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.
BERLIN (Own report) – Within the German establishment, individual criticism of the expansion of military and police operations in the fight against the “Islamic State” (IS) is being raised. Last Friday, following the intensification of French airstrikes against IS positions and the French government’s imposition of a state of emergency, the EU interior ministers initiated new domestic repressive measures. In fighting IS, it should not be forgotten that in the primarily military and police-led post-9/11 “war on terror,” the “number of violence-prone Islamists, who have joined terrorist groups” has not diminished but rather “multiplied dangerously,” warns a renowned Middle East expert. Referring to the fact that the majority of the Paris attackers were citizens of France or Belgium, Hamburg’s Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH) asks, “what is the purpose of war rhetoric, when a large portion of the problem is homemade?” This “talk about ‘defending our values’,” will only “steady the stirrups” for a police/military buildup, according to a longtime expert of German/European think tanks. There is a “sorely felt discrepancy between the values we proclaim and reality,” which is a “breeding ground for IS.” “We are certainly the rich, but since quite some time, no longer the ‘good guys,’ in the eyes of many. And some even view us as the barbarians.”
Global Geopolitics 