GLENN DIESEN: Welcome back to the program. We are joined today by Professor Michael Hudson to discuss the very strange case of Europe's economic decline, as well as some of its latest self-harm and questionable decisions. So thank you very much for coming back on.
MICHAEL HUDSON: I'm glad you invited me, Glenn.
GLENN DIESEN: So, I wanted to get into the Europeans joining in on America's tech war, or economic war, against China. But first I wanted to ask a bit about this seizure the Europeans are engaging in. Because as we know they have frozen Russian assets, that is sovereign funds, and there is now growing pressure to seize these funds. That is, as various newspapers write, they're looking for something to make it seem legal to essentially steal the Russian assets, sovereign funds, something that's never been done before. And what makes this unique is the Americans do not want to participate in this because, of course, they would become financial pariahs. Japan doesn't want to. But for some reasons, the Europeans seem quite determined that this is something they should do. What do you make of this decision? Because it is quite complex. They want to take the Russian assets and use it as collateral for a loan, which can't be repaid back.
So, you know, either way, the Russians are not going to get their money back, more or less.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, the question is: Who are the Europeans that we're talking about? I'm not sure it's the European population that seems to be against the war with Russia and Ukraine, and seems to want to simply have an industrial recovery. The Europeans are led by the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the Estonian, her Estonian helper [Kaja Kallas], and by Friedrich Merz of Germany. And the neocons and the NATO groups, Mark Rutte, have all decided that they want to extend the war between Ukraine to Russia into a war between Europe and Russia, or at least to frighten Europe and make Europe think that there's going to be an imminent war, in order to, basically, create a kind of military Keynesianism.
So, let me begin, I think where we've left off, or we've discussed earlier, about this $300 billion Russian deposits with Euroclear, which was the clearing organization centered in Brussels for dealings with Russia's foreign exchange in Euros and dollars. Nobody knows where Euroclear has actually put this $300 billion, or Euros, in assets. It seems to have spread them over many countries, in many investments. There have been many attempts by journalists and by politicians to try to find out where [it is]. Nobody knows where it is. And the Belgian prime minister says, well, since Euroclear is in our country, we only have $10 to $20 billion of this money at stake, but we're against Europe seizing Euroclear.
So, the Germans, and the French, and the other pro-war advocates in Europe, have sought to circumvent this by mobilizing public opinion, by frightening it into thinking that there's an imminent problem.
Ultimately, what they're conjuring up is, well, is Russia going to invade Europe? This is absurd. No country that's developed and has an elected official at the head is going to invade any other country. Land invasions are over. Any fight with Russia is going to be fought by missiles, and only by missiles. It could be air missiles, it could be from submarines, it could be naval missiles, but it's going to be a missile-type fight. The main missiles that people have spoken about so far are the drones.
I think the aim — what Merz and the Europeans, who are trying to set European interests against those of Russia, are trying to do — is [to] achieve this military Keynesianism, based on the ostensible need to fight Russia, or to "defend" itself against Russia, is an extension of this bombing of Ukraine. And that's where the conflict is certainly leading.
Now, the plan of Merz and Germany is to give the money to Ukraine, from the Euroclear, that'll be earmarked in Ukrainian account to buy weapons to fight Russia. Nobody trusts the Ukrainian kleptocracy enough to simply give the $300 billion to Ukraine. It would end up in the pockets of the kleptocrats. But they will create an account for Ukrainians to spend on European armaments. Good news for the European military-industrial complex, whose stocks have been going up, while the other industrial stocks have not followed suit because of the slowdown that was caused ever since the termination of trade for Russian oil and gas.
Well, the news exposed in the last few days is that Merz turns out to have staged alleged Russian drone appearances at airports in Germany in order to whoop up propaganda against Russia, as if it really had some intention of attacking Germany in some way or another. I mean, that's what the drones are doing in Ukraine. And the fact that the drones are such a novel form of transforming the character of warfare in the last three years, you can see how this was the button to push on the German and the European population.
And you've already had the NATO head, Mark Rutte, calling on NATO to be prepared to fight a long-term confrontation with Russia. Well, a "confrontation" means, at some point, a war: that's what NATO is all about. And he claims that the alliance has turned the tide on ammunition. He says NATO's currently winning.
And if you read the European popular press, the mass media, they all say that Ukraine has a chance of beating Russia. It's just fighting to a stalemate! This is completely different from the guests that you've had on your programs who are, like me, reading — What are the Chinese saying, What are the Russians saying? What are reporters throughout all the rest of the world saying? That the Ukrainian war is, basically, over. It's lost, totally.
And the problem for Europe's industrial economies, according to Merz, is, well, if the war in Ukraine has been lost, then what are we going to use all of our weapons for? Who's going to buy our weapons? Not the United States. The United States is asking Europe to buy American weapons for NATO. NATO needs the threat of war in order to maintain the military-industrial production and employment that it seems to have been willing to base the economy on.
Four days ago, Germany's Stern magazine published insider leaks, showing that the whole idea that Russian drones were being used against German airports to sort of sound them out, as if this was all a preparation for Russian bombing of the airports in Germany and Europe, just as it was bombing air transportation in Ukraine. All of this turns out to have been made up by Merz, and orchestrated as a scheme to sort of amplify public fear, and fast-track these lucrative military contracts for the domestic firms.
It turns out that [Merz]'s personal background is a corporate lawyer with deep connections to Germany's arms sector. And from the very beginning in Germany, as the Christian Democratic leader, he's been advocating more defense outlays — saying this is going to lead the German recovery — as if the German industry can recover given the break of relations with Russia, and now the imminent break of relations with China, as well.
So, if these leaks turn out to hold water — and Sahra Wagenknecht in Germany has been very outspoken in trying to get to the bottom of this, and insisting on a public investigation — then it's going to be obvious that Europe has this deep state of NATO and anti-Russian neocons, that is just as serious as the U.S. deep state in pushing for confrontation and, ultimately, war with Russia.
And if you read what Merz has said, it's as if this really isn't about national security at all. It's about securing gains for industrial investors and for a minority, that has hijacked European defense policy and industrial policy. I think the question is: Why are they doing it now? Now that the war is ending, it looks like there's going to be, at some point (and it may take until Spring), a Ukrainian surrender. The Russians are going to take over and appoint a non-Nazi government — replace the whole government in Ukraine.
The intention of Russia is to block any attempt by Europe to send more missiles or arms attacking Russia itself. Russia's aim is simply to isolate itself as much as possible from Europe because it no longer looks at Western Europe as offering an opportunity for mutual gain. It only sees Europe as representing a threat — and if it could make an iron wall isolating Europe? Basically, it's "you leave us alone, we'll leave you alone — but don't get involved."
I think, given the fact that (if and when) the war ends, Russia is now going to have to spend an enormous amount of money rebuilding the Russian-speaking Ukraine (former Ukraine), that is now part of Russia. Donetsk and Luhansk and Crimea have already voted, had a referendum, to rejoin Russia. And Russia is going to need a lot of money.
The opportunity of ending the war in Ukraine offered Russia the chance to say: Well, you are demanding reparations from Russia for the war in Ukraine that you, NATO, started, with the U.S.–British coup d'état of 2014 by the Nazis that overthrew the elected government. (It was NATO in Europe that backed the Ukrainians in an ethnic war against Russian-speaking Eastern provinces.) So, we're the victims, not the attackers.
If there's anyone who owes reparations, it's Europe owing reparations to Russia; but, of course, that would take years and years to settle through the courts. But what Russia, I think, would be willing to agree on is: We're going to use that $300 billion to spend largely in Europe, to start the reconstruction and rebuilding of the real estate, the industry, the economies of Luhansk (Donbass), and other parts of the former Ukraine that are now part of Russia.
And I think that what Merz and the anti-Russian cabal in the European leadership are trying to do is to prevent this opportunity. They don't want Russia to spend its money on Europe to rebuild the Russian-speaking former provinces of Ukraine. They want the money to be spent, specifically, on Europe's military-industrial complex. That's what the whole problem is all about.
GLENN DIESEN: Well, I think a key problem for Europe is also that the war now is, well, the work going on is more or less a condition for the survival of the political West, indeed, Europe itself; because the U.S. has already made its intentions clear, that it wants to reduce its presence, not just in Ukraine, but Europe. But the Americans have now taken this clear position that they will want to make a profit from the weapons. So, the Europeans have to pay for the weapons it sends.
But what was interesting (back in the end of August), it was reported in Reuters that the U.S. told the Europeans that they would begin to pull, a bit, out of the Baltic states. And that's suddenly when you see all this reporting on the drones. So, suddenly, everyone, you know, if they think they saw a drone, but it hasn't been confirmed; or actual drones were seen, but none of them were actually tied to Russia? Many of them were revealed — that there were people flying drones as a hobby — Germans in Germany, for example.
But the narrative remains. That is, not one piece of evidence; but if you put the 0 + 0 + 0, suddenly, you have at least a 1 (one) — in the European math.
But we also see now that the U.S. is gradually pulling some of its troops from Poland [and] Romania; and this is creating some panic. The only thing that can make the U.S., perhaps, change its mind is if there's an actual conflict brewing up, some real threats towards Europe.
Otherwise, yes, I want to say, as well, Europe itself risks fragmenting because the EU's main strength was collective-bargaining power: the ability to stand together; and this transfer of sovereignty towards Brussels would allow for the EU to deliver some tangible economic benefits for its member states. The EU doesn't really do well economically anymore. So, at the moment, unity, to a large extent, depends on the war. Once the war is over, it's very likely that the EU will begin to fragment.
So, I think a lot of this helps to explain why the political leadership in Europe seems so frightened, or desperate, to keep the war going.
MICHAEL HUDSON: But Glenn, the war is creating disunity.
Look at what is happening with Hungary and the Czech Republic. The European Union now is saying, well, under the rules that we've had all along, Hungary is given the ability to block our military spending in support of Ukraine — Hungary has actually been attacked by Ukraine. Article 5 of the NATO [Charter] is dead. A NATO member (Hungary) has been attacked by a foreign power (Ukraine) to destroy its oil supplies that it was getting via Kazakhstan, via Russia. And both Hungary and the Czech Republic — and now there's pressure in other countries, too — saying: We cannot afford the war of Russia. You, Germans, are willing to end your industrial growth and deindustrialize, and impoverish your economy for your ideological hatred of Russia; but we cannot afford your war. We're going to block it.
And so, the European Union wants to change the rules to not permit member countries any longer to have the right to block.
So, what is Hungary to do? Is it to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization? It's being left out.
The war is, I think, not only dividing European countries against each other, it's dividing the European right-wing NATO leadership from the voters, the population as a whole. The voters want secular recovery. They don't want war, because war is going to impoverish them. War will enrich the military firms, that are represented by Merz and the other pro-war leaders. It's not going to really help the economy at all. So, I think it's being divisive.
GLENN DIESEN: No, I think you're very right. And in the long term, the war is just deepening the divisions within Europe. But in the short term, it's seen as something to hold it together. Again, this is part of the problem now: I think there's no strategic thinking where we're actually going with this. But towards this end, though, the need to have the constant tensions with Russia, and keeping the war going with Ukraine, is becoming more difficult now that Ukraine is turning out to be in much worse shape than many European leaders would like to admit.
How do you see this moving forward? Do you think the European leaders have to step in? Because there's a lot of talk now in Europe. You have the former NATO Secretary General arguing that the Europeans, or NATO, should start intercepting Russian missiles and drones from NATO territory. There's more push now to do long-range strikes into Russia — we keep saying "helping Ukraine" — but at the end of the day, this will be our weapons, buttons pushed by our contractors. It will be our targeting, our satellites.
So it's a NATO attack on Russia. And I think more or less this shouldn't be controversial to say anymore.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, it's not controversial in Russia. Both President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov have said that if a missile hits Russia from a NATO country, and even if this missile is launched from Ukraine, if the missile itself is from a NATO country, or steered electronically from Wiesbaden, or any other European guidance center, Russia will retaliate against the countries that produced, or guided, the missile. And that means it's going to do to Germany what it's done to Ukraine. How much will it do it? Will it just begin hitting the military companies, the army bases, the electric-power utilities; or will it be more?
Russia's response will be: You sent a missile against us? We're going to send missiles against you. You, Europeans, have no defense against our new hypersonic missiles. They're not going to be atomic — they don't have to be — but they're enough to disable your industry, certainly your military industry, to disable your ability to send missiles. We can disable not only your arms-makers, but your electronic [and] electrical facilities, your transportation facilities, your railroads, your airports, your ports.
They've been as clear as they can in saying this, to such a point that, given the feelings [of] the Russian voters themselves, saying: You can't just ignore one red line after another, and let Europe escalate. You've got to respond.
We're dealing with a step function here. Russia has tried to warn Europe again and again: here is what's going to happen if you really do "that."
Europe has decided that it wants "that." Apparently, Merz, and Rutte of NATO, believe that Europe needs to be attacked by Russia in order to rebuild its industry. But the attack by Russia is going to prevent it from rebuilding its industry. That's what we call an internal contradiction.
And how do you explain this? It's a tunnel-visioned ideology of, literally, sharing the long-term British hatred of Russia. It has nothing to do with communism, because Russia is not the Soviet Union anymore. It's almost a geopolitical confrontation that leads Europe to share the U.S. neocon view that, well, if only we could divide Russia into four or five small countries, then it wouldn't have the power to, not only threaten us, but to play any positive role in the world at all. And that'll enable us to play a positive role in the world, as America's leading puppets, administering the rest of the world on America's behalf.
I mean, that's a pretty pitiful worldview, but that's where it's all moving towards.
I have other things that I want to talk about in your show. What the European Union has done is saying it's not enough to fight Russia. As Rutte said, this is not only a fight against Russia, it's a fight against Russia's allies: China, Iran, North Korea. This is a war against us, against what almost seems to be the Global Majority. And the first arena in this war has been against China, and it's been by the Dutch, who seem to be even more than Germany, extremists. They confiscated the Nexteria battery company that Chinese firms had bought and developed in Holland to provide a basic stage in transforming silicon wafers into batteries. This is not in itself a national security issue.
And in fact, because it's not a national security issue, it's such a common mundane technology, automobiles, Mercedes, all of the Volkswagen, all the big German car companies, but also industry in general, needs all of these batteries. And batteries are fairly simple, but the technology requires, I'd say, a couple of years to put in place. And so when Donald Trump and the Americans pressed the Dutch government to say, you have to seize any government that China owns 50% or more of, or Chinese investors own 50% or more of, you have to confiscate it as part of our war against China because we, Americans, are not going to join your fight against Russia, but we are going to end up fighting against China as our existential enemy — as the Americans like to put it.
So, the Dutch seized Nexperia and on the grounds that — well, number one, the United States told it to seize it, by designating hundreds of Chinese companies that are owned 50% or more, as free [for] Europeans to grab; and the Dutch grabbed it — and because it said, we worry that Nexperia, given the growing antagonism of the West towards China, is going to move some of its operations to China. And China might do something that we don't like or that to interfere with our control of this bilateral battery trade.
And so we're going to grab the company, take it over, and confiscate it — just like the European companies have confiscated Lukoil's affiliates in Romania, and other European countries. So obviously, China denounced it. The anger in China is very, very clear. And it said, how can you do this? Europe's manufacturing sector is dependent on Nexperia's batteries. It has, I think, millions of its products are sold throughout Europe as not very expensive, but key inputs for automobiles and other basic machinery. And all of this is going to be blocked now. And China said, well, obviously, you know, we're not going to keep selling producing all of this output for companies that have now been seized by the Dutch government in violation of all law, simply because the Americans tell them to. Well, the Dutch responded to say, well, Donald Trump has indeed said he's no longer imposing the 50% rule against China's designated companies.
But that's not why we grabbed it. We were going to grab it anyway because we don't want the Chinese to be in control of a company that so many of our other firms in Holland and throughout Europe actually are dependent on. So they've stopped production, and the Chinese have said, well, you know, we're not going to give you stuff for free. First of all, all future trade with Holland and with other European industries is going to be in our own currency, the RMB, not in Euros. We cannot keep our savings and bill our products in Euros because you may do to us what you just did to Russia. It's obvious we're on the same trajectory there. Ruth has said we're just as bad as Russia because we're importing Russia's oil and that's supposed to help Russia defeat Ukraine and the whole fantasy of interconnections that the Europeans have drawn.
So the Nexperia incident is sort of to China become a whole barometer of Europe's institutional credibility is what the Chinese spokesman have said. And it's unilaterally halted the waiver supplies to Nexperia claiming its own national security for all of this. So I don't see any chance of a resolution for this. The Dutch keep saying, we think the Chinese are going to be reasonable and surrender to us. Well, China's not going to surrender. And in fact, it's blocking key exports, not only raw material, not only rare earths, but other raw materials. There are so many key materials that China is supplying to the West that even if they're alternative sources to Europe, these alternative sources are, first of all, going to be more expensive. And secondly, it's going to take quite a while to put them in place. China has said, well, we are able, of course, to replicate at home what Nexperia was producing in Holland. And it has affiliates all over Europe. Of course, we can do it, but it's going to take a while. And certainly, just to begin exporting these batteries again is going to take three or four months.
Well, the European industries that have been using these imports have all followed just-in-time accounting. They've minimized their keeping of inventories so that they can operate with a lower expense of doing business. So Europe doesn't have inventories of these batteries. And it's going to have to, it's companies all throughout Europe within two months have announced, Mercedes and others, they're going to have to close down their plants because you can't make a car without these simple, basic batteries, raise and lower windows when they go up, you know, automatic control, internal control systems of cars, and they're going to have to lay off the labor force. So, once again, this idea of Europe somehow regaining control of its economy by declaring a trade and investment and financial currency war, extending this war from Russia to China and other countries, is going to be as serious on a smaller scale as Europe's decision not to import Russian oil and gas anymore. Europe is cutting itself off from all of the basic imports from raw materials to semi-manufacturers to other manufacturers, goods that it's become dependent upon. And there's no way that an economy can function without these products.
Well, you can be sure that China is quite aware of this. And when it says, well, it's going to take a while, it's completely Holland's fault for doing this. Well, what it's saying is that, well, let's you European countries fight among themselves to see what the resolution is. And of course, when there's a resolution, there's going to have to be reparations, and China will protect its own national security from future seizure by saying the European leaders are really just like Donald Trump. They're changing the rules at will for their military confrontation. In order for us to avoid our own interruption of our processing and manufacturing, we're going to have to keep our control of our own manufacturing. Europe can, of course, do the same thing. Well, maybe in ten years, let's say seven or eight years, Europe can do its own thing. Its population will fall in half. Mass poverty, the governments will be voted out of office. It'll be a disaster. That is the clearly outlined plan that Merz and von der Leyen, the European Union, European Commission, NATO, the German government, the English government, the French government are pushing for. It's unanimous that the future is for a European collapse, deindustrialization, and it's going to result in a breakup of the European Union. And probably this kind of a breakup is what leads to actual military confrontation and war. And that's where things seem to be leading. It seems crazy, but I don't see when you read what other governments are saying, this is what they're warning Europe about. And the Europeans said, well, that's what we want.
GLENN DIESEN: It's very crazy we ended up in this situation. But the thing is, the Russian market was quite good for Europe. Indeed, it was a very important part of the entire development model. That is not just all the cheap energy which was being supplied by Russia, but also what the Russians were doing with all that money, because they were, to a large extent buying European-produced goods. And if there weren't a special energy project, work in the Arctic, often under the hope of developing this Greater Europe, based on Gorbachev's Common European home idea, often Europe was favored as partners, as well as with the United States, with the assumption that economic connectivity would somehow lead to Russia's gradual integration.
It's just crazy going down this path, because it was the Americans who were pushing very hard for NATO expansion to redivide the continent, remilitarize it. It was the Europeans who, for all these years, worried that we would recreate the Cold War logic, that we would impose these zero-sum civilizational choices on the countries, between NATO and Russia, which could make a choice, which would manifest itself in civil wars, and then proxy wars.
But yet, here we are, and the Europeans are now really doubling down. It's very hard to have anyone actually explain where the national interest comes in here, how this is good for anyone, including Ukraine, for that sake. But no, the Chinese and others are definitely watching because if there would be some push tomorrow for Taiwan to secede, and China would take any actions. why wouldn't the Europeans also take the Chinese funds? Why wouldn't they seize Chinese companies? I mean, it's even the fact that they're discussing this is just, I think, a horrible mistake.
MICHAEL HUDSON: There is a discussion of national interest, and Merz and Rutte and von der Leyen have said: Our national interest is in deindustrializing Europe. Our national interest is anti-labor. Our national interest is war.
That is their idea of national interest. So, it's not what you mean by national interest. When you and I talk about national interests, we use it in the way that it used to be used 50 years ago. It's the interest of the entire economy, if you were saying what is good for the economy, in terms of its material welfare and well-being for the population, the increase in output, and the more equal distribution of this output — that's how you and I, and I think most of your listeners, have defined a national interest.
But the national interest as defined by the European leadership is: No, our interest is the same as in America — the 1%, mainly the 10%. Our interest is in the military-industrial complex. Our interest is the money in our personal pockets, that we get from the bribery from the U.S., from NATO, from the companies that we represent — against the interest of labor and the voters.
So, you have a divergence of national interest, from what used to be called a materialist approach to history: thinking that countries are going to act in their own economic and social and political self-interest, in a democratic way that represents what's good for the population as a whole. This is no longer the meaning of national interest in today's Western economies, from the United States to Europe.
GLENN DIESEN: Well, it's not as if — that will be my last question — it's not as if there were some structural problems before this conflict. That is, if you look at the European economy 20 years ago, it was close to parity with the United States, the EU and the US. But since those days, the divisions between the Americans and Europeans have only increased.
I was wondering, how do you see the reasoning behind this? Is it about the energy cost? Is it about the technological sovereignty, financialization? Or is it just subordinating European interests to economic interests, primarily to U.S. geopolitical interests? Or how do you make sense of how that parity fell? Because that was quite important for the Europeans, the way the Europeans had envisioned the post-Cold War era. It would be a collective hegemony under the U.S. and EU as equal partners. And if you [fast] forward [to] today, as you said, the main objective of the Europeans appears to be to hope that America will accept Europe as a junior partner, if we subordinate ourselves enough — which is a far cry away from where we were 20 years ago.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, Glenn, you know that I'm a financial economist primarily; and so it's hardly a surprise that I trace the whole decline of Europe to its disastrous adoption of the Euro; and its German-backed rules that European governments, including the European Union as a whole central bank, should not create its own money. It has to basically borrow the money and it cannot run a budget deficit more than 5% of the population. Europe at the beginning said we will never, under the rules, be able to apply the same Keynesian policy for economic recovery that the United States, China, and every successful industrial company has. We are going to tie the hands of [the] Europeans' banking and financial system to prevent the government from providing enough credit to enable the economy to grow, as more and more of its national income is spent on finance and economic rent-seeking activities.
The design came from University of Chicago extremists of the hard-money Milton Friedman School. And the United States knew just exactly that by imposing these self-destructive, tunnel-visioned rules on Europe, Europe could not use the modern monetary policy that the United States uses for right-wing purposes, but not for the purposes that Modern Monetary Theory was developed, to help the economy as a whole grow.
So, Europe tied its hands from the beginning, by not being able to have the government play a role. The United States backed politicians who said: Although Europe is joining now, it will be a Europe of corporations. We want the country to be led by [Giorgia] Meloni in Italy. We want exactly the corporatism that Mussolini advocated for Italy. We failed before in World War II. We're not going to fail again.
And this is the craziness of it. Of course, the way in which every industrial economy, including Europe and Germany in particular, developed its industry in the 19th century was a mixed economy with government taking the lead in public infrastructure, and in supporting a central bank supplying credit to the economy, relying on government banking and government rules, steering finance into productive capital formation and tangible investment building factories and employing labor. That's not what Europe is advocating anymore.
And, in fact, I don't think that Europeans spend much attention looking at what made industrial Germany in the 19th century so productive, and enabled it to take the lead; and what made French industry also so productive. Why did it have such a great takeoff in the 19th century to be the economic center of the world? And now it's shrinking onto the periphery? If you compare the difference, it's very largely the role of the government in what was becoming industrial socialism. That it was called "social democracy," which really meant socialism in Germany and the other leading industrial countries of Europe. And now? It turned into finance capitalism, where most European wealth is made financially, not industrially. And the financial sector realizes that it's easier to make corporate and personal fortunes in a shrinking economy, than it is in a growing economy; because in a shrinking economy, you have grabitization. You have insolvency, bankruptcies, you have an enormous concentration of wealth ownership. And you're going to be seeing that in Europe, just as you're seeing that in the United States economy. And that polarization ends up impoverishing the economy as a whole, and also leading to a suspension in democratic freedom of expression, of voting. It neuters the role of voter election of national officials by this overpowering EU control system that turns out to be taken over by a unity of the neocons and the financial oligarchy, basing itself more and more on the military-industrial complex, and its links to the United States, and as a subsidy of these personal companies and personalities — the Tony Blairs of continental Europe and the Merzes — that have been able to take control.
GLENN DIESEN: It is fascinating that the European project, which began after World War II under the Coal and Steel [European Coal and Steel Community], was intended to have transparency, to avoid militarization, and be an anti-war project. Now the EU, more and more, defines itself, in its own words, as a geopolitical Europe in which economic development will be done through military Keynesianism. Well, thank you, as always. Very much appreciate you taking the time. So, thank you.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, I guess it's not too optimistic, unless you look at the prospect of a revolution as being optimistic.
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