The US embrace of Russia is an existential threat to the EU. Germany must step up to save it | Catherine De Vries
IIn February 1945, three world leaders – Winston Churchill, Franklin de Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin – met in Crimea for Yalta ConferenceTo discuss the new world order that they will implement after World War II soon.
The smaller countries have not given an opinion on determining their fate. The Soviet field of influence would collide with the East Europe For decades and American foreign policy dominated the second half of the twentieth century. Churchill resisted the end of the UK’s global empire and independence for British colonies. They were left with bitterness.
After eighty years, the logic in Yalta – which the large countries could impose on their will on smaller cases – has returned. This may be true again. But history restores itself with a stunning difference – for this time, there is no European leader on the table. Russian and American delegations sat to discuss the future of Ukraine without it Ukraine Or the inputs of the European Union. After eighty years of line, Europe no longer sees it as relevant by the great powers.
The urgency was placed in the bare European landscape last Sunday in London, Where European leaders Gather with their counterparts from the United Kingdom, Canada, Turkey, the European Union and NATO For high -level defense. This meeting came as a result Very general collapse From the White House conversations between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump, Trump’s suspension of military assistance to Ukraine.
even if Reconciliation reported Between Washington and Kiev, European officials are still reeling from a high -rise rupture speed from Trump’s second state. Trump’s defense minister, Beit Higseth, last month, has warned Europe that it could not It depends longer on US security guarantees. JD Vance, Vice President of the United States, went further at the Munich Security Conference, describing Europe-and not Russia or China- The main threat of the United States.
Pax Americana – post -war period of relative peace in Western hemisphere, with the United States as the dominant global economic, cultural and military authority. Europe will quickly adapt to the new reality, with its primary strategic and military partner losing. Any part now will the largest member state of the European Union, GermanyHe plays?
Despite the great gains Through the extreme right -wing alternative, for Deutfand (AFD), whose support in the federal elections on February 23, Will Germany Power by Friedrich MirzPresident of the Conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The consultant has not lost any time to declare that Europe, which the United States faces the growing numerical, should take its fate in its hands.
“It is my absolute priority in strengthening Europe as quickly as possible so that we can be independent of the United States step by step,” Mirz saidHours after his electoral victory. The blatant words from a politician had a few months ago a few months ago in the Atlantic Ocean.
Mirz wants to formulate a greater unity in Europe and establish an independent European defense capacity. It remains to see how to achieve this, but it clearly aims to return Germany to the European leadership seat.
The German leadership was lacking in recent years. While Paris and Awarsu have increasingly firm positions on European security, Berlin remained cautious. After the Russian invasion on a large scale of Ukraine, the counselor, Olaf Schools, spoke about a Zeitenwende – A turning point in German policy to reflect the new facts in the world. But, in the end, a little hot air was produced.
Since the end of World War II, Germany has invested relatively little in military ability. Under NATO, and with the close partnership with the United States, this was not seen as a problem. But the world has mainly turned, and Mirz believes that Germany, at all, should also change.
However, the strict new Germany, at the head of the European Union, faces a harsh world and a group of more severe facts. The country will not only have to increase its military capacity, achieve military cooperation at the level of the bloc, and perhaps even the station’s forces in Ukraine, but it will also have to pay the price of all this.
This will require a strict German roof repair on public borrowing, the so -called SchuldenbreMse (Debt brake) devoted to the constitution. Mirz has now started this process; Tuesday, his party Agreement of hitting Through the potential coalition partners, SPD, the establishment of a special fund worth 500 billion euros (390 billion pounds) to increase spending on defense and infrastructure that will be exempt from debt restrictions. If the German parliament approves it, this will be dramatic and warn some critics Risk From the budget Straitjacket.
Mirz will also have to mobilize the European Union (although Trump from Europe and Zelinski are already pushing European leaders towards seeing him), as well as facing the right -wing Trump -friendly parties, and many of them are climbing across the bloc.
At a recent meeting in Madrid, the right -wing radical bloc of the European Parliament, the patriots praised Europe, and the Wilders, the right -wing PVV leader in the Netherlands, Trump as “My brother in the weaponSlovaki Prime Minister, Robert Fico, Express his support Trump’s pro -Russian policy at the right -wing political work conference (CPAC) in Maryland last month. “Trump is implementing the policies called by AFD for years,” said Alice Wadel, the co -leader of AFD.
These right -wing politicians seem ready to risk the security and prosperity of Europe to achieve political gains. The United States will head towards Russia and away from democracy as an existential test of the European project and Europe’s commitment to law and democracy. European cooperation has always been possible to achieve possible in unexpected circumstances. Germany, under the elected adviser Mirz, has a sharp educational curve. But the task of ascending to save Ukraine – Europe – is located to Berlin.
