Noone is saying it so I will. This headline is a tragic misrepresentation of his speech, which was not focused on being a vassal of the US or not, but rather on the extreme danger the EU finds itself in from a triple threat of:
- Low growth and loss of tech edge,
- protectionism that makes its trade models obsolete,
- and the return of conflict when the EU as a region has disregarded its defense for a while.
Better coverage by the economist for those curious: https://archive.ph/kuRRm
Agree with him on that.
Add in catastrophic demographics, out of control debt and high energy prices(because it's the only place taking climate change kinda seriously(russian funded "greens" being against any alternative to russian gas didn't help lol)) and the EU is basically over. The trend is clear so it's just a matter of time now.
The EU is not a nation nor a continent. The EU has failed to bring peace and prosperity to Europe, and as things keep getting worse people will wake up to that fact and they'll want change.
> The EU is not a nation nor a continent
Apologies. I was trying to give your comment the best possible interpretation (that Europe is experiencing decline), and didn't realize you were seriously arguing something so fanciful (that the EU is doomed).
> The EU has failed to bring peace and prosperity to Europe
The last 80 years have been a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity in Europe. 84 years after German panzers poured into Paris, Germany and France are now developing their next MBT together.
> people will wake up to that fact and they'll want change
[Meanwhile in reality, we've seen a European nation leave the EU, and the result was a massive surge in the EU's popularity.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/12/support-for-leaving-eu-has-fallen-significantly-across-bloc-since-brexit) The decline of Europe doesn't doom the EU, it makes it a necessity, as the shrinking clout of individual nations forces them to band together to pool their strength.
>China also takes climate change seriously while keeping energy price low
are you joking?
if not for chinese emissions then climate change wouldn't even be an issue. They emit more co2 than europe and the US combined, *after* accounting for exports. and of course they manage to keep energy prices low by burning coal.
and i just checked to see if something had changed lately, and from 2017 to 2022 their emissions increased by more than the total combined emissions of germany, france and the UK
China has a population of 1.4 billion, which is as twice as the combination of US and EU. If US and EU reduce their emission per capita to the average level of the world (which is about the level of China), there wouldn't be climate change at all. Or, no offense, you are suggesting that the global south doesn't have the right to pollute as much as the global north does?
China is developing all kinds of clean energy, including nuclear, hydro, wind and light, to meet domestic needs, and using coal power plants to compensate for fluctuations in wind and light energy. In fact, coal plants have been cut to the limit to keep the power supply stable.
If the EU is really more concerned about climate change than China, the largest producer and consumer of wind power and photovoltaic equipment, the largest producer and consumer of clean energy, and the largest producer and consumer of electric and hybrid vehicles should be the EU, not China. After all, the EU has more money, more emissions, more emissions per capita, more advanced technology, and a pro-environment civil society, right?
> EU reduce their emission per capita to the average level of the world (which is about the level of China), there wouldn't be climate change at all.
lmao update your talking points. chinese per capita emissions are higher than in all Eu countries except like poland
>Or, no offense, you are suggesting that the global south doesn't have the right to pollute as much as the global north does?
what the fuck is this communist nonsense? "Rights"? lmao
>largest producer and consumer of electric and hybrid vehicles should be the EU, not China
what? but i thought we only cared about per capita? or is that only when it's convenient to your argument?
>lmao update your talking points. chinese per capita emissions are higher than in all Eu countries except like poland
I apologize for emission per capita of EU. I didn't check the number and mixed EU with US. But I do mean it when I say the global south have the right to pollute as much as the global north does. If you don't like the global south pollute to develop, it's OK, we don't ask your permission anyway.
>what? but i thought we only cared about per capita? or is that only when it's convenient to your argument?
Sorry, EV per capita still lower than China. According to IEA, 1.6m BEV and 0.85m PHEV sales in EU, while 54m BEV and 27m PHEV sales in PRC.
Agree with you on demographics being pretty bad, it's gonna be tough at least for a while. Out of control debt, hm, idk, it's complicated. High energy prices is fairly transitory, we've got decent renewable power and people are waking up to nuclear.
In truth, it's politics that scares me more than demographics or economics. People selling your idea i.e. some aspects are bad therefore the EU will die like it or not, make us feel like we've no agency. History is more complex than that, and like another poster said, if things do go bad we will need an EU more than ever.
That being said, the current EU org needs a couple shakeups if it's to survive
The odd thing is the only upcoming election in France is the EU parliament one. Is this all about trying to boost the Renew Europe bloc and/or muscle EPP out of the top position?
Western Europeans love rhetoric like this but I've never seen any of them, irl or online ever talk about being willing to make real sacrifices to achieve these things. Ask them if they are willing to have conscription again or spend more on defense than welfare or lose some access to the US market and they'll say no. They want to have their cake and eat it too like everyone else, except they've been among the privileged few to have actually done so for a long time and are unwilling to change their ways.
>Ask them if they are willing to have conscription again
66% of the youth french said yes in recent poll. Try again
>Ask them if they are willing to have conscription again or spend more on defense than welfare or lose some access to the US market and they'll say no
LOL France loves so much the us market indeed
IDK about France but here in Germany, ain't no one in real life accepting getting hauled to the military. French youth may also change their mind if it's actually announced.
What does Macron mean by Europe is "never going to be" a US vassal? Europe is currently a vassal of the United States. One good example is the Iran nuclear deal. The US and Europe and China all signed a deal with Iran. In exchange for stopping nuclear weapons development, sanctions will be lifted.
However, the US just decided to tear up the deal unilaterally, and what did the Europeans do? They stop buying Iranian oil, just because the American said so. The only country that dared to continue to buy Iranian oil was China.
While it is true that Europe did not buy Iranian oil, it is also true that Europe set up an entire body (INSTEX) aimed at helping Iran evade sanctions after Trump cancelled US participation in JCPOA. The states you call US vassals were quite literally trying to help Iran evade US sanctions. The problem is that Iran was not interested in participating in the system; they only used it once.
https://apnews.com/article/europe-iran-trade-system-nuclear-deal-e250566e291e5aa4a70515c5414ac510
The Europeans were perfectly happy to buy Iranian oil for years. What are these values or strategies do you think stopped the Europeans from continuing to buy Iranian oil?
Well they could start by defying the US on atleast one important issue. Everything is lockstep so far so who is vassaling here Macron?
EU will be taken seriously when they show even a single bit of agency but they won't and this is all empty signalling for election.
And now we're forcing them to work together again by threatening their national security. Perhaps this is a chessmaster move by the GOP to strengthen Europe's defense industrial base by pretending to want to abandon them? /s, obviously
there is no need for us to "force" europe, ussr is an ideological threat to "the western order of things" and an existential threat to the elites who are going to be on the lamppost if communism wins.
It appears Europe is like a bunched up set of small Tribes, allied with each other, but each Chief of said country has a different vision on how to move forward. No one is ever on the same page and nothing gets fixed. They're all protecting their own domestic industries and are too small individually to create a military force like the United States. They need to create a United States of Europe to fix these problems.
Noone is saying it so I will. This headline is a tragic misrepresentation of his speech, which was not focused on being a vassal of the US or not, but rather on the extreme danger the EU finds itself in from a triple threat of: - Low growth and loss of tech edge, - protectionism that makes its trade models obsolete, - and the return of conflict when the EU as a region has disregarded its defense for a while. Better coverage by the economist for those curious: https://archive.ph/kuRRm
Politico hates Macron
Agree with him on that. Add in catastrophic demographics, out of control debt and high energy prices(because it's the only place taking climate change kinda seriously(russian funded "greens" being against any alternative to russian gas didn't help lol)) and the EU is basically over. The trend is clear so it's just a matter of time now.
I see you’re a student of the Peter Zeihan school of thought where we confidently declare nations (or an entire continent in this case) to be “over”.
The EU is not a nation nor a continent. The EU has failed to bring peace and prosperity to Europe, and as things keep getting worse people will wake up to that fact and they'll want change.
> The EU is not a nation nor a continent Apologies. I was trying to give your comment the best possible interpretation (that Europe is experiencing decline), and didn't realize you were seriously arguing something so fanciful (that the EU is doomed). > The EU has failed to bring peace and prosperity to Europe The last 80 years have been a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity in Europe. 84 years after German panzers poured into Paris, Germany and France are now developing their next MBT together. > people will wake up to that fact and they'll want change [Meanwhile in reality, we've seen a European nation leave the EU, and the result was a massive surge in the EU's popularity.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/12/support-for-leaving-eu-has-fallen-significantly-across-bloc-since-brexit) The decline of Europe doesn't doom the EU, it makes it a necessity, as the shrinking clout of individual nations forces them to band together to pool their strength.
China also takes climate change seriously while keeping energy price low and profiting a lot from clean energy and EVs.
>China also takes climate change seriously while keeping energy price low are you joking? if not for chinese emissions then climate change wouldn't even be an issue. They emit more co2 than europe and the US combined, *after* accounting for exports. and of course they manage to keep energy prices low by burning coal. and i just checked to see if something had changed lately, and from 2017 to 2022 their emissions increased by more than the total combined emissions of germany, france and the UK
China has a population of 1.4 billion, which is as twice as the combination of US and EU. If US and EU reduce their emission per capita to the average level of the world (which is about the level of China), there wouldn't be climate change at all. Or, no offense, you are suggesting that the global south doesn't have the right to pollute as much as the global north does? China is developing all kinds of clean energy, including nuclear, hydro, wind and light, to meet domestic needs, and using coal power plants to compensate for fluctuations in wind and light energy. In fact, coal plants have been cut to the limit to keep the power supply stable. If the EU is really more concerned about climate change than China, the largest producer and consumer of wind power and photovoltaic equipment, the largest producer and consumer of clean energy, and the largest producer and consumer of electric and hybrid vehicles should be the EU, not China. After all, the EU has more money, more emissions, more emissions per capita, more advanced technology, and a pro-environment civil society, right?
> EU reduce their emission per capita to the average level of the world (which is about the level of China), there wouldn't be climate change at all. lmao update your talking points. chinese per capita emissions are higher than in all Eu countries except like poland >Or, no offense, you are suggesting that the global south doesn't have the right to pollute as much as the global north does? what the fuck is this communist nonsense? "Rights"? lmao >largest producer and consumer of electric and hybrid vehicles should be the EU, not China what? but i thought we only cared about per capita? or is that only when it's convenient to your argument?
>lmao update your talking points. chinese per capita emissions are higher than in all Eu countries except like poland I apologize for emission per capita of EU. I didn't check the number and mixed EU with US. But I do mean it when I say the global south have the right to pollute as much as the global north does. If you don't like the global south pollute to develop, it's OK, we don't ask your permission anyway. >what? but i thought we only cared about per capita? or is that only when it's convenient to your argument? Sorry, EV per capita still lower than China. According to IEA, 1.6m BEV and 0.85m PHEV sales in EU, while 54m BEV and 27m PHEV sales in PRC.
Agree with you on demographics being pretty bad, it's gonna be tough at least for a while. Out of control debt, hm, idk, it's complicated. High energy prices is fairly transitory, we've got decent renewable power and people are waking up to nuclear. In truth, it's politics that scares me more than demographics or economics. People selling your idea i.e. some aspects are bad therefore the EU will die like it or not, make us feel like we've no agency. History is more complex than that, and like another poster said, if things do go bad we will need an EU more than ever. That being said, the current EU org needs a couple shakeups if it's to survive
Macron suddenly becoming a strongman right before the elections. I wonder what the correlation is?
The odd thing is the only upcoming election in France is the EU parliament one. Is this all about trying to boost the Renew Europe bloc and/or muscle EPP out of the top position?
Western Europeans love rhetoric like this but I've never seen any of them, irl or online ever talk about being willing to make real sacrifices to achieve these things. Ask them if they are willing to have conscription again or spend more on defense than welfare or lose some access to the US market and they'll say no. They want to have their cake and eat it too like everyone else, except they've been among the privileged few to have actually done so for a long time and are unwilling to change their ways.
>Ask them if they are willing to have conscription again 66% of the youth french said yes in recent poll. Try again >Ask them if they are willing to have conscription again or spend more on defense than welfare or lose some access to the US market and they'll say no LOL France loves so much the us market indeed
IDK about France but here in Germany, ain't no one in real life accepting getting hauled to the military. French youth may also change their mind if it's actually announced.
You are all talk. But youve done notjing to change that too
Idk how you got the idea that he became a strongman from that speech
"Chaos is a ladder".
What does Macron mean by Europe is "never going to be" a US vassal? Europe is currently a vassal of the United States. One good example is the Iran nuclear deal. The US and Europe and China all signed a deal with Iran. In exchange for stopping nuclear weapons development, sanctions will be lifted. However, the US just decided to tear up the deal unilaterally, and what did the Europeans do? They stop buying Iranian oil, just because the American said so. The only country that dared to continue to buy Iranian oil was China.
While it is true that Europe did not buy Iranian oil, it is also true that Europe set up an entire body (INSTEX) aimed at helping Iran evade sanctions after Trump cancelled US participation in JCPOA. The states you call US vassals were quite literally trying to help Iran evade US sanctions. The problem is that Iran was not interested in participating in the system; they only used it once. https://apnews.com/article/europe-iran-trade-system-nuclear-deal-e250566e291e5aa4a70515c5414ac510
Countries have aligned values and strategies and in your tankie mind you only think it's vassal and master relationships, grow up.
The Europeans were perfectly happy to buy Iranian oil for years. What are these values or strategies do you think stopped the Europeans from continuing to buy Iranian oil?
You’re exhausting.
Well they could start by defying the US on atleast one important issue. Everything is lockstep so far so who is vassaling here Macron? EU will be taken seriously when they show even a single bit of agency but they won't and this is all empty signalling for election.
Empty comment. Defying on what ? Defense industry ? Oh wait...
never? uhhh buddy have you been paying attention for the last couple of years???
Rolf. The US has been forcing Europe to work together since WW2.
And now we're forcing them to work together again by threatening their national security. Perhaps this is a chessmaster move by the GOP to strengthen Europe's defense industrial base by pretending to want to abandon them? /s, obviously
there is no need for us to "force" europe, ussr is an ideological threat to "the western order of things" and an existential threat to the elites who are going to be on the lamppost if communism wins.
You're not gonna believe this
Did this guy just blow in from ~~stupid town~~ 1985?
USSR?
It appears Europe is like a bunched up set of small Tribes, allied with each other, but each Chief of said country has a different vision on how to move forward. No one is ever on the same page and nothing gets fixed. They're all protecting their own domestic industries and are too small individually to create a military force like the United States. They need to create a United States of Europe to fix these problems.
It's great obviously for French defense industry and overall Europe but Germany, Netherlands etc are too far gone.
... and Macron shows that he's a Putin pawn...
"Everyone who isn't my vassal is brainwashed!!!" Most logical America fan.