 Hello, hello, and welcome. I'm Meroen Kilili. We are DM25, a radical political movement for Europe. And this is another live discussion with our coordinating team featuring subversive ideas. You won't hear anywhere else. And today we're zooming out and talking about could Europe ever be a third superpower? Third after the US and China, that is. Yes, the debate on Europe's so-called strategic autonomy was reignited last week when France's President Macron gave some frank comments to media during a visit to China. He said that Europe should chart its own course and not be a vessel to either Washington or Beijing as this new cold war threatens to escalate. These comments were blasted across European capitals and in the US as embarrassing, disgraceful and geopolitically naive. Is it realistic that Europe could achieve superpower status? What's holding it back? And if it were a superpower, how should it be exerting its influence on world affairs? Our panel, including our own Yanis Varoufakis and our crew of activist doers and thinkers from across Europe will be weighing in on this today and you, you out there. If you've got thoughts, comments, rants, opinions, anything you want to throw at us, put it in the YouTube chat and we'll put it to our panel. Don't forget to like and subscribe to the YouTube channel. If you'd like to get informed when we do another one of these, we normally do them every two weeks. Let's kick it off with Yanis. Yanis. Thank you, man. Hello, everyone. When I was growing up, I was a very long time ago, I was growing up outside the European Union what was then termed the European common market. I was one of those countries in the south of Europe that we had a dictatorship. Other countries had dictatorships of a different color in the east. And I remember the aspiration was for us to join the European Union, to join Europe. But the aspiration had an ideology behind it. And you had the ideology of the third pole, not the third world, but the third pole. The idea was, and that was a very strong idea in particular in France that there was a very dangerous conflict, Cold War conflict brewing between the United States that for in European eyes, both Christian Democrat and social Democrat eyes was too extreme in its embracing of markets of capitalism, of cutthroat competition, of not caring about society because it was all about the market. And the Soviet Union, which was the pendulum having reached the exactly opposite end with not enough market, not enough freedom, not enough days, not enough that authoritarianism, a kind of orientalism as well, the Eastern Slavs. And Europe was being presented as a work in progress. And what was the point of that work in progress? The point was to create a United States of Europe that would be a third pole between the competing extremities of the United States and of the Soviet Union. That was the European Union that I grew up with as an ideological concept to which both center left and the center right subscribed. The last time that that concept and that that narrative remained somewhat relevant to the reality of Europe was when George W. Bush invaded Iraq and the Franco-German Axis which has been the skeleton, the foundation, the backbone of the European Common Market first and then the European Union, valiantly and to their great credit, the great credit of Jacques Chirac in France and of Schroeder at the time, they said, no, we are not going to invade. We are rejecting this. We are not going to be vassals of the United States We think that Saddam Hussein is a criminal but that doesn't mean that we will condone an invasion. So the Brits with Australians, the Anglesphere invaded and the European Union maintained a position of strategic autonomy. I use these words poignantly because strategic autonomy is meant to be even today as we speak, the official target of Brussels, of Berlin and of Paris, except that it is no longer possible and it is no longer irrelevant in the way that it was when George W. Bush was invading Iraq. Now, what happened since then? A number of things, but you will allow me to say revealing the fact that I'm an economist, that I have this flaw in my character, that it was the great crisis of 2007, 2008, the construction of the Euro, which was completed in 2000, 2001, and then the collapse of Wall Street, which became an existential crisis of the Eurozone. How does this compare or connect, not compare, how does this connect at all to what's happening in Ukraine, to what's happening in the US, China relationship which has escalated to a state of Cold War, Taiwan and so on? Well, let me give you two or three examples of how it relates. Firstly, we've all known that the greatest weapon of the United States, and we can see this today as we speak, is not so much a nuclear arsenal, it's not the Marines, it's not its air force, it's not its navy, it's the US dollar. Something that General De Gaulle knew very well and his finance minister, a certain Mr. Giscard Estan, who was later a successor, one of the successors of De Gaulle, at the time was the finance minister, he referred to the American dollar as the currency enjoying an exorbitant privilege. Now, we've had the Euro, the Euro was again promised in the same way that when I was young, the European Union was promised to be the third pole, a superpower that will create a kind of balance between the United States and the Soviet Union, that was a lie, didn't turn out that way. Similarly, the Euro was promised as a potential challenger of the US dollar. Now, it is definitely a very strong currency, it's a very large currency. Some countries use it as a secondary reserve currency, but it has never challenged the US dollar. And that makes a difference to the extent to which Europe can have any kind of strategic autonomy. The Deutsche Mark was more powerful in geopolitical terms than the Euro's, because the Deutsche Mark was issued by central bank that had the back of a federal treasury, which had the back of the Buddhist bank, of the central bank. The European central bank doesn't have a back of any state, of any government, of anything that can be remotely thought of as a unified political center, because we don't have a federal government in Europe. And in that sense, even though the Euro has more penetration internationally than the Deutsche Mark ever did, the Euro is less capable of providing the European Union with strategic and geo-strategic power than the Deutsche Mark. Now, let me make this a bit more concrete. There are those within the establishment of the European Union who aspire, we fantasize of a European army. There are two problems with the European army, like every army. The first problem is who's going to pay for it? The Americans, some simply mint dollars, they just print dollars and pay for the American military industrial complex. Now we don't have a mechanism for doing this in Europe. The European central bank is not allowed to mint money to channel into an army. Maybe that's a good thing, but I'm simply pointing it out. The second problem that you have when you are creating an army is you have to answer the question, who's going to send the men and women who are armed and members of the military to war? Who's going to make the decision to say, okay, we start the war, let's go, go and kill people now? In the United States, the American president, in the United Kingdom, it's the British prime minister. And of course they have to have some kind of legitimation from Congress in the United States and from the House of Commons in Britain. In Europe, who's going to send people to war? Ursula or Olaf or Emmanuel? There's simply absolutely no political legitimacy or power for any acts of war as Europe. So you can have as the European economy can be as large as it can be. It can be the largest economy in the world for all that matters, okay? But it cannot finance an army and it cannot make political decisions that involve either war or peace. I've already said that in previous meetings. If there is a peace process, I hope there is one tomorrow morning or actually yesterday about Ukraine. Nobody's there to represent us. And so now I'm coming to Emmanuel Macron. Emmanuel Macron goes to China in the middle of the escalating Cold War between the United States and China. What's the point of him going to China? Unless he plays the role of the third pole or representing the Europe of the third pole that was promised people like me back in the early 1970s, mid 1970s when the European Union was still presenting itself as a balancing mechanism between the United States and its adversary back then, the Soviet Union to date China. So it made sense for Macron to go. What would make less sense is to carry with him all over the land. The one thing that you can actually point out as simultaneously significant and pathetic is that he chose to bring Ursula von der Leyen with him to Beijing to tell two different stories, one by Ursula and one by Emmanuel to the Chinese and to the world media. That was a catastrophe. If you bring the President of the European Commission with you, the idea is to have a common position but it is impossible to have a common position because Ursula von der Leyen is a stand in, a stand in, a representative of a clone of Stoltenberg, the general secretary of NATO. They say the same thing. It's the same script. It is like one mind, one mouth. Now, Macron doesn't have this view. Macron challenges the idea that Russia must be defeated and Moscow must be taken. That will be the only end, just end to the war in Ukraine. He doesn't believe that. He's not allowed to say anymore that he doesn't believe it but it's true, we know that he doesn't believe it. So he goes to China and says the right thing. Let's be clear, we progressives, we load Macron's domestic policies in France. We load what he's doing to the French working class, pension reforms, the transfer of wealth from the have nots to the haves and so on. But there is a long tradition in France of presidents of France saying the right thing internationally. I will never forget the courage of Jacques Chirac. Somebody was far more right-wing than Macron. Both when it came to the war in Iraq, I mentioned that before, but also he's the only Western leader to have gone to the Palestinian occupied territories and actually scolded pointing figures at the occupying forces of the Israelis, telling them in their face that they are criminals in the way they're treating the Palestinians. So there is a tradition there. So he goes there to China and he says something which is far more important that we do not want to be vassals of the United States, which is astonishing that, is there any European who claims you should be vassals of the United States? And yet he says that and he's being lambasted across Europe. Just goes to show the state of affairs of the European Union. But he says something else which was very important. And it shouldn't be controversial, but it is controversial. And that is a sign of the terrible state of our political debates here in Europe. He said, and I quote from the Guardian, France is for the status quo in Taiwan and the peaceful resolution to the situation. Now, that shouldn't be at all controversial. What, because what is the status quo Taiwan? Taiwan is not Ukraine. Let's be clear about that. Taiwan is part of China. Historically, it's imagined if the Greek civil war ended up with the communist winning the war in Athens and the right wing going to Crete and setting up a different state, right wing state calling it the Republic of Greece. Whereas the communists have Athens and they called it the people's Republic of Greece. Nobody can actually claim that Crete is not part of the Greek realm. There's just a split, an ideological split to different administrations. It's the same language, the same ethnicity, it's the same to everything. And indeed, 50% of the people of Taiwan are voting for the Kuomintang Party, which believes that Taiwan is the real China. And that they should take over the rest of China, which was right in theirs. But they do believe it's one country that don't want independence. So for, that is the position of the United Nations. So you have the President of France going to Beijing and effectively confirming that the position of the United Nations should be the position of France and Europe. And he's immediately taken to the cleaners for not supporting what, the independence of Taiwan. But the Americans themselves have not recognized Taiwan as independent. But they demand, listen to this, I'll say this once more, the United States government is not recognizing the independence of Taiwan. But the moment the President of France says that there is no issue about, no question about recognizing the independence of Taiwan, suddenly he's taken to the cleaners because the United States, Washington, expects of European leaders these days to behave in ways that are functional to the policies of the United States without even having the right to adopt the official position of the United States. If the official position of the United States is not in sync with that of the CIA, the Pentagon, the military industrial complex. So it's not that the European Union is a vessel of the United States. It's worse than a vessel. Because the vessels under feudalism, lest we forget, had a degree of autonomy. Remember what the vessels were? The vessels were proto-capitalists who would lease land from the feudal lord. The feudal lord had massive authority over them. But they would lease land and do little capitalist things with it, get the peasants to produce for them. They would collect the harvest. They would pay a rent, ground rent to the feudal lord. They would have a degree of autonomy. That's what the vessels were. Europe doesn't have that in them. It is the Euro crisis, the debt crisis, the banking crisis, the fact that the federal reserve, the central bank of the United States had to save the German and the French banks back in 2009, 2010, 2011. The fact that the Europeans have not managed to take advantage of the Euro crisis of the pandemic and so on in order to create something resembling a fiscal union, a political union and a democratic union. These are all the reasons why we are worse than nearly vassals. Worse than mere vassals. The war in Ukraine in particular. Who doesn't remember Mrs. Nuland, what was she? And the undersecretary of state who was caught on tape. She was recorded at some point in 2014 when the United States was plotting essentially. A regime change in Ukraine. When she was told, but what will the European Union say? What will the Europeans say to her? And she responded, fuck the Europeans. And that's exactly what they did. Putin played a major role in that because that criminal idiot invaded. He took the bait and invaded. And I call him a criminal idiot because I deeply in my soul believe that he's both criminal and an idiot. The worst combination the person can be. That's Putin. So he bites the bait. And the United States government and the ruling class is having a field day. In one go, they blow up Nord Stream One. They secure a complete and utter monopoly over the gas market of Europe, taking it away from the complete and utter monopoly of gas from. And suddenly, you know, countries like Finland, like Sweden that withstood decades of the Cold War, refusing to take sides and remaining neutral. Suddenly they fell headlong into the NATO trap. So that's my long answer to the question. No, Europe is not a vessel of the United States. We are in a far worse situation than that. We're completely bonded to them. We are serfs. We're not even vassals. We are not even serfs. Serfs had certain rights under feudalism. The European Union regime establishment has utterly subjugated Europe to the United States. And this is my final point, Maron. I've made that point in previous conversations, but I need to raise it as my final touch here. The reason for this is not failure. The reason for this is not, you know, stupid people running Brussels and Frankfurt and Paris and Berlin and Rome, no, it's money. Because if you are a German industrialist, a French wine, mass wine exporter or champagne exporter, right? If you are an Italian fashion group, your main export market is the United States. And the United States prints dollars to give you so that you can take those dollars and take it to Wall Street to buy stuff as well as real estate in Florida and California here, there and everywhere. And you do not want the euro to become a competitor to the dollar because your profits depend on the continuation of the American exorbitant privilege. And in order to continue the American exorbitant privilege, the American dollars exorbitant privilege, which is functional and instrumental to European capitalists who are exporting to the United States to continue to remain super wealthy with their share portfolio proliferating and burgeoning in Wall Street in the city of London outside the European Union. You do really enjoy the idea as a European mega capitalist oligarch of Europe being a vessel of the United States of America. So if Europe is a vessel of the United States of America, it's because the European oligarchy wants Europe to be a vessel of the United States of America and even worse. Thanks. Thank you, Janis. Maya, Maya Pedevich, what's the view from Serbia? Well, it's the same, but a little bit different. As I always have to say that my position here is a position of a person that comes from a non-EU country from Serbia in an ex-Yugoslav country, which gives me two perspectives. One is the current one and the other one is the historical one, of course. And when Janis was saying all of this with which I completely agree with, I would say that when we think is Europe a vessel of the United States, we did the non-EU countries in Europe and there is a couple of us still remaining. Are we also the vessels of Europe and the European Union at this moment? Because you always have a position of countries like us that still want to become a part of the European Union. Even becoming completely aware of what we're going into and knowing that we will be, in a way, third world country in the European Union if we get into it one day. So, of course, thinking about this and, of course, the position of Diem as a non-aligned movement that doesn't want to go neither this way nor this way and not being a part of any kind of imperialism neither the Russian imperialism, neither the NATO imperialism. I always think of this movement that actually existed and that actually was established in this country that I still live in and the city I still live in in 1961 and that was the non-aligned movement which actually still exists but, of course, doesn't have the power that had back in those days. And the interesting thing is because we still talk about this third way. Let's go the third way. We don't want to be a vessel to the United States neither to the other side of the med like in the Cold War. But the term third world, I think that we should reclaim it because I think at this point it has this kind of a pejorative sense because we think of it as nations that are in a way underdeveloped countries but we don't think that it was actually in those days when there was the real big non-aligned movement the third world was actually the third political option. So this term was originally made to think of the Cold War that distinguished those nations that were neither aligned with the West, the NATO block nor with the East, the communist block at that time. So then I watched the movie actually a couple of days ago that made me thinking about the non-aligned movement which actually had really good ideas. It was a really good project and really a huge project. It was a project of 120 countries at that point which contained the 55% of the world populations, nearly two thirds of the United Nations members that came together to say no to one or to the other. And that's what we're talking about today, of course. Why didn't this project go further then it's the biggest thing that it had was of course the independence of the African countries and at the end of Algeria and the decolonial project that it had. But this idea was destroyed and at that point it was destroyed by the two main forces. So when I think about the non-aligned movement that would happen today, I would also think in this way of a movement that would be destroyed by actually the same forces that destroyed the original non-aligned movement. I would maybe now read the five principles of peaceful coexistence that were the basic principles of the non-aligned movement then. And I think that all of us here would probably say that we would stand with these principles today for the same purpose. Mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty was the first one. Mutual non-aggression was the second one. Mutual non-interference in domestic affairs was the third one. Equality and mutual benefits was the fourth one and a peaceful coexistence was the fifth one. And of course the collective pledge to remain neutral in the Cold War. So now from this point and of course from a point of a destroyed country that was once a huge country in Europe probably one of the biggest forces in Europe then in those days and one of the two only European countries that was part of the original non-aligned movement except Cyprus, I think from this perspective how is it sometimes I think of it because my grandfather, my parents were a part of this. How is it possible that two generations after it we cannot even think of this kind of a movement. We cannot think of a move from this perspective of Europe but then I think okay, but even then it was just one or two European countries and the rest of them were not actually in Europe. They were actually in the South. They were in Africa, they were in South America and they were mostly South Asia. So I think that this third option, this third political option is going to come from the South actually. That is my opinion. And I think that if Europe should be a vessel one more it should be a vessel of these kinds of forces, progressive forces that will not come from Europe. I think Europe had this colonial past, it had this Holocaust, it had its migrant crisis in the last Syrian war. And I think we should maybe learn from other countries that are not under European continents. That's my point of view. Thank you, Maya. Amir, Amir Kiayi, based in the Hague, thought of yours. Thank you, Myron. Greetings, everybody. So this question and this statement from Macron is very interesting because he's since coming to power. He's making a lot of grand statements and espousing grand visions. You know, we remember his idea of the Conference of the Future of Europe which is of course a complete flop and the latest initiative that he's putting out there a few days ago was an international treaty system to eliminate plastic pollution. So, you know, on the one hand we see he's picking up on different issues and making a grand oise positions on but when it comes to actual action on the ground and, you know, let's take the again one of the largest consumers of oil being the military Macron is insisting on increasing military expenditure and here we're talking about 40% increase which was announced in January in French military spending and more than half of it will go to expanding the nuclear weapons capability of France. And this is I think what this idea of strategic autonomy is when also especially it was mentioned early on in his speech as well about the war economy and so this third poll, you know if we take it at his words is a militarized one and it's also again shambles whatever approaching it because if we were to review the French experience on military security it's been a complete again flop Afghanistan, Mali, Central African Republic and the list goes on. I'm assuming we're gonna touch on a bit later on about the non-alignment and also our position on eliminating the war industry which is in the Green Eagle for Europe but also just bearing in mind that for Europe to really play that third poll if you like position it has to readdress its past, its colonial past and really rightfully make restitution to all the colonial subjects that before as well as complete decolonization you know France especially still has lands and islands and other parts of the world that doesn't belong there's not French in any way just same as the British Chagos Islands issue and so on. So there's a lot of actual steps that Europe needs to make before it can even start to play the role that it might be putting out. Thanks. Thank you Amir. A couple of comments, well one comment and one question from the chat. Ross says there would be no Cold War if there was a reasonable attitude towards Russia and China and Bernaraco asks, he asks us what do we think of Bernie and his quote total capitulation vis-a-vis the Biden administration? So perhaps some of you could also speak to that. Dude, what do we have next? Panos, Panos Denos, Athens, who is yours? Hi everyone, so I guess we probably all agree that Europe is not a vessel of the US, it's something worse. I've written an article in our website saying that it's probably a protectorate or even occupied territory. Now I think the interesting thing here which presents an opportunity is that this US domination of Europe I think I feel is resented across the political spectrum. So it's not only left-wingers who don't like the idea of being dominated by the US. Of course the oligarchy has its own interests but normal folk that are more conservative right-wing I'm sure they detest this as well and they understand that this is very, very dangerous in a time of war of not having full sovereignty and having your armies or your weapons or your alliances being dictated by someone on the other side of the Atlantic. Now, the thought comes to mind that in the past national liberation struggles have afforded very good opportunities for wider political and social transformations. So in that sense, I'm also reminded that the closest thing we've ever had to a pan-European revolution which was the spring of the nations in 1848 was powered both by national and democratic aspirations. So a pretty wild thought comes to mind that if we do say that the EU cannot be reformed and it can only be transformed, maybe a transnational liberation struggle against foreign domination could unite enough Europeans with enough conviction to actually transform the politics of the continent eventually in a progressive direction. And of course, there's problems there because how do we all unite against this one power that wants to dominate us? I'm very aware that there are Europeans and we should think and speak of a unified Europe. There are Europeans in Poland, in the Baltics who don't see the US as their oppressor. They probably see them as their savior. So I mean, those people we need to speak to and we need to take this into account because in Greece and Serbia and perhaps in Turkey I think this sentiment is common. But in other parts of Europe and this is Europe as well, they feel differently. So I suppose thinking of that, I mean, the only way I mean, who has leverage over Putin to actually make those people feel comfortable and give them security guarantees, again, it's China not because of their military might but because of their wider diplomatic and political capital, which I think is appreciated by the whole of the global South which is more or less, I don't know, 75% of the world population. So that could be, we could have a source of decent guarantees for Eastern Europeans if there is a peace solution involving China and for us to actually in Europe have a common front and decide about our independence. But to decide about your independence you need to agree who your enemy is or who is dominating you. So these are just, these are just my thoughts. Thank you for that, Panos. I think in those Eastern European capitals the term for, I mean, the term is strategic partner. They like to talk about the US, the strategic partner. It makes my skin crawl every time. And yes, the piece that Panos mentioned there it's linked in the YouTube chat about how the Nord Stream Pipeline explosion exposes some very important cracks among the European political elite. Juliana Zieter, who was yours from Germany. Yeah, thank you, Mecham. Yeah, I wanna really bring in a bit the German perspective and especially the Western German perspective because I grew up in Frankfurt. And, you know, I think up until 15 years ago we still had American soldiers in Frankfurt. We have quarters in the city which were like only for soldiers and their families. I had many former soldiers as guests in my bar who settled here in Germany and, you know, married and so on. So I think that, and I'm saying especially from the Western German perspective there is this, you know I think five decades from the 50s to the 2000s there's also this very friendly perception of the Americans and the American culture because they were all around Western Germany. And people were, you know they would live next door to the soldiers. They influenced the German culture a lot, you know like the German, you know the music in Germany, a lot of, you know clubs that opened up in the 80s and 90s in Germany were completely influenced by American music and so on. So I think there is a logic and a historical context to why people perceived the US as a very, you know beneficial partnership is because in Western Germany the culture is kind of, you know melted together at some point. I mean, I've learned in school about the American dream like it's a thing that you need to know about, you know like the school says we have to leave you with the knowledge of the American dream out of the school. So, so I think that this is kind of the point where a large part of society in Western Germany was like, yeah, America's a great partner. They're all friends. So now I think, and Yannis mentioned it with 9-11 and the Iraq of age and after the perception started to shift. I remember I was still at school at that time that we had, you know political correctness was not a thing yet. So our teachers could be very, you know politically ideology, ideologically loaded and they would give us free from school to go to the peace demonstration against the war. So then it started, the US started to lose, you know like a lot of supporters from the, you know normal people, so to say. But I agree that those who up until today support the US are mostly people who benefit from, you know, from how things are. I mean, I don't want to repeat it because Yannis already touched on that. I mean, everyone who is more liberal who makes money with business who is into corporations, works in big corporations will like to hold the status quo. But the common people have shifted their perception of the US over the last few decades, I think a lot. And especially since Donald Trump became president also now the younger generation completely reject the idea of, you know being close to the US. I think that, and unfortunately and this is the sad part, I think that the US as much as it harms the world and it brings a lot of destruction through its political system and the military industrial complex. It's not like the American people profit from it. You know, it's not a country that accumulates money from all over and you can see that they're prospering. I think that the American people as much as the European people are at the losing end of this whole story. And I sometimes think that there would be so much liberation from that in the world if the American people could change something in their country and free themselves from the grip of this corrupt political nonsense to party system that they have that really holds them into kind of a political and stagnation for a long time now. And I think it really starts with them so it can become better for everyone else when it comes to this globalist, you know this globalist web that is all over the world that kind of has its huge influence starting from the US. And this is what I want to say like from I think that's what's in Germany happening in the recent years. It's that you won't find many people being, no, the US is our best partner. I think there is people think more about how it would be if Europe would be much more independent from the US. But now of course it's not the time to say that openly because we know what will happen if you say that in these times with the Ukraine war. So I think about many people think it. I have two questions. One is I think particularly for Yanis because it has been burning to ask you this for a long time because I'm coming across this news sometimes. Is it really like possible that China or the brick state might come up with their own currency because I read it sometimes that this is what they're planning to have like to fight back against the dollar. But I don't know how realistic that is. I mean, this is the thing. And the other thing would be with the European project. Did it derail or was it never going to be what people thought back in the 70s and 80s? Thanks, Juliane. Yanis, can we bring you back in after speakers to answer those questions? Big questions here. And to one of your points there, Juliane, about America and how it all starts with the American people on the leaders that they elect. Austin Scheheri on the chat reminds us. He says America is a third world country. 70% there cannot afford the $400 emergency fund, which actually checks out. I just Googled that. Who is next? Daphne Delcara, based in France. Who is yours? Hello, hello, everyone. Very happy about all the things that's been said. And I would like to touch up on something Maya said. And from there, maybe come to what you did, not you did. So Juliana was saying, is that, so what does it mean to be non-aligned? Or what does it mean to have a perception of non-alignment? Because I think Maya said at one point that why hasn't it taken us so long to rethink or reapply this mentality? But you know, didn't you guys get the memo? It was the end of history, you guys. And it was no longer a multipolar world. And if you don't have two poles, you can't align, non-aligned to them. It was that become US kind of wonder, like the empire one, that kind of thing. Or not that I'm saying like the opposite would have been different, but I mean, it would be different, but not in the way we'd want. So but now the reemergence of multi-polarity gives real space for strategic non-alignment, right? Where you can use non-alignment as a card, as a bargaining chip almost. And this was kind of evidence to... This is not evident in Europe, but it was evident for obviously the national liberal liberation movements in the initial years of the non-aligned movement and the anti-colonial struggles. They had like no illusions whatsoever, obviously, about where they stood in the eyes of the North. They knew they were being plundered and they knew like sovereignty, territorial sovereignty was the way of getting freedom from the colonial exploitation. But something there was that they... So they had no illusions that illusions we would have in Europe of saying that America is a useful ally because Europe has not been plundered in the same way that the global South has been plundered. But this doesn't mean the forces that, as we've been talking, are any less real or strong or are a front to our sovereignty and our democracies. So and this is what towards the beginning of the 70s, this is what the original non-alignment movement noticed very quickly as well, that territorial sovereignty was not enough. They had to have a monetary sovereignty as well because they noticed that, okay, like the colonial powers are maybe no longer have their feet on their ground, but they are still dictating a lot their future by unequal trade, lack of industry, inability to develop in certain ways and being forced to develop in other ways and all this. So this is where I think it's very interesting and it comes very important back to what doesn't mean non-alignment for Europe. And it's essentially there where it's definitely not like the third pole of Shirok or Macron, which is for Macron, for him the end of history is continuing. He still thinks he could have his technocratic European utopia, right? This, I mean, it's very, his contempt for democracy is clear in his own country, but I think his dedication to the European project for him, which is the EU and it's the overbearing power of the commission and the bureaucrats. It's absolutely not what the vision of non-alignment is as we see it, which should be democracy and peace. So I guess this is what I want to say. And this is like, again, for Macron, also towards a self, he's still sports the CFA, Frank and Afrika, right? So this is just another way, because this is why our vision cannot be the same as the technocrats of Europe, but a vision of a new Europe, a non-aligned Europe, as was seen in economic and strategic sovereignty, should something we should propagate. And I think there is now a real hunger for this message. And it's being taken over by the far right, as usual, and that really is worrying to me. So I guess that's all I have to add, thanks. Thank you, Daphne. Let's move to Greece now, Danai. Danai Stratu, for us yours. Thank you, Macron. I would like to touch upon a subject that has not been introduced in these discussions, just because I think it's important to look a little bit at the cultural choices and strategies that the European project approaches these subjects, and how these are being funded or evaluated. And this is something I think is quite problematic and shows a lot. So normally I believe, and what happens in the UK or in the United States, is that the person or a group of people or artists or creatives would come up with an idea and then apply on different foundations that are related to those projects, with a vision and a creative sort of thought process in order to get funding to realize a project. But what happens in the European Union and this has affected all the countries that are a part of this, is that they create these monstrous ways of applying for getting some funding, which are completely distorted and upside down. So instead of having an idea and trying to find a way to realize it, you have to, it's like a kind of a prison that they create that with certain departments that you have to fit in your own idea and completely distorted and do different collaborations and stuff so that you could in the end get money but in order to do something completely different that has nothing to do with the original thinking or idea. So I think that this is quite a stifling process and just to touch upon it, I was thinking that if they stifle completely the imagination and original thinking, this shows something about the general vision of this European project and where would that lead us? So it's a topic that I think could, it's important just to think about it within the context of everything else that has been spoken about. Thank you, that's all. Thank you for that, Danai. You did, you did Maya from Berlin. That was yours. Actually today from Athens, but yes, originally Berlin. And I would bring in one aspect of American domination that hasn't been covered at all. And that is the English language. Right now, English is the first foreign language throughout the EU. And I would argue that this gives it similar advantages as the Americans get from the dollar being the world's reserve currency. I will make four points. One is that they're saving hundreds of billions of dollars for not having to translate documents. Also, much more importantly, every American does not have to learn a foreign language. So they're saving years of effort. Every one of them is saving like five years of study. And as Juliana mentioned, this is the third point, learning English also means being taught American propaganda, the American dream, American culture and so on. So they get all this influence over our minds at no cost. Finally, English also means participation in the labor market and in science. If you imagine a brilliant European astrophysicist also has to be good at learning languages. If he's not good at learning languages, he can't participate in science because it's in English. And the same goes on a different level for every European. Right down to the service workers because English is a prerequisite for most jobs. So every one of us and our families and friends has to spend more effort to get less opportunities than someone who was born with English as a mother tongue. So I'm not proposing that we don't study any foreign language at all or create a Babylonian chaos in the EU. But I would suggest Esperanto, and I know this goes beyond this particular call, look it up if you want. But basically Esperanto is a language that can be learned in just one year rather than five. So it's also an efficiency improvement and it would restore equality, equality between Europeans, all of whom would have Esperanto as a first foreign language and it would restore a balance between Europe, USA and China. Thank you, you did. Who would have known that Esperanto could be such a panacea? Interesting thoughts. Let me bring in two quick comments from the chat and then I will bring Janice back in too close since we're near the top of the hour. Tibet Denise says, I prefer the idea of Europe of regions as proposed by Ulika Gerro, big super national power centers cannot solve the problems we have, they just serve multinational companies. And Claudia from Italy says, my country is not a vassal of the US, it is a US colony. Janice, who is yours? So many questions. I'll ask, I'll answer a couple that came from Vienna. Okay, was the European Union always doomed to become enslaved to the United States? No, I don't believe in pre-determination. I'm not Calvinist. I think that there were many opportunities for the European establishment of the European people, for the European left to create circumstances for us, our collective escape from that predicament. It is true that the European Union was designed by the United States. Anybody who tells you that this was a European dream and it was a European accomplishment is lying to themselves or to you or to both. It was utterly an American project, which of course took advantage of the longing that Europeans had for peace and unity in Europe, but it was not a European design, it was an American design by the new dealers. I've written books about this, the global minotaur and others. We had many opportunities that presented themselves in the form of crisis. Like for instance, the 1971 crisis when the exorbitant privilege of the dollar was challenged by the collapse of Bretton Woods, that gave us an opportunity, we missed it. Part of that had to do with the division of Germany or the division of Europe, East and West. There was another opportunity that we had with the crisis of the Europe, the banking crisis of 2007-2008, which led then to the debt crisis of Greece, Ireland and so on and so forth. We missed that, we had a pandemic, another fantastic opportunity to create a fiscal union, a political union that would have prevented the present state of Europe as a sidekick of Washington. There were many opportunities, but we missed them. And we missed them because it was not in the functional interest of the bourgeoisie of the oligarchs of Europe to do anything to prevent the slide of the European continent into a state, a Hawaii light state of the United States. Then Yelena, one of you kind of remember whom, you asked a question about the possibility that the Chinese will create their own currency, it all creates, turn the one, or the name NIMBY, into a global currency. Well, this is a very big discussion that is going on. I have very firm views on this. This is not the time to expand upon them. All I will say is that there's already, the Ukraine war is already creating space for the Chinese digital currency, the digital one, launched in 2020 by the Chinese central bank to play, it's already playing an increasing role in international affairs. There's nowhere near yet, challenging the dominion of the US dollar, but it could be the foundation for that. The greatest impediment to that, again, that you see that there is a parallel with Europe. The greatest impediment to the rise of the Chinese currency, to the status of a genuine challenger to US dollar is the Chinese capitalist class. Because like the German, like the French net exporters, capitalists, the Chinese capitalists also depend for their capacity to accumulate wealth on the American trade deficit. So if something prevents the Chinese currency from challenging the dominant role of the dollar, it is Chinese capitalists, not the CIA, not the American military, not that rather mundane person occupying White House. I believe his name is Joe Biden, who cares. Now allow me to finish off today with a couple of answers or answers to a couple of questions put in the chat. Somebody said, well, what about Taiwanese democracy? Don't we have an obligation to defend it? Don't the Taiwanese have the right to self-determination? Well, let's get a few things straight. Firstly, Taiwanese democracy is the result of many decades of struggles in Taiwan. Taiwan was a brutal dictatorship for many, many, many decades. Today it is in a state of complete polarization between the governing party and the former governing party, the Kuomintang. The population is split 50-50. In the last local government elections, the Kuomintang won handsomely and their position is unification with China. It is not independence for Taiwan. It is very clear. So in other words, the Taiwanese population are themselves divided on the question of unification or independence. So let us not pretend that there is such a thing as a Taiwanese dimus that has a general will towards independence. That is not the case. The main point I want to make about Taiwan is this. This is Taiwan and main on China are one ethnic cultural lot. They've been separated for a long while, but after all, was it not the case that East Germans and West Germans were separated for a bloody long time by Berlin Wall, by fences, different regimes, different ideologies. And yet what was the position of progressives all over the world? The position of the progressives was in favor of unification, but on terms consistent with what the majority wanted on each side. Why do we need to have a different position regarding Taiwan and mainland China? By saying that, what Macron said, and he was right, that our position is an ought to be in favor of the status quo. In other words, no independence of Taiwan, no separation, but careful steps towards reunification. By taking that position, nobody's condoning a Chinese mainland Chinese, Chinese Communist Party led invasion of Taiwan. Let me be perfectly clear on a personal basis. If the Chinese launch an invasion of Taiwan, I will come out strongly to condemn them. I don't think they will invade. I think it is the United States which is trying its damnedest to incite tensions in the South China Seas to draw China into invading Taiwan in the same way that they successfully drew Putin into invading Ukraine. That does not justify Putin's invasion, but it is true that they were poking him in the eye trying to lure him into invading. The moment he invaded, we condemned him, but that doesn't mean that they were not luring him into doing it. We must not fall into that trap. We must not take sides. We must say no invasion of Taiwan, but no separation. Let's move towards, let's help as an international community towards the reunification of the two Chinas on terms that are consistent with the democratic process with the will of a large majority of the people in Taiwan and the large majority of the people in China. If the Berlin Wall was a bad thing, surely the imaginary wall separating the Chinese people who live in Taiwan from the Chinese people who live in the mainland, surely that must be a bad thing too. One final comment. There is one people who have been completely trashed and have been completely ruined by the Civil War in the 1940s between the right, the Kuomintang, and the left, the communist party of China. And that is the indigenous people of Taiwan who were overrun by the invading Kuomintang, right wing Chinese nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek, who run away from the onslaught of the Chinese Communist Party and completely overrun the indigenous people of Taiwan. So let's spare a thought for the indigenous Taiwanese and assist the ethnic Chinese of Taiwan and the ethnic Chinese of mainland China to find a way democratically peacefully to reunite. Thank you for that, Yanis. And we have gone past the top of the hour. So with that, we will close. Thank you to you out there for listening. Thank you to our panel. And if you like what you've heard today, we are a movement, not just of ideas and talking heads on YouTube, but a movement of action. We are engaging in elections. We've got several political parties. We're competing in elections. We've got grassroots actions. We're lobbying decision makers as well as all of the more think tanky stuff that you've seen here today. 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