The Anti-Silk Road

BERLIN/BEIJING (Own report) – At this week’s Asia-Europe Meeting in Brussels, the EU will introduce a new “connectivity strategy” to counter China’s “New Silk Road.” As outlined by the EU’s head of foreign policy in September, the strategy is aimed at improving transportation infrastructure as well as digital and energy networks linking Asia and Europe. Beijing is also active in these domains in connection with its Silk Road initiative. Recently, Germany’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched an initial thrust in this project. At the time, Minister of State Niels Annen (SPD) declared in Uzbekistan that social standards and human rights are “priorities” for Brussels. “This is what makes our offer different from China’s Belt and Road initiative.” For years, Germany had supported – even with military assistance – the Uzbek regime that was applying torture. Washington has also launched a new infrastructure initiative in Asia, to which US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that the USA is committed to “honest accords” and would “never seek dominance over the Indo-Pacific.”

Pan-European bank to Enrage Italy Germany & France: Nations FORCED to rescue failing banks

The EU commission wants to plough ahead with plans for a banking nion [Getty]

 

BRUSSELS chiefs are piling pressure on EU members to back plans for a banking union, which will see nations forced to cover bank failures anywhere in the bloc, as it ramps up efforts to reform the Union.

The European Commission wants to plough ahead with the creation of a bloc-wide banking union, which was first proposed in 2012 by the end of 2018, in a bid to prevent a repeat of the 2008/09 financial crisis.

Launching the Military Union

BERLIN/BRUSSELS(Own report) – The German government has announced that the EU Military Union will be officially launched this Monday, with the European Council formally adopting 17 projects aimed at creating joint EU military structures. Germany is in charge of the establishment of a European Medical Command, considered an indispensable element of future EU military operations, alongside the European Air Transport Command, which has existed since 2010. Berlin is also establishing logistical structures that would facilitate rapid interventions. The German Bundeswehr is also active in both fields within the NATO framework. The operational preparation for future military missions is influenced by a fierce power struggle between Germany and France. According to the German ministry of defense, the military union is not only aimed at reaching more “independence” from the United States, but also at advancing EU “integration,” which is difficult to achieve with civilian means.

EU takes first steps to withdraw Poland’s voting rights

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EU bullies governments who refuse to toe the line.

Yesterday, the EU took its first step towards revoking Poland’s voting rights at the European Council, in response to the country’s alleged ‘breach of fundamental EU values.

The Power in the Center

 

 

BERLIN (Own report) – Using the secessionist conflict in Catalonia as a backdrop, the website of the German weekly Die Zeit published a fiery appeal for dismembering Europe’s nation-states. For quite some time, the author, Ulrike Guérot, has been promoting the “disappearance of the nation-state” in Europe. The nation-state should be replaced by regions with their “own respective identities” that could be “ethnically” defined. As examples, Guérot lists regions with strong separatist tendencies such as Flanders and Tyrol. The author sees herself upholding the tradition of the “European Federalists” of the early post-war period, who – under the guidance of western intelligence services – drew up plans for establishing of a European economic space with free circulation of commodities as a bulwark against the East European socialist countries. Wolfgang Schäuble, as President of the Association of European Border Regions (AEBR) in the early 1980, was also promoting regionalist plans. Inspired by former Nazi functionaries, the AEBR criticized the “nation-state’s barrier effect” of borders in the interests of large corporations. Current economic maps indicate which areas in the EU would form the continent’s most powerful block if regionalization should take effect: south and central Germany as well as its bordering regions from Flanders to Northern Italy.

Juncker calls for united EU under one leader

Juncker wants a single EU president who campaigns in the 2019 elections (Photo: European Commission)

 

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker outlined his post-Brexit vision for a confident EU in his state of the union address on Wednesday (14 September), speaking of a Europe that has bounced back from the economic downturn and regained the political ground from populists and eurosceptics.

Juncker, in his second to last state of the union speech, has argued for a more united and effective EU that is based on freedom, equality and the rule of law, and signalled that he wants all EU countries to become full eurozone and Schengen area members by 2019 – except those with opt-outs.

Merkel pledges to end Turkey’s EU talks

Merkel: “Turkey should not become a member of the EU”. (Photo: Karl-Ludwig Poggemann)

 

German chancellor Angela Merkel has promised to shut down Turkey’s EU accession talks and defended her open-door refugee policy.

Merkel made the Turkey pledge in a pre-election TV debate with her main rival, former European Parliament head Martin Schulz, on Sunday (3 September).

“The fact is clear that Turkey should not become a member of the EU,” she said.

Billions for European Wars (II)

BERLIN/BRUSSELS (Own report) – With billions in arms programs at the EU and national levels, the EU is seeking to become a globally operating military power. At its summit last week, the EU agreed not only to enhance cooperation among the member armed forces to facilitate their combat deployment – for example in Africa – but to also rapidly establish a “defense fund” planning to reallocate funds from civilian to military use. In a few years, Brussels will already be allocating €1.5 billion annually for both research and development of new military technology. The German government is also increasing its military spending and decided last week to allocate nearly ten billion euros for arms projects, including warships, tanker aircraft, satellites, and optimizing existing weaponry for current wars. In addition, billions are being earmarked for completely new projects. Lucrative for the arms industry, they include the Multi-role Combat Ship MKS 180, and a new fighter jet, capable of competing with the US F-35 and being integrated with guided missiles, drones and other weaponry.

A Replacement of Population is Taking Place in Europe

A wooden boat carrying migrants waits to be escorted to the Topaz Responder vessel, as members of the Migrant Offshore Aid Station make a rescue at sea on November 21, 2016 in Pozzollo, Italy. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

 

• People-smugglers bring the migrants to the NGOs’ ships, which then reach Italian seaports. Another legal enquiry has been opened about the mafia’s economic interests in managing the migrants after their arrival.
• One cannot compare the migrants to the Jews fleeing Nazism. Pope Francis, for example, recently compared the migrants’ centers to Nazi “concentration camps”. Where are the gas chambers, medical “experiments,” crematoria, slave labor, forced marches and firing squads? These comparisons are spread by the media for a precise reason: shutting down the debate.
• By 2065, it is expected that 14.4 million migrants will arrive. Added to the more than five million immigrants currently in Italy, 37% of the population is expected to be foreigners: more than one out of every three inhabitants.

First, it was the Hungarian route. Then it was the Balkan route. Now Italy is the epicenter of this demographic earthquake, and it has become Europe’s soft underbelly as hundreds of thousands of migrants arrive.

EU environment and science money moved to military fund

As said oft in the past, and as early as 2013, the EU is the next world superpower to take the stage. Despite the difficulties it’s facing, the solution to all of its problems brought forth by the eurocrats is always further integration. It may very well still break up, but there will be a core leftover. The United States of Europe is around the corner, led by Germany’s Fourth Reich under an EU guise, along with its European Army.

 

Preparation of the launch of a Galileo satellite in 2014 (Photo: European Space Agency)

 

The European Commission is proposing to finance parts of its proposed defence fund with money originally allocated to energy, environmental and scientific programmes.

The EU’s executive announced its plan to subsidise research and procurement of high-end defence technologies on Wednesday (7 June), but the origin of the money has gone largely under-reported.

In 2019 and 2020, the commission wants to redirect €145 million that was originally allocated to the Connecting Europe Facility, a programme aimed at integrating European energy markets, increasing energy security, protecting the environment, and promoting interoperability of digital service infrastructures.

EU Gearing up for Sanctions on Hungary

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Escalating tensions within the bloc.

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It would be an extraordinary move. Brussels has long targeted hugely popular Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban who has been steadfast in strengthening Hungary’s borders and recently re-asserted the right of nation states to determine their own futures rather than the European Union.

Divide and Rule

BERLIN/PARIS (Own report) – With today’s special summit of four heads of state, Berlin is preparing the EU’s transformation in response to the Brexit. The German chancellor will meet in Versailles this afternoon with France’s president and the prime ministers of Italy and Spain. Selected southern EU members have been included in alleged leadership meetings with the German chancellor to prevent a southern European bloc from emerging, which could possibly, in the future, put an end to German austerity dictates. With Great Britain’s exit, the neo-liberal oriented EU countries are loosing the necessary quorum for a veto in EU bodies. Berlin could also encounter problems with the Eastern European “Visegrád Group,” which does not want to support the emergence of a powerful integrated core around a German hub, because it would consolidate a two or even three-class EU. Reinforcement of the EU’s anti-refugee border-management and particularly its resolute militarization are emerging as the common denominators for the Union’s transformation.

A President’s Policy

BERLIN (Own report) – Frank-Walter Steinmeier, President-elect of the Federal Republic of Germany is the epitome of the past two decades of Berlin’s expansionist policy – from the war over Kosovo to intervention in the Syrian war. As State Secretary in the Federal Chancellery, Steinmeier was implicated in the aggression against Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999, with which Germany, in violation of international law, entered its first war of aggression since 1945. As head of the Federal Chancellery, he had participated in the struggle to obtain access to Russia’s vast natural gas reserves. As Foreign Minister, he was massively striving to roll back Russia’s political influence by associating Ukraine with the EU, even condoning a coup – with fascist participation – in Kiev. Steinmeier’s activities had also been influenced by the so-called war on terror. In the Chancellery, he played a leading role in cooperation with the CIA’s torture program. In the fall of 2002, he helped to prevent an innocent native of Bremen from being released to Germany from the US Guantanamo torture camp. He was complicit in the interrogation of German suspects in Syrian and Lebanese torture chambers. Just recently, Steinmeier provided political support to a jihadist militia, classified a terror organization by the German judiciary.

It’s just the beginning’ Europe must act NOW to avoid WAR, warns top German politician

EUROPE is failing as a team player and is on the brink of war as rising nationalism sweeps the continent, a former chancellor advisor has warned.

Horst Teltschik said the bureaucratic European Union (EU) is struggling in the face of a catastrophic euro crisis that continues to “gain tract” and a sensational Brexit vote, which prompted an “erosion” of its powers.

Hinting that a break-up of the Union is more than likely, Mr Telthschik said the bloc’s main players France and Germany were “stuttering”. 

Greece and Iran: The Dark Side of the Relationship

As you can glean from the article, there’s a lot more to the EU than business as usual. Some things will never see the light of day, but here we have a glimpse into the darker inner workings and depth of corruption within the Greek system. Greece is an extremely sick nation.

Greek problems aren’t limited to a constant economic and political hammering by Germany. The wounds are many, and bone deep.

It makes you wonder where you would even start to get your nation out of this mess if you were an honest Greek.

 

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras meets with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, on February 8, 2016. (Image source: Office of the Supreme Leader)

 

• The Iranian government, with these two cases (Kabis and Noor 1), seems to hold in its hands a bomb that can blow up the Greek economic and political system. If Greek authorities seriously investigate these cases, they will trigger a domino-effect of disclosures that could well destabilize Greece’s government.
• Iran can blackmail and manipulate its political influence inside Greece, or Iran can use its ability to destabilize a member of NATO and Eurozone, Greece, to strengthen its international position.

As Sunnis and Shiites are fighting for regional hegemony in the Middle East — Syria, Yemen — Greece, as geographical gate for Europe and the Balkans, is a trophy country for the Iranian regime. In recent years, the Iranians have been exploiting the corrupt establishment’s thirst for money. Through drug dealing and oil smuggling, Iran seems to be trying to buy political influence and access to the Greek media. Well-informed diplomatic sources say that the Iranian Embassy in Athens is extremely active in Greece’s political and economic life behind the scenes.