The
regime changers in Kiev decided to hold a presidential election on
May 25, the same day as European Parliament elections, in order to
demonstrate their desire to follow a European-centric foreign
policy.Circumstances surrounding the European and Ukrainian elections
were far from being a mere coincidence.
Talk
about two elections somewhat joined at the hip! In the end, the
Ukraine election did actually represent European foreign policy in
action – manifested in regime change leading to the specter of
civil war.
Few
in Europe would have noticed how this process is so far away
from “democracy” –instead
enshrining intolerance and an ideology of blind confrontation, as
represented by this “debate” in
Kiev driven by a clueless Yale historian.
Key
facts that should be understaood are how the West ignored the Odessa
massacre, as well as the detention of Russian journalists; and how
the West dismissed the aspirations of eastern and southern Ukrainians
as the work of “pro-Russians” or “terrorists.” These
people simply became objects of repression - fully supervised by the
West, with now the whole regime change theatre of the absurd in Kiev
legitimized through an election charade.
Way
beyond the established fact of an Atlantic push against Russian
western borderlands, Ukraine remains a catfight of local oligarchies.
No wonder the new Ukrainian president is also an oligarch; the 7th
wealthiest citizen in the land, who owns not just a chocolate empire,
but also automotive plants, a shipyard in Crimea and a TV channel.
The only difference is that he’s a NATO oligarch
It’s
the economy, stupid
Meanwhile,
in NATOstan, local and transnational elites have been desperately
trying to spin a measure of success. Abstention remains notable –
only roughly 4 in 10 Europeans take the trouble to vote on what goes
on in Strasbourg, with a majority alienated enough to legitimize the
mix of internal European austerity and international belligerence.
Yet
the vote on Sunday went way beyond “anti-establishment,” nationalist
– and frankly xenophobic or even fascistic – parties
consolidating the rejection of “more
EU.”
Hardly
discussed in the pre-vote campaigns were the Snowden NSA revelations;
the shady negotiations between Washington and Brussels over a free
trade agreement which will be a boon for US Big Business; and how the
financial casino supervised by the European Central Bank, the IMF,
and the European Commission (EC) will remain untouched, further
ravaging the European middle classes.
The
anti-EU crowd performed very well in France, the UK, Denmark and
Greece. Not so well in Italy and the Netherlands. The mainstream did
relatively well in Germany and ultraconservative Spain – even
though losing votes to small parties
.
In
Italy, the ruling Democratic Party of current Prime Minister Matteo
Renzi did very well (almost 41 percent). The Italian Tony Blair keeps
promising a vague “radical
reform” –
whatever that means. As for the anti-establishment 5 Star party of
comedian Beppe Grillo, it lost a lot of votes.
In
regions such as northwest France, which includes Normandy – a
traditional bastion of the Left – Marine Le Pen’s National Front
got a whopping 32.6 percent of the vote. With Francois Hollande’s
pathetic socialists in power, Le Pen could not but have the last
laugh.
And
that duly prompted a portentous intellectual nullity such as the
former executive editor of the International Herald Tribune to roar
that Marine
Le Pen is
the French Vladimir Putin.
Essentially,
European voters said two things out loud: either “the
EU sucks,” or “we
couldn’t care less about you, Eurocrat suckers.”
As
if that sea of lavishly pensioned Brussels apparatchiks – the
Eurocrats - would care. After all, their mantra is
that “democracy” is
only good for others (even Ukrainians…) but not for the EU; when
the European flock of sheep votes, they should only be allowed to
pick obscure Brussels-peddled and Brussels-approved treaties.
Brussels,
anyway, is bound to remain the Kafkaesque political epitome of
centralized control and red tape run amok. No wonder the EU is
breathlessly pivoting with itself as the global economy relentlessly
pivots to Asia.
Follow
the money
To
believe that an EU under troika austerity will bail Kiev out of its
massive outstanding debts is wishful thinking. The recipe - already
inbuilt in the $17 billion IMF “rescue” package
is, of course, austerity.
Oligarchs
will remain in control, while assorted plunderers are already lining
up. Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright – for whom
hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children were expendable
–“observed” the
elections, and most of all observed how to privatize Telecom Ukraine,
as she is doing now with Telekom Kosovo.
There’s
no evidence Right Sector and Svoboda will cease to be crypto-fascist,
racist and intolerant just because Poroshenko – the King of
Ukrainian Chocolate – is now the president. By the way, his margin
for maneuver is slim, as his own markets – not to mention some of
his factories – are in Russia. Heavy industry and the weapons
industry in eastern Ukraine depend on Russian demand. It would take
at least a whopping $276 billion for the West to “stabilize” eastern
Ukraine. The notion of the EU “saving” Ukraine
is D.O.A.
Moscow,
once again, just needs to do what it is doing: nothing. And make sure
there will be no economic or political help unless a federalized –
and Finlandized - Ukraine with strong regions sees the light of day.
Even
the Brookings
Institution has
reluctantly been forced to admit that the US neo-con gambit has
failed miserably; there’s no Ukraine without Russian help.
So
it’s up to the Chocolate King to prove himself a leader of all
Ukrainians, and only then will he have a shot at entente cordiale
with – and even help from - Moscow.
Signs
so far are mixed. Poroshenko said Ukraine could “possibly” become
an EU member state by 2025 (it won’t happen). He ruled out entering
NATO (wise move). He rejects federalization (dumb move). He believes
that with a strong economy Crimea would want to be back (wishful
thinking). Still, he believes in reaching a compromise with Moscow
(that’s what Moscow always wanted, even before regime change).
What
a mess
Back
in NATOstan, there’s the crucial point of what happens to the
ultra-right-wing anti-EU brigade in the Parliament in Strasbourg.
They may all abhor the EU, but the fact is this ideological basket
case will hardly form an alliance.
An
alliance would mean at least 25 Parliament members coming from at
least 7 different countries. Marine Le Pen has already stepped into
the ring. She has an agreement with the nasty Geert Wilders in the
Netherlands, and could also count on the Austrian FPO and the Belgian
Vlaams Belang. The Swedish Democrats – which are in fact
crypto-Nazis – are sitting on the fence. The Greek neo-Nazis of
Golden Dawn and the Hungarian Jobbik are out. As for UKIP, they
definitely don't see themselves as part of this “family.”
What
this ultimately means is that conservative and moderate parties, as
per the status quo, will remain in control, expressed via an
extremely likely coalition of the European People’s Party
(center-right) and the Socialists and Democrats (center-left).
What
comes next, in the second half of 2014, is the appointment of a new
EU Commission. That’s Kafka redux, as in the bureaucrat-infested
executive arm of the EU, which shapes the agenda, sort of (when it’s
not busy distributing subventions in color-coded folders for assorted
European cows.)
There
are 5 candidates fighting for the position of EC president. According
to the current EU treaty, member states have to consider the result
of EU Parliament elections when appointing a new president. Germany
wants a conservative. France and Italy want a socialist. So expect a
tortuous debate ahead to find who will succeed the spectacularly
mediocre Jose Manuel Barroso.
The
favorite is a right-winger of the European People’s Party, former
Prime Minister of Luxembourg Jean-Claude Juncker. He is an avid
defender of banking secrecy while posing himself as a champion
of“market
social economy.”
Then
there’s more Kafka: choosing the new president of the EU Council
and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs. Translation: the EU
won’t decide anything, or “reform” anything
for months. That includes the critical negotiations with the
Americans over the free trade deal.
It’s
absolutely impossible to spin these Sunday elections as not
discrediting even more the EU project as it stands.
As
I’ve seen for myself, since early 2014, in 5 among the top EU
countries, what matters for the average citizen is as follows: how to
deal with immigration; how to fight the eradication of the welfare
state; the implications of the free trade agreement with the US; the
value of the euro –including an absurdly high cost of living; and
what the ECB mafia is actually doing to fight unemployment.
With
Kafka in charge for the foreseeable future, what’s certain is that
Paris and Berlin will drift further and further apart. There will be
no redesign of the EU’s institutions. And the next Parliament,
filled with sound and fury, will be no more than a hostage of the
devastating, inexorable political fragmentation of
Europe.“Saving” Ukraine?
What a joke. The EU cannot even save itself.
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