Time.news — Economic suicide for some, death for others…
The levels of recovery prior to the Covid phase have not yet been reached, that already the creation of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis entelechy, linked to the fate of the Russian speakers of Donbass, plunges Europe into an anthological crisis. Western Europe. Not Eastern Europe. Germany faces growth of 0.2%. France and the Netherlands are stagnating. Italy recorded a fall of 0.2%. And the projections would be far more alarming if analysts were not themselves largely prevented from thinking outside of the “it’s for their own good” doxa.
The European Soviet and its member states are fully aware of the extent of the damage caused by their decisions, but they seem to consider that if the facts do not agree with the theory, it is solely the fault of the facts, paraphrasing Werner Heisenberg. The political class seems to live on another quantum plane. The nations of Eastern Europe, for their part, in addition to being rewarded for their Atlanticist zeal, keep their relationship to physical reality intact and are less affected. Romania’s growth is insolent, 5.2%. But the rest of the former Warsaw Pact countries, Poland, Latvia, Hungary and Bulgaria are not faring badly either. The hiatus between East and West has been reversed.
The energy shock linked to the sanctions against Russia is aggravated by the depreciation of the euro against the dollar. A factor which in turn multiplies by three the cost of transporting fossil materials. This, without mentioning the investments linked to the creation of new infrastructures: LNG carriers, gas pipelines, terminals. To this must be added this form of tax, inflation, which affects household consumption, in addition to destroying corporate profit margins. The energy crisis also has an impact on the shortage of inputs and raw materials. The demand promised by the return to normal after the confinement phases took the form of a flock of swallows shot down in mid-flight. In this current context, thinking about investing is almost unthinkable.
But no sacrifice seems excessive in view of this new Athens that is Ukraine. Ursula von der Leyen has decided to pay a new envelope of nine billion euros for the country of baby barns. Gift described as “exceptional”, despite the recurrence of aid. This “assistance” is in addition to a previous envelope of 1.2 billion euros, as well as the billions granted to its war effort.
Read also: Ursula von der Leyen, a buccaneer with cronyism… jumper!
This generosity contrasts with the dramatic situation of emerging nations. For the same reasons, these economies will be unable to pay for the imports necessary for their production chain. This is in addition to the shortage of grains, cereals and fertilizers from producing countries. Inflation in the United States (10% since the beginning of the year) could have appeared as an opportunity for these countries, but the recent measures taken by the FED to curb the depreciation of its currency, expose these countries and by way ricocheting the global economy to a cascade of defaults.
The famine scenario in Africa is not a futuristic scenario. It’s very short term. With imaginable social, political and global consequences. What is at stake are hundreds of millions of people, “real people” in food distress. This is known by the political caste. So much so that this risk of famine was already in the mouth of Emmanuel Macron, in March, when the first sanctions against Russia were pronounced. The conditions for the perfect storm were consciously crafted, with their cohort of systemic risk, knowingly and without any contingency plan.
In December 2020, a World Bank (WB) report informed that, due to confinements, 72 million children in low-income countries had been out of school. Of them, the overwhelming majority would never see a classroom again. According to the WB, this waste of human resources represented, in real-generation projection, a loss of 10% of global GDP. To the pandemic is now added in the most vulnerable parts of the world, famine. But again, nothing is too good for the Azov and similar battalion. And who says poverty, says conflict. Who says conflict, says Ukrainian arms traffickers and, that’s good, because they have restocked.
European civil servants and the political caste have expressions à la Prévert to evacuate these data emanating from piss-vinegars. The energy crisis should be interpreted as an opportunity. “The Future is now” was the leitmotif of the last Forum in Brussels. The Ukrainian crisis will be an accelerator to achieve the objective of ecological transition. The famous CO₂-free economy, climate neutrality. Happiness what! “What economy for the next generation? ask the Eurocrats candidly. Before covidism, a generation was already struggling, condemned to live with their parents until the age of 30, without access to credit, without the possibility of forming a family and without access to decent work. To this sacrificed generation, they are now being told that the solution lies in “a change in behavior”. Heat less, consume less, produce less, live less, in short.
The European Union has created an oxymoron for this type of structural powerlessness: RePower. Another project dear to Ursula. It aims at the transition from fossil energy to renewable hydrogen, or even (because it may not work) the installation of solar panels in all houses. If nothing works, there remains the imposition of dystopian social control, of a society condemned to produce less, consume less, via forms of sequential confinement. Although this last part is not part of the official sheet. The RePower EU plan, presented this Wednesday by the omniscient Ursula, asks Europeans to consume 5% less gas and oil. It goes very well said like that, knowing that, because of the energy deficiency, what Europeans will consume less will not be 5, but 50% by the end of the year.
Still according to RePower, the objective would be to reduce Russian gas purchases by 66% this year and to do without it by 2030. Ursula hates Russians and loves Ukrainians, and that seems to come from afar. The citizens of Western Europe will therefore continue to be punished and to somehow share with the emerging nations the cost of an Atlanticist policy, which for the moment favors a nation considered exceptional, Ukraine.