The trip of the President of France and the President of the European Commission to China has exposed, like few other events, the weaknesses of the current Union, but also the state of its immanent impotence – almost complete inability to function as a community that the interests of the Member States. The question will come back more and more emphatically: why do we need such a Union? The Chinese escapade of the Frenchman and the German should be treated as a phase of his disintegration.
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Emmanuel Macron’s statements about the need for construction “European Autonomous Strategy” almost unlike the United States show that European countries have almost nothing in common politically. The French president chose to visit the second largest military and economic power in the world to publicize his geostrategic ideas. This visit was correctly but very aptly summed up by former United States President Donald Trump, who said in an interview with Fox News that Macron “kissed the chinese dd…d,” — implied by President Xi Jinping. Or maybe someone else who knows?
What does Macron think?
Half the trouble if the stories of strategic autonomy were merely an expression of the complexes of its leader – the second Napoleon or De Gaulle, a symptom of thinly veiled aspirations to become the first president of a European state. It seems to him that as the supposed third player in the world – the leader of the European Union – he is playing a sophisticated game between the world’s two greatest powers. Macron had visions, he spoke on behalf of the whole continent, because such a political genius does not need to ask some Finns, Lithuanians, Romanians how Europe should be, how to take care of their own security. No one will attack France nor will it help anyone in Europe, so there will be some war and fear for some Poles, Latvians or Estonians.
Unfortunately, this fatal, actually idiotic idea of this autonomy a la francaise in a progressive and European Europe pleases. The first to speak was the Belgian Charles Michel, head of the European Council, who announced in an interview with France Info radio and television that Macron’s vision enjoys the support of many European politicians. – The positions of the French president reflect the changes taking place in the way of thinking of the leaders of the European Union – he said. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte also rushed to support Macron, who, during the visit of the French politician to this country, spoke of the need for independence from the United States and the fact that the EU must have its own geopolitical position in the global arena . These are just hallucinations, and Ms. Ursula von der Leyen, who flew to China as a chaperone with Macron, will show us why.
Her job included what she always does: talk about some EU values, commitment to freedom, democracy, human rights and whatever. The idea was to hide how blatantly the French wanted to do business with the communist regime. A few dozen representatives of French business went with Macron, and that’s what the whole trip was about. Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy LVMH – the world’s largest luxury goods company just announced record results, and its main market is China – someone had to replace the Russian oligarchs.
Chaperone von der Leyen was treated by the Chinese as someone of no importance. In a country built largely on Confucianism and an extraordinary respect for ritual, form and rank, she was humbled. Not only was her stay not filled with meetings, but she was turned away as an ordinary tourist. The President of the European Commission is used to being treated with humiliation. Two years ago, during a visit to Turkey, during an audience with President Erdogan, there was no armchair for her, because the only one available was the Belgian gentleman Charles Michel.
Imagine the humiliating treatment of the leader of a state. The citizens would certainly be indignant and even moved. However, no one in Europe cares that she was humiliated as the leader of Europe.
But why could the Chinese be so humiliated by the president? Because she is nobody, an insignificant person – the head of some ridiculous powerless organization, some clerk. Americans view the “old Europe”, which represents the EU, as a victim of fate, as Marek Budzisz writes. The same goes for the Chinese, Arabs, Turks and Indians. The Union is an organization of no importance in the world. It has no economic, military, political or cultural power. The EU is only and exclusively important as a supervisor and administrator of the customs and economic area. Anyone who wants to invest in Europe and sell goods has to deal with the Brussels bureaucrats, but the way to do business is through Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam or Brussels, but the Belgian, not the EU.
To the Chinese, von der Leyen is just an official who is supposed to manage what he and Macron decide. Economic relations can be viewed from this perspective: there are no EU investments in China, India, Africa, etc. There are French, Germans, Italians and even Poles. However, there are Chinese, Arab investments in the EU – that is, in the area governed by civil servants and customs officers from Brussels. The EU is one thing to the outside world and another thing to us Europeans, who have become hostages of big business and ideological madmen.
Real goals
When Macron, Dutch Prime Minister Rutte, Belgian Michels or representatives of the German SPD talk about strategic autonomy and independence from the US, they only mean the interests of large European companies, which cannot compete in the global market without EU drivers . The EU’s common economic space is only for corporate extortion. Either Chinese, Turk, you do business with us, or we close the huge EU market of 430 million consumers to you. In this puzzle are countries without international companies like German, French, Dutch, etc. they have nothing to say. Their interests, even the most fundamental, such as safety, can be traded for gas, investments for BMW or the opening of the Chinese market to French cosmetics or cognac. And this is the dysfunction of the Union. The interests of the French company Electricite de France are more important than the safety of Poles or Latvians. If France does not make money from the production of missiles, it will block the transfer of these missiles from the EU to Ukraine. In that sense there is no community. On the contrary – the interests of individual states are in direct conflict with each other. The EU has become an instrument to take away the sovereignty and independence of smaller states. Robbed, subject to blackmail, dependent on outflows from EU funds, they must submit to the interests of Berlin or Paris.
And that is the real message of Macron and von der Leyen’s visit to China. No grand geostrategic game on the world board, no three-level chess. The usual way of doing business in large companies. When Macron takes President von der Leyen with her in her hand luggage, it is not only as a chaperone, but also as a salesman, a salesman who has samples of goods in his suitcase. France is smaller than many Chinese provinces in terms of population and economy. But with the President of the European Commission, it could reach 430 million customers.
The Union cannot solve any problem in Europe. Even the United States was needed to enforce peace in the Balkans. The need to build the Union’s geopolitical power has been mentioned by the Prime Minister of the Netherlands – the leader of a country whose soldiers in UN troops were not even able to prevent the Bosnian massacre at Srebrenica. Or they were too cowardly. This should be a reminder of how the rulers and proprietors of “old Europe” treat its nations. The pompous Macron does not turn into a Gallic rooster. Together with Germany and the Benelux countries, it does not guarantee anyone on the continent not only security, but even its illusions. Even today, during the war in Ukraine, France fails to fulfill its obligations to NATO and allocates only 1.89% of GDP to the defense budget. Even less the Netherlands – 1.64%. Belgium is uncertain whose side its army would take in a war. The simulation shows that soldiers and non-commissioned officers, most of whom come from immigrant families from Mahreb and Central Africa, could point their weapons at officers. Would these countries lead Europe to strategic autonomy? It’s not even a dark joke.
After the elections, it must be time to review relations with the European Union. To rearrange them, even with brutal methods. Poland cannot be held hostage by extremely incompetent officials from Brussels. Our economy cannot depend on crazed eco-terrorists blackmailing the German government and a pathetic French president with imperial ambitions. It is also time to debunk the myth that Poles absolutely want to belong to the EU. It is one thing to be in a common economic area, where there is complete freedom of movement of capital, goods, services, free movement, settlement, employment, and another thing to be subject to a bunch of unelected officials, or rulers and proprietors of Europe from Berlin or Paris.
Source: wPolityce