The French president has given a speech to focus on the EU’s achievements – however there’s little to rejoice
“We should be clear about the truth that our Europe at the moment is mortal,” French President Emmanuel Macron stated in a speech this week. “She will be able to die, and it relies upon solely on our decisions. However these decisions are to be made now.”
What Macron portrays as an pressing have to resuscitate the EU comes after he himself has spent almost seven years in energy, having even been president of the Council of the European Union in 2022. He’s been credited for the nomination and affirmation of European Fee President Ursula Von der Leyen, described by Forbes final 12 months because the world’s strongest girl. Or, as some may say, an unelected, all-powerful bureaucrat whose supranational authoritarianism supersedes the democratic means of member states. Or, as others may now say after Macron’s deal with, the Nurse Ratched on the EU’s deathbed.
Macron’s interminable speech ought to have been one large mea culpa on behalf of the EU’s institution class. Inform us the way you screwed up. Not less than then we’d know that there was hope for an precise course correction quite than simply extra of the identical.
As an alternative, Macron argued that the EU hasn’t ever been a vassal of Washington. Saying that you simply’re not a vassal is precisely like having to inform folks you’re not a prostitute. It’s not one thing that one has to go round saying if the optics aren’t already obtrusive. Queen Ursula is principally America’s viceroy in Europe at this level, and Macron himself can’t appear to handle to carve out any positions unbiased of the US that last more than the time it takes for Uncle Sam to achieve over and administer a transatlantic spanking.
Macron’s speech was a captivating mix of delusion and insecurity. He selected Paris’ Sorbonne College because the venue. The theme? “Stocktake of European motion.” Positive, inform us what’s actually occurring as if you had a clue – and an precise technique and imaginative and prescient that wasn’t subjected to the fixed whims and tendencies of the second or any given election cycle.
Macron gave an analogous speech on the Sorbonne in September 2017. Why there? As a result of as Macron stated final time, “residing collectively was the perfect of Robert de Sorbon” – the theologian who based the college. It simply so occurs that circling the drain collectively is what the EU is basically all about proper now, due to the particular model of iron-fisted incompetence of these in cost. There’s a European Parliament election developing, and the populists are surging within the polls proper now.
Step one to restoration is admitting that there’s an issue. Macron, nevertheless, apparently feels compelled to do the other of that, and discuss the entire EU’s failures as if they’re successes. Like counterterrorism, for example. France has made such nice progress on that entrance that the nation is now again on the very best alert simply days earlier than it is slated to host the Paris Olympics, together with an open air Opening Ceremony alongside the Seine. It barely appears to have ever been downgraded from excessive alert; the initially white terror warning indicators have been turning yellow from years of sunshine publicity within the home windows of buildings the place they’re now everlasting fixtures. Macron, nevertheless, highlighted the function of a brand new bureaucratic entity referred to as the ECOFIN Council. As a result of nothing deters terrorists greater than conferences.
In addressing Africa, Macron underscored the significance of one other assembly: the “European Union – Africa Summit” held two years in the past. The sparse content material within the Africa part of Macron’s speak may very well be defined by minor particulars like French troops being drop-kicked again throughout the Mediterranean by African nations after French stability missions resulted in coups (that are form of the other of stability).
Clearly not deterred by any inconvenient discrepancies between actuality and projected fantasy, Macron’s speech additionally celebrated addressing the migration problem, which the EU has principally paid to outsource to nations like Turkey, Tunisia, Mauritania and Egypt. The final I checked, none of those nations had been really in Europe. However the EU has outsourced virtually all the pieces else by this level, so they could as nicely.
Macron talked in regards to the EU main the ecological and environmental transition. To what, precisely? Poverty, most likely. Simply ask the farmers straitjacketed by Brussels’ local weather change diktats, their farmland being spied on by satellites to make sure compliance, how nice that’s. He introduced up the EU’s vitality sovereignty and reindustrialization. Not so quick; Germany specifically continues to be busy stepping into the wrong way and de-industrializing. So it is perhaps some time earlier than the EU’s financial engine comes out on the flip aspect.
The EU has turn into extra depending on pricier American liquified pure fuel, which appears like the other of sovereignty. France’s personal LNG imports from the nation the EU implies an specific should be sovereign from — Russia — are actually up 75% within the first few months of this 12 months, in comparison with a 12 months in the past. France was Russia’s prime buyer for LNG in Europe final February, in keeping with a Politico report. For all of the noise it makes, it’s not just like the EU has stopped importing fuel from Russia. They only changed their Russian pipeline fuel imports with Russian LNG – a billion {dollars} price of Russian arctic liquified pure fuel into the EU each month, to be precise. In 2023, the bloc was really nonetheless importing 15% of its pipeline fuel from Russia, in keeping with Reuters. Whereas that’s down from 45% earlier than the battle in Ukraine, it nonetheless may come as a shock to individuals who had been really listening to Brussels brag about how they had been sticking it to Putin by depriving him of vitality revenues, that they had been nonetheless importing any pipeline fuel in any respect. The NGO International Witness reported final 12 months that the EU actually simply pivoted to importing Russian liquefied pure fuel, as an alternative of pipeline fuel, with Russian LNG imports into the EU leaping 40% for the reason that onset of the battle — much more than in every of the earlier two years.
Talking of Ukraine, Macron stated that “the sina qua non situation for our safety is that Russia doesn’t win the battle of aggression it’s waging in opposition to Ukraine. That is important.” What’s extra important is that Macron ought to spell out what Ukraine “profitable” really means. It might appear that Ukraine not persevering with to senselessly grind down its demographics needs to be seen as a win, given the non-zero likelihood of a battlefield game-changer that dangers igniting a Third World Struggle. Macron, nevertheless, clearly has different concepts, what with all his cosplaying as Napoleon Bonaparte and fantasizing about smoking Russians by overtly speaking about sending French troops to Ukraine.
Not that Ukraine is definitely within the EU, however Macron now explains that the EU has “began to rethink our geography throughout the boundaries of our neighborhood.” Think about the EU’s response to Russia uttering those self same phrases.
Ultimately, nevertheless, that is simply one other speech, calibrated for optimum affect forward of the upcoming June EU parliamentary elections. Like a lot of what EU leaders comparable to Macron are peddling these days, firehosing actuality and diluting it with ideological rhetoric may tug on a number of hearts, however received’t win over any mind that isn’t completely shot filled with holes like a block of Comté.
The statements, views and opinions expressed on this column are solely these of the writer and don’t essentially symbolize these of RT.
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