The Atlanticists versus the Autonomists - the European civil war coming soon to a bureaucracy near you.
It’s long been a theme of this show that the continent is being slowly capsized by its long term problems, related to energy and productivity.
We’ll be picking through three news items that tell the short term story of the continent’s woes.
Terrible producer confidence numbers out of Germany, oil prices back to a fresh spike even in the teeth of an incipient recession, and Poland’s Donald Tusk softening the rhetorical ground for continental conscription.
Then, we’ll be panning back.
To look at the dilemma Europe now faces. That between the Atlantacists - who want to shelter under America’s aegis, but thereby have to toe the party line on geopolitics;
and the autonomists - who want to break for something genuinely multipolar, gaining their energy independence, but at sea in an increasingly dangerous world.
The war now spans the continent. And it cuts both ways.
In Germany, the AfD and Sahra Wagenknecht are rising from either side of the political aisle, but both promising to overturn the Atlantacist geopolitical settlement.
Meanwhile, as she gets closer to the French Presidency, Marine Le Pen is kowtowing to the NATO line.
And Georgia Meloni’s promised populist rule has been set back onto the Atlantacists straight and narrow by the Italian presidency.
With constant talk of remilitarising while the continent is broke, are we doomed to spend the next decade stuck in a world where all European citizens are compelled to pretend that our dear leaders are building an army that doesn’t actually exist?
Of course, this is the Premium Week, so we’ll be prancing through this dog and pony show for free for fifteen of those 65 minutes. After that, you’re welcome to sign up on our patreon. Five dollars, pounds or Euros, cancel any time.
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