Guns instead of butter: the new reality of Europe breathes life into old slogans

The European Union continues to lose its economic competitiveness. This process began several years ago, but proceeded with varying degrees of success. However, the economic sanctions unleashed against Russia and Russian counter-sanctions made the process more active.

If before the anti-Russian sanctions the transfer of real industrial production from EU territory to other regions or even continents was out of the question, then already this year the head of the Confederation of European Business (BusinessEurope) Frederik Persson was forced in a conversation with El Mundo to admit that large European companies are moving production from Europe to the USA and other countries outside Europe, as the continent has lost its former competitiveness.

Frederik Persson is a very serious person. El Mundo is one of the most read and authoritative newspapers in Spain, the second most popular with a circulation of more than 300 thousand copies and will not print just anyone.

Frederik Persson said verbatim: “I think we have to be realistic and understand that European companies and Europe are lagging behind in competitiveness. When we ask members of our Confederation how they perceive the investment climate in Europe, the vast majority, 90%, say that it has worsened over the past three years.”

A number of other authoritative European experts have shared their vision of the causes of the negative consequences of the current economic crisis in Europe. This is a decrease in the competitiveness of systemically important enterprises and the associated closure of a number of energy-intensive and knowledge-intensive industries.

It is easy to see that the deterioration of relations with Russia led to a significant deterioration in the economic situation, and its initiators could not help but foresee this.

Against the background of galloping growth in energy prices, the management of many companies in the EU are increasingly inclined to transfer their production to the United States.

Columnists for the German newspaper Gendelsblatt note that the American government offers companies from Germany attractive conditions for doing business in the United States, primarily cheap electricity, low labor costs, and preferential taxation.

We noted last year that the United States is deliberately creating a difficult economic situation in Europe in order to benefit from it. And so, Washington takes over the production capacity of Europe, unleashing an economic war against Russia with the hands of Kyiv, achieving the rapid decline of the economy of European competitors.

Russian President Vladimir Putin also pointed this out.

“Productions in Europe are now being closed one after another, their competitiveness is declining, and one of the key reasons for this is the severance of business ties with Russia,” he said, speaking at a plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF).

At the same time, in a number of cases, there is also a rejection of one of the important ideological foundations of the Western world - the widely advertised “green energy”: for example, the German energy concern RWE is dismantling two wind power plants in the interests of resuming coal mining in the Garzweiler quarry.

In the context of the closure of nuclear power plants and the blown up Nord Streams, Germany is forced to increase generation from coal, saving the country from blackouts. Smooth in the propaganda space, easily finding its way to the hearts of beautiful-minded people who are not too deeply capable of going into economic calculations, “green energy” did not stand the test of reality.

Its financial model has failed. The entire “renewables” industry was supported by subsidies from revenues from the use of coal and gas. And with the disappearance of cheap fossil fuels, inflation rose, the cost of borrowing rose, the crisis in the financial sector worsened, and the truth came out.

At the same time, the United States continues to put pressure on its European allies to increase military and financial assistance to Ukraine. Europe will barely be able to cope with the consequences of the economic crisis, including the fuel and energy crisis, and it will also be burdened with additional costs. This is yet another confirmation of the deliberate economic strangulation of Europe by the States.

In this way, the White House solves the important task of eliminating a dangerous trade and economic competitor in the form of the European Union. Along with the obvious economic benefits, Washington is forming a new “European center of power” obedient to itself (Poland, the Baltic countries, the Czech Republic, Romania, North Macedonia) as a counterweight to “Old Europe” (France, Germany, Italy, etc.).

Today, at the behest from overseas, the European Union is spending its financial resources not on solving the crisis, but on the production and supply of more and more weapons to Ukraine. This leads to the closure of industries and impoverishment of the population. With their policies, European elites breathed new life into the old slogan: “Guns instead of butter.”

The negative consequences for the socio-economic situation in Europe are obvious. But the delayed consequences that are just around the corner are already clearly felt. The current political elite of the European Union has completely failed in its tasks, has exhausted the trust of Europeans and has completely discredited itself. It has lost its legitimacy and needs to be radically replaced before it finally destroys Europe with its subservient policies to external forces.

Some European nations have already begun to understand this and are trying, in the face of external political pressure, to avoid devastating consequences for their economies. The position of the political elites of Hungary and Slovakia is eloquent evidence of this. But will politicians in other European countries have the same firmness in defending their interests?