The EU is under attack, 360 degrees, from a variety of fronts. From the west, with the Brexit. From the south, with the Euro-weak countries in which people dream of leaving the euro, clearly crippled – perhaps I should say “looted” – by the so-called “expansive austerity” (an oxymoron) of Franco-German matrix. And now also from the northeast, with Poland put in check and fined by the EU for the sole fault of wanting to continue to “be Poland”. Above all, the galloping inflation, exogenous in origin, which in a few months will no longer be able to be contained even in Latin countries, which today are still silently experiencing governmental manipulation of consumer price indexes (I imagine that social peace will not last long; see the report on prices for September 2021 published by the MISE/Italian Ministry of Economic Development, with prices in general vertical ascent – very often even in double digits – but with inflation “only” at 2.9%, totally absurd).

The above clearly points to an ongoing paradigm shift.

That is, the EU engineered to live on devaluation with the Euro (much weaker than the hypothetical German mark), or with the hidden aim of transferring wealth from the Europeripheral countries to the center of the Empire, is finally in the priority need – on the core Europe side – to tame inflation before being able to export thanks to an artificially devalued currency.

It is in fact clear that a country, or rather a “political continent”, without raw materials like Old Europe, is obliged to contain first of all the costs of production if it wants to hope to survive without destroying the social base on which its power is based, e.g. when inflation bites. That is to say, being tempted – on the German side – to mimic, today, with a new mark yet to come, the wise Switzerland and its franc, which has been rising steadily for months precisely in order to counter international inflationary pressures. And therefore, prospectively leaving the EU to its rubble, rubble on which Paris will certainly throw itself like a vulture, first of all on the Italian ones.

All the more so if, in this context, the USA and the FED are anticipating – as is clearly happening – the events by making the dollar rise in an anti-inflationary capacity (but also having abundant raw materials in place, above all oil, a situation not unlike the times of the attack on Nixon, see De Gaulle’s provocation on the convertibility of dollars into gold and the subsequent Watergate scandal, ed.)

Now then, in addition to the centrifugal drives within the EU, i.e. having as a driver the national interests of Southern Europe, mainly Italy, perfectly legitimate interests, a macro-economic context is also generating that will lead us to the epilogue expected to the title, due to inflation and related monetary policies: the controlled demolition of the EU based on the euro.

It should be remembered, for example, that Rome has seen in recent years a massive reduction in its own welfare (e.g. in terms of wages); to this is added – TODAY – interest from the center of the Empire in a paradigm shift, the first time in almost 25 years.

In addition, here is Poland’s recent response to the diktats of Brussels aimed at ceding superfunds (i.e. its own welfare) to EU interference; Poland clearly supported by the USA, see the so-called “Trump Base”, i.e. the US military installation in Poland recently inaugurated by the States on Polish soil.

A brutal response to say the least: in this context the Polish government has announced that the largest fine imposed by the EU to a country that gravitates in its sphere of continental influence, will not be paid anyway.

On the contrary Warsaw foresees a progressive enlargement of its armed forces, always with American support, a constant Anglo-Polish collaboration since the times of Brezinsky, Sikorsky and marriages in the heart of the US corporate with Polish soul (J&J above all).

* * *

In all this we must not underestimate the reaction of Berlin, as always upset when its plans do not follow the expected trajectory: although it has not been properly emphasized by the EU media always too pro-German, as to the Reich themes, the German move that will lead to chaos (come) is materializing before our eyes, see the incredible announcement of the German Defense Minister of military intervention in the Baltic even with the nuclear threat as anti-Russian, ie with weapons that Germans theoretically would not have (…).

This exudes desperation (never forget that the German system, then survived in various ways the post WWII purges, is the same that laid the foundations for the atomic military industry 80 years ago, ed).

Clearly, the US power factor remains in the background, ready to be activated if necessary to defend the stars and stripes interests. To date, however, the situation remains extremely fluid.

We can however fix some stakes, as of now, to understand how we arrived to such a EUrocentric debacle, that is where we are today. And perhaps try to hypothesize some future developments.

First of all, Draghi represents the real factor of continuity wanted by the EU to dampen the centrifugal pressures aimed at leaving this EU: too many people forget that only a few months ago, in 2020, the majority of Italians publicly expressed their support for an exit from the Union, as reported not without a vein of ill-concealed terror by the website german-foreign-policy.com only last year.

Accomplice to the fall of Trump, instead, Draghi arrived to stop the Italian diaspora, after the media canonization of Draghi at the Rimini meeting last year, preparatory to his landing at Palazzo Chigi, thanks to the activism of the leader of the Milanese “Compagnia delle Opere” (the German Bernhard Scholz), a religious-ethical entity contiguous to Communion and Liberation and perhaps even reminiscent of the activism in German protection of Cardinal Ildefonso Schuster 75 years ago.

Clearly an attempt to postpone the plan to deflagrate the EU via dollarization of Italian debt, as winked at by Giuseppe Conte in last year’s Eurogroup, behind US impetus (“…if we don’t go it alone,” said the Italian prime minister at the time, making Angela Merkel’s entourage excited).

* * *

In this context, it is essential to understand the genesis of Mario Draghi, a character who is grafted in a groove that is Anglo but intrinsically pro-EU. Noting that we are dealing with the area that we can roughly define as the “Cameronian world”, i.e. that pro-EU British elite that is behind the genesis, in the Peninsula, of both the 5 Star Movement and the Regeni case (no small detail, the wife of the former British Prime Minister Samantha Gwendoline Cameron – a Countess Astor – had a primary Christian education, ed).

That is, Draghi is supported by a political-elitist area of Anglo matrix that has always been close in its interests to Paris, as German containment (to represent less summarily the address of this, let’s say, pro-European current based in the Perfect Albion, one could go back to the “Scots Guards” of Mary Stuart in the French capital, who were also in defense of Joan of Arc, ed.)

Hence the natural closeness of the world that orbits around the current Italian Prime Minister towards what France represents, today especially given the expected turn of Berlin towards a more German set-up (Goethe himself depicted the printing of money as mephistophelian, diabolical, as it created inflation).

Unfortunately, the above does not augur well for future Franco-Italian relations, which will certainly be to Rome’s disadvantage; a relationship that the two neighboring countries will necessarily develop from here on, that is, during the period of German meditation on what to do with the current EU, thanks to the subjugation of the Roman political class to interests that are more French than Italian.

Hence the expectation of a new Franco-Italian strategic macro-agreement signed by Draghi soon, I repeat, to French advantage.

Wages on EU, from 1990 to 2020: “Italy is the only European country where wages have decreased compared to 1990” – Openpolis on OECD data – at LINK

In this context, with inflation now out of control, with economic growth actually close to recession if netted with the correct GDP deflator, Italian BTPs fell below a very important technical level, 150 points, only last Friday.

At the end of the game, however, it will always be the Peninsula to act as a watershed in the fate of the EU, with its expected collapse of public finances, in the long term, i.e. with the markets very skeptical about the possibility of repaying the huge debt in euro (…): for your information, today the Italian GDP without undeclared activity exceeds 180% of GDP. And with a number of pensions paid by the State equal to about the same of the employees: it is not a question of Italian implosion by remaining in the euro, only of when.

Finally, here creeps the Green agenda, always with Italy as center of gravity, to be saved with money borrowed from the same Italian citizens but in the name of the EU (the Recovery Fund is for the most part a loan, guaranteed in fact by the assets of Italian families), that is the total value of the PNRR of about 200 billion euros – paid in 3-4 years – of which the Recovery Fund, only about 30 billion euros are lost!

In addition to the madness of mass vaccinations in Italy, now with a target of 90% vaccinated and with the de facto obligation of universal vaccination, under penalty of the impossibility of working. Even in this context we simply observe that there is a huge and obvious correlation now between vaccination madness in selected countries and technical failure, in fact, of their local pension systems (on all, Italy, France, Israel, Austria with its minimum retirement age still below 60 years on average, ed).

* * *

In conclusion, it is easy to expect a controlled demolition of the EU, starting with German and pro-German drives aimed at shielding themselves from international inflationary pressures by returning to a surrogate of the new mark, stronger than the euro. At the same time, the centrifugal drives within the EU, undeniable e.g. on the Italian side if you want to ensure a minimum of future prosperity to their people, will be concentrated in the Europeripheral countries, i.e. where the state welfare institutions are practically bankrupt. Only to end in an inevitable contingency of, let’s say, reduced monetary union, in which Paris – once Germany crosses the Rubicon of the return to a stronger currency – will play the card of a “Euro-CFA” with Italy as a wingman; or rather, a Euro Med (or better yet, French Euro) in which the African countries of the CFA franc are replaced by Italy and perhaps Greece.

In this context, the only addendum that does not add up are the 100 US military bases in Italy, of which at least 4-5 are nuclear, together with the largest US weapons depot outside the US borders.

It is not to be excluded, therefore, a renewed next American activism aimed – encore – to neutralize threats to its strategic interests; we believe that this effort will not be too dissimilar from what was the American intervention in Indochina or more properly in the Suez Canal (these facts led to an implosion of the residual French and veteran-European colonial network in the world, ed).

In mid-July, Italy’s Chamber of Deputies approved renewing funding to the Libyan coastguard, despite non-governmental organisations urging the authorities to stop financing the failed state’s human trafficking network. Only a day earlier, Amnesty International released a report detailing the trafficking and violations occurring across Libya’s detention centres. European countries have downplayed the documented atrocities against migrants in Libya, preferring to focus on keeping the statistics down.

This week, a boat capsized just off Libya’s coast, with 57 African migrants now presumed dead, among them 20 women and two children. The International Organisation for Migration in Libya (IOM) recently established that almost 6,000 migrants were intercepted and returned to Libya this year so far. Migrants known to have perished in the Mediterranean this year number 970.

International interference in Libya since 2011 and the fall of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has resulted in a country in which militias compete for territory and power. Vested UN and international interests in the country have exacerbated the humanitarian ramifications.

While the deals which the EU reached with the Libyan coastguard have been deemed controversial by human rights organisations, public sentiment in Europe veers towards pushback. Migration is played as a powerful card across the political spectrum, with both governments and the public fomenting racism and xenophobia. The result is widespread oblivion about the politics which created refugees and failed states.

With governments focused on statistics, reports such as the recent one by Amnesty International exist to inform only those who are already well-informed. Hence the absence of connecting capsized boats to deliberate damage inflicted by the Libyan coastguard to the vessels, resulting in deaths away from Europe’s shores. Neither is the complicity between Libya and European states made evident in terms of the EU financing abuses and torture in Libya’s detention camps. The rift between politics and non-governmental organisations, in the case of migrants, has been reduced to accusations of trafficking, whereas political culpability, which plays a major role in terms of funding the occurring atrocities, is kept out of focus.

In one instance in July this year, the Libyan coastguard was filmed firing at migrants in Malta’s Search and Rescue (SAR) area. The Libyan coastguard also attempted to ram the boat carrying migrants several times.

Researchers have established a link between European arms sales and increased displacement of people. The link between Italy’s funding of the Libyan coastguard and the interception of migrants was also included in the report.

Testimony published in Amnesty International’s report is chilling. “Death in Libya: it’s normal. No one will look for you and no one will find you,” states one quote by a 21 year old male refugee. The oblivion extends beyond Libya. With European governments intent on keeping migrants away from Europe’s shores, the bloc, which is purportedly concerned with human rights, finds it easier to neglect its obligations. No one in Libya would look for a refugee, and no one in Europe would, either, especially since the EU is paying Libya to do its dirty work.

Amnesty International called upon the EU to ensure accountability. However, accountability from within the same paradigm of exploitation will merely create new victims. The EU cheered in 2011 when the NATO coalition intervened in Libya for regime change under the guise of bringing democracy. One bloody consequence of the decision has been the increase in human trafficking of migrants, which the EU sought to quell through militarisation and surveillance, but never through addressing its wrongs. To perceive refugees as a dissociated part of the wider narrative is a violation in itself, but who will hold the bloc politically accountable for delegating distasteful tasks to the Libyan coastguard?

It is 1860. And the ‘fat-tail’ to the French and 1848 revolutions, the Risorgimento, has bloodily disgorged itself into Palermo, with Garibaldi’s red-shirt, ill-disciplined army. They come with a baggage-train of utopian ideals: the modern unitary nation-state, republicanism, people-power –brimming with optimism for a redeemed people, and a redeemed future.

Salina understands. It is a new era; an end to the old. His young nephew, however, advocates breaking with the continuity of traditional values, to secure continuity of family influence: “Everything needs to change, so everything can stay the same”, he argues. The nephew duly marries into the moneyed, nouveau bourgeoisie and opportunistically switches allegiance (one moment with the tri-couleur, and the next, as an officer of the king), as the moment dictates. His uncle accepts his nephew’s tactics of fusion into the nouveau-bourgeoisie, yet cannot bring himself to act similarly. He feels he cannot throw himself into the illusions and shenanigans of this new politics – and yet remain true to himself.

A delegate from the north, a well-intentioned, sincere man, brings Salina the offer of a role in the Italian legislature to help steer Italy’s future. The former views the coming era as one of prosperity and of good administration, whereas the Prince does not. It will open rather, a void in structures, ties of belonging and in codes of conduct, the Prince suspects.

Salina is not, in principle, opposed to this rationalist conception of a homogenised nation. It was accurate as an expression of the Enlightenment; important in its own way, but nonetheless, missing entirely the heart of the matter. The Prince implies to the delegate that the structures to the human and Sicilian psyche are diverse, and reach far back.

As he says farewell, Salina tells the delegate that Sicilians are formed by their landscape and context, gesturing at the harsh mountain panorama surrounding them. We carry Nature in us: ‘Yes, some – like him – may have leopard-like qualities, but others share their nature more with jackals and hyenas’. He foretells that it will be the jackals and hyenas that will thrive and dominate the new era: “We were the Leopards, the Lions, [but] those who’ll take our place will be little jackals, hyenas …”.

Salina seemingly was justified in his pessimism. And his instincts, in respect of the consequences to the rupturing of societies’ complex dynamic structures to create this homogenised identity, were prescient. He spoke of Nature and landscape being in us – and of Nature’s strata being leopard-like or hyena-like, inter alia. Were the Prince to be present today, he might add humanity’s repeating encounter with pandemic as another element of Nature itself steering our future.

Of course today, it is no longer the Risorgimento with which are dealing. It is a hollowed-out modernity that many find wanting. Pandemics do have the tendency to spotlight and upend already existing fractures and fault-lines in society. The Black Death, that had a marathon run from 1346 to 1353, resulted in a sharp shift away from the lifeless Scholasticism of the previous era to a fascination with the pre-Socratic Ancients and their thinking — whether that of Egypt, Mesopotamia or Greece. It brought into being the Renaissance (a flowering that was subsequently cut-down by the Church and the Enlightenment).

As the plague triggered an end to one era, so Coronavirus may yet prove to be the catalyst to bring about the fall of this era of coerced universalism, stretching from the French Revolution to the EU, globalist politics and global financial governance.

Already the Coronavirus has produced its convulsions: with America at the very cusp of war over ‘lockdown’ and European countries rearing to open. In America, the virus has provided the ‘peg’ to trigger a fresh round of the U.S. civil war – the infringement of individual state ‘co-sovereignty’ vis-à-vis the Federal Executive, and of individual liberties, occasioned by stay-at-home orders. (Prince Salina might give us a wry smile from the grave, as he recalls Sicily’s earlier convulsions).

Whilst some of these convulsions are understandable, we are, however, still in the initial phase. In the U.S., the overwhelming weight of the bailouts have been directed (again) to the ‘hyenas and jackals’. President Trump and Secretary Mnuchin believe in a quick ‘V’-shaped economic bounce-back, but Jerome Powell and the Fed does not (the latter expects the economic recession to last through next year). Mnuchin is arguing against further Treasury handouts on the basis of his, and Trump’s expectation, of economic snap-back, and of the loss of jobs being speedily reversed. It is a big gamble.

For, in any Phase Two, the next ‘shoe to drop’ will be individual, small and medium sized insolvencies; foreclosure on home mortgages; student loan delinquencies; car loan foreclosures; restaurant-owner rent non-payments, etc. These will be much more difficult to resolve. Will then central governments be willing – and able – to bail-out these individuals, together with other small and medium sized businesses? (In this first phase, the U.S. has had a whopping 36 million unemployment claimants – and many of these jobs may never return).

Have governments given any thought to the implication of the financial crisis spreading to the middle classes, for whom often their only cushion in life is the inflated value of the house in which they live, but whose price may collapse? And if not, do they imagine that their citizens will acquiesce to losing their homes because of Coronavirus? And that the middle classes will still side with the élites?

So much hangs on the evolutionary course of the virus. But judging this wrongly, risks much. People will not so readily handover their homes and cars to the banks this time, as in they did the wake of great financial crisis of 2008. Why would they? It was not their fault. Convulsions ahead? The decay of an era, and the inevitability of social and political mutation?

Maybe the Medieval mind-set does not seem to comport with that of ours today. But nonetheless, it remains a truism that biological fear of the lottery of Death, and political fear, are often found entwined in a danse macabre. Contagion may not be the direct cause, but whether it be the plagues of Italy, or cholera in nineteenth century Europe, the fears of the élite, and the anger of an infected, hungry, and hope-shorn mobs have combusted to overthrow established orders.

In the space of a just a very few years – in the late 1400s – Florence would invert from being guided by a recreated Platonic Academy, to a dictatorship headed by the sinister, black-robed Girolamo Savonarola – an extremist, ascetic cleric, who burnt Florence’s civilisational artefacts in huge ‘Bonfires of the Vanities’. Society, in the wake of many pandemics literally has cascaded into revolution – as did choleric Europe in the 19th Century, with Kings deposed, and the élites gripped in a hysteria of fear at rising mob populism.

Today, political ‘fear’ again is palpable. Legendary, financial and geopolitical-cycle analyst, Martin Armstrong, encapsulates that medieval sense of society ‘immobilised, and sucked up by an extensive sinister power’:

“Shutting down the economy is just scare-mongering: there is another agenda going on …”

“The WHO is part of the UN, and the UN is for this climate change, and this is what their objective has been: Shut down the world economy, bankrupt everything you possibly can, and then rebuild from scratch …

“The devastation in the economy is unbelievable. Our computer is very well known. Just about all the intelligence agencies look at it because it’s the only fully functioning artificial intelligence system in the world. It was saying unemployment was going to rise dramatically and retest the Great Depression highs.

“That’s never happened like that. Even in the Great Depression, it took three years to get to 25%. We passed 13% in the first month … From the very beginning, I said something is not right. Something is wrong …This is really going to push the debt bubble over the cliff …

“The number that has died is minimal. More than twice that die from the flu. What [Trump] needs to do is open up the economy instantaneously … I think he needs to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate who started this. All the information I have is pointing to a deliberate and intentional movement to harm the economy. These people are elitists”.

The accusations fly – soon a new Inquisition? On the one hand, there is a part of the U.S. political psyche that takes Rights – particularly 2nd Amendment rights – to the limit. (Just as in France, in the 18th and 19th centuries, the shibboleth of total sovereignty to the people was taken to the limit – courtesy of Madamme La Guillotine). President Trump just last week, seemed to be playing into this ‘populist revolt’ against lockdown and the globalist élites (especially in opposition to Democratic state governors), when he tweeted in advance of protests: “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!,” “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!,” and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA”, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!”.

On the other hand, there exists too, a wide recognition of the ‘contagion paradox’: In spite of the (supposedly) empirical projections by ‘experts’ and modellers coming down on both sides of the wall (serving opposing narratives), there is nonetheless an élite (not just globalist) fear, that the virus is treacherous; it cannot be predicted, and at a moment of inattention, can snap back, more deadly than ever.

It becomes a case of “pick your poison: either endure a hard lockdown until the job is done; or risk on-and-off lockdowns lasting much longer, vastly compounding the economic damage over time. Can governments keep shutting people up again, and again, with any hope of sustaining social consent? Doubtful”, suggests Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.

This latter ‘camp’ cites parallels with the U.S. ‘flu pandemic in 1918. There were mass protests, then, too, demanding an end to quarantine policies, after the first wave began to subside – even to the point of San Francisco’s “anti-mask league”. But premature relaxation then led to a second deadlier wave, a few weeks later.

There is nonetheless, a pattern here. Adam Zamoyski in his Phantom Terror, outlines the history of European élite repression and police espionage in the half-century following the overthrow of the French monarchy in 1789-93. The European Industrial Revolution then was in full flow: families were dis-embedded from rural communities, from their roots, and severed from local support systems, and then decanted (as a result of land clearances), into the overcrowded, insanitary misery-belts of the big industrial cities. Then from 1831, these misery belts were struck by four consecutive, and virtually concurrent, cholera pandemics. Commonly believed, was that cholera was spread via the air, through a cloud-like ‘miasma’. Others firmly believed that since the disease spread more rapidly through poorer districts, that the wealthy were purposely poisoning the poor. Still more believed that cholera was a visitation from God and that he was exacting a punishment to the community on behalf of their sins. This too, was the era of Laissez Faire. The British government would allow two million Irish to die of hunger (the potato famine of 1845), rather than compromise on its austere ideology of free markets.

It was an era of ugly mobs and bloody revolt against a fabulously wealthy, ‘far-off’ élite, ensconced in their palace citadels. Professor Zamoyski’s deadliest strictures, however, are directed against the rigid, fear-driven, authoritarian reaction of the propertied classes, which he demonstrates was lethally counter-productive – as well as often absurd.

Yes, there is good reason – drawn from that era – to look skeptically at all this European and U.S. talk of ‘Covid-19 war’ and its ‘time-of-war’ narrative, justifying social intrusion, electronic surveillance, and discipline, whilst bailing out key institutions. It is an old pattern.

The French historian, Patrick Bucheron, in Conjurer la Peur, links this well-worn pattern of repression to the frontispiece of Hobbes’s celebrated Leviathan, published much earlier, in 1651: “Here again there is a city depopulated by an epidemic. We know, because at the borders of the image, we identify two silhouettes with birds’ beaks, which represent the doctors of the plague, while the people in the city have been sucked upward, ballooning the figure of the Leviathan state monster, who is very confident of the fear he inspires”.

Are these the deeper (unconscious) fears being expressed by Martin Armstrong? Then, it was the Industrial Revolution that led to social tensions and revolt. Today, it is the globalist, financialised revolution, with one billionaire (David Geffen), tweeting out the iconic image of his sitting out the pandemic on his $590 million super-yacht, far away, in the Caribbean. Ref 8

So, tensions are again inflamed. There is ‘another agenda behind lockdown’ say U.S. libertarians. But why should today’s danse macabre, between political fears and biological fears, tear society apart (as in the 19th century) or result in revolt? If lockdown is managed well, might not ‘normality’ return? An answer, one commentator succinctly encapsulates in his article title, is: The Real Pandemic Danger Is Social Collapse. As the Global Economy Comes Apart, Societies May, Too.

Change happens quickly, and often unpredictably. Imagine, for example, dropping one grain of sand after another into a cone-shaped pile; the pile grows taller, and taller but, as it does so, it gets closer and closer to a critical state—the state in which one additional grain of sand can link into a ‘finger of instability’ and lead to a cascade, or even to the sand pile’s collapse.

The sand pile thought experiment comes from physics, where it is used to explain how complex systems often self-organize into a critical state. But physicists cannot predict when the addition of a single grain of sand will set off a cascade, or how large that cascade will be.

Two factors increase the chances of catastrophic risk occurring in complex systems. The first is that the more connections there are, the greater is the system’s level of risk. The second factor, is whether or not, those connections are ‘tightly coupled’. Something that affects one part of the system may cause cascading effects throughout the system – if tightly coupled to other parts. Complex, extended supply lines are an obvious example. The coronavirus is exposing precisely these vulnerabilities, creating cascading shocks throughout domestic economies, and in international trade.

Here is the point: Armstrong’s urgent demand to open the economy ‘immediately’ may already be too late. Economists tend to think of the economy as a machine that enjoys some inherent mode of equilibrium, and that if Trump would only press the starter button, it would brr–brr back to life.

But it is arguable that the western economy has been at ‘critical state’ since 2008, when the U.S. Fed kept scooping ‘fingers of instability’ back into the pile, whilst patting them down with QE. That is to say, cascade was an event already poised to happen. Coronavirus just happened to be the ‘pin’ that burst our mindset bubble.

The coronavirus and the resultant economic lockdown has set multiple ‘fingers’ of instability cascading. The virus is complex, as all nature is complex. And humans are complicated. We, ‘complicated humans’, have introduced separate economic, social and political complexities through the systems we built, largely in disregard for those natural complexities in the world around us. In so doing we have set up fragilities.

The danger, then, is of system-cascade. But more than this, what might be the consequences were complex systems to collide into one another? Analysis becomes almost impossible when multiple complex systems interact with each other, and produce feedback loops. The International Trade crisis is crashing into the European and U.S. economies (yet other complex dynamic systems), and is impacting on their domestic political processes (yet further complex dynamic systems).

Since the ‘Enlightenment’, the West has accustomed itself to thinking that it controls both nature and our environment. This has had the effect of sheering us off from nature’s complexity for a while, but only at the cost of opening space for us to insert ourselves into complex systems that are themselves intrinsically fragile – in the context of larger complexity.

And now – unexpectedly – nature’s own complexity has slapped our face.

This has turned upside-down everything that we have taken for granted over decades. We thought we were in control. Now, the ‘doctors of plague’ dictate to us, apparently quite randomly. The biological fear of Death, and the fear of slipping into hopeless Abyss, embrace in une danse macabre for the desperate, who are living marginalized, in the so-called black hole of society in the most lawless neighbourhoods of our biggest cities.

Thanks to Merkel holding the line on debt mutualization and EU fiscal integration, which is very unpopular in Germany, her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is now polling at levels it hasn’t enjoyed since before the last general election in 2017.

According to Europe Elects, the latest polling out of Germany has the CDU commanding around 35-37% of German voters. This is a party that was in shambles not two months ago after Merkel heir apparent Annagret Kramp-Karrenbauer stepped down as CDU leader, prompting a new leadership vote, which, conveniently for Merkel, has now been postponed indefinitely thanks to the COVID-19 crisis.

Germany, INSA poll:

CDU/CSU-EPP: 37.5% (-0.5)
GRÜNE-G/EFA: 16% (-2)
SPD-S&D: 16%
AfD-ID: 10.5% (+0.5)
LINKE-LEFT: 7.5% (+0.5)
FDP-RE: 7% (+1.5)

+/- vs. 3-6 Apr.

Fieldwork: 9-14 Apr. ’20
Sample size: 2,108
➤ https://t.co/obOCVirbpF pic.twitter.com/VBIblbijEh

— Europe Elects (@EuropeElects) April 14, 2020

Some of that is the normal “rally around the current leader” that occurs during any crisis. President Trump’s numbers in the U.S. have been strong despite the twin crises here. Even marginal leaders like Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte in Italy have seen their numbers rise.

But a 15-point bump for Merkel is tremendous and it only happens in conjunction with her refusing to cave on Germany being seen bailing out southern Europe. It may win her support domestically, but it sets up a disastrous future for the European Union.

As COVID-19 rages across Europe the two major factions within the EU have been fighting a desperate battle for its future with the issue of debt mutualization being the fulcrum. Now, I believe wholly that the use of lock downs and draconian measures to fight the disease have been more political than practical. Using a public health care crisis to advance a political agenda is the height of cynicism and megalomania.

On the one side we have the Euro-integrationists, led by French President Emmanuel Macron. On the other are the fiscal conservatives led by Merkel, who has given way to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to be the point man for Macron’s derision.

Trapped in the middle is the real human tragedy in northern Italy where thousands of people have died from the toxic mix of a lack of medical infrastructure, high concentration of high-risk people and lack of knowledge of how to fight the disease.

Worse than that, the government in Italy was put together to spearhead this fight for Eurobonds since Conte was kept in power to ensure Lega’s Matteo Salvini didn’t and fight Macron and Merkel by threatening to leave the euro-zone.

Whether you believe the EU’s response, or, more accurately, lack thereof, to Italy’s plight was motivated by malice or incompetence the result is the same. Thousands of Italians died and weakened already weak bonds between Italy and the rest of the EU technocracy.

As I said in an article back on March 14th:

So in the midst of this mess comes COVID-19 and the uncoordinated and inept response to it from the political center of Europe to date. Only now are they coming to the conclusion they need to restrict travel, after sitting on their hands for a few weeks while Italians died by the hundreds.

And do you think that’s engendering waves of love and affection among Italians towards Germans?

If you do then you don’t know Italians… at all.

And this is your signal that this is the beginning of the real crisis. Because while COVID-19 may have been the catalyst for the breakdown of capital markets, capital markets were simply waiting for that spark to occur.

Honestly I wasn’t harsh enough in my assessment of what was happening back then, but it was clear that this crisis was being used to push forward EU integrationist plans of Macron and ECB President Christine Lagarde trying to strongarm the Germans and the Dutch into their position.

By the meeting on March 26th that plan failed. Rutte, Merkel, Austrian Chancellor Sebastain Kurz and Norway all held their ground and the meeting would have ended in a fistfight had it not been held using social distancing rules via teleconference.

That meeting set up last week’s which saw Italy cave to German and Dutch intransigence. Macron and Lagarde lost, securing just $500 billion in new loans but no ECB bond issuance. And the issue now is whether Conte will partake of the program or not.

His failure to act as Macron’s Agent of Shame to secure the EU’s future now puts the whole European project in jeopardy because Conte’s government is in serious trouble in Italy. Moreover, this failure was likely unexpected because now even the hardest-core EU integrationists in Italy’s government are wondering why they are part of the EU.

Meanwhile the polls in Italy haven’t really budged with Salvini’s Lega holding onto around 30% of the electorate with the Brothers of Italy holding onto recent gains in the mid-teens.

Italy, Termometro Politico poll:

LEGA-ID: 31%
PD-S&D: 22%
M5S-NI: 14%
FdI-ECR: 13%
FI-EPP: 6%
IV-RE: 4% (+1)
Azione-S&D: 3%
LS-LEFT: 2%
EV-G/EFA: 2%
+E-RE: 1% (-1)
PC-NI: 1%

+/- vs. 1-2 Apr. ’20

Fieldwork: 8-9 April 2020
Sample size: 2,200 pic.twitter.com/QTCcUpCffP

— Europe Elects (@EuropeElects) April 11, 2020

Moreover, now the question of EU membership in Italy is a coin flip. Two different polls (here and here) have it well within the margin of error.

Lastly, and most importantly, Conte’s coalition government is split on whether to avail itself of the newly-approved loans. Reuters reported that the divisions within the Italian coalition are rising and portend a split. In a show of political spine not seen in over a year senior partner Five Star Movement (M5S) is opposed while the Eurocentric Democrats are all for it since, as of right now, there are no strings attached to the money.

Conte will have to settle the dispute before a video conference among European leaders on April 23 when Italy will be expected to make its position clear.

He tried to defuse the quarrel on Wednesday, warning in a Facebook post that the ESM “risks dividing the whole of Italy,” and adding that more information was needed on the terms of any credit lines before a final decision could be taken.

Until these details are clear, discussing whether an ESM loan is in Italy’s interests is “a merely abstract and schematic debate,” Conte said.

But we all know there will be strings in the end. If you doubt that assertion, I suggest you ask Greece how about this. So, Conte has his work cut out for himself. There is real urgency now in the EU to get even token Eurobonds approved before Germany takes over the Presidency of the European Commission in July, where it will set the agenda on the EU’s next seven-year budget.

After years of kicking the can down the road to avoid a messy political upheaval, which is Merkel’s trademark move, nothing has changed in the EU when it comes to fixing its untenable structure. And for this reason, as long as Angela Merkel is on the stage, there will be no European dream.

All Merkel ever does is manipulate events back to the previous status quo. She has no capacity or stomach to face the German voters nor will she allow anyone else to fully express themselves. Her handling of Brexit negotiations was a fiasco for the EU, thankfully, and her handling of Italy today is just as inept.

With Salvini waiting in the wings, the people ready to revolt over Germany’s handling of the crisis and a weak coalition government put in place by Merkel to hold things together, the probability of Italeave occurring rises daily.

So, while Merkel may have won this latest battle in the end she may lose the war for the EU. And, in the ultimate irony, the people of Europe may have her to thank for their deliverance from its dysfunction.

Southern European countries, led by Italy and Spain, with the half-hearted help of France, lost yet another battle to their Northern neighbors at the Eurogroup, the Germany-dominated, informal gathering of the Eurozone finance ministers.

Last Thursday, just before the long Easter weekend, the Eurogroup agreed, after three days of talks, on a € 540 Billion rescue package to deal with the economic consequences of the Coronavirus pandemic.

The devil, as always, is in the detail – of the resulting Eurogroup statement.

To the dismay of Italy and Spain there was no mention of Eurobonds. No sharing of the economic consequences of the pandemic. No liquidity injections by the BCE. On offer was only the much-dreaded European Stability Mechanism (ESM).

Meet the Beast

The ESM was created in 2012, and its dubious claim to fame came in 2015, with the negotiations over the Greek-debt crisis.

The ”About us“ section of its website explains: “The European Stability Mechanism (ESM) was set up as an international financial institution by the euro area Member States to help euro area countries in severe financial distress”.

Next, we learn how such a helping hand perform its charitable work: “It provides emergency loans but in return, countries must undertake reform programs.”

Hence the ESM is an international lender, whose financial assistance comes with strings attached – just like the loans of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The Troika Horse Steps In

Not by coincidence the IMF is itself involved in drawing such “reform programs”, and constitutes, together with the European Commission (EC) and the European Central Bank (ECB), the Troika.

To be eligible for ESM loans, a Member State has to commit to Troika-dictated reform programs: known, in typical Brussels Spout, as “conditionality”.

Like a bankrupt company, the financially assisted State goes into a sort of controlled administration, with the Troika acting as the insolvency administrator.

“Debt-restructuring” follows. This is EUrwellien newspeak for the Tax-and-Cut austerity policies that we’ve seen before. Tax the working and middle classes cut the welfare state and civil service.

Greece has suffered this fate since 2008, leading to a debt-crisis, soaring unemployment, widespread poverty and to the loss of “over one fourth” of its gross domestic product.

Berlin tricks Rome: no conditions, at one condition

Needless to say, the very mentioning of ESM and “conditionality” (=Troika austerity policies) has become political dynamite in Italy.

The Italian ruling coalition comprises two main parties: the staunchly pro-EU, pro-NATO, center-left PD (the Italian Dems); and the left-populist Five Stars Movement. The latter is fiercely opposed to the ESM.

Under pressure by Five Stars MPs’, Italy’s prime minister Giuseppe Conte descrined the ESM as an “absolutely inadequate instrument” to solve Italy’s financial crisis, and repeatedly said he would never sign it.

Conte pushed for Eurobonds, and even tried to persuade the German public to accept them by giving interviews to Germany’s first channel ARD, and to Germany’s biggest selling daily newspaper Bild Zeitung.

To no avail. Germany and Holland, which led the Northern opposition to the Eurobonds (a sort of EU wide public debt), were unmovable.

Defeated, and before an incensed opposition, Conte and his finance minister, Roberto Gualtieri, claimed to have at least obtained a conditionality-free ESM.

Again, the devil lies in the detail of the Eurogroup’s statement. Member states may access ESM funds without conditionality – wait for it – at one condition: to cover the additional health expenditure only!

Regarding the economic and financial consequences of the COVID-19 crisis – subventions for hard hit companies, unemployment benefits, etc. – the ESM comes with the usual conditionality.

And with it, we are back to the Troika, and the dreaded Greek scenario.

Looming Italexit?

The Italian government however made a key mistake in pushing for Eurobonds, according to economics professor Alberto Bagnai, who chairs the parliamentary committee for Italian state finances.

In an interview to the independent web TV Byoblue prof. Bagnai explained how Eurobonds are inadequate, as a financial instrument, to deal with the current crisis – for two reasons:

“Firstly, because German and Dutch governments have always opposed an EU-wide debt mutualisation – Eurobonds are simply something those governments could never justify before their voters.”

“Secondly, Eurobonds would require putting together a technical-political structure in charge with issuing them – this alone would take several months, while the Italian people and business are now at home without work and without benefits, and thus need immediate help”

By putting forward an even more inadequate – and dangerous – tool like the ESM, the EU in turn shows that it really aims at bankrupting the Italian state:

“The only body that can quickly intervene by putting liquidity in the system is the European Central Bank. Either it does so, or it proves to be useless”

“With the ESM as the only means for Italy to obtain the liquidity it needs, the way is open for a restructuring of the Italian public debt, and with it, the Troika would finally be able to strip Italy of its savings and assets.”

Hence Italy might have to choose between a Greek and a Brexit scenario.

Already now, half the Italians (49%), according to a recent survey, want to leave the EU. Even more significative: the percentage of Pro-Remains has gone down from 71% in November 2018 to 51% in April 2020.

If elections were held now, a right-wing, Eurosceptic coalition would easily win.

In its attempt to force Rome under the Troika, so Germany and other EU countries can pillage Italian savings ad assets, the EU is quickly losing favour among Italian people – and might eventually lose Italy as a member state.

By one reckoning, the claimed number of dead is too high because anyone who tested positive and died had his or her death attributed to the virus even if it was actually due to other unrelated causes. And that argument has also been flipped on its head to demonstrate that the numbers are too low, using the fact that many Italians have not been tested for the virus to assert that many dead were actually caused by coronavirus. Since those dead were not medically confirmed positive for COVID-19, the deaths were erroneously attributed to other causes.

A third bit of somewhat more bizarre speculation centers on the fact that in September 2019 Italy made legal euthanasia for those with terminal illnesses seeking to end their suffering, a move strongly opposed by the Roman Catholic Church. Some of those weighing in on the number of deaths have claimed without evidence that a significant percentage of the dead were actually cases of euthanasia, i.e. implying that Italy has been deliberately killing off its elderly. Those seeking an explanation for such bizarre behavior by the national health service have suggested that it would be to ease pressure on the troubled Italian economy by eliminating old age pensions and medical costs.

Be that as it may, there is an interesting backstory developing in the Italian media about why Italy has been hit so hard by the “Chinese” virus in spite of the fact that it has been in lockdown for over one month. Italy’s ties with China, and with the city of Wuhan, where the virus may have originated, run deeper than with any other European country.

Last spring, when my wife and I were traveling in Northern Italy, we noticed the large numbers of Chinese, not only in tourism centers like Venice and Verona, but also in commercial and industrial areas. Italian shop holders we spoke with told us how the Chinese government and individual entrepreneurs were buying up businesses and properties at an alarming rate, penetrating the Italian economy at all levels. One gift shop proprietor in Venice described how even tourist items were increasingly being manufactured in China, a development which he described as “selling cheap junk.” He reached beneath his counter and produced a perfume bottle which looked like a local product but instead of being made in Murano it bore a tiny stamp “Made in China.”

A little less than a year ago Italy became the first G-7 country in Europe to sign a memorandum of understanding formalizing its membership in the Chinese Belt and Road project, part of the Silk Road scheme to create a vast linked commercial network across Asia and into Europe. Two of the main hubs being developed for the project are Genoa and Trieste. The Italian government, confronted with a struggling economy, based the move on “commercial reasons” and “economic advantages,” to include the investment being offered by Beijing, but Rome paid a price for the move with intense criticism coming from both Washington and Brussels. The Atlanticist crowd, which normally applauded a form of globalism and free trade, inevitably insisted that not only were the Chinese seeking to “destabilize” Europe, Beijing was also attempting to divide Europe politically and militarily from the United States.

One of the more interesting, and perhaps coincidental, aspects of the Chinese entry into Italy has been the particular connection between China and the northern Italian fashion houses, centered on Milan, that have shifted their production to Wuhan to take advantage of the cheap labor in China’s own textile industry, largely centered on the city. By all accounts, Chinese investors bought up factories in Northern Italy starting in the early 1990s. By 2016 many major brands had been completely acquired, to include Pinco Pallino, Miss Sixty, Sergio Tacchini, Roberta di Camerino and Mariella Burani while major shares of Salvatore Ferragamo and Caruso were also obtained.

The Chinese owners and investors replaced ageing machinery and brought in, often illegally, tens of thousands of skilled Chinese seamstresses as a labor force. By the end of last year when the virus first struck China, direct flights from Wuhan to Lombardy served the roughly 300,000 Chinese residents of Italy who mostly work in Chinese-owned factories producing Chinese inspired Made in Italy designs. It is widely believed, though not confirmed by the Rome government, that the first infections by coronavirus in Italy, attributed to visiting “tourists,” actually may have taken place in crowded dormitories where Chinese shift workers from Wuhan dined and slept.

In less than a year, however, Italians have come to realize that a tight economic embrace with Beijing also has a downside. Italy’s trade gap with China has gone up, not down and much promised investment in new enterprises has failed to materialize. But even as the dust cleared, the results derived from opening the door to China were not pretty. By 2016, Chinese acquisitions had exceeded 52 billion EUROS, giving them ownership of more than 300 companies representing 27% of major Italian corporations.

The Bank of China now owns five major banks in Italy as well as the major telecommunication corporation (Telecom) and the two top energy utilities (ENI and ENEL). China also has controlling interest in Fiat-Chrysler and Pirelli.

More recently, Italian government views on China’s human rights record in Hong Kong have hardened and the country’s legislature has rejected overtures by the Chinese telecommunications conglomerate Huawei to have a major role in developing the country’s new 5G technology. One might observe, however, that the barn door is being closed after the horse has already escaped.

To limit the damage, the Chinese have sweetened their economic expansion into Western Europe by carefully integrating trade with humanitarian initiatives to make the transformation palatable to the local populations. The Health Silk Road initiative is a major exercise of soft power which has, in the current crisis, provided various forms of emergency medical assistance to a number of European nations. In doing so, it has done more than the European Union or the United States. Italy currently has three Chinese medical teams assisting its doctors in and around Milan and has benefited from airlifted medical supplies to include millions of masks and testing kits.

China is not doing what it does for altruistic reasons. It sees itself as the major economic driver of a new globalism, displacing an increasingly foundering and incapable United States, which has dominated world finance and commerce since the Second World War. For China COVID-19 is seen as an opportunity to reconfigure the playing field in its favor.

The experience of Italy, which may have become an epicenter for the virus due to its close commercial and personal ties to China, is illustrative of how globalism and free trade being promoted by a number of engaged groups in many countries can be exploited to create a new reality. Beijing is shaping that reality while the U.S. and E.U. stand on the sideline and watch.

As economic aid from Brussels is debated and delayed, millions of Mediterraneans are already questioning the European project.

Francesco GIUBILEI

Since the birth of the European Union, there has been an intense debate about the possibility of creating a two-track Europe, divided between the Mediterranean nations and those of Northern Europe.

Supporters of this solution argue that the differences between these two parts of Europe are irreconcilable, in terms of their lifestyle, in the way society is conceived, and especially in the mentality of citizens. The possibility of division first appeared in Greece during the 2008 crisis, and it now seems to be intensifying with the coronavirus emergency.

Today, the dividing line between north and south has hardened, and is defined by opposing views on how to tackle the spread of the virus.

On one side, the Latin countries of Europe ask to use the so-called “Eurobonds” or “Coronabonds,” a financial instrument with a common European debt linked to the resources that are strictly necessary to face this health emergency. Italy and Spain do not ask to share their ordinary public debt with Germany and the other northern European nations; they only seek to share the resources they need to bear the costs to fight Coronavirus. On the other side, German politicians and the media accuse the south of seeking to finance the crisis response with German money. France stands halfway between these two blocs, even though in practice Macron’s point of view seems to be closer to the southern European countries’ position.

The solution proposed by Angela Merkel and other northern European governments is to use the resources of the European stability mechanism (ESM), a fund set up to lend money to member states in financial difficulty in ordinary times to prevent situations like the 2008 crisis. The resources of the stability mechanism would be used by individual states and so would not constitute a common debt. The Italian position is simple and based on two main points: First, since Europe is not facing an ordinary situation, we need extraordinary means that cannot come from the use of ESM funds. Second, the COVID-19 emergency does not concern a single country, but all of Europe, and therefore, the cost of combating it and rebuilding should be shared by all countries.

From Italy’s standpoint, there are other considerations as well. Italy contributes more to the EU than it receives; its net annual contribution comes to EUR 20 billion, making it the third largest contributor after Germany and France. This means that the resources granted by the European Union as aid are also partly Italian money. The same applies to the resources of the ESM. Italy contributes 17.80 percent of its resources and Spain 11.83 percent. Among other nations that oppose the use of Eurobonds, the Netherlands contributes just  5.68 percent, Austria, 2.77 percent, and Finland a paltry 1.79.

Why don’t the countries of southern Europe (and Ireland, which has joined them) want to accept the use of the resources of the ESM? Journalist Nicola Porro, one of the most well-known voices in the world of the Italian center right-wing, put it this way in one of his popular videos: accepting the ESM would risk putting Italy into receivership administered by a reborn “troika” consisting of the ECB, the EU and the IMF — just as happened in Greece in 2008. The risk of accepting those resources today could prove fatal since the conditions of the loan would most likely change after the emergency ends.

The fear of the center-right parties, in particular Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia and Matteo Salvini’s Lega, is that the government of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte will end up accepting the ESM, which will probably be packaged and presented differently, but in substance will remain the same.

The current crisis cannot be compared to that of 2008. In 2008, Europe faced a financial crisis with economic and social consequences. Today, we face a public health emergency, which means that the emotional aspect also plays an important role. How do you tell an entrepreneur from Lombardy, one of the wealthiest regions in Europe with a GDP higher than many regions of Germany, that the European Union allocated ten days to discuss and find a solution—in the middle of a pandemic, when lives are at stake? How do you explain that to someone who has worked for a lifetime, paid taxes, provided jobs to many people and who has probably lost his father, a friend, or an employee to the coronavirus in a matter of days?

Even if the European Union continues to function in a political and formal sense, emotionally, for the majority of the citizens of Mediterranean countries it no longer exists. If tomorrow morning a consultative referendum were held in Italy with an online vote, 80 percent of Italians would likely favor an exit. Not only conservative and center right parties have opposed the current European Union, but for the first time, many liberal and left-wing citizens have also taken sides against the EU as they observe their response to the pandemic and the perceived indifference to Italy’s fate.

Coronavirus has highlighted the failure of the globalist ideology, as the intellectuals Marco Gervasoni and Corrado Ocone put it in their newly published Coronavirus: The End of Globalization, and one of the main pillars of this ideology on which they focus is exactly what we call Europeanism, that is “the idea that, pending the creation of a World Republic, we can indeed create a European Republic, the United States of Europe, in which freedom of exchange, trade, movement, and the so-called ‘external borders’ remain as open as possible.”

In addition to the different political and economic points of view, there are deeper fractures related to different visions of the European project between the peoples of northern Europe and the Latin countries in the south. For proof, just look at the article signed by a series of German intellectuals in Bild, a major German newspaper, expressing solidarity with Italy. The article’s Italian title states: “Siamo con voi!” (“We are with you!”), but the content, probably contrary to its good intentions, has generated a feeling of disdain in Italy. The text is full of stereotypes and condescension about Italian food, such as “you brought us good things to eat. Suddenly we could enjoy appetizers, butterflies, and tiramisu too. […] We wanted to know how to cook pasta like you, to drink Campari like you, to love as you do.” About the so-called Italian “dolce vita” they say: “We always wanted to be like you. With your easy-going ways.”

These are certainly not words of comfort for a nation that mourns hundreds of dead every day, where doctors work twelve-hour shifts and where, thanks to the extraordinary dedication and efforts of its citizens, a brand new hospital was built in Lombardy in just a few days. Unfortunately, despite good intentions, the words in the Bild article only synthesize the ‘pizza, pasta, and mandolin’ stereotype of Italians that many people from northern Europe believe to be true. They show an unwillingness to see our beautiful country as a large industrialized economy and a net contributor to the EU budget whose citizens cannot simply accept the dictates of the European Union.

In Italy, even barring direct mention of Italexit, for the first time in the political and media debates there is consistent talk of a plan B, of “an alternative to this Europe,” and of the need for “new solutions.” From a practical point of view, exiting the EU presents two problems: the fact that the Italian currency is the euro and the difficulty of holding a referendum.

Unlike Great Britain, which kept the pound sterling after joining the EU, Italy abandoned the lira. To be sure, Italy adopted the euro under conditions unfavorable to its economy, but abandoning the euro now would make things even worse.

Besides, Italian law does not provide for the possibility of a referendum like the one held in the UK to approve Brexit, and holding one would require a constitutional amendment. Without an amendment, if the majority of Italians voted for Italexit, the parliament would need to pass an ordinary law, as was the case with the approval of the Lisbon Treaty. At that point, there exists a risk that incompatibility would arise with Article 117 of the Italian Constitution, which regulates the legislative competences between the national government, its regions, and the EU as a third actor, and so a further constitutional change might be necessary.

This complicated path is improbable if not impossible, at least in an ordinary situation. However, we are not in an ordinary situation but an extraordinary one, and the pandemic has changed the sentiments of the Italians.

In reality, there is another possibility, which is also difficult but no longer appears to be a chimera: the collapse of the European Union. If the entire European scaffolding collapsed, there would no longer be a need for an Italexit. Across Southern Europe, many more citizens are asking, what is the point of a supranational entity that is expensive and legally cumbersome, but unable to provide adequate solutions to more than 120 million citizens of Italy, Spain, and Portugal in this dramatic moment?

theamericanconservative.com

A good example in the spin behind the story comes when we compare Fox’s and the Guardian’s take on it. They both ran very surprisingly neutral sounding headlines. “Russia sending plane filled with medical equipment to U.S. amid coronavirus pandemic“ and “Coronavirus: Russia sends plane full of medical supplies to U.S.” respectively. Although, the devil lies in the details of The Guardian’s subhead…

“Critics likely to claim Moscow will exploit goodwill gesture as public relations coup”.

This is a very odd statement to make as a news organization, for this is a vague prediction rather than news. Speculation about the future of the economy or an election cycle makes perfect sense, but trying to guess what opinions could be, makes it seem like the Guardian is trying to convince the reader of what they should be. And just who exactly are these critics and why do they matter? Movies have movie critics. Music has music critics. Does international humanitarian aid have its own form of critics? If so that would be by far the most boring content on YouTube.

The only real concrete criticism in the article came from a quoted Tweet from a member of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace…

“Hopefully someone will tell Trump that he’s playing right into a propaganda ploy”

Foreign Policy mirrored this attitude with their article…

“Beware of Bad Samaritans – China and Russia are sending medical aid to Italy and other coronavirus-stricken countries, but their motives aren’t so altruistic.”

Not surprisingly Russophobia’s shining light on a hill The Washington Post went with the headline…

“Trump called Russia’s coronavirus aid to the U.S. ‘very nice.’ Putin may use it as a propaganda coup.”

So ultimately as we sift through the Mainstream Media and their pundits’ reactions, we don’t see the old style Russia collusion narrative, but instead a new sort of warning to an ignorant orange skinned Trump about a “ploy” by Putin. After all, Russia’s willingness to help Italy deal with the Coronavirus situation in their country has allowed many impressive photos of Russian military transport and men seemingly moving about the boot-shaped peninsula freely. Other than for some sort of international military parade, it is hard to imagine Russia being able to get their “polite people” to do cooperative work deep in the historical heartland of NATO. But, the Coronavirus situation is a crisis, and any crisis can open up doors for change thought impossible just weeks before.

It must also be noted that the materials being delivered from Russia are commercial products produced within the countries that others could order/buy. The days of the Soviet Union are long gone and the supplies that Washington will receive come from Russia’s private sector but delivered on a government airplane.

Photo: This particular image of Russo-Italian cooperation quickly became iconic across the Russian internet. You can probably guess why.

Perhaps the Mainstream Media and punditry in the U.S. have become spooked by what is happening in Italy and subconsciously fear it could spread to America. This fear is probably doubled in the minds of those who are still convinced that Trump is a Manchurian candidate.

The likelihood of Russian green men being needed to “help out” on American soil is something we will probably never see in our lifetimes. And if you care about America’s national sovereignty you should hope it never happen at any point in the future. But what the punditry/geopolitics wonks really fear is that not only has Russia become an “unshuttable” countervoice in news media but Moscow is starting to take a segment of the humanitarian aid game that they will never give back.

Normally it is the exclusive unwritten right of the USA/West to be the ones to conduct Marshall Plans and send out all sorts of humanitarian aid with or without strings attached. In fact this is such a large part of U.S. foreign policy that we cannot forget that there is an entire official branch of the government that deals solely with it – USAID.

Photo: Washington decided to send humanitarian aid to Georgia right after their 2008 conflict with Russia. Is this pure philanthropy? And does Russia have the right to send aid to America’s unfavored nations?

In fact USAID is a very serious state organ and is funded to almost half of what the Russians pay for their entire military budget. The panicked punditry who are flipping out over Russian aid coming to America are probably afraid that the Russians can do more with less funding like they have done in the news media – budget-wise RT is completely outgunned and yet it is a smashing success that influences narratives even in the West.

There is one other factor that is creating a strong backlash from the mainstream punditry regarding assistance coming from Moscow – pure racism. The U.S. has used foreign aid and assistance to win favor (i.e. as propaganda “ploys”) for decades and this is perfectly reasonable. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the U.S. using its wealth to buy influence and positive views from across the world. This seems like a normal and natural thing to do that America just happens to be better at doing than pretty much anyone else. Good for America!

But, when Russians or the Chinese (or anyone Washington doesn’t like) tries to do exactly the same thing, now it is unacceptable. The logic looks something like “The Russians are sending humanitarian aid? It must be a ploy! They are inherently evil after all.” And this friends is the very definition of racism. Perhaps the geopolitics boys are just tweeting their basic primal fears that some other tribe is stomping on their territory.

What we are seeing in the Mainstream Media’s/Punditry’s reaction to Russian aid being sent to America:

They fear that Russia may shatter the virtual monopoly on foreign aid giving that the U.S./West possesses, in the same way they did in terms of news media.

The #Russiagate narrative is shifting from Trump being a Manchurian Candidate for Moscow to him being duped by Putin’s “ploys”. This leads one to believe #Russiagate may finally have died.

Automatically assuming that Russians providing foreign humanitarian aid is an evil scheme while the U.S. always does so altruistically is pure backwater hillbilly bigotry.

Fox and conservative media are less spooked and actually display tweets from the Russian side. This is another drop of evidence in the bucket, that for the near future the America Left will hate Russia and the American Right will hate China.

Russia was able to get their gesture into the public/media consciousness in the United States. Something that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

When countries are turning to China because their supranational institutions won’t help, that’s a problem.

Francesco GIUBILEI

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a greater toll on Italy than any other nation. The Italians are facing their most severe crisis since the Second World War, with Lombardy in the industrial north particularly hard hit. Yet for all its rhetoric about global citizenship and solidarity, the European Union has all but abandoned them. That’s even though communist China, arguably globalization’s greatest and shrewdest state beneficiary, is ready to fill the void and help Italy put out the fire its own virus started.

The coronavirus first appeared in Italy on January 31 when two Chinese tourists from the Hubei province tested positive in Rome, eight days after they’d landed at the Milan airport in Lombardy. The two were immediately isolated and quarantined in the Roman Spallanzani hospital, and the situation seemed under control—until February 21. That day, Italy confirmed 16 new coronavirus cases, 14 in Lombardy and two in Veneto. A 38-year-old Italian from Codogno near Milan with acute respiratory symptoms was identified as patient zero. Despite Italy’s attempts to contain the virus by locking down the city of Codogno, coronavirus infections spread.

In just a few days, Italy had the highest number of infections in Europe, with Lombardy as the pandemic’s epicenter. To avoid the spread of infections to the rest of Italy, the government locked down the entire region of Lombardy and other areas in northern Italy, effectively quarantining 17 million people. A few days later, as the situation deteriorated, the whole of Italy was declared an “orange zone”—all “non-essential” commercial activities were shut down and the free movement of citizens was limited to grocery and pharmaceutical shopping and work obligations deemed by the state as of “prime importance.”

The economic repercussions of a complete shutdown loomed large. Consequently, Italy asked the EU for more flexibility on its accounts and requested that emergency measures be deployed to support Italian citizens and businesses. At the time, the crisis was hardly felt in the European powerhouses, France or Germany. The EU’s response was slow and inefficient, and Italians started to feel abandoned by European institutions. As the original signer of the Treaty of Rome, Italy is a founding member of the EU and the third largest economy in the eurozone.

On March 12, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, marked a point of no return—she gave a highly anticipated speech outlining the measures the bank would introduce to combat the effects of the coronavirus. Lagarde decided not to cut interest rates, arguing against the policy of “whatever it takes,” as had been outlined by former ECB president Mario Draghi. To Italians, the EU’s indifference was a betrayal. The consequences of her words were immediate—and disastrous for Italian stocks. Even the pro-EU president of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, released a harsh statement asking the EU to correct its ways in the “common interest” of Europe.

The EU did change its position on the COVID-19 response, but not until the health care crisis had spread to France and Germany, making it their problem, too. By then, the damage done to the Italians’ trust in European institutions was already beyond repair. With few viable options left, Italy’s government is now considering the European “Save the State Funds,” asking the EU to implement the €500 billion emergency bailout program from the European Stability Mechanism designed for EU member states—a risky move that may saddle Italy with long-term debt on a scale similar to Greece.

The coronavirus emergency has exposed the failures and flaws of the European Union, while underscoring the importance of nation-states. In Europe, we’ve observed a series of events that have demonstrated the collapse of the supra-national model. First, the borders shut down—Austria and Slovenia acted unilaterally, without asking approval from Italy’s government. The move was also symbolic: Italy was not only isolated, it was abandoned to its own devices.

Globalization may have its efficiencies, but an overwhelmed health care system suffers in the absence of internal production of the necessary materials—life-saving ventilators, infection-preventing hazmat vests, face masks. The global evolution of supply chains exported manufacturing and relied heavily on the cheap imports of essential products from abroad. But with the spread of the coronavirus, many states are now forbidding the export of medical equipment. A good example is Turkey, a country that readily accepts EU funds and that many liberals would like to bring into the Union. Ankara blocked a shipment of 200,000 face masks already purchased by Italy for the hard-hit northern regions of Marche and Emilia Romagna.

The Italians are coming together to fight the pandemic. Many Italian companies have converted production at home: those working in the textile industry have started producing face masks. Italy’s only manufacturer of respiratory equipment, in the province of Bologna, is not able to meet the current needs and relieve the national shortage of ventilators. Army technicians are now helping to increase production capacity.

What has the coronavirus in Italy taught us so far? A great nation is doing what it can to become self-sufficient as the crisis proves daily that the propaganda of the prophets of globalization is false. We see that there are strategic sectors, such as health care, transport, energy, defense, and telecommunications, that have to be considered from the perspective of national security and not strictly business.

This is a new, unspoken understanding that unites Italy today. We have witnessed a return of patriotism: flags are hanging from windows and Italians are singing the national anthem. But there is something else to consider: our freedom. Some politicians, including former prime minister Matteo Renzi, are proposing to monitor the movements of individuals using their phones and data from telecommunication companies to police compliance with the lockdown rules and assess penalties for violations. This smacks of the Big Brother surveillance state. The collection of metadata for statistical ends, as practiced in Lombardy, should be separated from the indiscriminate control of individual citizens. Otherwise an Orwellian precedent will be set. Such an anti-democratic attitude seems to be one of the collateral ideological effects of what President Trump refers to as a “Chinese virus.”

Meanwhile, we are witnessing a dangerous government narrative born out of an emotional response to Chinese “help” in a time of crisis. This narrative, increasingly uncritical of communist China, turns a blind eye to Chinese long-term foreign policy aims and the fact that its help is tantamount to the arsonist helping to put out the fire he started. Only recently did the Chinese government sent medical assistance to Italy—and a propagandist’s camera to capture the event. But no gesture should whitewash the responsibility of the Chinese Communist Party. According to The South China Morning Post, the first case of coronavirus in China can be traced back to November 17, while the Chinese government publicly admitted the existence of the epidemic on January 12, almost two months later.

What is most disconcerting about Italy’s crisis-induced, pro-China narrative is that it is false. It portrays China as a benefactor, claiming that its ventilators are gifts. In fact, Italy paid for them under a regular contract. The grave absence of the EU should not induce the Italians to strike up an uncritical relationship with Beijing.

In the midst of a crisis that makes Italy particularly vulnerable, it is necessary to have a clear mind and remember how China has quickly turned soft power and public diplomacy into hard power and real influence. This is the aim of the new Belt and Road Initiative, described by President Xi Jinping in his book Governing China, which brought billions in investments that stretch through Greece’s Piraeus, the Balkans, and Italy’s north-eastern Trieste region. In May 2019, Italy became the first G7 country to join the Belt and Road Initiative.

Nor should we forget the incompatibility between China’s values and our own, their human rights violations and denial of liberty and democracy. When Mike Pompeo called Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio to emphasize the closeness between the United States and Italy, he also cautioned Italy about its relationship with China, saying, “the day will arrive in which we will evaluate how the world responded” to Beijing’s propaganda. Despite Pompeo’s clear warnings, the Italian government appears unaware of China’s overt imperial ambitions in Europe.

It is too soon to draw long-term economic conclusions from the coronavirus pandemic, but it is clear that those who reacted best are nation-states with the freedom to manage their borders and fiscal policy. When this emergency ends, the legitimacy of EU institutions will no doubt be questioned.

But there is another path Italy may choose: intensifying bilateral relations with the United States, becoming the nexus of commerce in the Mediterranean, increasing its presence in the Balkans and Eastern Europe, and reclaiming its role as a center of Christianity and Catholicism in the world. Making Italy great again is more than a dream—it is an attainable possibility.

theamericanconservative.com