The
Obama Administration actively pressured Europe to impose harsh
sanctions on Russia in order to defend the violent takeover (‘regime
change’) in the Ukraine. England, France, Germany and the rest of the
European regimes gave in to Washington’s demands. Russia responded by
imposing reciprocal sanctions, especially on agriculture goods, and is
establishing alternative trading partners and increasing trade with
China, Iran, Latin America and Africa.
The
sanctions policies occur at a time when Europe’s economies are in deep
economic crisis, exacerbating long-term stagnation and chronic
recession. This paper will identify and analyze the crisis and how
US-led sanctions policy is fracturing the European Union. Secondly, we
will analyze how Washington’s militarist imperial policies undermine
Europe economically and destabilize the rest of the world militarily.
Thirdly, we will discuss how the European leaders are prodded by
Washington, to put it crudely, through an aggressive ‘buggering
process’, to surrender their economic sovereignty and how capitulation
to the US project in the Ukraine will lead to their long-term decline
and decay. Finally, we will discuss the long-term perspectives for a
re-aligned world economy where military conflicts can result in
large-scale changes.
From Stagnation to Recession from Sanctions to Depression
Across
Europe, without exception, recession stalks the economies. The
dominant countries, Germany, France and Italy are mired in recession,
acutely exacerbated by the sanctions against Russia dictated from
Washington. From Nordic Finland, passing through the Baltic States to
Central and Southern Europe, the Eurozone ‘recovery’ is ‘kaput’! The
‘triple whammy’ of capitalist disinvestment, economic sanctions and wars
has provoked a deepening economic crisis.
Germany: Regime ‘Lick-Spittle’ Scares Industry and Financial Sectors
The
German financial market’s confidence is collapsing as a result of
Chancellor Merkel’s support for economic sanctions against Russia and
President Putin’s reciprocal response. Several hundred thousand German
industrial jobs are at risk; imports of Russian oil and gas are in
danger; large-scale, long-term German investments and lucrative export
markets are at stake. These fears and uncertainties have led to
declining investment and an unprecedented negative growth of 0.2% in the
German economy in the second quarter of 2014. The recession in Germany
ripples throughout Europe – especially affecting Poland, the Czech
Republic, Hungary and Southern Europe.
Merkel’s servile capitulation to the US President’s command to
sanction one of Germany’s major trade partners, Russia, may seriously
harm its economic future. Germany’s industrial exports to Russia
amount to 36 billion Euros; there are 20 billion Euros in annual
investments; and over 400,000 German workers are employed in companies
exporting to Russia . . . Joe Kaeser, CEO of Siemens, pointedly argued
that “political tensions posed serious risks for Europe’s growth this
year and next”. Sales in some sectors are down 15% since June 2014.
Germany’s economy was already facing stagnation even before the coup in
Kiev . . .but machinery exporters are especially concerned about losing
the Russian market because other markets have declined. For example,
German sales to Brazil are down nearly 20%.
In addition, German farmers suffer: Export of German meat and meat
products to Russia amount to 276 million Euros or 21% of their non-EU
exports. German dairy farmers earned $160 million Euros from trade with
Russia, 14% of total exports to non-EU countries.
Merkel knowingly sacrificed German industry, agriculture and
employment by submitting to Obama’s policy of ‘buggering his European
allies’. On the other hand, Obama’s sanctions against Russia have
virtually no impact on US economic interests. Only the Europeans will
feel the pinch. Merkel’s support for the US-NATO coup in Kiev and the
ongoing military assault against the anti-coup democrats in Eastern
Ukraine is leading to a revival of the Cold War confrontational policies
toward Russia, and has alienated the majority of German producers and
exporters as well as the German public.
Italy: Capitalist Crises and Sanctions
Italy
is stuck in a half decade of profound recession continuing throughout
2014. Its GDP fell by 0.2% in the second quarter, bringing the GDP
below the level in the year 2000! The sanctions against Russia have
cost Italy over $1 billion in lost exports, hitting Northern Italy most
acutely and provoking the ire of the conservative Northern League. Big
Italian energy companies, with major investments in Russia, face even
bigger losses. Italian farmers, from Tuscany to Sicily, are
experiencing major losses in agricultural exports. In other words, with
sanctions Italy’s chronic sick economy has lost any chance for recovery
and will likely pass from recession into depression.
France: From Zero Growth to Recession
France
has entered a period of perpetual regression: Unemployment exceeds
11%, underemployment and ‘make work’ exceeds 20% . . . GDP hovers at
recession levels, between zero and 0.5% . . . Austerity, involving
large-scale cuts in social programs and tax write-offs for business, has
eroded consumer spending without increasing capitalist investment. And
Obama’s sanctions against Russia will further damage French exporters,
especially its agricultural sector and weapons manufacturers. And
‘Hyper-Militarist-Socialist’ President Hollande has exacerbated France’s
balance of payments and budget problems by sending the air force and
ground troops to intervene on three continents. This has caused over
82% of French voters to choose alternative parties, propelling the
nationalist right party, National Front, to the lead.
The ‘Backside of Europe’: Spain, Greece and Portugal
Deeply buried in a near decade-long depression with unemployment
ranging from 26% in Greece and Spain to 16% in Portugal, Russia’s
reciprocal sanctions against agricultural exports has hit their
agro-export sectors most severely, causing mountains of grapes, tomatoes
and other perishables to rot in the fields. Tons of Southern Europe’s
produce will end up as compost. Tens of thousands of farmers face even
greater problems and more will be forced into bankruptcy because of
Washington’s dictates.
Spanish farmers stand to lose 158 million Euros from the sanctions
against their fresh fruit and nuts, or 22% of their total exports to
non-EU countries; Greek farmers will lose 107 million Euros, 41% of
exports to non-EU countries. Spanish meat exporters will lose 111
million Euros or 13% of their non-EU markets.
The
European Union, for its part, offers meager relief – expecting
thousands of hard-pressed farmers to submit to Obama’s demands. In the
meantime, as Russia establishes alternative markets in Latin America,
the EU has sent its emissaries overseas to beg the Latin American
governments to reject multi-billion dollar agro-business deals with
Russia and comply with the US-EU sanctions. So far, every country in
Latin America has rejected the EU’s ‘charm’ offensive. Ecuadorean
President Correa heaped scorn on the EU: “We do not have to ask anyone’s
permission to export to friendly nations. As far as I know, Latin
America is not part of the European Union”. Egypt and Turkey are
stepping in to replace the farmers of Europe and the US by exporting
their agricultural produce to Russia.
Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Denmark and the Netherlands
Hungary’s President Viktor Orban rages at the sanctions and threatens
to break ranks, as Budapest tallies up its losses in exports, and the
threat to its energy-dependent country. Bulgaria’s compliant President
caved into Brussels’ pressure and reneged on a $40 billion dollar
pipeline deal signed between Russia and local Bulgarian business leaders
precipitating a major banking crisis and the collapse of its second
largest bank – Corbank. The deposits of hundreds of thousands of
Bulgarians were frozen or just disappeared. When Brussels buggers the
Bulgarians, they bankrupt their own banks.
Finland,
once the poster-child of the ‘Third Way’ ideologues, is in a long-term
depression. Its economy has shrunk for the past 4 consecutive years and
even regime optimists estimate that they will need 10 years to
recover. Finnish Prime Minister, Alex Stubbs, a free market ideologue,
is a staunch supporter of sanctions against Russia although these will
drastically cut into agricultural exports (dairy goods, meat, fish,
etc.). Stubbs defends his catastrophic capitulation to NATO’s power
grab in the Kiev by proclaiming that “our principles (sic) are not for
sale; we believe in international institutions; we believe in the rule
of law”. Finland, under its ‘law-abiding’ President, will lose at least
253 million Euros this year or 68% of its exports to non-EU countries.
In other words this political marionette has sacrificed the welfare of
hundreds of thousands of Finnish dairy farmers and growers to support a
NATO-imposed regime in Kiev, which has been sending units of neo-Nazis
to slaughter Ukrainian resistance fighters and civilians.
Poland’s billion dollar agricultural export trade with Russia has
collapsed, causing Warsaw to beg Washington and Brussels for emergency
subsidies and pleading with the apple-exporting Americans to ‘eat Polish
apples’. Polish fruit growers will lose 317 million Euros in sales or
61% of their exports to non-EU countries. Their meat exporters will
lose 162 million Euros, 20% of its trade with non-EU countries. Dairy
farmers will lose 142 million Euros, 32% of exports to non-EU countries.
The Poles, who at every turn
have assumed the most reactionary Russophobic posture and were deeply
implicated in organizing and training the neo-fascist gangs which
overthrew the elected Ukraine government, are now pushing carts down the
streets of Warsaw peddling apples and sausages, instead of stocking the
supermarket shelves of Russia – and whining that New Yorkers should
forsake Upstate apples to take up the slack!
Lithuania
will lose 308 million Euros in fresh fruit exports to Russia or 81% of
their exports to non-EU countries; dairy farmers will lose 161 million
Euros in sales or 74% of non-EU exports. Denmark and Holland will lose
over 800 million Euros in agro-exports to Russia –deepening their
recession.
Conclusion
While the ever-persuasive con-man in Washington, President Obama has
buggered EU leaders into pushing their own economies even deeper into
recession, so he can launch a new Cold War with Russia, the US plunges
deeper into military confrontations in Iraq, Ukraine and Syria. Obama
appears to have lost control over military aid programs in the chaos:
Netanyahu’s Zionist allies in Congress managed to by-pass the White
House and State Department and approve additional shipments of Pentagon
arms to Israel, undercutting any administration leverage over the
ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Japan joins the US-EU sanctions against Russia exacerbating its own
economic crisis: In 2014 Japan experienced its worst contraction since
2009, with a 7.1% drop in the second quarter. The increasingly
unpopular, Japanese Prime Minister Abe is committed to a military
build-up. More Japanese politicians visit Yasukuni Shrine, the
militarist temple honoring its war criminals, re-awakening the horrific
memories of Imperial Japan’s victims. There are increasingly bellicose
Japanese confrontations with China over disputed piles of rock in the
South China Sea . . . As Obama’s military pivot to Asia increases, so
Japan’s economy sinks.
No European country can benefit from embracing the failed regime in
Kiev. . . Ukraine’s currency is in free-fall – ranking below soiled
toilet paper. Its major industries, totally dependent on trade with
Russia, are bankrupt or have been bombed by the NATO-putsch regime in
Kiev. Its agricultural exports are devastated. Meanwhile Ukrainian
families are advised to chop their own wood or dig their own coal in
anticipation of a winter totally cut off from Russian gas because the
oligarchs in Kiev have been unable or unwilling to pay the huge energy
debt. . For their staunch support of this bankrupt regime, ruled by a
‘Billionaire Oligarch’ in Kiev, for upholding the ‘principles’ so lauded
by Finnish President Stubbs, one million European farmers will bury
their own apples, pour their own milk in the streets and dump their
grapes, oranges and tomatoes in rotting heaps. . . And this is so their
leaders, Obama, Cameron, Merkel and Hollande can uphold their real
‘principles’ of territorial expansion, extend their military operations
to the borders with Russia and posture as warriors while destroying
their countries productive economies, bankrupting their farmers and
manufacturers, driving millions more into unemployment and deepening the
pains of recession.
Ukraine will join a growing list of countries, Libya, Egypt, Syria,
Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, that Washington and NATO
have “saved” (to paraphrase an American general) . . . by being
destroyed.
Once again the US military-driven empire-building policy trumps
economic development: Destructive wars and sanctions destroy viable
markets and impoverish entire sectors of the economy. Imposing
sanctions abroad invites retaliation – the boomerang effect cripples
domestic producers. As world trade and investment shrink, internal
stagnation becomes endemic, recessions deepen and recovery becomes a
distant chimera. The financial press, the Wall Street Journal and The
Financial Times, which have become megaphones for the western warlords,
no longer publish paeans to the free market but unleash vitriolic
screeds crying for war and sanctions….. which close markets and destroy
investor confidence.
Buggered by Obama, European bootlickers bankrupt their own economies and then pass around the begging cup.
Italy faces the reality of a decade of stagnation.
Portugal’s economy crashes and crawls.
Germany’s manufacturing machinery grinds to a halt.
Finland’s ‘principled’ brown-nosing boomerangs.
England is converted into a money-laundering bankers’ city-state where one-third of its children live in poverty.
Poland consumes itself, drunk with weapons and rotting apples.
In
a word, by submitting to Washington’s doctrine of permanent wars,
Europe eschews the only road out of permanent crisis: peaceful
co-existence. The mega-buggers in Washington and the bootlickers in
Europe have chosen sanctions over trade and destruction over
prosperity. They are paying a price: domestic unrest, displacement
from markets by emerging economies and the ascendancy of chaos as a way
of life in Western Europe.