The crisis of the European Union is deepening

МОСКВА, 28 декабря 2021, Институт РУССТРАТ.   The crisis of the European Union is a multi-component concept. There is the European migration crisis, the conflict between France and Greece with Turkey, the progressive "green" agenda generating energy and the economic and political crises that follow it, and the pronounced competition of several European contenders for leadership (Germany, France, the UK, Poland, which left the EU), and the absence of a single centre (the conflict of Western "Old" and Eastern "New" Europe), and the loss of the US’ status as the leader of the unipolar world with their fluctuations in the form of withdrawal and return to arbitration of European affairs, and weak leaders of all European states without exception. There is no doubt that the crisis zone includes the EU plus Ukraine associated with it. Any contact with the EU become problematic for its trading partners. Such problems are the EU's vulnerability to US sanctions, the weakness of the European currency relative to the dollar, the dependence of EU policy on Washington's wishes, the threat of involvement of any non-European state trading with the EU in EU conflicts with third countries, the presence of a powerful wing of Eurosceptic conservatives in Europe itself. Another problem for the EU is that after the end of the Second World War, all the political institutions of Europe were under the full control of the United States. This led to the involvement of European business in trade and military alliances with the United States, where Europe's subordination to American foreign policy goals was fixed in place. There was a complete dependence on the American military machine, formed in the form of NATO. The security of Europe was in the hands of the United States, which excluded any possibility of political and military sovereignty for it. The limited subjectivity of Europe generates many risks, since Europe is heterogeneous in terms of economic level, confessional, ethnic and cultural composition, and the arsenal of available means to protect the interests of its members. Eastern Europe, especially Poland, are clear opponents of Western Europe, which allows the United States and Great Britain to play on these contradictions and slow down the development of Germany and France if it threatens Anglo-American interests. Southern Europe is a poor region, forced to follow in the wake of Western Europe and the USA. These are Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Malta, Cyprus, the Balkans and the European part of Turkey. Northern Europe is more orientated towards the USA than on the EU, here three countries are not members of NATO - Sweden, Finland and Ireland. Britain has left the EU and is pursuing an independent policy. Outside the sphere regulated by the EU regulations, there is a zone of divergence expressing the conflict of interests of European states. This conflict is ineradicable by any EU regulations and does not lead to consensus by any general procedures. Here everything is decided by strength, the ability to draw your line without paying attention to pressure. The problem of Ukraine and the related problem of Nord Stream 2 is intensifying the conflict within the EU more than usual. The consolidation of Poland, the Baltic states and Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, which joined them, against Germany and France, allied with it, forces a split between pro-European and pro-American elites. Since 2015, the migration crisis that arose after the outbreak of the war in Syria has been added here. France is in conflict with the United Kingdom and the United States on the issue of the critically important export of military products for it. This creates problems for France with the Eastern European vassals of the United States and Great Britain. Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and the "multi-vector" Belarus are a resource more of the USA than the EU. Armenia, under pressure from the American and French diasporas and the war with Azerbaijan, is trying to please both the United States and France. As a result, it itself becomes a field of rivalry between American and French diplomacy, which creates an opportunity for Great Britain to prevent Armenia from becoming a prize for all participants in the struggle in Transcaucasia through a game with Turkey. The confrontation here between Russia, Turkey, France, the United States and the United Kingdom destabilises the EU, taking the conflict of its constituent states far beyond its framework. "Green" energy, relations with Russia and China, the increased military ambitions of Germany and France, seeking to create their own EU army and distance themselves from the United States, complicate Brussels' arbiter mission. The EU is provoked by the increasing turbulence of the transition from a unipolar world to a multipolar one, as well as by the relative economic and political weakness of Russia, which is unable to prevent the former Soviet republics from leaving the zone of influence of the West. Even some of Russia's own elites remain pro-Western and involved in global trade processes, even as a raw material appendage and periphery. As a result, there is an acute power struggle between pro-Western and anti-Western groups in Russia. Since the pro-Western groups in Russia are not united and are also divided into pro-American and pro-European (or rather American-British and Austro-German-French), there is a conflict in the EU on the issue of fighting with the United States for influence on these groups. In fact, it turned into a rivalry between the EU and the US in the fight for Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. It cannot be assumed that the general anti-Russian approach does not create contradictions within the EU, as well as between the EU and the United States. All the republics that have fallen away from Russia are the prey of the one who will include them in his sphere of influence. Within the framework of NATO, the rivalry between the United States, Turkey, France and Britain is already developing in the battle for Transcaucasia. In the battle for Ukraine and Belarus - between Germany and Poland, Britain and the USA. There is a growing conflict within NATO over the membership of Ukraine and Georgia. This will increase US pressure, which will push Germany and France to force their military project and manoeuvres between the United States, Russia and China. The political subordination of Europe to the United States pushes Germany to be the European leader of a climate agenda that is unprofitable for it in order to maintain allied relations and at the same time cover energy projects with Russia. The EU agrees to an unprofitable ultimatum to curb cooperation with China and to increase the share of "green" energy in its energy balance in order to eliminate threats to its business, dependent on US policy. Even the rise in electricity and gas prices does not affect the obedience of European elites to American directives. But disagreements within the EU are growing, being pushed into the hidden sphere and developing there non-publicly. Europe is not ready for sovereignty, realising that its price may be unaffordable and lead to even greater conflict with the United States and internal division, and European countries will fall under the influence of China, Russia and Great Britain. Objectively, this will lead to a war in Europe that can immediately escalate into World War III. The EU cannot break up either, as it is closely integrated into a single economic system, where leaders bear costs, but receive political gains, and the slaves dependently live on subsidies and exchange loyalty for maintenance. Europe is a powerful technological cluster, where smouldering nationalism, which intensifies during systemic crises, is artificially crushed. The migration crisis is a consequence of the ideological crisis, it has strengthened nationalism in the EU and brought right-wing parties out of the marginal shadow. European liberalism has gone on the defensive and is increasingly losing legitimacy. It is necessary to add here another depopulation crisis. The demography of Europe has no chance of moving to growth within the framework of a liberal dictatorship and weak leaders who fear a quarrel with the United States more than a national catastrophe. By the middle of this century, the decline of the European indigenous population will become an irreversible process, accompanied by the displacement of non-European cultural codes by local migrants. The technological dominance of the minority in Europe will become impossible to maintain with the erosion of the ethnic and cultural core of the scientific community. Science is a phenomenon of the European vector of cultural development, and just as the carriers of ancient civilisations disappeared, so the layer of carriers of European scientific culture disappears under the pressure of politically correct tolerance and depopulation. Chinese and other scientists will not work in Europe and for the benefit of Europe. The quality of European science remains high, but this is largely the inertia of the former system of education and upbringing, formed in the 20th century and in the process of ultra-liberal transformation. Technological decline as a consequence of the demographic catastrophe of Europe is a deferred problem of the West. This will manifest itself in the second half of this century, closer to its end. The generational change in the EU will lead to an even deeper conflict between them. A war of globalists and nationalists awaits young Europeans. The ultra-left and ultra-right will strengthen with the weakening of the centre. The struggle for the subjectivity of Europe will end in failure due to the fact that there will be few European youth, and the one that exists will lose passionarity and face a split in society. The growing popularity of the German “greens" is where the changes in German society are going. European capital, previously split into national and transnational segments, will lose its relative consolidation and will nominate its leaders who will wage a war for the electorate. There is not a single prerequisite for reducing the systemic crisis of the European Union. This is a destructive crisis, since during it no conciliation mechanisms are developed and contradictions are not removed by synthesising initial positions. The European Union is experiencing stagnation, fraught with degradation of elites and society. The institutions of democracy are being emasculated because they are not able to solve problems. Even fascist dictatorships are not able to come to power in this swamp. The EU may become a testing ground for globalist practices in the style of Schwab, but this is associated with the loss of even its current symbolic subjectivity. If ultra-liberalism wins in the EU, then it will not need a new geopolitical subjectivity.