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European Union Challenged From Right And Left, "Maybe Too Much To Endure"
Submitted by John Browne via Euro Pacific Capital,
The heinous ISIS attack in Paris is a game changer in Europe. In addition to the horrific amount of individual casualties, the attack has also threatened severe damage to the long term survivability of the European Union as a political entity. Based on the unpopularity and unfeasibility of immigration controls under the EU's Schengen Plan, the events have opened up the Union to renewed attacks from the right, just as its support from the left is crumbling as a result of opposition to EU-mandated fiscal austerity. This two-front onslaught may be too much for the Union to endure.
Over the decades, Western Europeans had come to rely on the power of the United States to shield them from the chaos of the East. But it has become abundantly clear that America, particularly under President Obama, is not up to the task. Obama's now infamous claim that ISIS was merely a "JV Team" combined with his enduring lassitude in dealing head on with the growing threat of a radical Islamist proto-state in the heart of the Middle East has forced Europeans to consider taking the reins of their own defense.
Unlike the lone wolf attacks in Boston and underwear bombers on planes in the United States, the Paris attack last week (as well as the Charlie Hebdo attack earlier this year) was highly sophisticated. (The explosives used in the attack, while simple to produce, are extremely difficult to handle once they are in their final form. The fact that its use was coordinated in simultaneous attacks while evading detection by anti-terrorist signals monitoring demonstrates an alarmingly high level of planning and control.) Initial evidence suggests the strategy was conceived in Syria, planned in Belgium and executed in France, reinforcing the idea that a high degree of transnational reach was available to the terrorists.
In this environment, EU border control has become an issue of vital security. But the border control regulations that are part of the fiber of the European experiment are simply inadequate to stop the free flow of terrorists, both into the EU from abroad, and within the EU. Germany's stated goal of accepting 800,000 refugees from Syria this year, a policy that throws the door wide open for the immigration of potential terrorists, cannot coexist with the Continent's growing concern about Islamist terror attacks.
In France, President Francois Hollande appears to have wrested from a hesitant President Obama the leadership of a frustrated West. France has now taken the lead in airstrikes against ISIS positions and has shown a greater willingness to work with Russia to do so. However, with regional elections in three weeks, Hollande faces a renewed challenge from Marine Le Pen, leader of the right wing National Front (NF) party. Despite facing charges for an anti-Islamic remark, Le Pen stands to make large electoral gains based on her Eurosceptic anti-immigration stance. The FN has been gaining traction for years, and last week's attacks could provide them with the fuel to become the most powerful party in France.
In particular, it is surprising how the NF has also taken up some of the anti-EU sentiment usually reserved to the left wing. Le Pen has called for greater government welfare spending, austerity reductions, and increased trade protectionism, causes that have been championed by the left, especially in Southern Europe.
Last week, Portugal's center-right minority government led by Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho was forced out of office after just two weeks. The prospect of continued EU-mandated austerity forced Coelho's Socialist partners to leave the coalition to join forces with the Communist and Green parties.
Germany, Europe's economic engine long-admired for efficiency, high productivity and sound monetary views, recently has experienced a major internal political shock. Chancellor Angela Merkel emerged last year as the most powerful woman in the world and the undisputed leader of the 503 million people of the European Union, the world's third largest population after China and India. However, Merkel appears to have miscalculated massively with her pledge to accept so many refugees from the war-ravaged Middle East. In response to horrified public opinion, her center-right coalition has appeared to break political ranks, giving the impression even of chaos within Merkel's administration.
The immigration situation is so bad that it has encouraged discussion of a possible early German election. The prospect has been raised that Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, a very tough moneyman keen on austerity, might re-challenge Merkel for the leadership of their Christian Democratic Union party. Replacement of the pro-EU Angela Merkel by Wolfgang Schaeuble likely would increase austerity pressures and ignite further strong left wing feelings against the EU. Austerity measures in Portugal and Greece are exposing already increasingly deep-seated Eurosceptic feelings.
Further, the planned December EU summit meeting faces increasing opposition to the further integration of a single state. Increased German focus on internal politics will divert energy from forging a closer EU. Without German support, the Eurozone may quickly become a thing of the past.
Rising Eurosceptic feelings and voting power are storm clouds for international investors. Increased doubts about EU solidarity could threaten even the perceived future of the euro, now the world's second currency. Signs of weakening EU cohesion could affect the value of many investments within the EU and around the world. In particular, absent their ECB subsidy, the prices of sovereign bonds of highly indebted periphery EU nations could come under intense pressure and thereby cause liquidity problems for EU banks.
Even before the attacks in Paris, the world appeared to be entering a period of slow growth, with Japan, the Eurozone, and even the United States flirting with recession. Given the slowing trajectory economy, it is logical to suggest that the attacks in Paris could help pave the way for even greater activism from The Bank of Japan, The Federal Reserve, and the ECB. The monetary authorities would surely seek to help bolster economies that are being rocked by fiscal, political and strategic crises. In other words, the era of permanent global stimulus may continue for the foreseeable future.
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As long as diplomatic relations with Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey (at least) are not questionned, it means no changes at all.
ISIS is a joint venture that all investors doesn't want to destroy before getting their share of the benefits.
The Germans should have already held elections. What a joke.
This long expose could have been summed up that Europe is being suicided by the ziocons/ZWO.
Terrorist attacks have never broken up a nation state. They fail from their own foibles.
They are. For the first time the Dutch parliament expressed something negative about Saudi-Arabia: "Saudi-Arabia has two export products: oil and terrorism" (http://www.nu.nl/politiek/4167102/kamer-zorgen-terreurfinanciering-saudi...)
The whole point of the new restrictions in Europe is to keep the Eurocrats in. There will be no breakup, just more repression until the whole thing goes up in a revolution.
Synthetic article
Produced inside a mad men skyscraper
Stimulus Stimulus you say?
Not in Irelande.
21. 1 billion euro of tax collected was not respent into the state.
This is good. Centralized, unaccountable government is horrible thing for the vast majority of people.
France's leading strategic think tank specialists have now officially stated in public debate, in the ongoing aftermath of attacks in Paris, that the enemy is not just ISIS but the ideology of Wahhabist Salafism cum Muslim Brotherhood rabid Sunni predication, finger pointing at tHREE ME states who support it openly : Saud, Qatar and Erdogan's Turkey.
France now takes a hard look at CAUSALITY and points to GWB's disastrous legacy where the Sunni Saddam regime in Iraq has morphed into ISIS and poisoned the ME into a regressionary ideology game that can destroy the social structure of a multi-ethnic europe.
Nobody now talks of intolerance of race or religion but intolerance of rabid ideologies like islamic fascism. That is France and Europe's official position.
Hollande will leave to meet Obama and then Putin to seal the military alliance with Russia for ramp up of aerial war against ISIS cum Salafism (now perceived as basing its new staging point in Sirte Libya for the Sahel region--huge damage potential in Africa-- and a direct threat for long term war in French speaking Africa.)
If the US position does not budge -- Obama is very hesitant to ruffle Turkey/Saud (As is the French Military complex) -- on the issue of openly condemning not just Salafism but also Saudi Wahhabism and Qatar's Muslim Brotherhoood ideologies, then France will insist that the EU side with it thus throwing a brick at Nato in which Erdogan is a member.
We are seeing the position now whereby if the ISIS/France war gets worse on French soil that Europe and Russia will coagulate on the issue of fighting NOT ONLY ISIS but all petromonarchies and countries who support rabid Sunni ideology in MENA.
It is now openly linked to the refugee problem. Also, all of EU now sees Iran not, only as viable partner in its probable take over of parts of Iraq + the emergence of Kurdish independent region, but also as a more stable piece in the new ME reconfiguration.
The pendulum swings away from Sunni rabid alliances towards those who accept secular values even if they have despotic governments (Iran/Syria/Egypt).
The French Parliament may even pass a law making the preaching of rabid Sunni Islam illegal in France, as antinomic to Republican values; which will be a stone cast in the way the US and UK see predication of communitarist Islam in their own lands.
We are seeing the beginnings of a chasm opening up in the West on the issue of how to handle rabid Islam amongst its own citizenry in the decades to come.
Lets see if Hollande and the French government put their acts in accordnce with their current hot talk.
Something tells me the events will not leave them much choice.
History is a bitch. Its time that Islamic obscurantism meets its Nemesis, just like the Papal Inquistion met its own with the Enlightenment.
How much are you paid to produce this stuff?
free will and the urge to express it is the only payback I seek.
Y do u ask?
Do u think we are all serfs to money honey?
Why did this 'Think Tank' take so long to reach this conclusion? I don't belong to a think tank, er, sorry, i forgot i belong to Z/H, probably the world's finest Think Tank.
I'd hate to be around when the think tanks.
I want so much to believe all that. So everyone should discount my opinion, of course. Nevertheless, my opinion is also that big government is losing power, this is their last gasp.
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/07/23/us-government-power-is-at-...
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/08/25/peak-information/
The Lebowski Enlightenments are on the NSA and Intelligence side of that.
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/lebowski-enlightenments/
Optimist that I am, I am convinced that smart people sharing information and reasoning on the internet is the reason we are beating them. The Israeli-neocons are the danger. 9/11 was their false flag, they are desperate people, there could be many more false flags before their day is finally done and they are hanged.
falak, what are your thoughts on the use of nuclear weapons by france/russia in WWIII against "pockets of IS/Salafast/MB resistance, with same justification america used to end WWII in Japan (because it will "save lives")?
remember this little gem done in NatGeo a few years back on the impact of a regional nuclear war on (reversing) global warming?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/02/110223-nuclear-war-winte...
To see what climate effects such a regional nuclear conflict might have, scientists from NASA and other institutions modeled a war involving a hundred Hiroshima-level bombs, each packing the equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT—just 0.03 percent of the world's current nuclear arsenal. (See aNational Geographic magazine feature on weapons of mass destruction.)
The researchers predicted the resulting fires would kick up roughly five million metric tons of black carbon into the upper part of the troposphere, the lowest layer of the Earth's atmosphere.
In NASA climate models, this carbon then absorbed solar heat and, like a hot-air balloon, quickly lofted even higher, where the soot would take much longer to clear from the sky.
The global cooling caused by these high carbon clouds wouldn't be as catastrophic as a superpower-versus-superpower nuclear winter, but "the effects would still be regarded as leading to unprecedented climate change," research physical scientist Luke Oman said during a press briefing Friday at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C.
fter a regional nuclear war, though, average global temperatures would drop by 2.25 degrees F (1.25 degrees C) for two to three years afterward, the models suggest.
At the extreme, the tropics, Europe, Asia, and Alaska would cool by 5.4 to 7.2 degrees F (3 to 4 degrees C), according to the models. Parts of the Arctic and Antarctic would actually warm a bit, due to shifted wind and ocean-circulation patterns, the researchers said.
After ten years, average global temperatures would still be 0.9 degree F (0.5 degree C) lower than before the nuclear war, the models predict.
Tyler: "European Union Challenged From Right And Left"
I'd call the European Union the Hard Left and the Soft Left. There's hardly anybody on the Right in that cesspit.
It's kinda like calling the National Socialist German Workers Party rightwing...makes me lmao! everytime it's tried.
Oh...but reaping the profits and socializing the losses WITH FUCKING BANKS is...capitalism?
It's time to start dealing with mentally unstable leftists in a more rational manner, ignoring them.
What would you call the Nazis if not rightwing then?
Ultra right wing fascists perhaps?
Certainly not Marxists as you seem to intimate. Dictatorship of the proletariat? Powerful Trades Union? I think not!
More like a military/industrial/banking complex. i.e. extreme right wing.
Actually, that sounds like the left wing in America and Europe. (As the original post stated, there's really no difference between the two.)
And considering the Nazis couldn't have accomplished any of that without gun confiscation... I'd actually say they were pretty far left of center.
There was no gun confiscation, other than from Communist and Jews - who were quite well armed before the German people prevailed over the Marxist. The NSDAP and Fascist are called "right wing" becuase they were patriotic and nationalistic. They put the people above the Bankers and Bolsheviks and certainly would never have allowed millions of stinking Arab and Africans to swarm into their nations to displace the Folk community.
There was no gun confiscation, except for when he confiscated guns. From the people he did everything later massacred. You just proved my point.
Nazi's were national socialists.
Hitler was giving free houses to those who had big families.
Hitlers answer to Stalin's Communism was Socialism.
Yeah, but socialism towards YOUR OWN ONLY, not towards non-white, non-european immigrants.
That's the only socialism accepted.
One thinks of his family FIRST, later throws the scraps or better yet rocks to the stray dogs.
"That's the only socialism accepted."
By the extreme leftists - the Marxists, Communists, Feminists etc.
Not by normal human beings.
He especially gave free housing to big Jewish, Gypsy, Polish, Serb, gay, resistance fighters and communist families. They were called concentration camps. People just to warm them up with their own bodies at the crematorium. Hitler also made the trains run on time.
Oh wait, that all of course didn't happen. I will throw in a </sarc> tag just in case.
The NSDAP were left wing. Nationalism is Left Wing politics as it stands for the People.
It's just not as left wing as Internationalism ie Marxism as it limits its all-inclusiveness to those of its own nation.
Marxists are unthinking extremists - to them, everything not as left as their point of view is right wing. Hence the labelling of Nationalism as right wing, and the confused acceptance of their word as fact.
Right wing is all about personal property and its sanctity ie ultimately nobles and kings.
Hitler was a Tyrant (in the Classical Greek sense, not the modern Western understanding). As such, he was left wing.
If he'd been right wing he would not have done anything for the poor as their fate would have been read as their responsibility.
He was a German Napoleon, nothing more, nothing less.
Don't forget the Colossus, The Monster - Napoleon - was also left wing, who's ultimate nemesis was The Duke of Wellington ie the right wingers.
Here endeth the lesson.
To say the Euro-zone is a dysfunctional mess is an understatement. Currently the though of taking a holiday in Europe seems daunting. Attempting to travel through the area when facing closed borders, strikes, and homeless refugees has offset the excitement of tourist enjoying the weaker euro.
The fact remains the Euro-zone economy is going nowhere despite all the over the top efforts by the European Central Bank to stimulate the economy. It has become the chief pastime of those in power to meet and talk, then meet and talk some more, but action is seldom the result. The article below delves into the growing mess.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2015/11/euro-zone-remains-dysfunctional-mess.html
The EU tourism $$$ will drop off like a brick now after the France attack.... Just what the Eu needed...
yep, the old fogies will be cancelling their Viking river tours
The Scandi's will change the name to " Martyrs River Jihadi float ".
airbnb valuation to tank, Paris is their biggest string of Motel 6's.
'Cobbler Stick to Your Last' :Dutch Proverb. If economic specialists get on the Geo-political field they usually sprout a lot of nonsense. They don't seem to posses the right mindsetting to understand these matters correctly. There never were any lone wolf attacks because they all were false flags set up by the CIA/Mossad like also ' the underwear bomber'. Amsterdam Schiphol airport is completely controlled by Mossad for people who didn't know this yet.
The situation of Portugal and the EU sanctions against Russia is interesting. EU leaders are expected to discuss the sanctions at their 2015 December 15 summit. Any extension must be backed by all 28 EU members. If Portugal's president is able to stonewall allowing the elected government of Socialist/Green/Communist coalition to take office by then the sanctions might be extended beyond 2016 January 31. But if the new Portuguese government takes office then Portugal is likely to veto the planned extension.
Expect fireworks either way. Possibly with Russia lifting import food sanctions but only for food products grown (olive oil, wine) or harvested (dairy, meat) in Portugal. Also send tourists to Portugal who might otherwise go to Egypt.
Meanwhile, Russia has banned food imports from Ukraine from 2016 January 1, and may extend that to energy exports to Ukraine too if EU sanctions are extended and Ukraine supports the extension. On a basis of force majeure - unable to export to Ukraine safely while Kiev flouts Minsk agreements by refusing negotiations with Novorossiya.
Mutti Merkel is a perfidious, traitorous woman. A shameful excuse for german feminity
The early bird catches the early worm. Not in the case of the early money into Ukraine, where Hunter Bidet (deliberate misspelling), Franklin Ass. and the MIC lost their asses.
In the case of the MIC only 10% of the expected arms trading materialised due to the early and heavy losses handed out to the Kiev Neo-Nazi Junta, Polish, Brit, US Trainer Mercs by the Freedom Fighters.
Point is the EU and the US are more than happy to work with any filthy shit Fascist Tinpot Dictatorship; A right kick in the Baltics.
Gee, who could've ever thought that giving up your national sovereignty to an unelected international body could have backfired?
The United States of Europe was an intellectual pipedream, that benefitted only a few thousand already rich people.
The United States of America was an intellectual pipedream, that benefitted only a few thousand already rich people---and was only held together in the end by the leadership's being prepared to burn the cities and slaughter the people of any state that dared insist on their right to govern themselves.
So ultimately the Eurocrats will have to decide how many European Christians they're able and willing to murder to keep their pipedream alive and the proles in their place---or convince Uncle Sugar to murder for them.
EU = "World's biggest geriatric petting zoo." THEY DID EVERYTHING ASS-BACKWARDS.
Hint, morons--you do the political consolidations FIRST. Didn't Mao, Lenin, & Washington teach you anything?
Europe is quickly becoming Eurabia and will be Moslem within the century anyway, but it would be satisfying to see the EU collapse. The only system that could save the Western Europeans would be Fascism, but I don't think they have the brains or backbone.
oil is gonna go up....Suits Putin
The EU -that is responsible for this shit by supporting America's disastrous wars and Arab spring policy in the ME and by allowing thousands of migrants to come in virtually unchecked- will tell you that the solution to this problem will be more EU; more taxes going to the EU and countries giving up more of their sovereignty.
A few more attacks like in Paris around Europe will destroy the EU and will lead to nationalists governments everywhere. The EU by the voice of Frans Timmermans tells you that the alternative to the EU is war but he is mistaken. People in Europe are in favor for European cooperation but with respect for their own sovereignty and cultures. There will be war alright but not between European countries.
Deluded insignifacant toothless racist USSA poodle France.... still getting off on its brutal colonial past while refusing to comprehend it is little more than a broken pawn in the great scheme of psychopaths. What next....Germans who are sick and tired of USSA occupation and drone slaughter from "their" territory being incinerated at their beloved "Christmas Markets"? I'm sure the suited terror chiefs of the thugocracy are already salivating at the symbolism!
http://www.voltairenet.org/article189300.html
http://www.voltairenet.org/article189006.html