With Germany dependent on Russian gas and looking for Russian vaccines while experiencing a new wave of Corona Virus infections the chances of meaningful actions by the EU against any Russian military action in the Ukraine look mighty slim.
Adding to the EU’s strategic weaknesses are its lukewarm support for NATO, talk of a EU Army but without any boots on the ground and the obvious incompetency of the current leadership – as witnessed by events in Brussels over recent weeks. Imagine what a EU-lead military response would be like!
From the Russian standpoint the West’s struggle with Covid, the EU’s resentment of all things British since Brexit and the fact that now is the Easter Weekend make this an ideal time for Russia to improve its grip over the East. [Russian Orthodox Easter is not until 2-May-2021]
If Russia does make a move then it will hardly be a surprise given that some EU politicians have been poking a stick at the Russian Bear for years – in the belief that the threat of NATO would stop any Russian response.
Let us hope that Russia limits it ambitions – and backs away from a full-scale conflict. Adding World War 3 to the planets troubles would be a step too far …
Guy Fawkes is the only one of the 1605 bomb plotters that most people remember; along with the rhyme –
Looking back, over the intervening twenty six years, the changes have been major. Events have gradually eroded the hopes of a peaceful, sun-lit, golden future. And these earlier ideals have been replaced with the growing realisation that we are merely taxation sources funding power hungry politicians who are pushing their project to create a European super state. A state without national allegiances in perpetual, worldwide competition with other super-powers – and with themselves in control. A state where democracy is called populism and where populism is bad. A state where disagreement and opposition is renamed euro-scepticism and that is even worse than populism.
Now this theory that lost referendum votes – Scotland leaving the UK and the UK remaining in the EU – will be reversed by waiting a few years for a change in the population profile has already been reviewed by impartial analysts and found to be completely false. People are not machines with fixed profiles rather they respond to events and learn from their mistakes.
As before this equates to a pay day loan to cover the interest on the previous loans. And, as before, it simply increases the total that the nation owes; while putting further austerity pressures on the Greek people. And so state pensions will be cut again; this time by an average of 9%. There will also be more competition in the energy market; so benefiting a few EU corporations and not the Greek people. With few state assets left the Greek government is hoping that the economy will grow enough to see taxes exceed spending by enough to pay the interest bill next year. But even that unlikely event will do nothing to reduce their outstanding debt mountain. The tragedy continues.
But personal gain is not the biggest issue involving the big money players. Rather it is how they are managing the millions, billions and trillions of dollars. euros, et al that flow through governments and central banks. And the biggest potential source of problems here is the European Central Bank (ECB); mainly because it directs the EU’s national banks but also because of the huge amounts involved.