years in inhumane, slum-like camps, while their children are denied schooling. They are routinely turned away from hospitals, doctors, or dentists, and are all too often treated with disrespect, even hatred, by landlords, employers, and regular citizens. That hurts. As my friend and co-author, the Syrian writer and refugee Eyad Awwadawnan, whom I first met in Greece, put it, “I think the world should do all it can for Ukrainian refugees, but we are getting a clear message from the Greek government that we are worth less than they are.”

Doomed to Helplessness

During my visits to Greece between 2018 and 2022, I witnessed many examples of its appalling treatment of refugees. At one point, in a camp on the Northern Aegean island of Samos, I found more than 3,000 people living in shipping containers or tents in and around an old military base, surrounded by piles of garbage swarming with rats. They had no potable water, the few toilets were broken, the food mostly inedible, and there was no security for women, children, LGBTQ+ people, or anyone else particularly vulnerable to bullying, assault, or rape. Thousands more asylum seekers were similarly trapped on other islands with nowhere to go and nothing to do, while yet others were locked up in Greek prisons for merely exercising their right to seek asylum. In our book, Eyad and I describe the way people are arrested and imprisoned simply for steering their boats to Greece, or for coming from the wrong country.

The World This Week: Greek Crisis Marks End of Debt Era

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Since its New Democracy government took power in 2019, well into the anti-immigrant, Muslim-bashing administration of Donald Trump here in the United States, the Greek government has been ratcheting up its mistreatment of Middle Eastern and African refugees even further. One of its first acts was to evict everyone granted asylum from subsidized housing or camps, while also withdrawing all financial aid. In this way, they were flung into a homeless, jobless void — that is, into forced helplessness. Winning asylum is supposed to mean winning international protected status as a refugee, but in Greece it now means the opposite — getting no protection at all.

Then, in June 2021, just before the Taliban took over Afghanistan, the Greek Minister of Migration, Notis Mitarachi, announced that all new arrivals from Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Somalia, and Syria would be denied the chance to apply for asylum and deported to Turkey, which he deemed a “safe third country,” a legal term for a safe haven for asylum seekers. Yet as human rights groups have made clear, Turkey is anything but safe for those in flight from war or persecution. Not only does Turkey refuse to recognize Syrians as refugees, but it never signed onto the part of the U.N. 1951 Refugee Rights declaration banning refoulement, the term used for returning refugees to a country where they may be subjected to persecution. This means that Turkey can legally send refugees back to the nations they fled, no matter what dangers await them there.

Last April 16th, Greece upped its persecution even further by closing the housing it offers vulnerable people, such as victims of torture, trafficking, and rape, and sending them to live in camps where there is no security at all. 

None of these policies apply to Ukrainians.

The Tangled Maps of Greece and Turkey

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At sea, matters are even worse. The Greek authorities and Frontex, Europe’s border and coast guard agency, have been pushing refugees back out to sea instead of rescuing them. They have left families and children abandoned on flimsy rafts or inflatable boats, or on tiny islands without shelter or food. During the pandemic, Greece and Frontex treated some 40,000 refugees this way, causing at least 2,000 to drown — abuse that’s been well-documented by human rights groups. Yet Greece’s immigration minister has denied that any of this is happening. 

No less shocking is the way Greece has criminalized the rescue of refugees at sea. Volunteers who go out to search for and rescue the capsized boats of desperate immigrants are being arrested and charged with human trafficking. Sara Mardini, a Syrian professional swimmer portrayed in Netflix’s new movie The Swimmers, is one of these. If convicted, she faces 20 years in prison.

Hard as it may be to grasp the idea of making it illegal to rescue drowning people, Greece is far from alone in engaging in such behavior. Just this month, Italy, Malta, and Cyprus banded together with that country to call for the European Union (EU) to take measures against civilian sea rescuers. Of course, the train drivers and airplane pilots who brought Ukrainians into the rest of Europe are never similarly targeted.

The Greek government has justified all this unequal mercy with chilling language, declaring Ukrainians “real refugees” and everyone else an “illegal migrant.” In just that spirit, last month, Greek authorities forced Afghans in a camp outside Athens to cede their housing to Ukrainians and instead live in filthy and derelict shipping containers. 

That government has long claimed that it is not at fault for treating refugees so badly because it lacks the money and personnel to handle so many of them. But the minute those 21,000 Ukrainians arrived, the same officials suddenly found themselves able to help after all.

Greece is not entirely to blame for such violations of international law, because many of them are underwritten by the EU, which has been pumping money into the country to keep refugees out of Western Europe since 2016. Recently, for example, the EU paid $152 million to the Greek government to build five remote prisons for asylum seekers. I saw the prototype for them on the island of Samos: Camp Zervou, a collection of white metal shipping containers on a bare patch of land in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a double layer of hurricane fences topped with barbed wire and surveilled by closed-circuit cameras. It is hot, bare, and hideous. Such prisons will not, of course, hold Ukrainians.

Breaking Hearts and Laws

Greece is hardly the only country meting out all this unequal treatment. The persecution of non-white refugees seems to be on the rise not just in countries with far-right governments, but in those previously known for their liberality. Along with this persecution, of course, goes the same sort of racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric Donald Trump (not to speak of the Republican Party as a whole) continues to use about those crossing our own border.

Take the United Kingdom, for example. The new Conservative Party Prime Minister Rishi Sunak just offered France $74 million to increase its border security by 40% with the goal of arresting more “illegal migrants” and smugglers to stop them from crossing the English Channel.  (An asylum seeker, by the way, is not an “illegal migrant.” The right to cross borders to seek asylum is enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention.) That same $74 million could have been put toward legal and humanitarian services for asylum seekers, helping them find safe ways to apply for protection in either France or the United Kingdom, and so depriving smugglers of business without throwing those refugees into even further danger.

Who’s Cheating on English Tests: Migrants or the UK Government?

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Within France itself, while President Emmanuel Macron quarrels with the British over who is to blame for the rising number of refugees trying to cross the Channel, Jordan Bardella, the new leader of the country’s increasingly popular far-right party, has rested his entire platform on closing France’s borders to “drastically limit” immigration. He has made it clear that he’s talking about Muslims and Africans, not immigrants like his own Italian parents.

Meanwhile, in Italy, Giorgia Meloni, the new right-wing prime minister, has just issued a decree forbidding male refugees from getting off rescue boats or setting even one foot on Italian soil. Similarly, Sweden, once a bastion of progressive ideas, elected a new government this past September that cut its refugee quota from 5,000 people a year to 900, citing the white supremacist trope that non-white, non-Christian refugees will otherwise “replace” traditional Swedes.

I could go on: France, Greece, Italy, Malta, and Spain are fighting over who will (or won’t) take stranded boats of refugees, pushing those desperate sea goers from shore to shore like so much litter. The Danes are sending Syrians back to Syria, even after they’ve lived in Denmark for years. Australia is incarcerating asylum seekers under horrifying conditions in detention centers and on isolated islands. And Britain has locked thousands of refugees in warehouses, passed laws denying them basic services like health care and housing, and tried to implement a policy of forcibly deporting some of them to Rwanda.

Here in the U.S., we’re not doing much better. True, President Biden has managed to curtail some of the worst of Trump’s anti-immigrant policies, undoing the former president’s Muslim ban and raising the number of refugees allowed into the country every year, but his efforts have been inconsistent. Just this October, shortly before the Democrats barely held onto the Senate in the midterm elections, he expanded the Trumpian Title 42 border policy to include Venezuelans, who, only a week or so earlier, were being welcomed into the country. That policy uses Covid fears to force asylum seekers to stay in dangerous, sometimes deadly camps in Mexico, while rendering it virtually impossible for them to even apply for, let alone win, asylum in the U.S. (Biden originally promised to do away with Title 42 altogether, but the Supreme Court blocked his effort. After declaring that he would continue the fight, he now appears to have reversed course.)

Ukrainians are, however, exempted from this Mexican purgatory as a way of “recognizing the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine” (to quote the Department of Homeland Security). Some Afghans are similarly exempt, but only those who worked with the U.S. during our devastating 20-year war in their country. Everyone else is kept waiting for months or even years for their asylum decisions, many of them in detention, regardless of the humanitarian crises they also fled.

All the unequal mercies described here are not only breaking hearts, but laws. A little history: In 1948, Eleanor Roosevelt and the newly formed United Nations created the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in reaction to the shocks of the Holocaust and the mistreatment of Jews seeking asylum. Three years later, the U.N. held a convention in Geneva to create a bill of refugee rights, which were ratified into law by 149 nations, including Australia, Britain, Canada, Greece, most of the rest of Europe, and the United States. (Some countries didn’t sign on until 1967.) The idea was to protect the dignity and freedom of human beings everywhere, while never again spurning refugees in the way that had sent so many Jews back to their deaths.

Hosting Refugees and Migrants Is a Global Public Good

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The Geneva Convention defined refugees as people forced to flee their countries because of “a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group” and who “cannot return home or [are] afraid to do so.” It gave them the right to international protection from discrimination and persecution; the right to housing, schooling, and the chance to work for a living; the right not to be criminalized for simply seeking asylum; and, most importantly, the right not to be subjected to refoulement — and be returned to the countries they had fled.

Thanks, in part, to that convention, when people are driven to flee their countries, they head for the safety and dignity they believe they will find in the West, a belief we are now betraying. To rectify this, the EU’s governing arm, the European Commission, must insist that Europe’s unequal treatment of refugees be replaced with humane, accessible processes that apply consistently to all asylum seekers, regardless of where they come from. The same should be done in Australia, Britain, and the United States. After all, the way we treat refugees today speaks volumes not only about how humanitarian we are, but about how we are likely to act in the future when climate change forces ever more people to flee their homes just to stay alive.

On the other hand, should we continue to favor white Christian refugees over everyone else, we will not only shred the promises and values enshrined in our democracies, but fertilize the poison of white supremacy already festering in the very heart of the West.

[TomDispatch first published this article.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post If You’re a Refugee, Best to be White and Christian appeared first on Fair Observer.

Singh agrees with Bruton about his prognostication. Rising energy and, in particular, gas prices has led to record postwar inflation. Both households and industry are in trouble. Germany and Italy, the two European manufacturing strongholds, are suffering most.

Germany might face a winter of discontent. Italy has already elected Giorgia Meloni, a fiery populist politician, as its first woman prime minister. Meloni and her counterparts in Greece, Spain and Portugal face a grim challenge. Their economies are stagnant with high debts, aging populations and few jobs. High inflation is leading to higher interest rates. This makes debt more expensive and these southern economies might need another bailout.

So far, Germany has largely bailed out Southern Europe. That might be difficult given the state of the German economy. The economic trouble triggered by the Russia-Ukraine War will deepen divisions in Europe. The EU and its Euro project will face unprecedented strains in the pivotal winter ahead.

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Explainers: Why Europe Faces a Tough Winter appeared first on Fair Observer.

Many in Brussels hailed the emergence of this unified Europe. After decades of decline, Europe has come to the scene in response to the threat of Russia and showed off its abilities to play the role of a powerful geopolitical actor before the eyes of the world. The Russian war has awakened the sleeping giant. As Josep Borrell, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy put it: “In the week since Russia’s invasion, we have also witnessed the belated birth of a geopolitical Europe. For years, Europeans have been debating how the EU can be made more robust and security-conscious, with unity of purpose and capabilities to pursue our political goals on the world stage. We have now arguably gone further down that path in the past week than we did in the previous decade.”

However, there are limitations to this apparently decisive response of the Europeans to the Russian invasion. The member states of the European Union have so far avoided direct military conflict with Russia. They have refused to send the types of weapons that can lead to a change in the course of the battle. They have not demonstrated any concerted effort aimed at the gradual elimination of energy imports from Russia. Moreover, a number of European companies are still present in Russia, despite the imposition of extensive sanctions on Moscow. In addition, while Brussels bureaucrats like Borrell are busy honoring and praising the so-called birth of geopolitical Europe, Ukraine’s frustration and dissatisfaction with its European allies is increasing as the situation on the battlefield deteriorates and casualties and damage continue to rise.

European Solidarity: illusion or reality?

There is good reason to suspect that the announcement of  the birth of geopolitical Europe is little more than posturing by its leaders. The question on everyone’s mind should concern whether this vaunted unity will be maintained as the Ukraine battle proceeds.

Eight months into the Ukraine crisis, many signs of concern have appeared on the horizon. It is now becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the cohesion of a single Europe against the multiple consequences of the continuation of the crisis the war has spawned. Inflation, recession, and a growing energy crisis have worried European leaders, as have  the unforeseeable wide-ranging political and geopolitical effects of the war in Ukraine. Behind this apparent unity, differences of opinion and growing tensions about how to manage the conflict among the members of the union are already emerging.

Peace Talks Essential as War Rages on in Ukraine

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Germany is hesitant about sending arms shipments to Ukraine. With the fall of the coalition government in Italy and the election of the populist Brothers of Italy led by Giorgia Meloni, the future of Italy’s role in Europe has become an enigma. Political opposition to military support for Kyiv is growing among populist parties throughout Europe. And although the previous five sanctions packages were approved quickly, the Europeans took weeks to reach an agreement on the sixth package of sanctions targeting Russian oil.

In the early stages of the war, the European Union showed significant determination and cohesion. Within a few weeks, Brussels passed the widest possible sanctions against Russia. European governments accelerated their defense measures. Germany added 100 billion euros to its military budget, and the European Union facilitated the transfer of arms to third parties for the first time. The Union also agreed to provide temporary protection to millions of Ukrainian citizens, including the possibility of their movement and employment throughout the territory of the European Union. In June, the Council of Europe supported the granting of candidacy status to Ukraine and Moldova to join the European Union. In early spring, Europe seemed more united than ever and ready to face the challenge of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

This show of solidarity did not last long. Growing economic pressure has led to worrying political consequences for Europe. In countries such as Italy and France, right-wing populist and nationalist parties have been exploiting the costs of war to influence public opinion. They promote the idea that by sanctioning Russia, European governments and institutions will only fuel the fire of inflation, bankrupt industries, and destroy jobs. The continuation of the Ukraine crisis feeds this trend. In the French presidential elections in April, the radical right and left parties put in a strong performance, a result that was confirmed in the parliamentary elections in June. The fall of Draghi’s government in Italy in July led to a victory in September for the populist Brothers of Italy party.

Europe’s double divide

A return to the old fault lines within the European Union in the event of the continuation of the Ukraine crisis appears increasingly likely. First, there is the growing divide between the east and west of the continent, with countries bordering Ukraine, such as the Baltic states and Poland, demanding the imposition of the most severe sanctions on Russia and increased military support for Ukraine. On the other hand, Western European countries such as Italy, France, and Germany, appear more inclined to compromise and interaction with Russia. The intensification of the energy crisis and the aggravation of economic hardship make it likely that the western countries far from the front line of the conflict will pressure the Union to open the door to reconciliation. However, Eastern European leaders, even as they grapple with the fallout from the war, are likely to maintain that peace is only possible if Russia is forced to withdraw and Russian President, Vladimir Putin, is held to account. 

The second gap is the North-South divide, which nearly split the Eurozone in two during the Greek debt crisis a decade ago. With the possibility of a recession and even stagflation in the short term, the difference in the cost of interest payments on debt between the northern and southern member states of the European Union – especially between Germany and Italy– is increasing. France, Spain, and Italy, despite having less room for financial maneuver, are pushing Brussels to focus on Europe’s post-pandemic recovery fund as well as defray some of the economic costs caused by war. 

The EU Faces Major Challenges This Autumn

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Germany has seen its energy costs triple. It is much more exposed to Russian energy blackmail than other members due to its heavy dependence on Russian gas. The German government, instead of offering its financial resources to help solve the economic problems of other members, will most likely request help and support from other members of the European Union to reduce its energy crisis.

To conclude, there is so far no evidence that the EU has become a stronger or different power internationally than it was before the war. In other words, there is no substance to the claim that Europe has undergone a geopolitical rebirth. The populist trend is clearly gaining strength in several European nations. The traditional fault lines within the Union have not disappeared and are likely to reemerge if the war continues. Russian President Vladimir Putin is certainly aware of this. The apparent unity of Europe in the face of the Russian invasion may soon prove to be a chimera.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Is the Façade of European Unity Already Full of Cracks? appeared first on Fair Observer.

Like many foreign scholars before me, I debated at the Oxford Union. I met fiendishly clever debaters such as Ewan Smith, Sarah Munby (then Monroe) and Tom Hay. I also ran into knaves who are best left unnamed. In conversations with both the clever and the cads, a name came up repeatedly in discussion: Boris Johnson.

As a foreigner, I failed to see the charm of Johnson. To me, he seemed a pathological liar. Johnson was so transparently dishonest that it was surprising, if not shocking, to find clever people dance to his tune. Even then, he was truly a Pied Piper, especially for young Tories. They swore by The Spectator, used his phrases in debates and waxed lyrical about Boris’s brilliance.

Over time, I began to understand Johnson’s appeal. As I wrote on July 24, 2019, “this Old Etonian is a lovable Falstaffian rogue.” He is Lord Flashheart of the comedy classic Blackadder, a modern Henry VIII and even a portly James Bond known for derring-do and top-level shagging. Johnson breezes through life as the ultimate smooth-talking amateur, cool as a cucumber under pressure. In brief, Johnson or BoJo, as he is often called, is a British cultural archetype. It is for this reason that, in the words of fellow Old Etonian Cameron, Johnson “defies all forms of gravity.”

A Supremely English Cad

Ken Clarke was once known as the big beast in British politics. Today, the big beast is Boris. Persistent lies, numerous scandals and even illegitimate children have failed to sink BoJo. Like a phoenix, he has repeatedly risen from the ashes.

Yet it would be churlish to deny that BoJo has managed historic achievements. He made Brexit possible. Nigel Farage alone could not have led the Brexiteers to victory. As inflation, rising interest rates and mounting debt increase strains within the EU, Boris might emerge as the modern day Henry VIII who paved the way for the great escape from Europe.

Henry’s reasons for creating the Church of England were not quite honorable but, arguably, the breach with Rome led to the British Empire. Brexit might not lead to Empire II but it could save the UK from a disaster-headed EU. Many equanimous Brits see the current turbulence as a passing phase. After all, German cars, French cheeses and Italian wines are still sold in the UK. In Ukraine, Brits are playing a role second only to Americans in taking on Vladimir Putin. And they can thank BoJo for it. There is life in the canny old dog yet.

Arise King Boris, Father of Brexit and Foe of Brussels

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BoJo has proved to be a winner. In 2019, the Conservatives won 365 seats out of 650 in the House of Commons.  Under Boris, the Tories smashed the “red wall” of solid Labour seats in northern England. Not since Margaret Thatcher has anyone led the Tories to such a victory. Scandal and the loss of two key by-elections led to a palace coup. Conservative MPs ousted Johnson in much the same way as their predecessors defenestrated Thatcher. 

After a protracted leadership election, Truss won. Her government proved to have “the shelf-life of a lettuce.” Unfunded tax cuts and energy-price guarantees spooked markets, put the pound in freefall and caused bond yields to rise. The Bank of England was forced to intervene twice. Truss resigned after 45 days, becoming the shortest-serving prime minister ever. Some would argue that, like Thatcher and Theresa May, Truss was a Roundhead. Cameron and Johnson are Cavaliers. The English Civil War of the 17^th century continues within the Conservative Party with full-on blue-on-blue conflict. Now that a doctrinaire low-tax, high-growth Roundhead is out, Big Boris might be dreaming of returning à la the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

Dishy Rishi Stands in the Way

Even as Johnson is cutting short his holiday and flying back from the Dominican Republic, Sunak has already managed to get 93 MPs lined up behind him. Unlike Truss, Sunak is a Cavalier. He might be the son of immigrants but he went to Winchester College, a boarding school even older than Eton. Founded by William of Wykeham in 1382, the school’s former pupils are called Wykehamists or, as a wag remarked, the special ones. So special is Sunak that he confessed to not having any working class friends, causing some controversy during his campaign.

Sunak is not only a Wykehamist but he is also a PPEist. He worked at Goldman Sachs, did an MBA at Stanford and became a partner at The Children’s Investment (TCI) Fund Management, a top-level hedge fund. At Stanford, Sunak met Akshata Murty, the daughter of an Indian software billionaire, and went on to marry her. Unlike Johnson, Sunak is a family man. There is not even any rumor of an affair. As a mutual friend remarked, Sunak is smart and can count. An affair would be far too expensive a proposition. He has a taste for fine things in life and his natty suits have won him the nickname Dishy Rishi.

In the leadership election debate, Sunak was on the money when he declared that the most pressing priority for the new government was inflation. He opposed any “unfunded spree of borrowing and more debt,” which he predicted would make things worse. When Truss said that inflation was because of loose monetary policy, Sunak declared, “borrowing your way out of inflation is a fairytale.” Sunak has been proved right. Many are convinced that this Goldman Sachs golden boy is the best man for the top job.

Big and beefy Boris faces slim and sexy Sunak on his return to 10 Downing Street. Some hold that BoJo will back out, let Dishy Rishi deal with the mess he has created, let Labour win the next election, screw it up and then ride back to power on a triumphal chariot as the savior of the Tories. Others argue that he will never let Sunak, the snake he picked out of obscurity, slither into 10 Downing Street. Dishy Rishi’s resignation led to Big Boris’s downfall. Now, BoJo is plotting revenge.

Like last time, most MPs will back Sunak. They want a safe pair of hands on the tiller. However, the 172,000 members of the Conservative Party have the final say. They tend to be older and whiter in comparison to today’s multicultural and multiracial Britain. As a friend remarked, it is hard to get grannies in Dorset or Somerset to vote for a brownie fuzzy wuzzy even if he is rich and posh. The fact that Sunak’s wife had claimed non-domicile status, saving millions of pounds in tax, also makes many old school Tories suspicious. They have doubts about Dishy Rishi being entirely British.

Despite all his sins, the Tory rank and file adore Boris. They are likely to vote for him, not Sunak. If he can squeak through the parliamentary vote. Big Boris could well be back.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Will Boris the Big Beast be Back? appeared first on Fair Observer.

I have always taken the view that, without Germany, there would  be no EU. Germany provides the financial backstop on which all the EU’s ambitious plans, including the Green Deal, and the recently acquired capacity of the EU to borrow, rest. Without a healthy German economy, and a Germany that is prepared to think of its neighbors as well as of itself, the EU would wither. So, it is important that other EU states demonstrate energy solidarity with Germany during this autumn and winter, when the economic model of the EU’s powerhouse is under particular stress.

In addition to the German economic crisis, the EU is facing other threats that could also become existential. One comes from Poland, and the other from the UK.

Poland’s not-so independent judiciary

In Poland, the courts system there has been politicized, to suit the agenda of the ruling Law and Justice Party. In effect, Polish Courts are rejecting the primacy of EU over Polish law, in disputes around issues that are within the competence of the EU under the treaties. 

Polexit: Is Poland on the Way Out of the EU?

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This principle of the primacy of EU law, to be authoritatively interpreted by the European Court of Justice, is not new. It dates back to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) decisions of 1964 and 1970. By having a single ultimate interpreter of EU law, namely the ECJ, we have been able to create a single market with consistent rules, consistently interpreted, and  more or less consistently applied, across all the 27 countries of the Union.

The Polish government has interfered with the independence of its courts by putting in place a disciplinary tribunal for judges. Some judges,  disliked by the government, were sacked. Such actions encourage a nationalistic and eurosceptic interpretation of the position of Polish law within the EU.

Cases on the interpretation of EU laws, as applied in Poland, are not being referred to the ECJ for authoritative interpretation, as is the normal procedure in most EU countries. Thus, the primacy of EU law in Poland is being slowly eroded. If a big country, like Poland, gets away with this, other countries like Hungary, which is even more eurosceptic, will follow suit, and the EU will begin to decay.

Despite Poland’s undermining of the EU, the country was allotted €36 billion in EU funds in June 2022. The country is yet to dissolve the disciplinary tribunal as required by previous EU decisions. Poland has also not addressed the issue of the primacy of EU law at all.

 In a split vote, the European Commission (EC) led by Ursula von der Leyen  voted to release the funds on the understanding that Poland would meet certain “milestones.” These include the abolition of the disciplinary tribunal but not the affirmation of the primacy of EU law. The EC decision to release funds was influenced by the burden Poland has borne in aiding Ukraine. However, this decision is fundamentally damaging to the EU. The rule of law is one of the EU’s core values for which Ukrainians are sacrificing their lives. It is also a key reason why countries like Ukraine want to join the EU as full members.

For small countries like Ireland, the EU offers a great benefit. Decisions in the EU are made based on clear rules, not raw power. Ireland and other small countries cannot be indifferent to the precedent Poland is setting for the EU. It is also true that Brussels should be conservative in asserting what comes within the legal competence of the EU. Any overreach could be damaging.

British tactics on Brexit

Not only Poland but also the UK is challenging the primacy of EU law. The UK is also threatening the integrity of the single market. British tactics on Brexit are to blame.

The Risk of a No-Deal Brexit Remains

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Under the Northern Ireland Protocol, Northern Ireland has unfettered access to both the EU and the UK markets. This avoids the need for customs controls on the land border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. The UK does not want the ECJ to be the final interpreter of EU rules, as applied in Northern Ireland. The UK also wants Northern Ireland exempted from EU state aid and value added tax (VAT) rules. Such a precedent would undermine the level playing field essential to the EU single market. 

UK Prime Minister Liz Truss seems to be willing to provoke a major crisis on this matter. Truss seems to believe that, if she stands strong, the EU will cave in. Truss represents a deeper problem. The UK has never taken the EU seriously and has a patronizing attitude towards it.

The EU should not wait until the UK has started to flout the Northern Ireland Protocol  to propose trade sanctions. Once the protocol disapplication bill reaches the committee stage in the House of Lords, the EC should publish the full list of its proposed trade sanctions on the UK. These sanctions should be imposed on the day the UK legislation is implemented. Such advance notice by the EU would allow cooler heads to assert themselves in London.

I still have no doubt that practical compromises can be reached on the implementation of the protocol. In July,  the Europe Committee of the House of Lords published a very interesting report, with the evidence it received, on the protocol. The report concluded that the protocol had adversely affected the retail sector but advantaged manufacturing investment in Northern Ireland.

I drew two conclusions from the report and its underlying evidence.

First, the UK will lose its court cases governed by EU law for flouting the Northern Ireland Protocol. Under the Vienna Law on Treaties, the UK would have to show it had been suffering from “coercion” or “improper process” when it signed and ratified the protocol. Given that the UK has been negotiating with the EU for over a year, the UK would not be able to claim either ground to wriggle out of the protocol.

The EU and the US must collaborate on Northern Ireland

Second, the best way to find solutions to practical problems would involve officials of the UK and the EU meeting key people from Northern Ireland from various sectors of the economy.  Sadly, this cumbersome format is not conducive to constructive thinking or to problem solving.

Michael Gove, a key Brexiteer, suggested a joint EU-UK consultative group of officials who could talk to each other and with relevant economic actors. If Liz Truss wants to keep open the option of a negotiated agreement, as she says she does, she should activate Gove’s proposal. A breakdown in EU-UK negotiations would cause unnecessary trouble at a time of much trouble.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The EU Faces Major Challenges This Autumn appeared first on Fair Observer.

Who Are Germany’s National Minorities?

Four state-recognized autochthonous national minorities live on German territory: the Danes, Frisians, Sorbs, and the German Sinti and Roma. In accord with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM), five criteria need to be fulfilled to be granted minority protection by the German government: the minorities’ members are German nationals; they have a distinct identity, consisting of an own language, culture, and history; a wish to maintain and preserve that identity; they have settled in Germany for a long time within traditional settlement areas.

As demographic statistics and socioeconomic data based on ethnicity are historically not collected in Germany due to the Nazi past, the numbers of people belonging to the national minorities are estimates. About 50,000 members of the Danish minority live in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, bordering Denmark, and 50,000-60,000 Frisians live along the North Sea coastline between the Netherlands and Denmark. About 60,000 Sorbs, a Slavic minority, live in the Lusatia region, close to the Polish border in East Germany. The minority of the Sinti and Roma provides an exemption from the criteria of residing in a specific settlement area with 70,000 members living all across Germany.

Instrumentalizing National Minorities

The lack of demographic data on national minorities implicates that no figures are available on the number of eligible voters in the respective minority groups. Despite only making up a small proportion of the German electorate, Germany’s far-right AfD has increased efforts to stage themselves as their true advocates. 

German Far-Right Conspiracy Theorists Step Up Attempts to Undermine Schools

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In November 2020, a speech by Beatrix von Storch, deputy chairwoman of the AfD Bundestag faction, laid bare the AfD’s attempt to instrumentalize national minorities to stigmatize other ethnic groups in Germany. Storch deliberately misrepresented the federal government’s pledge to protect national minorities. According to Storch, the fact that national minorities are promised protection based on origin, language, and culture, irrespective of their German citizenship, confirms the AfD’s long-held view that national identity cannot be obtained through the acquisition of German citizenship: “If we state that ethnic groups and national minorities have a cultural identity that should be preserved, then the same applies to national majorities. You can’t claim that national minorities like the Sorbs, Frisians, and Danes have a cultural identity and at the same time declare that the national majority in Germany doesn’t.”

With this statement, Storch argumentatively and tacitly deprives some German citizens with an immigration background of their German identity as she had openly claimed before: “Islam is not part of German tradition and identity, and therefore it does not belong to Germany.” Furthermore, Storch misuses national minorities to spread an ultra-nationalistic ideology harbored by large parts of the AfD, according to which there is a national identity of a people that is deeply rooted.

Misusing the Sorbian Minority for Electoral Success

By spreading its nationalist ideology, the AfD is trying to appeal to the strong sense of home and belonging among many members of Germany’s minorities and capitalize on this electorally. Yet, the election results of the last two federal elections do not indicate that the AfD is succeeding in areas with large populations of national minorities – except in eastern German constituencies and settlement areas of the Sorbs. 

During the 2017 federal election, the AfD managed to muster up 40 percent of the votes in the Sorbian-dominated district of Spree-Neiße in southeastern Brandenburg. Despite significant gains, the party still lagged behind the CDU, traditionally voted for by the mostly Catholic Sorbs. In the subsequent federal election, in 2021, the Sorbian village of Puschwitz hit the headlines when the AfD candidate emerged as the victor. Curiously, in the neighboring Sorbian village of Crostwitz the CDU candidate pipped the AfD’s competitor to first place. Hence, it remains questionable whether these two stand-out successes of the AfD in Sorbian counties and municipalities express a seminal affinity of the Sorbian minority to the AfD, especially since the economically weaker eastern German states have been AfD strongholds anyway.

German Far-Right Conspiracy Theorists Step Up Attempts to Undermine Schools

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On the contrary, the relationship between Sorbs and the AfD was strained before these election results. Sorbs have long experienced right-wing extremist hostilities and attacks, but since 2014, with the beginning of the far-right PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamicisation of the Occident) demonstrations and the rise of the AfD, the extent has significantly increased. According to Heiko Kosel, an MP of the Saxon state parliament for the leftist party Die Linke, “attacks on Sorbs are linked to increased xenophobia in Saxony in recent years.” Bilingual street signs were smeared and even graffitied with swastikas. Another example of the AfD’s contribution to the hostile climate toward Sorbs was its resistance to a socio-cultural community center in the East German city of Bautzen, where many Sorbs live, warning against ongoing “ethnic mixing“.

Against this backdrop, an incident during the 2017 general election stirred up the Sorbian community when the AfD once again instrumentalized minority groups to incite xenophobic attitudes toward other ethnic groups. The bone of contention was an election poster that depicted three women in traditional German, one of them in Sorbian attire, with the caption “Colorful diversity? We have it already!” That was unequivocally condemned by the umbrella organization “Domowina,” representing the interests of Sorbs in Germany: “We reject the use of the Sorbian people to exclude other minorities.”

Overt Racism Against Sinti and Roma

The fact that the AfD’s representation of the interests of national minorities is nothing more than a smokescreen is shown not only by its attempts to play national minorities off against each other but also by its open racism against the national minority of Sinti and Roma. Among Germany’s national minorities the Sinti and Roma occupy a special historic role. During Nazi Germany, they were prosecuted and murdered, resulting in a Genocide of up to 500.000 Sinti and Roma, often referred to as the ”forgotten Holocaust.” To this day, Sinti and Roma face discrimination and structural racism. In 2021, authorities recorded 109 antizigan crimes, the year before 128. Antizigan attitudes and sentiments in the center of German society are prevalent. According to a 2021 study, 29 percent of the population showed antipathy toward Sinti and Roma. To uncover the dark figure of antizigan sentiment and crime, the German government mandated the Independent Commission on Antiziganism (UKA) in 2019, and an anonymous Reporting and Information Center Antiziganism (MIA) started work in July 2022. In March 2022, the government appointed the first commissioner against Antiziganism and for the life of Sinti and Roma in Germany.

Concerning the Sinti and Roma, the AfD has willingly and repeatedly dropped the covers and counteracted its supposed self-image of being the true representative of the interests of all national minorities. The AfD has been a driving force behind picking up on and promoting antizigan racial prejudice. In a 2019 speech in the German Bundestag about measures to combat antiziganism, the AfD MP Markus Frohnmaier referred to Sinti and Roma as “Zigeuner” („Gypsys“), a racial slur that is condemned by the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, the main advocacy group representing the interests of German Sinti and Roma: “‘Gypsies‘ is a foreign term used by the majority society that is overlaid with clichés and rejected by most members of the minority as discriminatory – because the Sinti and Roma have never called themselves that.” Disregarding this terminological clarification of the people concerned, Frohnmaier contested the designation Sinti and Roma as an “art term.”

Evoking Ghosts of the Nazi Past

In June 2018, the Saxon AfD showed no inhibition to evoking the inhumane ghosts of the Nazi past. They did so by submitting a parliamentary request, demanding the collection of demographic data on Sinti and Roma living in Saxony. Part of the requested data was the number of German and foreign Sinti and Roma living in Saxony, including their education status. Particularly startling were the queries about irregularities in the compliance with compulsory education and the number of homeless Sinti and Roma. With these suggestive and disparaging questions, the AfD consciously tapped into the persisting circulating prejudices of educational alienation, homelessness, and criminality among Sinti and Roma. With the feeding of false preconceptions and request for a registration of the Sinti and Roma population, the AfD summoned gruesome memories of the systematic genocidal policy of the Nazis against the Sinti and Roma and the Jews, which had also entailed a registration of respective population groups. Hence, collecting population data based on ethnicity is prohibited in Germany.

Paranoia and the Perils of Misreading

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Not only the Sinti and Roma were affected by the AfD snubbing this particular lesson from the past. A few weeks after the request for the data collection on the Sinti and Roma, the AfD in the Saxon state parliament also asked for “reliable data” on the number of Sorbs in Saxony. Given these efforts, Germany’s National Minority Secretariat, which bundles the interests of the four national minorities, reaffirmed that belonging to a minority is the personal decision of each individual, which may not be registered, verified, or disputed by the state.

The national minorities in Germany unite in the same vulnerability and need for protection, although their identities and cultures differ. Be it the pitting national minorities against other ethnic groups in Germany, the abuse of national minorities’ symbols for electoral campaigns, open racist attacks against Sorbs and Sinti and Roma, and the disregard for the Nazi past. All these incidents contribute to exposing the AfD’s duplicity and its specious advances toward national minorities for electoral success at the misfortune of others.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The AfD’s Duplicitous Attempt to Target Germany’s National Minorities appeared first on Fair Observer.

The DRC, a territory 76 times bigger than Belgium, is the second largest country after Algeria in Africa and the 11^th largest in the world. Today, it is torn by conflicts between armed groups that recruit children as soldiers. To make matters worse, DRC’s security forces operate with impunity. They continue harassing, threatening, attacking, arresting and murdering human rights defenders, journalists and members of the political opposition. Civilians are arbitrarily killed and abducted. Women and girls are systematically raped and subjected to other forms of violence. Communal violence and ethnic cleansing are widespread. Most minorities including Hutu, Tutsi, Hema, Lendu, Lunda, Luba, Mbororo, and Batwa live under continuous threat. The country remains the source and destination point for trafficking in children and women for prostitution. The country desperately needs humanitarian assistance.

The DRC’s problems are not entirely the fault of the Congolese people. Their roots can be traced back to Belgian King Leopold II and successive Belgian governments.

The Belgian King belatedly expresses regrets

Before his recent admission, Philippe denied Belgian atrocities and made excuses for Leopold II and Belgium for years. Despite pressure from his own country’s people along with that of the international community who were inspired by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, Philippe hesitated to take any action other than offer excuses for the last two years.

On May 27, 2021, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke at the genocide memorial in Rwanda’s capital Kigali where many victims were buried. He asked Rwandans to forgive France for its role in the 1994 genocide. On May 28, 2021, Germany apologized for its genocide against Herero and Nema tribal people in Namibia and offered to launch “projects over a billion euros” as compensation. Even those apologies did not inspire Philippe to admit Belgian atrocities in the Congo.

For Emmanuel Macron, Is Africa Just PR?

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Over a year later, increased Belgian and international pressures finally forced Philippe to face reality. When he finally spoke out, the Belgian king just expressed regrets. Philippe stopped short of formally apologizing for Belgian atrocities during the colonial period. “This [Belgian] regime was one of unequal relations, unjustifiable in itself, marked by paternalism, discrimination and racism,” he said before a joint session of parliament in the DNC capital Kinshasa, He want to state: “I wish to reaffirm my deepest regrets for those wounds of the past.”

The toxic legacy of the past

Leopold II was a tyrant who pursued a brutal pogrom that resulted in the deaths of millions. His policies also led to the destruction of the livelihoods and cultures of the people of the Congo. Leopold II came to power in 1865 and was determined to build an empire. Authorized by the 1885 Berlin Conference, he formed the Congo Free State, separate from Belgium but privately owned and controlled by himself. Leopold II knew evangelization was the most effective way to dominate people. He took the view that, if the Congolese converted to Christianity, they would become more subservient. This would allow Leopold II to plunder Congo’s valuable resources. So, this ruthless Belgian king brought in missionaries to convert the Congolese people to Christianity. He issued and enforced inhumane decrees that not only caused misery and death but also pushed the Congolese to convert to and practice Christianity.

To extract ivory, rubber, and minerals, Leopold’s men viciously used whipping, wounding, enslaving, beheading and severing body parts, including the penis. They routinely resorted to sexual violence against the Congolese people. They treated the Congolese as animals, exhibiting them in their zoos in Belgium. Their atrocities are estimated to have caused the deaths of around 10 million, then 50% of the Congolese population. This led to international scandal and outrage, forcing the Belgian government to take over the colony.

In 1908, under immense international pressure the Belgian government took over Leopold II’s private estate and made it a Belgian colony, christening it Belgian Congo. After 23 years of Leopold II’s rule, the Belgian government ruled Belgian Congo for another 52 years. The colony only gained its independence in 1960.

Under Belgian rule, genocidal actions reduced in number and severity but persecution and forced labor continued. The racism initiated by Leopold II continued though. Africans were excluded from education, employment and other opportunities. Children of mixed race were abducted and sent to orphanages in Belgium.

After World War I, European and US companies moved in and used the Congolese as indentured laborers to produce cotton, coffee, cacao, palm oil, rubber, copper, gold, diamond, cobalt, tin, zinc, uranium and other raw materials. They used forced labor to develop roads, railroads, utility stations, and other public facilities in Belgian Congo. During World War II, the US was heavily involved in mining uranium in the Congo. When postwar decolonization began, Belgium insisted that the Congolese were not mature enough to run their own country. So, Belgium stood firm on retaining its Belgian Colony, forgetting that the Belgians had wanted freedom from Nazi Germany themselves.

Under Belgian annexation, Congolese education undermined critical thinking and ripped up the social fabric. Only a very few were allowed to get basic education by the government-paid Christian missionaries whose primary goal was to advance colonization and conversion to Christianity. Only in 1954, a Congolese was first admitted to a Belgian university to study a subject other than Christian religion. To this day, the DRC is hobbled by its toxic colonial legacy.

Independence is snuffed out, exploitation continues

Starting from 1919, the Congolese began fighting for their independence. Their revolts were regularly suppressed by the Belgian authorities. In 1958, the Congolese formed their first political party. Riots broke out in 1959 with mobs demanding independence. A year later, Belgium capitulated, granting its huge colony independence. On June 30, 1960, the nationalist leader Patrice Lumumba became the prime minister and Joseph Kasavubu president. They put Colonel Joseph Mobutu in charge of the defense. Backed by Colonel Joseph Mobutu, Kasa-Vubu soon removed Lumumba. In January 1961, the US and Belgium backed a military coup. Mobutu murdered Lumumba. Mobutu went on to take over the presidency from Kasavubu in 1965. Backed by the US, he ran the DRC as a brutal dictator for 32 years, embezzling government funds at a gargantuan scale.

In 1997 backed by Rwanda and Uganda, Laurent Kabila took over the presidency and ruled for 4 years, causing over 3 million deaths. In 2001, he was killed and his son Joseph Kabila took over the presidency and ruled until late 2018 when opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi supposedly won an election that did not meet international expectations and was contested by the country’s dominant Catholic Church. He has remained in power as president to the present time.

In the 1880s, the US was becoming a world power. Leopold II used the services of an American to survey the Congo. He also sought American recognition of his personal rule over Congo. Some Americans were fearful of the power of American blacks who were demanding equality and liberty. They saw Leopold II’s  request as an opportunity to cleanse the US of its black population by sending them to the Congo. In exchange for the favor, Leopold assured the US that its citizens could buy lands in Congo and US imports would be exempt from all customs duties. Leopold received recognition of his rule in Congo by the US, paving the way for him to earn recognition from European powers. Leopold II’s deal with Uncle Sam also opened the gate for the US to plunder Congo”s wealth.

The US emulated Leopold II’s egregious abuses in minute detail, including displaying Congolese people in zoos in numerous cities across the country. As late as 1906, New Yorkers would rush to see a Congolese in the Monkey House at Bronx Zoo. This led to protests by American blacks and became a national scandal.

Suffice to say, the US has been exploiting Congo since Leopold II’s days. In particular, the US has been extracting uranium from Shinkolobwe mine since the 1930s. This small mine in the southern province of Katanga provided most of the uranium used in the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Today, US mining companies backed by the American military continue taking cobalt, copper, zinc and other minerals from the DRC, giving the country peanuts in return. 

The Belgian role in the Rwandan genocide

After World War I, the League of Nations transferred Rwanda and Burundi from Germany to Belgium. Taking a leaf out of its Congo playbook. Belgium yet again resorted to Christian evangelization and appointed white agents to dominate and control the new colonies. It also implemented a caste system, decreeing the minority Tutsis, a cattle-herding people, as superior to the majority Hutus, a farming people, and the native Twa, a pygmy people.   

In Rwanda, the Hutu king was removed for refusing to convert to Christianity. Then, the religion was forcefully imposed on the masses. Imana, the local monotheistic religion, was wiped out. For centuries, it had been the cultural force unifying the community. To dominate Rwanda, Belgium offered the Tutsis access to education and designated them as superior to others. The Tutsis became subordinate agents of Belgian colonial administration.

Those Responsible for the 1994 Rwandan Genocide Must Be Brought to Justice

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Belgium authorized the Tutsis to impose forced labor and punishments on other communities. Belgian policies imposed by Tutsis caused several famines. Later, Belgian colonial authorities took the administrative step of issuing identification cards for each ethnicity. That racial segregation policy along with the removal of their king angered the majority Hutus. To the Hutus, the Tutsis became known as “invaders”. In the late 1950s, the Hutu movement began to organize to oppose the Tutsis and expel Belgium. The Hutus also finally  began to earn some sympathy from Belgians.

When Rwanda won independence in 1962, a Hutu campaign to incinerate Tutsi huts sent many Tutsis fleeing into exile. The Hutu president Juvénal Habyarimana, known for his anti-Tutsi rhetoric, maintained a good relationship with Belgian King Baudouin. On April 6, 1994, a plane carrying Habyarimana, Burundian President Cyprien Ntarvamira, and other high-ranking officials was shot down, killing all on board. Blaming the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), Hutu extremists began the slaughter of Tutsis and their Hutu sympathizers. On April 7, 1994, Rwandan forces killed 10 Belgian officers. They threatened Belgium not intervene in the ongoing genocide against the Tutsis. Belgium dutifully abandoned Rwanda to the Hutu killers. In April 2000, Guy Verhofstadt, the Belgian prime minister, went to Rwanda and said, “In the name of my country and of my people, I beg your forgiveness.”

French forces were also present in Rwanda during the genocide. They watched the massacres, but did nothing. The French government persistently denied this until recently. After 27 years of denial, France was finally forced by its own government commission to officially admit its complicity in the 1994 Rwanda genocide. As stated earlier, Macron asked Rwandans for forgiveness in May this year. He said, “Only those who went through that night can perhaps forgive, and in doing so give the gift of forgiveness.”. 

As in Rwanda, Belgium divided Burundi people into Tutsis and Hutus, which led to ethnic conflicts and civil war, causing the deaths of 300,000 people. In 2009, Belgium officially apologized for its atrocities. 

Imperial powers must compensate their victims

In 2022, the time for reparations has come. So far, the UN proved impotent in the face of genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The oppressed people of the Congo are still waiting for justice and reparations for Belgian atrocities that still haunt them. It is for good reason that  Human Rights Watch observed, “Belgium cannot undo its colonial past but it’s not too late to redress its contemporary fallouts to build a future based on justice and equality.”

Fortunately, many Belgians today recognize that apology must be accompanied by reparations. Patrick Dewael, the speaker of the Belgian federal parliament, said: “apart from any apologies or excuses … anyone who makes a mistake, says our legal code, must compensate for the damage.” In 2001, the Belgian Parliament found the nation morally responsible for the assassination of Lumumba and apologized for its role. Belgium has yet to make any reparations though.

The “Belgium’s Colonial Past” commission, founded in 2020, is still working on issues related to the pre-independence history of the country’s three former colonies: Belgian Congo, Burundi, and Rwanda. To address the crimes of the past, Belgium must take these actions:

1. Acknowledge all the past abuses that include genoide and crimes against human rights.
2. Bring to justice all those individuals, living and dead, who perpetrated those egregious abuses.
3. Make reparations to all three former colonies based on the harm done to the Congolese people from Leopold II’s personal rule as well as Belgian colonial exploitation. The reparations must meet the following criteria:
   
   • correlate directly with all the economic profits Belgium earned from Congo, and
   • ensure that reparations do not go to the coffers of DRC’s corrupt government but are spent to improve education and infrastructure, bringing them to Belgian standards within 10 years.

As we have seen above, the US was Belgium’s accomplice in colonization of the Congolese people. Therefore, the US must take the following actions.

1. Acknowledge its collaboration with the Belgian authorities in the Congo regarding human rights abuses, including violence and genocide, and economic exploitation..
2. Form a committee that brings to justice US officials, living or dead, who abetted Belgian atrocities in the Congo.
3. Make reparations to remedy the harms done to the Congolese people. The reparations must meet the following criteria:
   • include a bipartisan committee to evaluate all the economic profits earned by the US from the Congo, starting 1885 to today, and
   • ensure that reparations do not go to the coffers of DRC’s corrupt government but are spent to improve education and infrastructure, bringing them to Belgian standards within 10 years.
4. Emulate Belgium and apologize for assassinating the nationalist leader Lumumba,

None of these actions can destroy the hurt and pain from the past but they will make our world a kinder, gentler and more just place.

*[Dr. Mehdi Alavi is the founder and president of Peace Worldwide Organization, a non-religious, non-partisan and charitable organization in the United States that promotes freedom and peace for all. It recently released its Civility Report 2022, which can be downloaded here.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Belgium’s Regrets Not Enough: Congo Deserves Apology and Reparations for War Crimes appeared first on Fair Observer.

The Corrib field is running out and our dependence on the UK for natural gas supplies is estimated to rise from 53% today to 90% in 2030. The electricity interconnector with France will not come on stream until 2027. Depending on one supplier, the UK, places Ireland in an inherently vulnerable position, especially given the fact that relations between London and Dublin have deteriorated.

We need a short term, as well as a long term solution. Most of the solutions under discussion such as hydrogen, offshore wind and building an LNG Terminal are long term. They will not help us next winter.

The EU-UK Trade Threatens Ireland’s Natural Gas Needs

Currently, about 700,000 homes, mainly in built up areas, use natural gas directly for heating. Furthermore, 50% of our electricity is generated from natural gas. As we know, electricity is vital for agriculture, industry and even services in any economy. The reliability of our power supplies is the number one worry for the multinational firms located in Ireland. Over the years, we have built our successful  and fast-growing economy around these multinationals. Power failures will make multinationals look to other shores and scare away investors.

We need to think hard about natural gas, power and our economy. There was an alarming report in one of the Sunday papers about a risk that Ireland might be cut off from natural gas supplies from the UK next winter. As per the story, if a gas shortage occurred in the UK, due to the continuing war in Ukraine, under a contingency plan now in preparation, the UK natural gas grid operator would be instructed to stop supplying gas to our fellow EU members: Netherlands and Belgium.

If it is legally possible for the UK to cut off these supplies to Ireland’s fellow EU members, one might assume that it would also be legally feasible for Britain to cut off supplies to Ireland too, citing the newly discovered “doctrine of necessity” it is using to back out of the 2019 Northern Ireland Protocol.

The British Ambassador to Ireland responded that the UK would not do this, and would  “ensure gas supply to Ireland in the event of any emergency.” He was confident the UK would have enough gas for next winter anyway. This assurance is welcome but, given in the context of supply problems arising because of the war, it is in doubt. Naturally, it is an open question whether the British ambassador’s assurance would hold this winter, especially in the event of a Brexit-related trade war breaking out between the EU and the UK.

Such a trade war is likely if the UK goes ahead with its threat of ceasing to operate the Northern Ireland Protocol. On the present parliamentary timetable, a Brexit-related crisis could occur next winter, just as Ireland’s electricity demand peaks. 

I do not believe that the departure of Boris Johnson from 10 Downing Street removes the risk of an EU-UK trade war. His successor will have to court the large radical Brexit element among the Tory grassroots. The EU and Ireland may have a very strong legal case on the Northern Ireland Protocol in international law, but law cases will not heat our homes, or power our farms in winter.

Ireland Needs to Face Crisis Realistically

This potential crisis of natural gas supply is simply accelerating a wider underlying electricity supply problem in Ireland. Even without the war in Ukraine, we already were facing electricity shortages for the winters of 2022-23 to 2025-266, according to the commission for the Regulation of Utilities. In a report last year, well before the war, the commission said we would need two new gas-fired stations, and prolong  the operation of older inefficient gas-fired plants just to maintain electricity supply.

But what happens if we cannot even get the gas, at any price?

The government is not unaware of the problem. By mid-2022, it has promised to produce a strategy statement on the security of energy supplies. It has been working on this since mid 2021. Yet we urgently need a transition plan that will see us through until offshore wind and other renewable sources come onstream in sufficient quantity.

Renewable energy would require substantial investment, which would have to be a strategic instead of a purely commercial decision. The taxpayer may have to fund part of it.

Today, the debate in the media in Ireland seems to be mainly about how to treat the symptoms of inflation. This needs to change. We need to pull together as a people to solve deep-seated problems such as power supplies for the current as well as for future generations.

Every day on Morning Ireland, we have interviews about shortfalls in services. Invariably, the solution proposed by the interviewees is “more resources,” which are to come from government coffers. The interviewees tend to blame the government of the day for all problems and crises with little challenge from the interviewers.

The interviewers rarely ask the interviewees from where the government would get the money required for the measures they propose. They fail to ask the obvious question: Is the money to come from extra borrowing or extra taxation?

The government itself has no money. To fund measures proposed on Morning Ireland, it will have to either tax or borrow. Either option has downsides, which need to be explored when anyone demands more resources. I realize most interviewees could not give a full answer to such questions. Most are not experts in public finance.
Yet asking the question would remind Irish radio listeners that government is about choices, often difficult ones. For example, the Irish government faces a choice between raising pensions for older people and increasing back to school payments for young families. To fund increased expenditure, should the government raise tax? If the government borrows instead of raising taxes, it is choosing the interests of the present generation over a future generation. Is that “social justice”?

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Alarm in Ireland About Natural Gas Supplies Next Winter appeared first on Fair Observer.

The Italian prime minister leaves Italy in a much better shape than he found it. It is only thanks to Mr. Draghi that The Economist crowned Italy the country of the year for 2021. Indeed, as the British newspaper wrote last December, “it is hard to deny that the Italy of today is a better place than it was in December 2020”. 

Response to COVID-19

Italy’s COVID-19 vaccination rate is among the highest in Europe. Besides, il Bel Paese is set to receive nearly $192 billion (€191.5 billion) from the European Commission’s Next Generation EU, a €750 billion recovery fund designed to boost the bloc’s economic growth hampered by the pandemic. Italy is getting more funds than any other EU country.

The Italian prime minister planned to make efficient use of the EU money. In fact, his reform-rich Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) had persuaded European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to disburse more than $25 billion (€24.9 billion) in pre-financing and the first tranche of over $21 billion (€21 billion) of the total sum. Italy also requested the second tranche, of over $21 billion (€21 billion) too, at the end of last month. These allocations, though, are conditional on Italy meeting the objectives set in the NRRP. So far, the Italian  government has reached all 45 milestones and targets. With Super Mario gone, however, it is extremely unlikely that Italy will continue to do so.

According to Istat, the Italian GDP grew by 6.6% during Draghi’s first year in office, the highest rate since 1976. Bear in mind that the eurozone’s third largest economy was the first European country to be hit by the pandemic. However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has sent energy, food and commodity prices soaring. And as a consequence, the Italian GDP contracted by 0.2% in the January-March quarter of 2022. 

Italy, the Sick Man of Europe

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The Draghi administration instituted damage control measures to reduce the impact of the war on the economy early on. It is for this reason that Minister of the Economy and Finance Daniele Franco estimated “robust growth” for the GDP in the second quarter in a speech at the Italian Banking Association (ABI). Neither did Franco know nor could he possibly predict that Giuseppe Conte’s party would unleash hell in Palazzo Madama. Conte was Draghi’s predecessor and has been the president of the populist Five Star Movement since August 2021.

To understand why Draghi came under pressure, we need some country-specific context. A gifted economist, Draghi took charge of a coalition government to nurse the Italian economy back to life. At the time, Italy was on the brink of collapse due to COVID-19. After Russia invaded Ukraine, economic recovery slowed down and Draghi’s coalition partners saw this as a good time to sabotage him. The center-right Forza Italia of former premier Silvio Berlusconi, the right-wing League of Matteo Salvini and the Five Star Movement led by Conte decided it was time to pull the rug under Draghi.

As support collapsed, Draghi resigned. Italian President Sergio Mattarella promptly rejected Draghi’s resignation. This did little to stop markets from panicking. At a time when eurozone inflation is reaching a record 8.5%, the spreads between Italian 10-year government bonds (BTPs) and German Bunds have risen to new highs. On July 20, Draghi addressed the Italian Senate and declared that he was willing to stay on as prime minister if the coalition parties backed his reform agenda. Unfortunately, the above-mentioned parties did not even have the decency to show up in parliament for the vote of confidence. This forced Draghi to resign despite winning the confidence vote.

Draghi’s final resignation prompted markets to react even worse than before. The Italy-Germany bond spreads shot up to 243 points. They only started to go down again when the ECB announced it would raise interest rates and launched the Transmission Protection Instrument (TPI), a new tool to tackle financial fragmentation in the euro area.

Renewed Credibility and Influence Abroad

With his considerable experience, statesmanlike stature and personal connections, Draghi has restored Italy’s credibility on the European and international stage in his short tenure as prime minister. Thanks to him, Italy successfully led the G20 and COP26 throughout 2021. Italy also (pro)actively participated in G7, NATO, and EU Summits, as well as other high-profile events such as the International Conference on Libya and the Summit for Democracy. Draghi’s deft diplomacy demonstrates how committed he is to strengthening multilateralism and democratic values. As a result, Italy has gained in strength, influence and credibility abroad under his sapient premiership.

How the European Union Lost Italy to the Radical Right

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As the political crisis unfolded, Super Mario was still hard at work. On July 19, he spoke with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who thanked Draghi for his “significant personal contribution to granting Ukraine the status of a candidate country for EU membership”. The day before, Draghi was in Algeria where he signed several agreements, including an energy deal enabling Italy to reduce gas imports from Russia. The Italian government has signed similar deals with Angola, the Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Egypt, Bahrain, Qatar, Turkey and Azerbaijan.

In fact, in May the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) brought 10 billions cubic meters of gas from Baku, Azerbaijan all the way to Melendugno, Southern Italy in the span of a weekend. Similar negotiations with Israel and Libya are ongoing. By seeking to diversify gas supplies and investing in renewable energy projects, Draghi has been trying to reverse decades of dependence on Russian energy. Following Draghi’s resignation, however, Russia has increased its gas supplies to Italy by 71,4% in just one day.

As The Financial Times recently pointed out, Draghi “is (or at least was) shifting the power dynamics within the EU”. Proximity to the Mediterranean Sea and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is no longer perceived as a liability. The risk of increased migration is now trumped by the opportunity of importing non-Russian gas and oil into Europe. 

Even as Draghi nudged the EU in a new direction, he deepened ties with France, the outgoing president of the Council of the EU. On November 26, 2021, the two EU founding members signed the Quirinale Treaty, a historic deal to strengthen cooperation between Italy and France.

The agreement is very similar to the Élysée Treaty between France and Germany which celebrates its 60th anniversary next year. The EU’s biggest economy assumed the presidency of the G7 in January. Yet the post-Angela Merkel traffic-light coalition has struggled to speak with one voice and retain its leadership role in Europe. For all its promises to increase defense spending and deliver lethal weapons to Ukraine, Germany is still very reliant on Russian energy. Hence, it has proved reluctant to suspend the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline and support a full embargo on Russian oil and gas. 

Until a few weeks ago, Italy was the second largest importer of Russian gas, next only to Germany. Yet the Draghi administration has been bold enough to back all sanctions on Russia proposed by the EU and its North American allies.

Stronger Transatlantic Ties

On the other side of the Atlantic, US President Joe Biden and his administration have been looking at Draghi’s Italy with renewed interest and respect. The recipient of The Atlantic Council’s 2022 Distinguished Leadership Award has proved to be a strong leader and a committed transatlantic partner. 

Is Russia’s War in Ukraine Creating a New European Security Architecture?

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Draghi has been pushing for the development of a strong European defense to complement NATO and took a tougher stance vis-à-vis both Russia and China than his predecessors long before Russia’s aggression against Ukraine began. In his May address to the European Parliament, the Italian prime minister urged greater European coordination on defense. The economist also made the case for more efficient defense spending among EU member states, something that would greatly benefit NATO as well since 21 (soon 23) EU countries are also NATO allies.

Unfortunately, Draghi did not have it all his own way though. Despite his calls to increase Italy’s defense budget, the Boot will not hit NATO 2% GDP defense spending target until 2028. Nevertheless, in the eyes of US Defense Secretary Lyloyd Austin, Italy remains “one of Europe’s most reliable security providers”. 

Last year, Italy celebrated 160 years of diplomatic ties with Washington and also marked 70 years of NATO’s presence on its soil. The country is currently leading the NATO mission in Iraq and is supposed to take the lead of the mission in Kosovo in the fall. Italy’s Eurofighter jets have been stationed in Romania since November 2021 and the country has been supporting NATO all the way from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. In addition, since Russia’s invasion began, Draghi has been striving to provide heavy weapons to Ukraine despite the strong opposition from within his coalition. He has even looked to strengthen defense cooperation with Japan amid concerns that China might be preparing to attack Taiwan.

Thanks to this renewed international credibility, Italy has reclaimed its rightful place within the Quint, an informal framework used by the United States, France, Germany, the UK and now Italy again to discuss and coordinate their foreign policy on matters of common interest.

Political Mayhem Returns

Draghi’s premiership has undoubtedly transformed Italy into a power player in Europe and positioned it to be a stronger and more credible ally for NATO and the US. However, as  basketball legend Kobe Bryant once said “Job is not finished”. Draghi needed more time in office to undertake all the reforms envisaged in the NRRP to modernize Italy. Instead, Italy’s best player was fouled by his own teammates and sent to the locker room in the middle of the game. His season is over. 

Despite not being an elected official, Draghi enjoyed the support of both politicians and ordinary citizens. Since he first tendered his resignation, there have been protests in Italy’s main cities and petitions signed by nearly 2,000 mayors and governors and 100,000 Italians demanding that Draghi stay on in the nation’s top job until the next elections, originally scheduled for March 2023. Now that Draghi has resigned, Italy will go to the polls in September. 

Sadly, Draghi’s ambitions for Italy clashed with the country’s grim political reality. The notoriously Russian-friendly Five Star Movement, League and Forza Italia are jeopardizing Draghi’s hard-fought legacy of credibility for the country. By behaving so irresponsibly, they are throwing Italy into political and economic instability once again. If Super Mario could not change Italy, then no one else can. The premature ending of Draghi’s government is bad news not only for hardworking Italians, but also for the EU, NATO and Ukraine, who might soon lose a key partner in its fight for freedom. In the Kremlin, on the other hand, this is a cause for celebration because whoever is elected this fall will never be as pro-Europe and pro-US as Mario Draghi.

Mr. Prime Minister, you will be missed!

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Italy, Europe, and the World Needed Super Mario to Stay On appeared first on Fair Observer.

The effects of conspiracy theories in Italy were particularly noticeable when a wave of protests spread across various moderate to large cities last year. A small portion of the Italian population protested all over the country against the government’s mandatory vaccinations and use of the Green Pass, a document needed until April 1, 2022 to enter public places and given only to those who had been given both vaccine doses. The conspiracies fuelling these protests focused on the government’s handling of the pandemic, the dangers of vaccines, and the basic existence of COVID-19. While most protests were peaceful, conspiratorial belief pushed some individuals to carry out violent attacks.   

Conspiracy Theories and COVID-19

Conspiracy theories can be understood as “attempts to explain the ultimate causes of significant social and political events… with claims of secret plots by… powerful actors.”  Scholars find that they tend to arise in correspondence to incomprehensible and unexpected worldwide events that cause feelings of fear, uncertainty, lack of control, and stress. Individuals who possess these feelings tend to believe in conspiracies because they provide alternative and simplistic answers to events which would otherwise be difficult to understand. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has created the perfect environment for conspiracy theories to flourish. Given its uncertain and inexplicable environment, people have turned to conspiracies to better understand the situation they are living in. In addition, thanks to the stay-at-home orders, people have spent the majority of their time on social media platforms, which are rife with conspiracy theories. 

Myriads of radical right extremists were and continue to be extremely active on social media platforms. They spread numerous conspiracies regarding the origins of COVID-19. While some were new in nature, others were readapted old tropes which came to include the pandemic. Some of the most common conspiracies disseminated by the radical right were: anti-Asian (with many different scenarios speculating as to whether poor food hygiene was to blame or whether Asian governments intentionally created and spread the virus to secure global dominance), anti-Semitic (the Jewish population was blamed for spreading the virus to advance its financial goals), anti-immigrant (with a readaptation of the Great Replacement theory, itself often imbued with implicit anti-Semitism, in addition to anti-black and Islamophobic elements), anti-government (governments were blamed for controlling and suppressing societies by taking away individual freedoms) and anti-vaccine (governments were criticised for using them to monitor people). 

Conspiracy Theories in Italy: Dangerous or Not? 

Last year and early this year, Italy experienced a wave of nationwide protests, with individuals expressing their anger towards restrictions imposed by the government. The government imposed vaccinations for workers in almost every sector. Workers who refused to be vaccinated were to have their employment terminated. The Green Pass was mandatory too. Italians utilized their right to protest to express their anger against these policies. Sadly, this anger is often fuelled by nefarious, conspiratoracies. Some of these clearly encourage individuals to carry out violence during or after the protests.  

Between September 2020 and April 2021, during the first wave of nationwide protests , Italian citizens manifested their anger against the government’s mandatory lockdowns, they questioned the existence of the virus, and doubted the COVID-19 vaccine. Their anger was reinforced by a series of conspiracy theories that had spread on social media. Most of these conspiracies stated that COVID-19 did not really exist, but was actually a falsehood perpetrated by governments to control individuals. They claimed that the Italian media was exaggerating the number of deaths and cases in the country. They also argued that governments had created vaccines to monitor individuals. Furthermore, these vaccines were believed to be dangerous as they were created far too quickly and without enough tests to prove their efficacy.

This more recent wave of protests was also founded on conspiracies ranging from anti-government to anti-vaccine. A portion of the Italian population is convinced that the government is consolidating its power over its citizens by controlling them, taking away their individual rights and freedoms, and controlling the country’s money supply. They also believe that vaccines are still harmful and should not be administered to young children. Protestors have come to define the Italian government as a “health dictatorship or tyranny.” In November 2021, a massive crowd in Milan greeted the well-known vaccine skeptic Robert Kennedy Jr, praising his words against the Green Pass and mandatory vaccination. 

Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, not all protests were peaceful. Some resulted in violent attacks. On April 3. 2021, Nicola Zanardelli and Paolo Pluda attacked a vaccination hub in Brescia, Lombardy with multiple incendiary devices. Investigators and prosecutors argued that the main aim of the perpetrators was to damage the hub and interrupt the vaccination campaign in the city. 

The attack was a direct outcome of Pluda’s journey into conspiracy theories. On his Facebook page, Pluda shared a variety of posts, pictures and memes of different conspiracies ranging from anti-government to anti-immigration, from anti-vaccination to anti-COVID. He believed that COVID-19 was a hoax and that the government had created it for its own agenda and that vaccines were created to control the population. Because of his beliefs, Pluda took part in many of the anti-vaccination and anti-COVID protests, which he advertised on his Facebook page with the aim of  gathering as many of his friends and followers as possible.

Other protests aimed at taking down the government and changing the social and political order. These protests turned violent when on October 9, 2021, protestors guided by the leaders of Italy’s far-right groups, such as Forza Nuova, broke into the headquarters of the Italian General Confederation of Labor (CGIL — Italy’s most important trade union) in Rome and caused havoc. Protestors managed to overtake police officers at the entrance and gradually make their way through the offices, damaging furniture, destroying objects and breaking windows. 

How to Curb Violence?

After the violent attack in Rome, Italian prosecutors and investigators have been working to arrest any individual with extreme and radical views who was tied to the protests. Many of the individuals arrested were part of a Telegram channel called “Basta Dittatura” (“Stop the Dictatorship”), which has been taken down because of its hateful comments. The channel boasted several thousand members that talked about taking up arms, committing attacks on Italian institutions and taking down the health dictatorship. 

While this is a step in the right direction, the Italian government can implement more information campaigns — both online and offline — which could be crucial to avoid the spread of conspiracies. By increasing the amount of factually correct information on vaccines and COVID-19 and by taking down posts, videos, and memes that spread conspiracies, the Italian government could mitigate violent attacks in the future. 

Conspiracy theories can be dangerous and can push individuals to commit violence, especially when the environment is stressful, inexplicable, and uncertain. The conspiracies related to the COVID-19 pandemic have pushed individuals worldwide to commit violent attacks. Italy is no exception and, like other nations, must act speedily to curb such violence.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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The post How Dangerous Are COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories In Italy? appeared first on Fair Observer.

The most striking bit of gossip that I picked up was that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has knocked up his nanny and is expecting what might be his twelfth child. As rumors go, this might be as fictional as Nessie, the Loch Ness monster. After all, rumors have swirled in London and various capitals around the world for ages about the salacious private lives of the great men of the realm.

Yet I could not help but think that rumors about Johnson are taking this green and pleasant land back to the future. The current prime minister is supremely powerful. All Tory grandees have been defenestrated. The likes of William Hague and Kenneth Clarke may still go around giving speeches but they do not matter anymore. Unlike Winston Churchill or Margaret Thatcher who surrounded herself with big beasts in the cabinet, Johnson is now the only big beast among pygmies. Unlikely though this may sound, such concentration of power harks back to a bygone era.

Falstaffian Churchill-Worshiping Henry VIII

Johnson may play the buffoon but he is a classicist with a keen sense of history. He is one of the great characters of Eton, a great school that produced the likes of the Duke of Wellington and Orwell. As a child, young Johnson wanted to be world king. Later, he downgraded his ambitions and gunned to be prime minister. Not only has Johnson got to 10 Downing Street, he has got there in style and has etched his name in the history books. This Falstaffian figure fond of wine, women and song has delivered Brexit and won a thumping reelection.

In many ways, Big Boris is the modern Henry VIII who has broken with Europe. It may turn out to be a jolly good thing in the future as debt-ridden aging Europe fails to deal with its mounting debts, stubborn unemployment and now rising inflation. In the long run, Brexit might still turn out to be a jolly good thing after all. Johnson might end up like the historic Henry VIII figure who set England on the path of glory and empire.

Johnson, who is obsessed with Winston Churchill, is doing quite well out of the Russia-Ukraine War. Like his hero, the prime minister is enjoying his finest hour. He has boldly taken on the transparently villainous Vladimir Putin and turned the screws on Russian oligarchs who, until not too long ago, bought houses, yachts and football clubs. A few weeks ago, BoJo (a popular nickname for Johnson in the UK) dashed to Kyiv for a walkabout with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Yet not all has been going well for Big Boris since he moved into 10 Downing Street. Brexit was a long drawn-out affair. The Partygate scandal continues to rumble on. Tory grandees and the notoriously savage British press continue to hammer Johnson. The Economist has claimed “foot-dragging, hard-heartedness, ineptitude and dishonesty”to be  typical of BoJo’s government. The venerable 1843 publication has gone on to say repeatedly that the Johnson “government is a fundamentally unserious government led by fundamentally unserious people.”

Most recently, BoJo lost what Al Ghaff and I have called “the most consequential local elections in decades.” Yet he remains firmly in the saddle because this “sly fox disguised as a teddy bear” has chewed up the little rabbit coming out of the Tory hat named Rishi Sunak.

Cummings and Goings

The recent rumors about Johnson’s latest amorous adventure might be much ado about nothing. After all, nothing has stopped BoJo in the past. He is the great survivor of British politics. Nearly 18 years ago, Michael Howard sacked BoJo for lying about an affair. BoJo came roaring back and is still riding high.

Yet there is always a sneaking suspicion that one day BoJo might not be able to manage yet another James Bond-style close shave. As the adage goes, even the canniest of cats have only nine lives. It is not without reason that Dominic Cummings, once an unlikely ally of Johnson, called him “a shopping trolley smashing from one side of the aisle to the other.” Some of BoJo’s critics point to his private life as proof of Cummings’ observations and Spitting Image has repeatedly taken the mickey out of BoJo for never taking precautions. 

Two years ago, when BoJo’s now wife and then girlfriend was expecting their baby, Private Eye mocked Big Boris for fathering what was rumored to be his tenth child. Carrie Johnson has now given birth to another child, bringing that number to 11. BoJo has produced enough progeny to form a football (soccer for Americans) team. Now, rumors emerge that the man advised to “lock up [his] willy” might have failed to do so again. This time, his nanny is the lady in question.

Already, BoJo’s nanny has been in the news. Apparently, Conservative donors have been ponying up the cash to pay for his lifestyle. This allegedly includes the salary of the nanny. Early this month, The Times — the real one in London, not The New York Times that is a target of my learned colleague Peter Isackson — asked, “Can Boris Johnson afford to be prime minister?” 

Given BoJo’s posh lifestyle and, presumably, “off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush” payments for his many children, The Times’ question is most pertinent. Another Boris, the blond tennis superstar Boris Becker, once known for his booming serve and partying lifestyle, is in jail over bankruptcy charges. BoJo is unlikely to end up like Becker but he is clearly a prime minister under strain. If rumors of another child with the nanny are not just smoke without fire, then the BoJo shopping trolley might be careening completely out of control.

When is Private Life a Public Issue?

Rumors about BoJo’s child number 12 for the man in Number 10 raise a key issue about the private lives of public figures. In puritanical America, politicians were and, with the exception of Donald Trump, still are generally damned for what many Europeans might term moments of weakness or mere piffle. Gary Hart’s presidential campaign imploded when a lissome model was found on his lap. David Petraeus had to resign as the director of the CIA for an extramarital affair and the ensuing kerfuffle. Such errant behavior is seen to be a reflection of poor character that disqualifies people from public office.

In France, presidents have long had mistresses. It almost seems that it is a prerequisite for the job and perhaps demonstrates nimble management skills required of any inhabitant of the Élysée Palace. BoJo has long maintained that his private life is his private life and that is that. In 2013, a British judge disagreed. He refused BoJo a gagging order concerning an illegitimate child taking the view that the public had a right to know about BoJo’s “reckless” conduct.

As my dear Dutch friend Jarst de Jong put it best, BoJo’s private life is a matter of public importance. It gives insight into the character and judgment of the British prime minister. A Jarst said pithily, anyone can cheat once because no one is a saint. A second time may be understable as well. But when someone cheats repeatedly and lies about it, then it reveals their lack of trustworthiness. BoJo seems to repeatedly betray those who love and trust him. That might not be the most desirable trait for any leader. 

BoJo’s repeated scandals also reveal a certain lack of awareness and understanding of risk. Taking risks is part of leadership but taking risks without understanding what consequences they entail is a dangerous habit. BoJo has long had a reputation for recklessness but has got away with the risks he has taken so far. Maybe, the twelfth child might inspire a play like The Twelfth Night.

Perhaps the UK could heed the words of Max Hastings, a man who first hired Johnson and packed him off to Brussels. Hastings also gave BoJo the “lock up” advice, which has so far gone unheeded. In 2018, Hastings wrote, “Johnson’s glittering intelligence [was] not matched by self-knowledge.” Calling BoJo, “Blackadder in a blond wig” with “remarkable gifts,” Hastings called Big Boris “flawed by an absence of conscience, principle or scruple.” The contrast with Gaitskell whose tombstone says fortitudo et integritas could not be starker.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Do Rumors of Boris Johnson’s Purported Twelfth Child Matter? appeared first on Fair Observer.

As the ballots are counted and results are declared across the country, a clear picture emerges: these local elections are the most consequential local elections in decades.

If the results of the local elections were to be replicated in a general election, we will find ourselves in hung Parliament territory where several scenarios could emerge, primarily based on and dictated by the number of seats secured in the House of Commons by the Labour and Liberal Democrats.

Bumbling Boris

Boris Johnson’s leadership of the Conservative Party has been a controversial one. The Conservatives and the country have not experienced a leader like Johnson before. His career as a journalist and politician is littered with transgressions and misdemeanors. 

Boris Johnson is the ultimate Teflon politician. In the words of his lifelong friend and rival David Cameron, “Boris always been able to get away with things that mere mortals can’t”. Cameron certainly did not get away with the Brexit referendum that led to his downfall as prime minister. In contrast, Johnson has sailed through one scandal after another and won a thumping majority in the 2019 elections.

Before those elections, Johnson’s unconventional leadership of the Tories in its first few months involved unlawfully proroguing Parliament and removing the whip from 21 of his MPs who voted to block a disastrous no-deal Brexit that the prime minister was pursuing at the time. Those MPs included party grandees and bigwigs such as former chancellors of the exchequer Ken Clarke and Phillip Hammond, and former ministers Dominic Grieve, Oliver Letwin, Rory Stewart, Ed Vaizey, and even Nicholas Soames, the grandson of the revered wartime Conservative Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

Johnson’s leadership of the Conservatives involves an implicit pact between himself and his party. His history of transgressions and misdemeanors, and economic relationship with the truth and facts as well as his antiques are tolerated as long as he wins elections. In the 2019 elections, Johnson upheld his side of the bargain and delivered an 80-seat majority for the Conservatives.

In the wake of the 2019 election results, Tory strategists and spin doctors claimed that Boris’ antics and his scandalous personal life were always ‘priced in’ by large parts of the electorate. Last week’s local election results dispute this Tory claim. It turns out that voters repeatedly raised the partygate scandal when campaigners and journalists turned up at their doorsteps.

The Conservative Party is extraordinary at winning elections. They are good at stealing the clothes of other parties and doing what is necessary to win. That involves ruthlessly knifing their leaders when they stop winning. No Tory leader has been exempt from this rule, including Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. Yet Tory knifing is a clinical cold-blooded affair. MPs knife their leader when credible successors lie in wait to mount the saddle.

Boris Johnson: Bumbling Buffoon, Pied Piper or Churchillian Statesman?

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So far, Johnson has ensured that there is no successor lying in wait. Despite partygate and the cost-of-living crisis, Johnson’s position is secure because he has ruthlessly eliminated all potential rivals. Rishi Sunak, the current chancellor of the exchequer, was once touted as a potential prime minister but, like Icarus, he has come down to earth. Johnson is a Balliol classicist who wanted to be “world king” when he was young. Cloak and dagger palace intrigues come naturally to him. Sunak and his wife have been thrown to the wolves by the so-called Bumbling Boris whose team have leaked juicy tales of the couple’s domicile, tax and financial affairs, causing outrage among voters. Sunak can now kiss goodbye to prime minister ambitions. A career managing his father-in-law’s billions from sunny California seems more probable.

The local elections have been nothing short of disastrous for the Tories. Nearly 2,000 seats were in play. They were voted out in a quarter of the seats they were defending. Losing so many seats should put pressure on Johnson. His fast and loose reputation with the truth has finally come to haunt the Conservative Party. However, the Tories do not have any potential successors in sight and Johnson is secure for now.

Johnson is not like Cameron who resigned after losing the Brexit referendum. He has thick skin and no sense of shame. Johnson is not going to resign because he is found guilty of wrongdoing, misconduct or misjudgment. As one cabinet ally puts it, “He’s not going anywhere, his fingernails have been dug into the Downing Street window frames and he would be taken away kicking and screaming.”

Johnson is certainly in the mood to fight back against any attempt by Conservative MPs to remove him from power. For now, he still has the support of the conservative-leaning press. Tory-sympathizing journalists have gone into overdrive to spin the disastrous local elections as largely inconsequential and irrelevant for the Conservative Party. They take the view that these local elections were not a referendum on Johnson.

There is another key factor to note. The prime minister has a track record of resorting to unconstitutional methods, unlawful actions and top-level deceit to save his skin. At the moment, the only way Johnson will leave 10 Downing Street is through an election defeat.

Starmer Stakes All

Elections are complicated affairs. They are not as simple as one party or candidate beating the other. In general, power changes hands only when the ruling party loses energy, direction or cohesion or any combination of the three and the opposition party gets its act together to emerge as a ruling party in waiting. In the British system, any change in power takes two to tango. When John Major lost in 1997, the Tories were divided, discredited, exhausted and bereft of new ideas after 18 years in power. In contrast, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown offered fresh energy and projected competence. Like the 1997 elections, other changes in power were also such dual acts involving both ruling and opposition parties.

Currently, Keir Starmer is the leader of the Labour Party. He is a distinguished barrister who headed the Crown Prosecution Service. He took over in April 2020 after two failed leaders. Jeremy Corbyn presided over five turbulent and disastrous years. Before him, the uninspiring Ed Miliband squandered another five years. Starmer seemed like a sane and surefooted choice for the Labour Party. Here was a safe pair of hands who would  return competence and order to the office of the Leader of Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition.

Unlike most of his predecessors, Starmer is not a political animal. His approach to politics is measured and forensic. His early performances during the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) caught Johnson off guard. Starmer’s lawyerly approach and mannerisms were in direct contrast to that of Johnson’s populist, colorful, and theatrical political style. This rattled some Tory nerves in the early days and cheered Labour backbenchers.

Starmer’s star has waned since. His back-handed political operations and communication blunders have not helped. Starmer is comfortable with big decisions but has a blind spot for the minutiae that drive modern politics. Some of these big decisions have long been necessary. Starmer has removed the whip from Corbyn and purged Corbynistas from key offices. Starmer has also worked hard to make Labour electable again.

On Monday, May 9 — three days after the local elections — Starmer rolled the dice to take the biggest gamble of his political life. The Labour leader announced that he will step down if found guilty of breaking the stringent lockdown rules when he visited Durham, a historic city in Northeast England, in 2021 during the election campaign.

Starmer’s announcement is a very bold move. If he is cleared by the Durham Police, Starmer will stand tall next to a prime minister alleged to have misled parliament over partygate, a resigning matter under ‘normal’ circumstances. If Starmer’s move comes off, it will be the political equivalent of checkmating Boris Johnson. If Starmer is found guilty and resigns, his leadership will come to a premature end and it is unclear if the next Labour leader would benefit from such a move. The fate of British politics lies in balance on the Durham Police investigation.

Old Wine in New Bottle

Regardless of what transpires in Durham, the recent local elections provide a roadmap to toppling Tories from power. Starmer and Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey are carefully treading a path once charted by their charismatic predecessors in the 1990s. Then Blair and Paddy Ashdown forged a Labour-Liberal non-aggression pact to unseat the Tores from power. Starmer and Davey hope this may be a winning model for the next parliamentary elections.

While Starmer only became an MP in 2015, Davey first entered parliament in the historic elections of 1997. He benefits from the advice of Baroness Olly Grender, a veteran of the Ashdown years known for her political nous. Starmer lacks Davey’s long history and subconscious memory but the Labour leader is proving to be ruthless and flexible in his pursuit for power.

Starmer and Davey might find it hard to replicate the Blair and Ashdown deal. However, the current leaders are well aware of the dividends such an arrangement could bring. If both their parties can avoid bloodletting, they could mount a challenge to Tories discredited by Johnson’s repeated shenanigans.

If the results of the recent local elections were replicated in the next parliamentary elections, the UK would have a hung parliament with no party having a clear majority. If Labour and Liberal Democrats can build on what they have done, they could oust the Tories. Both opposition parties have a strong incentive to cooperate and their leaders seem to be sensible enough to do so.

Brexit Dividend

Even though Brexit is now fait accompli, it continues to haunt British politics. The Brexit business model championed by hardline Brexiteers is flawed, irrational, contorted and thus bound to malfunction. The so-called Brexit Dividend of their dreams has so far failed to materialize. In fact, the Boris-led Brexit is turning out to be an expensive deal for the country. The independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has estimated “the decline in trade volumes to bring about 4% reduction in the size of Britain’s economy over the long run, in line with its pre-Brexit forecast”. Elsewhere, experts have calculated that Brexit is currently costing the economy to the tune of £800 million a week — and counting.

So far, the Tories have managed to hide the economic self-harm caused by Brexit. They argue that the economic downturn is due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the squeeze on household budgets and the cost-of-living crisis is chipping away at this Tory narrative. Voters might not yet be in the mood to punish the Conservative Party for Brexit, but they will certainly punish Tories for the pain they are suffering thanks to economic mismanagement.

Arise King Boris, Father of Brexit and Foe of Brussels

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For the foreseeable future, the Conservative brand will be intimately associated with Brexit and its economic consequences. The recent elections demonstrate that the national backdrop provides the mood music even for local voter choices. Westminster and Wandsworth Councils, two historically and symbolically significant Tory councils, were won by the Labour Party in the early hours of the morning of May 6. Safe Tory seats in affluent parts of Southwest England such as Richmond and St Albans fell to the Liberal Democrats. In the words of George W. Bush, the Conservatives have taken a “thumping.”

The Disunited Kingdom

Bush never quite recovered from that 2006 midterm thumping. He left the US divided over Iraq and in the throes of a global financial crisis. Under Bumbling Boris, the Tories have embraced a disastrous Brexit business model and a toxic English ethnonationalism that threatens the integrity of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland itself.

On May 5, Sinn Féin achieved a historic victory in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections. This has sent shockwaves through the Unionist Movement that seeks to keep Northern Ireland in the UK. Sinn Féin’s victory has caused further embarrassments, anxiety, and alarm for the Conservative and Unionist Party — the full name of the Tory Party — in London.

The Irish Question dominated British politics a century ago. After World War I, Ireland won its long-cherished independence from the UK and disintegrated into civil war. Northern Ireland remained in the UK but the Troubles broke out in the late 1960s. A violent sectarian conflict between Protestant unionists and Catholic nationalists caused much tragedy in this picturesque land till the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. This period of peace might be coming to an end.

Britain’s Still Got It

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Never before have Catholic nationalists who aim for the reunification of Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic wielded power in Belfast. The unionists are unlikely to accept the dominance of the republicans in Northern Ireland.

The election results in Northern Ireland have put into stark relief the Northern Ireland Protocol negotiated by Johnson with the EU. It was backed by his unionist allies, especially the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). In these elections, the unionists were divided and Sinn Féin trumped DUP to emerge as the top dog in Northern Irish politics. Together, the unionists have a greater vote share but the specter of a reunion with Ireland looms large.

Even as Northern Ireland threatens to slip out of the UK, so does Scotland. The Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) has campaigned for independence from London before. The SNP is now the natural ruling party of Scotland and is chipping away at the foundations of the union. In the long run, the SNP wants a second referendum and to turn Scotland into an independent nation. In the Brexit referendum, Scots voted to stay in the EU. Leaving the UK and entering the EU is the SNP ambition. Bumbling Boris and political gravity are helping their cause.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The Tories Get a Thumping in Local UK Elections appeared first on Fair Observer.