[Mehran] Hello, hello, hello
and welcome! I'm Mehran Khalili, we are DiEM25, a radical political movement
for Europe, and this is another live discussion
with our coordinating team featuring subversive ideas
you won't hear anywhere else. And today we're zooming out
and talking about: could Europe ever be a third superpower? Third, after the US and China,
that is. Yes, the debate on
Europe's so-called strategic autonomy was reignited last week when France's president Macron
gave some frank comments to media during a visit to China. He said that Europe should chart
its own course and not be a vassal to either Washington or Beijing as this new Cold War
threatens to escalate. These comments were blasted across
European capitals and in the US as embarrassing, disgraceful,
and geopolitically naive. Is it realistic that Europe
could achieve superpower status? What's holding it back? And if it were a superpower, how should it be exerting
its influence on world affairs? Our panel,
including our own Yanis Varoufakis and our crew of activist doers
and thinkers from across Europe will be weighing in on this today. And you - you out there - if you've got thoughts, comments,
rants, opinions, anything you want to throw at us put it in the YouTube Chat
and we'll put it to our panel. Don't forget to like
and subscribe to the YouTube channel if you'd like to get informed
when we do another one of these. We normally do them every two weeks. Let's kick it off with Yanis. Yanis. [Yanis] Thank you, Mehran. Hello everyone! When I was growing up
- it was a very long time ago - I was growing up
outside the European Union, what was then termed
the European common market. I was in one of those countries
in the south of Europe that had a dictatorship, other countries had dictatorships
of a different colour in the East, and I remember the aspiration
was for us to join the European Union, to join Europe. But the aspiration had an ideology
behind it. We had the ideology of the third pole: not the third world,
but the third pole. The idea was - and that was a very strong idea
in particular in France - that there was a very dangerous conflict,
a cold war, conflict brewing between the United States that in European eyes, both Christian Democrat
and Social Democrat eyes, was too extreme in its embracing
of markets, of capitalism, of cutthroat competition, of not caring about society, because it was all about the market, and the Soviet Union
which was the pendulum having reached the exactly opposite end
with not enough market, not enough freedom, not enough this, that, authoritarianism,
a kind of orientalism as well, you know,
'the eastern Slavs'. And Europe was being presented
as a work in progress. And what was the point
of that work in progress? The point was to create
a United States of Europe that would be a third pole
between the competing extremities of the United States
and of the Soviet Union. That was the European Union
that I grew up with as an ideological concept to which both Centre Left
and the Centre Right subscribed. The last time that that concept
and that that narrative remained somewhat relevant
to the reality of Europe, was when George W. Bush invaded Iraq. And the Franco-German axis, which has been the skeleton,
the foundation, the backbone, of the European common market first, and then the European Union, valiantly, and to their great credit, the great credit of
Jacques Chiraq in France and of Schröder,
at the time. They said: "No,
we are not going to invade. We are rejecting this. We are not going to be vassals
of the United States. We think that Saddam Hussein
is a criminal, but that doesn't mean
that we will condone an invasion." So the Brits with the Australians - the Anglosphere - invaded, and the European Union maintained
a position of strategic autonomy. I use these words poignantly because strategic autonomy
is meant to be even today, as we speak, the official target of Brussels,
of Berlin, and of Paris. Except that it is no longer possible. And it is no longer relevant
in the way it was when George W. Bush was invading Iraq. Now what happened since then? A number of things, but you will allow me to say, revealing the fact that I'm an economist, that I have this flaw in my character, that it was the great crisis of 2007-2008, the construction of the euro, which was completed in 2000-2001 and then the collapse of Wall Street, which became an existential crisis
for the Eurozone. How does this connect at all
to what's happening in Ukraine, to what's happening with
the US-China relationship, which has escalated
to a state of Cold War, Taiwan,
and so on? Well, let me give you two
or three examples of how it relates. Firstly, we've all known
that the greatest weapon of the United States - and we can see this today as we speak - is not so much its nuclear arsenal. It's not the Marines. It's not its Air Force. It's not its Navy. It's the US dollar. Something that General de Gaulle
knew very well and his Finance Minister, a certain Mr. Giscard d'Estaing, who was later one of the successors
of de Gaulle, at the time he was the Finance Minister, he referred to the American dollar as the currency enjoying
an exorbitant privilege. Now, we've had the euro. The euro was again promised
in the same way that when I was young
the European Union was promised to be the third pole,
a superpower, that will create a kind of balance
between the United States and the Soviet Union. That was a lie,
didn't turn out that way. Similarly, the euro has been promised as a potential challenger
of the US dollar. Now it is definitely
a very strong currency. It's a very large currency. Some countries use it
as a secondary reserve currency, but it has never challenged the US dollar. And that makes a difference
to the extent to which Europe can have any kind of strategic autonomy. The Deutsche Mark was more powerful
in geopolitical terms than the euro is because the Deutsche Mark
was issued by a central bank that had the back
of a federal treasury which had the back of
the Bundesbank, of the central bank. The European Central Bank
doesn't have the back of any state, of any government, of anything that can be
remotely thought of as a unified political centre, because we don't have
a federal government in Europe, and in that sense, even though the euro has more
penetration internationally than the Deutsche Mark ever did, the euro is less capable
of providing the European Union with strategic and geostrategic power,
than the Deutsche Mark. Now why? Let me make this a bit more concrete. There are those within the establishment
of the European Union who aspire, fantasise of,
a European army. There are two problems
with the European army. Like every army. The first problem is:
who's going to pay for it? The Americans simply mint dollars. They just print dollars and pay for the American
military industrial complex. Now we don't have a mechanism
for doing this in Europe. The European Central Bank
is not allowed to mint money to channel into an army. Maybe that's a good thing,
but I'm simply pointing it out. The second problem you have
when you are creating an army is you have to answer the question who is going to send the men and women who are armed and members
of the military to war? Who's going to make the decision to say: "Okay, we started a war, let's go!
Go and kill people now!" In the US
it's the American president. In the United Kingdom,
it's the British prime minister. And of course they have to
have some kind of legitimation from Congress in the US and from the House of Commons
in Britain. In Europe, who's going to send
people to war? Ursula or Olaf or Emmanuel? They simply have absolutely
no political legitimacy or power for any act of war
as Europe. So, the European economy can be
as large as it can be. It can be the largest economy
in the world for all that matters. But it cannot finance an army and it cannot make political decisions
that involve either war or peace. I've already said that in previous
meetings: If there is a peace process - I hope there is one
tomorrow morning, or actually yesterday - about Ukraine, nobody's there to represent us. And so now I'm coming to
Emmanuel Macron. Emmanuel Macron goes to China in the middle of the escalating cold war between the United States and China. What's the point of him going
to China, unless he plays the role of the third pole or representing the Europe
of the third pole that was promised to people like me
back in the early 1970s, mid 1970s, when the European Union
was still presenting itself as a balancing mechanism
between the United States and its adversary back then,
the Soviet Union, today China? So it made sense for Macron to go. What would make less sense is to carry with him
Ursula von der Leyen. The one thing that you can actually
point out as simultaneously significant and pathetic is that he chose to bring
Ursula von der Leyen with him to Beijing to tell two different stories: one by Ursula,
one my Emmanuel, to the Chinese
and to the world media. That was a catastrophe. If you bring the president
of the EU Commission with you the idea is to have a common position. But it is impossible
to have a common position because Ursula von der Leyen
is a stand-in, a representative of, a clone of Stoltenberg,
the General Secretary of NATO. They say the same thing. It's the same script. It's like one mind, one mouth. Now, Macron doesn't have this view. Macron challenges the idea that Russia
must be defeated and Moscow must be taken, and that will be the only just end
to the war in Ukraine. He doesn't believe that. He's not allowed to say it anymore
but he doesn't believe it. But it's true. We know that he doesn't believe it. So he goes to China
and says the right thing. Let's be clear. We progressives, we loath Macron's
domestic policies in France. We loathe what he's been doing
to the French working class, pension reforms, the transfer of wealth from the have-nots
to the haves and so on. But there is a long tradition
in France of presidents of France saying the right thing internationally. I will never forget the courage
of Jacques Chirac, someone who was far more right-wing
than Macron, both when it came to the war in Iraq,
I mentioned that before, but also he is the only Western leader to have gone to the Palestinian
occupied territories and actually scolded, pointing fingers
at the occupying forces of the Israelis, telling them in their face
that they're criminals in the way they are treating
the Palestinians. So there is a tradition there. So he goes there to China and he says something which
is far more important than "we do not want to be vassals
of the United States", which is astonishing that, you know... is there any European who claims
we should be vassals of the United States? And yet, he says that
and he's being lambasted across Europe! It just goes to show the state of affairs
of the European Union. But he says something else
which was very important and it shouldn't be controversial,
but it is controversial! And that is a sign of the terrible state
of our political debates here in Europe. He said, and I quote from The Guardian: "France is for the status quo in Taiwan and a peaceful resolution
to the situation." Now, that shouldn't be
at all controversial. Because what is the status quo of Tawain? Taiwan is not Ukraine. Let's be clear about that. Taiwan is part of China,
historically. Imagine if the Greek Civil War ended up with the Communists
winning the war in Athens and the right wing going to Crete and setting up a different state, a right-wing state, calling it The Republic of Greece, whereas the Communists had Athens
and they called it the People's Republic of Greece. Nobody can actually claim that Crete
is not part of the Greek realm. There's just a split, an ideological split, two different administrations. It's the same language,
same ethnicity, it's the same everything. And indeed, 50% of the people of Taiwan
are voting for the Kuomintang Party, which believes that Taiwan
is the real China, and that they should take over
the rest of China, which was rightly theirs! But they do believe it's one country,
they don't want independence. So, that is the position
of the United Nations. So you have the president of France
going to Beijing and effectively confirming that
the position of the United Nations should be the position
of France and Europe. And he's immediately taken
to the cleaners for not supporting what? The independence of Tawain? But the Americans themselves
have not recognised Taiwan as independent! But they demand - listen to this,
I'll say this once more - The United States government is not recognising the independence
of Taiwan, but the moment the president of France says that there is no issue about no question about
recognising the independence of Taiwan, suddenly he's taken to the cleaners, because the United States, Washington,
expects of European leaders these days to behave in ways that are functional
to the policies of the United States without even having
the right to adopt the official position
of the United States, if the official position
of the United States is not in sync with that of the CIA, the Pentagon,
the military industrial complex. So it's not that the European Union
is a vassal of the United States. It's worse than a vassal! Because the vassals under feudalism,
lest we forget, had a degree of autonomy. Remember what the vassals were. The vassals were proto-capitalists,
who would lease land from the feudal lord. The feudal lord had massive authority
over them, but they would lease land
and do little capitalist things with it, you know,
get the peasants to produce for them, they would collect the harvest, they would pay ground rent
to the feudal lord. They would have a degree of autonomy. That's what the vassals were. Europe doesn't have that anymore. It is the euro crisis, the debt crisis,
the banking crisis, the fact that the Federal Reserve,
the central bank of the United States, had to save the German
and the French banks back in 2009, 2010, 2011. The fact that the Europeans
have not managed to take advantage
of the euro crisis, of the pandemic
and so on, in order to create something
resembling a fiscal union, a political union,
a democratic union, these are all the reasons
why we are worse than merely vassals. Worse than mere vassals. The war in Ukraine in particular... who doesn't remember Ms. Nuland? The under-secretary of state, who was caught on tape, she was recorded at some point in 2014, when the United States was plotting, essentially,
a regime change in Ukraine, when she was told: "But what would the EU say?"
What will the Europeans say to her? And she responded:
"Fuck the Europeans!" And that's exactly what they did. Putin played a major role in that because that criminal idiot invaded, he took the bait and invaded. And I call him a criminal idiot
because deeply in my soul I believe that he's both criminal
and an idiot, the worst combination a person can be:
that's Putin. So he bites the bait. And the United States government
and the ruling class is having a field day! In one go they blow up Nordsteam 1. They secure a complete and utter monopoly
over the gas market of Europe, taking it away from the complete
and utter monopoly of Gazprom. And suddenly countries like Finland,
like Sweden, that withstood decades of the Cold War, refusing to take sides
and remaining neutral, suddenly they fell headlong
into the NATO trap. So that's my long answer
to the question. No, Europe is not a vassal
of the United States. We are in a far worse situation than that. We're completely bonded to them. We are serfs. We're not even vassals. We are not even serfs! Serfs had certain rights under feudalism. The European Union regime,
establishment, has utterly subjugated Europe
to the United States, and this is my final point, Mehran, I've made that point
in previous conversations, but I need to raise it
as my final touch here. The reason for this is not failure. The reason for this is not,
you know, stupid people running Brussels and Frankfurt
and Paris and Berlin and Rome. No. It's money. Because if you are a German industrialist, a French wine exporter, or champagne exporter, if you are an Italian fashion group, your main export market
is the United States. And the United States prints dollars
to give you so that you can take those dollars
and take it to Wall Street to buy stuff as well as real estate
in Florida and California, here, there, and everywhere. And you do not want the euro
to become a competitor to the dollar, because your profits depend
on the continuation of the American exorbitant privilege. And in order to continue the American
exorbitant privilege, the American dollar's
exorbitant privilege, which is functional and instrumental
to European capitalists who are exporting to the United States
to continue to remain super wealthy, with their share portfolio
proliferating and burgeoning in Wall Street, in the city of London,
outside the European Union, you do really enjoy the idea
as a European mega capitalist, oligarch, of Europe being a vassal
of the United States of America. So if Europe is a vassal
of the United States of America it is because the European oligarchy
wants Europe to be a vassal of the United States of America and even worse. Thanks. [Mehran] Thank you, Yanis. Maja, Maja Pelevic,
what's the view from Serbia? [Maja] Well, it's the same,
but a little bit different. As I always have to say
that my position here is the position of a person that
comes from a non-EU country. From Serbia, an ex-Yugoslav country,
which gives me two perspectives. One is the current one and the
other one is the historical one, of course and when Yanis was
saying all of this, which I completely agree with,
I would say that when we think: Is Europe a vassel of the United States,
we in the non-EU countries in Europe - and there is a couple
of us still remaining - are we also the vassals of Europe
and the European Union at this moment? Because you always have
a position of countries like us that still want to become
a part of the European Union. Even becoming completely aware
of what we're going into and knowing that we will be, in a way,
a third world country in the European Union
if we get into it one day. So of course, thinking about this and
of course, the position of DiEM as a non-aligned movement that doesn't
want to go neither this way, nor this way and not being
a part of any kind of imperialism, neither the Russian imperialism,
neither the NATO imperialism, I always think of this movement
that actually existed and that actually was established
in this country that I still live in, in the city I still live in, in 1961,
and that was the non-aligned movement which actually still exists
but of course, doesn't have the power that it had
back in those days. And the interesting thing is: because
we still talk about this third way. Let's go the third way. We don't want to be a
vassal to the United States, neither to the other side of the coin
like in the Cold War. So, but the term 'third world',
I think that we should reclaim it because I think, at this point,
it has this kind of a pejorative sense, because we think of it as nations that
are in a way underdeveloped countries, but we don't think that... It was actually in those days
when there was the real big non-aligned movement, the third world was actually
the third political option, so this term wasn't originally made to
think of the Cold War that distinguished those nations that were neither
aligned with the West, the NATO block nor with the East, the
Communist block at that time. So then, I watched a movie actually
a couple of days ago that made me think about the
non-aligned movement which actually
had really good ideas, it was a really good project
and really a huge project. It was a project of 120 countries
at that point, which contained 55% of
the world's populations, nearly two-thirds of the United Nation
members that came together to say: No to one, or to the other
and that's what we're talking about today,
of course. Why didn't this project go further? The biggest thing that it had
was, of course, the independence of the African countries
and at the end, of Algeria and the decolonial project that it had. This idea was destroyed
and at that point it was destroyed by
the two main forces. So when I think about the
non-aligned movement that would happen today,
I would also think in this way, of a movement that would be
destroyed by actually the same forces that destroyed the original
non-aligned movement. I would now, read The Five
Principles of Peaceful Coexistence that were the basic principles
of the non-aligned movement then, and I think that all of us here
would probably say that we would stand with these principles
today for the same purpose. Mutual respect for each other's
territorial, integrity and sovereignty was the first one. Mutual non-aggression
was the second one. Mutual non-interference in domestic
affairs was the third one. Equality and mutual benefits
was the fourth one, and a peaceful coexistence
was the fifth one and of course, the collective pledge
to remain neutral in the Cold War. So now, from this point and of course,
from a point of a destroyed country that was once a huge country in Europe, probably one of the the biggest
forces in Europe then, in those days and one of the two only European
countries that was part of the original non-aligned moment,
except Cyprus. I think from this perspective,
how is it... Sometimes, I think of it, because
my grandfather, my parents, were a part of this. How is it possible that two generations,
after it, we cannot even think of this kind of a movement ? We cannot think from
this perspective of Europe, but then I think: Okay, but even then, it
was just one or two European countries and the rest of them
were not actually in Europe. They were actually in the South. They were in Africa,
they were in South America and they were in mostly South Asia,
so I think that this third option, this third political option,
is going to come from the South. Actually, that is my opinion,
and I think that if Europe should be a vassal one more, it should be a 'vassal'
of these kinds of forces. Progressive forces that will
not come from Europe. I think Europe had this
colonial past, it had its Holocaust, it had its migrant crisis
in the last Syrian war, and I think we should maybe learn
from other countries that are not on the European continent. That's my point of view. [Mehran] Thank you, Maja. Amir, Amir Kiyaei based
in the Hague, the floor is yours. [Amir] Thank you, Mehran. Greetings everybody. So this question and this
statement from Macron is very interesting because
since coming to power, he's making a lot of grand statements
and espousing grand visions and we remember his idea of
The Conference on the Future of Europe, which is, of course, a complete flop, and the latest initiative that he put
out there a few days ago was an international treaty system
to eliminate plastic pollution. On the one hand, we see he's
picking up on different issues and making grandiose positions on but, when it comes to actual
action on the ground, and that's again, one of the
largest consumers of oil, being the military, Macron is insisting
on increasing military expenditure. And here we're talking
about a 40% increase, which was announced in January
in French military spending and more than half of it,
will go to expanding the nuclear weapons
capability of France. This is, I think, what this idea of
strategic autonomy is when also, especially, it was mentioned
early on in his speech as well about the war economy,
and so this third pole, if we take it at his words,
is a militarised one and well, it's also in shambles
when you're approaching it, because if we were to review the French
experience on militarised security, it's been a complete, again, flop. Afghanistan, Mali, Central African Republic
and the list goes on. I'm assuming we're going to touch on
a bit later, about the non-alignment and also our position on
eliminating the war industry, which is in the
Green New Deal for Europe, but also, bearing in mind that
for Europe to really play that third pole, if you like, position,
it has to readdress its past, it's colonial past and really
rightfully make restitutions to all the colonial subjects it had before
as well as complete decolonization. France, especially still has
lands and islands and other parts of the world
that doesn't belong, that's not French in any way. It's the same as the British
Chagos Islands issue and so on. So there's a lot of actual steps
that Europe needs to make before it can even start to
play the role that it might be putting up. Thanks. [Mehran] Thank you, Amir. A couple of comments, well,
one coment, one question from the chat. Ross says: 'There would be no cold war
if there was a reasonable attitude towards Russia and China.' And Ben Oraco asked us:
'What do we think of Bernie and his "total capitulation" vis-a-vis,
the Biden Administration?' So perhaps someone
could also speak to that. Who do we have next? Panos, Panos Stenos, Athens,
the floor is yours. [Panos] Hi everyone. So, I guess we probably all agree
that Europe is not a vassal of the US. It's something worse. I've written an article in our website
saying that it's probably a protectorate or even occupied territory. Now, I think the interesting thing here,
which presents an opportunity, is that this US domination of Europe,
I think, I feel, is resented across the political spectrum. So, it's not only left wingers
who don't like the idea of being dominated by the US. Of course, the oligarchy
has its own interests, but normal folk that are more
conservative, right wing, I'm sure they detest this as well,
and they understand that this is very very dangerous in a time of war,
of not having full sovereignty and having your armies
or your weapons or your alliances being dictated by someone
on the other side of the Atlantic. Now, the thought comes to mind
that, in the past, national liberation struggles
have afforded very good opportunities for wider political
and social transformations, so in that sense, I'm also reminded that the closest thing we've ever had
to a pan-European revolution, which was the Spring of Nations in 1848, was powered both by national
and democratic aspirations. So, a pretty wild thought
comes to mind that if we do say that the EU cannot be
reformed and it can only be transformed, maybe a transnational liberation struggle against foreign domination
could unite enough Europeans with enough conviction to actually
transform the politics of the continent eventually,
in a progressive direction. Of course, there's problems there because: how do we all unite against this one power
that wants to dominate us? I'm very aware that
there are Europeans - and we should think
and speak of a unified Europe - there are Europeans in Poland
and the Baltics who don't see the US as their oppressor. They probably see them
as their savior, so I mean, those people,
we need to speak to them and we need to take this
into account because in Greece and Serbia,
and perhaps in Turkey, I think, this sentiment is common,
but in other parts of Europe - and this is Europe as well -
they feel differently. So I suppose, thinking of that,
the only way, I mean, who has leverage
over Putin to actually make those people feel comfortable
and give them security guarantees? Again, again, it's China, not
because of their military might, but because of their wider
diplomatic and political capital, which I think is appreciated
by the whole of the Global South, which is more or less, I don't know,
75% of the world population. So that could be... We could have a source of decent
guarantees for Eastern Europeans if there is a peace solution
involving China and for us to actually in Europe,
have a common front and decide about our independence, but to decide about
your Independence, you need to agree who your enemy is
or who is dominating you. So, these are just my thoughts. [Mehran]
Thank you for that Panos. I think in those Eastern European
capitals, the term is 'strategic partner.' They like to talk about the US
as their strategic partner. It makes my skin crawl every time. And yes, the piece that
Panos mentioned there, it's linked in the YouTube chat,
about how the Nordstream pipeline explosion exposes some very important
cracks among the European political elite. Julijana Zita, the floor is yours,
from Germany. [Julijana] Yeah, thank you,
Mehran. Yeah, I wanna really bring in a bit
the German perspective and especially the Western German
perspective, because I grew up in Frankfurt but I think, up until 15 years ago we still had American
soldiers in Frankfurt. We have quarters in the city which were
only for soldiers and their families. I had many former soldiers as guests
in my bar who settled here in Germany and married and so on. I think that - and I'm saying especially
from the Western German perspective - there is this, I think, five decades from
the 50s to the 2000s, there's also this very friendly perception of the
Americans and the American culture, because they were all
around Western Germany, and people would live next door
to the soldiers. They influenced the German culture a lot like the music in Germany. A lot of clubs that opened up
in the 80s and 90s in Germany were completely influenced
by American music and so on. So I think there is a logic and a
historical context to why people perceived the US as a very
beneficial partnership. It's because in W. Germany the culture
is kind of melted together at some point. I mean I've learned in school
about the American dream, like it's a thing that you need to
know about, like the school says we have to leave you with the
knowledge of the American dream out of the school. So I think that this is kind of the point
where a large part of society in Western Germany was like: America is a great partner,
they're our friends! So now I think,
and Yanis mentioned it, with 9/11 and the Iraq invasion, after,
the perception started to shift. I remember I was still at school
at that time that political correctness was not a thing yet so
our teachers could be very politically ideologically loaded
and they would give us free from school to go to the peace
demonstration against the war. So then, the US started to lose
a lot of supporters from the normal people, so to say,
but I agree that those who up until today, support the US
are mostly people who benefit from how things are. I mean, I don't want to repeat it
because Yanis already touched on it. I mean everyone who is more liberal,
who makes money with business, who's into corporations,
works in big corporations, would like to hold the status quo,
but the common people have shifted their perception of the US
over the last few decades I think a lot and especially since
Donald Trump became president also now the younger generation
completely reject the idea of being close to the US. I think that unfortunately,
and this is the sad part, I think that the US as much as
it harms the world and it brings a lot of destruction
through its political system and the military-industrial complex, it's not like the American
people profit from it. It's not a country that
accumulates money from all over and you can see that
they're prospering. I think that the American people
as much as the European people are at the losing end
of this whole story and I sometimes think that there
would be so much liberation from that in the world if the American
people could change something in their country and free themselves
from the grip of this corrupt political nonsense, two-party system
that they have, that really holds them into a kind of a political stagnation
for a long time now and I think it really starts with them, so it can become better for
everyone else when it comes to this globalist web
that is all over the world that has its huge influence
starting from the US. This is what I want to say. I think that's what's in Germany
happening in the recent years, is that you won't find many people being:
No, the US is my best partner. People think more about
how it would be if Europe would be much more
independent from the US. But now, of course, it's not
the time to say that openly, because we know what will happen
if you say that in these times with the Ukraine war. But many people think it. I have two questions and one is
I think, particularly for Yanis, because it has been burning
to ask you this for a long time, because I'm coming across this news
sometimes, is it really possible that China or the BRICS states
might come up with their own currency? Because I read it sometimes
that this is what they're planning to fight back against the dollar,
but I don't know how realistic that is and if this is the thing
and the other thing would be: with the European project,
did it derail or was it never going to be what people thought
back in the 70s and 80s? [Mehran] Thanks Julijana. Yanis, can we bring you back in after
the speakers to answer those questions? Big questions here
and to one of your points there, Julijana, about America and how it all starts
with the American people and the leaders that they elect. Austin Shaheri on the chat
reminds us and he says: 'America is a third world country. 70% there cannot afford the
$400 emergency fund.' Which it actually checks out,
I just Googled that. Who is next? Defne, Defne Delkara,
based in France. The floor is yours. [Defne] Hello, hello, everyone, very happy about all the things
that have been said, and I would like to touch on
something Maja said and from there maybe come to
what Judith - not Judith, sorry - what Julijana was saying, is that what does it mean to be non-aligned, or what does it mean to have
a perception of non-alignment, because I think Maja
said at one point that: Why has it taken us so long to
rethink or re-apply this mentality? But you know, didn't you guys
get the memo? It was the end of history! And it was no longer a multi polar world, and if you don't have two poles,
you can't non-align to them. The US kind of won,
the Empire won, that kind of thing, or not that I'm saying like the
opposite would have been different, but, I mean it would be different,
but not in the way we'd want. But now, the re-emergence of
multipolarity gives real space for strategic non-alignment, right? Where you can use non-alignment
as a card, as a bargaining chip almost. This is not evident in Europe,
but it was evident for obviously the national liberation
movements in the initial years of the non-aligned movement
and the anti-colonial struggles, they had no Illusions whatsoever,
obviously, about where they stood in the eyes of the North. They knew they were being plundered
and they knew territorial sovereignty was the way of getting freedom
from the colonial exploitation. So they had no illusions... Illusions we would have in Europe of saying that America is a useful ally,
because Europe has not been plundered in the same way that
the Global South has been plundered. But this doesn't mean the forces
that, as we've been talking, are any less real or strong
and are an affront to our sovereignty and our democracies. So, and this is what towards
the beginning of the 70s, this is what the original non-alignment
movement noticed very quickly as well, that territorial sovereignty
was not enough, they had to have monetary
sovereignty as well, because they noticed that:
Okay, the colonial powers maybe no longer have their
feet on their ground, but they are still dictating, a lot,
their future by unequal trade, lack of Industry, inability to develop
in certain ways and being forced to develop in other ways
and all this. This is where I think it's very interesting,
and it comes very importantly back to: What does it mean:
non-alignment for Europe? It's essentially there, where it's
definitely not the third pole of Chirac or Macron, which is for Macron,
for him, the end of history is continuing. He still thinks he could
have his technocratic, autocratic, European utopia, right? His contempt for democracy
is clear in his own country, but I think his dedication
to the European project which for him is the EU and it's the
overbearing power of the Commission and the bureaucrats. It's absolutely not
what the vision of non-alignment is, as we see it, which should be
democracy and peace. So I guess this is what
I want to say, and this is again, for Macron
also towards himself, he still supports the CFA franc
in Africa right, so this is just another way. This is why our vision cannot be the
same as the technocrats of Europe but a vision of a new Europe,
a non-aligned Europe, as is seen in economic
and strategic sovereignty, is something
we should propagate, and I think there is now a real
hunger for this message. And it's being taken over by
the far Right as usual, and that really is worrying to me. So I guess that's all
I have to add, thanks. [Mehran] Thank you,
Defne. Let's move to Greece now,
Danae Stratou, the floor is yours. [Danae] Thank you, Mehran. I would like to touch upon a subject
that has not been introduced in these discussions just because I think It's important
to look a little bit at the cultural choices and strategies that
Europe, that the European project approaches these subjects and how these are being
funded or evaluated. And this is something I think is
quite problematic and shows a lot. So normally, I believe, what happens
in the UK or in the United States is a person or a group of people
or artists or creatives, would come up with an idea and then apply the different foundations that are related
to those projects with a vision and a creative sort of thought process in order to get funding
to realise the project. But what happens in the European Union - and this has affected all the
countries that are part of this - is that they create these
monstrous ways of applying for getting some funding which are completely distorted
and upside down. So, instead of having an idea and
trying to find a way to realise it, you have to, it's like a kind of a prison
that they create, with certain departments, that you
have to fit in your own idea, completely distorted, and do
different collaborations and stuff so that you could, in the end get money, but in order to do something
completely different, that has nothing to do with the
original thinking or idea. So I think this is quite
a stifling process and just to touch upon it, I was
thinking that if, you know, they stifle completely
the imagination and original thinking, this shows something about
the general vision of this European project and where
would that lead us? So it's a topic that, I think,
it's important just to think about it within the context of everything else
that has been spoken about. Thank you, that's all! [Mehran] Thank you for that Danae. Judith, Judith Meyer from Berlin.
The floor is yours. [Judith] Actually today from Athens,
but yes, originally Berlin. And I would bring in one aspect
of American domination that hasn't been covered at all, and that is the English language. Right now, English is the first
foreign language throughout the EU, and I would argue that this
gives it similar advantages, as the Americans get from the dollar
being the world's reserve currency. I will make four points. One is that they are saving hundreds
of billions of dollars for not having to translate documents. Also, much more importantly, every American does not have
to learn a foreign language, so they're saving years of effort. Every one of them is saving
like five years of study, And as Julijana mentioned,
- this is the third point - learning English also means being
taught American propaganda, the American dream, American culture
and so on. So they get all this influence
over our minds at no cost. Finally, English also means participation
in the labour market and in science. If you imagine a brilliant
European astrophysicist also has to be good at learning languages. If he's not good at learning languages, he can't participate in science,
because it's in English. And the same goes - on a
different level - for every European. Right down to the service workers, because English is a prerequisite
for most jobs. So every one of us and our families
and friends has to spend more effort to get less opportunities than someone who was born
with English as a mother tongue. So I'm not proposing that we don't
study any foreign language at all or create a Babylonian chaos in the EU, but I would suggest Esperanto - and I know this goes beyond
this particular call - look it up if you want , but basically
Esperanto is a language that can be learned in just one year,
rather than five. So it's also an efficiency improvement
and it would restore equality equality between Europeans,
all of whom would have Esperanto
as a first foreign language, and it would restore a balance
between Europe, USA and China. [Mehran] Thank you Judith. Who would have known that Esperanto
could be such a panacea, interesting thoughts. Let me bring in two quick
comments from the chat and then I will bring Yanis back in
to close this, we're nearly at the top of the hour. Tibet Denise says: "I prefer the idea
of a Europe of regions, as proposed by Ulrike Guérot, big supernational power centers
cannot solve the problems we have, they just serve multinational companies". And Claudia from Italy says: "My country
is not a vassal of the US, it is a US colony". Yanis, the floor is yours. [Yanis] So many questions. I'll answer a couple
that came from Julijana. Okay: was the European Union
always doomed to become enslaved
to the United States? No, I don't believe in pre-determination,
I'm not a Calvinist. I think that you know,
there were many opportunities for the European establishment,
for the European people, for the European Left
to create circumstances for us, our collective escape
from that predicament. It is true that the European Union was
designed by the United States. Anybody who tells you that this
was a European dream and it was a European accomplishment,
is lying to themselves or to you, or both. It was utterly an American project
which, of course, took advantage of the longing that Europeans had
for peace and unity in Europe. But it was not a European design. It was an American design
by the New Dealers, I've written books about this,
the Global Minotaur and others. We had many opportunities that
presented themselves in the form of crisis, like,
for instance, the 1971 crisis when the exorbitant privilege of
the dollar was challenged by the collapse of Bretton Woods. That gave us an opportunity,
we missed it. Part of that had to do
with the division of Germany or the division of Europe,
East and West. There was another opportunity that
we had with the crisis of the euro: the banking crisis of 2007-8,
which led then to the debt crisis of Greece,
of Ireland and so on and so forth. We missed that, we had a pandemic, another fantastic opportunity
to create a fiscal union, a political union that would have
prevented the present state of Europe as a sidekick of Washington. There were many opportunities,
but we missed them and we missed them because it was
not in the functional interest of the bourgeoisie, of the oligarchs
of Europe to do anything to prevent the slide of the
European continent into a Hawaii-like State of the United States. One of you, I can't remember,
you asked a question about the possibility that the Chinese
will create their own currency, or turn the Yuan or the Renminbi
into a global currency. Well, this is a very big discussion
that is going on. I have very firm views on this, this is
not the time to expand upon them. All I will say is that there's already,
the Ukraine war is already creating space for the Chinese digital currency,
the digital Yuan, launched in 2020 by the
Chinese Central Bank to play, it's already playing an increasing
role in international affairs. It is no nowhere near yet, challenging
the dominion of the US dollar, but it could be the foundation for that. The greatest impediment to that,
again, where you see that there is a parallel with Europe, the greatest impediment to the rise
of the Chinese currency, to the status of a genuine challenger to US dollar,
is the Chinese capitalist class. Because, like the German, like the French,
net exporters, capitalists, the Chinese capitalists also depend,
for their capacity to accumulate wealth,
on the American trade deficit. So if something prevents the
Chinese currency from challenging the dominant role of the dollar,
it is Chinese capitalists. Not the CIA, not the American Military, not that rather mundane person
occupying the White House. I believe his name is Joe Biden,
who cares? Now, allow me to finish off today
with a couple of answers or answers to a couple of questions
put in the chat: Somebody said, well, what about
Taiwanese democracy? Don't we have an obligation
to defend it, don't the Taiwanese have
the right to self-determination? Well, let's get a few things straight. Firstly, Taiwanese democracy
is the result of many decades of struggles in Taiwan. Taiwan was a brutal dictatorship
for many, many, many decades. Today, it is in a state of
complete polarisation between the governing party
and the former governing party, the Kuomintang. The population is split 50-50. In the last local government elections
that came, the Kuomintang won handsomely and their position is:
unification with China. It is not independence for Taiwan,
it is very clear. So in other words, the Taiwanese
population are themselves divided on the question of unification
or independence. So let us not pretend that there is
such a thing as a Taiwanese demos that has a general will towards
independence, that is not the case. The main point I want to make
about Taiwan is this: Taiwan and mainland China are one ethnic cultural lot. They've been separated for
a long while, but after all, was it not the case that East Germans
and West Germans were separated for a bloody long time
by a Berlin Wall, by fences, different regimes, different ideologies. And yet what was the position of
progressives all over the world? The position of the progressives was
in favour of unification, but on terms consistent with what
the majority wanted on each side. Why do we need to have a
different position regarding Taiwan and mainland China? By saying that - what Macron said,
and he was right - that our position is, and ought to be,
in favour of the status quo, in other words, no independence
of Taiwan, no separation but careful steps towards a reunification. By taking that position
nobody's condoning a Chinese, mainland Chinese,
Chinese Communist Party-led invasion of Taiwan. Let me be perfectly clear,
on a personal basis. If the Chinese launched
an invasion of Taiwan, I will come out strongly
to condemn them. I don't think they will invade. I think it is the United States
which is trying its damndest to incite tensions
in the South China seas, to draw China into invading Taiwan
in the same way that they successfully drew Putin
into invading Ukraine. That does not justify Putin's invasion, but it is true that they were, you know,
poking him in the eye trying to lure him into invading. The moment he invaded,
we condemned him. But that doesn't mean that they
were not luring him into doing it. We must not fall into that trap. We must not take sides, we must say:
no invasion of Taiwan, but no separation. Let's move toward, let's help
as an International community towards the reunification
of the two Chinas on terms that are consistent
with a democratic process, with the will of a large majority
of the people in Taiwan and the large majority
of the people in China. If the Berlin Wall was a bad thing,
surely the imaginary wall separating the Chinese people
who live in Taiwan from the Chinese people
who live in the mainland, surely that must be a bad thing too. One final comment: there is one people
who have been completely trashed and have been completely ruined
by the Civil War in the 1940s between the Right, the Kuomintang,
and the Left, the Communist Party of China. And that is the indigenous
people of Taiwan, who were overrun
by the invading Kuomintang, right-wing Chinese nationalists
under Chiang Kai-shek, who ran away from the onslaught of the Chinese Communist Party and completely overrun,
completely overrun the indigenous people of Taiwan. So, let's spare a thought for
the indigenous Taiwanese and assist the ethnic Chinese of Taiwan and the ethnic Chinese of
mainland China to find a way democratically, peacefully, to reunite. [Mehran] Thank you for that. Yanis. We have gone past the top of
the hour so with that, we will close. Thank you, to you out there,
for listening, thank you to our panel and, if you like
what you've heard today, we are a movement not just of ideas
and talking heads on YouTube, but a movement of action. We are engaging in elections, we've got several political parties,
we're competing in elections. We've got grassroots actions,
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and please join us again. Same time, same place,
two weeks from now.
Don't think Europe is a vassal per say, but rather partners-in-crime.
Europe has benefitted by tagging along with the US under NATO or G7 or what not. It is also guilty of plundering the resources of other nations and has no qualms whatsoever of joining whatever raid that US might partake itself with.
What Europe is experiencing now is karma, just like any gangster would in a life of crime.
Part of the opiate sipped by Euro leaders was buying into Graham Allison's Clash of Civilization theory then Measheimer's Greek trap analogy (Before that Fukuyama's inane End of History Western Civilization blow job)
Western theory obsessed leader/media prefer abstract hypothetical sound goods over reality and echo chamber over understanding.
This is a problem they have manufactured all too well for themselves and now come back to haunt them with a virtual signal + unnecessary war and economic drain on their doorstep.
Not sure how much this is representative of mainstream Euro thinking but at least some people are starting to Call the Emperor's New Clothes and realise that multipolarity unleashed by the emergence of China provides them a third more independent option.
Good discussion.
Macron's recent trip has split Europe IMO. They have always been victim of their own emphasis on difference over common good and more recently some of the countries are drunk with US jizz.
At the rate they are going, they are more likely to disintegrate.
They do not realise sufficiently it is one thing to be non-align but you need either hard military power or hard economic power to back it up (or both). Why China could do it where Japan capitulated to US pressure in the 80s and is now a vassal (well almost...as soon as they see a chance they will stab US in the back)
The EU was created so that the USA could easily influence European countries. So many of them have leader that obey only Washington DC. As Garland Nixon says, the USA have allowed Europe to fatten. Now it's time to for roasting. https://www.youtube.com/live/8-fc4ox3tS4?feature=share