Whatever the economic merits and demerits of this deal, politically it's a disaster, as this article indicates. There wasn't even an attempt to sell this to the public. But as there are no elections until 2028, I expect major changes in strategy in a year or so, otherwise the center-right parties in charge now will be wiped out in favor of the anti-American factions of the far right and far left.
My suspicion is that there's a quid-pro-quo regarding Ukraine. Economically, the EU is in a strong position, but militarily, a mercurial US has the EU over the barrel due to the Ukraine war.
I predict that Europe's notoriously hard-nosed negotiators (Brexit) will ramp up the pressure as the midterms get closer and if the situation in Ukraine improves.
The kind of conditions for peace Russia seems to be going for allows them an unfair position to restart the war in a few years, or pressure Ukraine to become a satellite state for Russia with threat of a new invasion.
This is via demanding Ukraine imposes restrictions on their armed forces, Ukraine giving up territories Russia doesn’t even control today but which are awfully convenient invasion grounds in a potential future attack on Kyiv and declaring Western peacekeepers in Ukraine post-war as a dealbreaker by their FM.
Not to even mention denying any future entry to an alliance like NATO.
And all this by a country that has a record of breaking such agreements time and time again.
Russia is free stop killing Ukrainians at any minute they want, why are you suggesting that Europe's support should stop and Ukraine must cease their defence?
That is always funny how ruzzian supporters follow victim blaming patterns.
Ukrainian war could be ended anytime, ruzzians can simply go home instead of dying for $20000.
The second option to end the war is for Ukrainians to surrender. To surrender their country, culture and future. And become in 10 years a part of ruzzian occupation army somewhere in Estonia.
> European security depends on winning the Ukraine war.
This is absurd.
Before 2021 and people were told to "care" about it, Ukraine was a "Westworld" type place for Europeans and others.
If European security depends on Ukraine, why didn't Europe sent any troops there?
This is very new, we fight an existential war now without sending any troops, money should be enough.
Anyway the fact is almost 4 years in Ukraine is probably dead demographically. You can't really reboot a country after having so much of its "fighting age" male population dead. Especially because the one who will be left will be deranged, violent and addicted to all sort of things.
And then having this type of nightmare on or within your borders is another pandora box.
So now whether the EU declares it wins or looses the war, it has lost anyway.
On the EU internal politics side, we are literally living in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. No need for much explanations.
> Anyway the fact is almost 4 years in Ukraine is probably dead demographically. You can't really reboot a country after having so much of its "fighting age" male population dead.
You should actually look up the facts before making assumptions. Or, for example, actually visit Ukraine. Currently conscription is between ages 25 and 55; mobilization of younger men is not done specifically to ensure the next generation is not depleted, and men of all ages are fighting. You're actually more likely to get called up if you are in your 30's and 40's than if you are younger.
There's about five million males currently in Ukraine in that age range, of which under 100,000 have been killed and under 500,000 wounded. That's just not an existential crisis at all. Germany the country survived WW2, and about half of their male population died in the war.
This matches the on-the-ground reality: I've visited plenty of Ukrainian cities during the war, and there are plenty of males of all ages. Including young males. Any crisis they face is the same birthrate crisis that all developed countries face. And hopefully, the psychology of war will help reverse that --- Israel also has a notably high birthrate.
> Especially because the one who will be left will be deranged, violent and addicted to all sort of things.
I personally know quite a few Ukrainian soldiers who have seen action. They're all well functioning people. Combat when you're on the side of good rather than evil doesn't have the psychological toil people think it does. It's not nothing. But the supermajority of people recover just fine and go on to lead productive lives.
An important part of that is recognizing that Ukraine is up against an irredeemably evil enemy. You were killing orcs, not men.
I sure hope you are right but I wouldn't trust too much the official numbers we are told. We know during a war every incentive is there too minimize the causalities of one side. The real number usually appear long after and are always much larger.
> Germany the country survived WW2, and about half of their male population died in the war.
One way to see it is Germany and Europe did not really even survived WWI. The demographic shock and the trauma then lead directly to WWII. At the end Europe has been a shadow of itself since. Most of the problems Europe have today are rippling effects of the deep traumas of the two WW.
Let's say just a third or half the men between 25 and 55 are dead/badly wounded/traumatized/addicted, it will destroy the next generation and society.
Just look on much smaller scale at what the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq did to the US in the last 20 years. Even the few professionals and volunteers who fought it abroad brought back a lot of problems still clearly visible in today american society.
This is why those type of wars need to be avoided or stopped at all cost.
Compared to who/what/when? The US? China? Not a chance. Economically, the EU is as weak now as it ever was.
About 2 decades ago, EU had the same GDP as the US, or even slightly more. Now it's at half of the US and stagnating or even shrinking due to a series of issues it has no solution to, since a lot of it's economy hasn't recovered much post-2008 crash. The EU knows the economic deck is not staked in its favor so it has to bend over to the US now. 2 decades ago the EU would have been able to fend of such actions from a hostile US administration and even more so fron China. But it can't today because it's twice as weak and the US and China are much stronger.
And it's actually very easy to understand why we're here in this situation. If you look at the government budgets in most EU countries today, about a third everywhere is going to welfare and retirement spending with retirement spending dwarfing absolutely everything else in the country by far, with some pensions being higher than some full time wages, which is absurd IMHO. Now, caring for the people and the elderly is noble and all, but you can't win any competition against nations that take that third of GDP that you spend on retirees and they spend it on on economic and military development instead. You just can't win like this, straight up, the math doesn't math. Eventually over the long run, they'll economically or militarily conquer you. So you'll have to choose between spending on providing a cushy lifestyle for retirees, or ensuring a prosperous future for your country.
EU fell asleep at the wheel for over two decades and woke up today that it needs to start the fire again, but it has no money to do so because it's in a economic downturn, an energy crisis, a demographic crisis, a cost-of-living crisis, political extremism crisis left and right, and war next door needing to fight all these fires at once. Very bad timing for EU, and China, Putin and Trump know this and are taking full advantage of "buying the dip" now in Europe the same way European powers were "buying the dip" in their (former) colonies in Africa and across the world. All, and I really mean ALL countries, engage in economic imperialism every chance they get, and Europe somehow forgot its own lesson thinking they are somehow untouchable.
The EU economy is $20T vs USA $30T, so 60%. Also, Britain was part of the EU 2 decades ago. The EU economy has almost doubled in that time, with large regional differences (Ireland, Poland on fire, southern Europe flat), but the USA has done better than the eu average.
I wouldn't mind "security in exchange for better economic treatment" deal, but I don't understand how anybody still trusts US in terms of security. They clearly showed that they fear Russia, plus Trump made several allegations that they may not provide military help even to NATO allies. I am from Poland, theoretically we have US troops stationed here but over 70% of population (including myself) don't believe they will stay here long once we're attacked.
US got concrete economic concessions in writing in exchange for words about security.
A good example we just saw today. Countries with security arrangements with the USA can be bombed freely by those with more favor with the current US leadership.
My guess the negotiators had somehow the information that the tariffs will soon be declared illegal so would be smart to let the narcisist think he won, I hope I am right and there is still rule of law in USA.
Is there such a thing as the "anti American far right"? As far as I can tell, all these wannabe despots are buddy-buddy with Trump, Musk and MAGA in general.
This trite comment obscures the long history of transatlantic ties on the far right, from American businesses supporting Nazi Germany[1] and Hitler drawing inspirations from America's immigration, segregation and eugenics policies[2] through the murky events around Operation Gladio later in the 20th century[3] and into the 21st century "dark enlightenment" hyper-online right[4].
Well, the American far right is now also anti-American...
Just as it was in the pre-WWII timeframe. Henry Ford could have taught Elon Musk a thing or two about racial purity. And if there's even a smidgen of truth to Smedley Butler's testimony about the so-called Business Plot...
None of what's happening now is new. We just forgot, that's all.
There are clearly in the EU some far-left parties who believe that being part of NATO and/or following the foreign diplomacy of the US is not in our best interests.
I am leftist of the opinion that being in NATO is against european interest. However, I don't see it (and I don't think I am alone in that view) as an antiamerican position as such, more like internationalist position of rejecting imperialism. I believe all countries would benefit by having less nuclear weapons, for instance.
They think things will go back to normal. Once/if they do, they think (probably correctly) that the "normal" rulers will reward those who deferred to the crown despite disliking the one who wore it.
That's the essence of normalcy to them. They cannot imagine any alternative to the US foreign department dictated world order - or they just don't want to imagine it.
They rose in a system where imagination in foreign policy matters -- well, if they had it, they wouldn't have risen to the top in this system. The height of irresponsibility to them is to imagine something outside the present order (such as Varoufakis making practical plans for leaving the Euro during the Greek debt crisis). The very action of imagining things threatens the stability which is the base of everything they actually value, which is little more than peer prestige and comfort for themselves.
Wow there is a lot to unpack here.. Firstly don't speak as if 'they' in some absolute consensus please, in the EU we are nothing if opinionated about our own interests, hence the amount of bureaucracy and the length of time it takes to enact certain things.
> They cannot imagine any alternative to the US foreign department dictated world order - or they just don't want to imagine it.
Dictated or not, you're missing the main point that we are 'aligned'. Why would we not embrace an open and free market. That's what works for the EU itself and so when a world leader also shared the same policies, naturally we would embrace that and vice versa. It's not some dictator sitting in the US, a good example of this are how many products are not allowed to be sold in the EU from the US due to health risks we asses as unacceptable. We decide that, free market.
> The height of irresponsibility to them is to imagine something outside the present order (such as Varoufakis making practical plans for leaving the Euro during the Greek debt crisis)
Again you are assuming that mitigations and considerations haven't been considered, there are MANY provisions for leaving the EU, but why would we focus primarily on those situations when we as a union have a parliment to come together and work together. That is always the priority. We don't have one overarching federal system. We have a collection trading block who internally are independant and externally we can negotiate trade deals as one union, meaning better deals. That's it.
> The very action of imagining things threatens the stability which is the base of everything they actually value, which is little more than peer prestige and comfort for themselves.
This makes no sense and it's purely conjecture. Is the EU perfect, no, does anyone think it is, nope. Is it constantly in flux to improve, absolutely.
Sure, it's how I see them. My view of them has been pretty good for me personally, for predicting what they're going to do, though.
I'm sure they have considered a very limited number of mitigations, but nothing radical. But they always end up with the default choice. Do you disagree? If so, tell me when they did something the slightest bit imaginative or radical, or even surprising. I don't think you even disagree with me, you just think it's good that they don't.
> Why would we not embrace an open and free market.
Because it's not actually on the table when dealing with Trump?
I see no benefit in ginning up tensions for myself, but I accept that there are power centers that do benefit from it. In a very practical sense, having a slightly less bad situation is better than a bad one.
I could offer a real life anecdote, but I am not certain where you are going with this conversation.
Trump is "making deals" by making the other option worse. But the problem is, if you take the current best option, that may not be the deal for long. He may do it again... and again...
"I am altering the deal. Pray that I do not alter it further."
When dealing with someone like this, don't play the game the first time.
I don't disagree. It is a reasonable and forward looking consideration. That said, it may be a little late to do that. Not to mention, for all the talk about how Americans being unable to handle hardship, higher prices and whatnot.. I am reasonably certain that this extends to most of the '1st world'.
Yeah but EU leadership did everything in their powers to work themselves into these set of cards. I would bet Russian political elites are laughing their asses of because they were successful in their pivot to Asia and away from Europe. Into a westless world order, where they are actually sitting at the table and are not part of the menu.
Europe just fell for Trump's oldest trick: ask for the world and get a large concession in return. Doesn't anyone in EU know how to deal with con men like Trump? Look at other countries like China and Brazil. They're not conceding anything.
Trump has backed down on most of the outrageous tariffs (200% tarriff on China). The alternative was a false reality that the EU believed because they are scared of Trump and bad at negotiating.
I'm glad the American people at least know how weak the EU is, we should elect someone next time that will bring those tariffs up to 100%, and the EU will have to take it because it's better than a 200% tariff alternative. That's just being realistic, right?
As far as I know (am I mistaken?) the US reduced tariffs to 10% in return for China reducing tariffs to 10%, and reducing restrictions on the exports of rare earths.
That sounds more like China backed down than the US did.
The EU is a lot weaker than China. China dominates critical areas of manufacturing, and does not have the level of dependence Europe (non-EU as well) has on the US - I hardly need remind people here of the dependence in IT systems.
This is a rather confused view of the situation. 30% tariffs on EU imports would be very bad for _the US_.
Trump tends to present trade as a zero sum game, but it very much isn’t; outside of limited scenarios (generally developing countries protecting otherwise unviable local industry with targeted tariffs), tariffs generally hurt both sides.
Europe took PTO after the wall fell, and stayed on it long enough that now a new generation has grown up thinking its the norm. Tech? We have the US's tech. Defense? We have the US's defense. Energy? We have Russia's and the US's energy
Obviously Europeans don't want to be the US's b*tch, but even more so they seem to want heavy regulations ensuring their right to relax and cripple growth, err, evil corporations.
But the fact that US's diplomatic policy USED TO make us not want to do it.
Europe using US tech was a bonding measure between the two parties.
We can quickly and easy build european "FAANG" overnight, even now more with AI search making it easy to replace Google.
We even already have it: think Ecosia, Protonmail etc. There are tons of those.
The same is for social media. It would be very easy to flip a social media app akin to Instagram, or FB.
The issue is getting users and have alignment that this would be the "european version".
We never had to do this, or think of it, because US had a very benevolent and good relationship with Europe, and US big tech used to make us feel even more connected.
Doesn't the existence - and lack of adoption - for Ecosia and similar services suggest that Europe cannot easily build FAANG overnight?
Technically, we can do it.
But unless we go the Chinese route of blocking US vendors, a lot of people will always flock to the better product that has the bigger marketing budget. And there I do not see how Ecosia could compete with Google, Xing with LinkedIn, Mistral with OpenAI, OHV/IONOS with AWS, or Hetzner with GCP.
Europe cannot easily build FAANG because it requires punishing working conditions and free/low tax capital flow. It would also have the side effect of creating many European billionaires and skewing wealth equality metrics.
All the things that Europe prides itself on having transcended, are the things needed to build theses industries. So while it's totally physically possible, and Europeans are both smart and industrious (well they ancestors were industrious at least), the knife in the side of Europe is the prevailing psyche of low-work/high-benefits as a human right.
Sorry; it is Europe’s fault. They could have taken the hundreds of billions in savings from not having to fund a defense industry and used that to fund amazing technologies for this moment.
> By 1980, Europe was rebuilt. What did they do then?
No it wasn't, and also the EU wasn't even in it's crawling stages. Negotiations were still taking place about EU memberships so no, you are objectively wrong.
> Continue to depend on the US for both tech and military.
In what sense? For the cold war? That was benefiting who?
You seem to be moving the goalposts. Nobody had to wait for EU membership to complete their rebuilding from WWII. Nobody had to wait for EU membership to establish a tech industry. By 1980 they had everything they needed, and the "needed to rebuild from WWII" excuse was over.
To claim that the EU does not have competitors to AWS or Google Cloud or AWS because it had to rebuild it's countries after the war is more than a stretch.
The internet economy started in the early 90s, 45 years after the war ended in Europe.
GP is correct the EU rested on it's laurels, it wrongly thought that the US would always be there in case of crisis. This was a big mistake and now the chicken have come home to roost.
> GP is correct the EU rested on it's laurels, it wrongly thought that the US would always be there in case of crisis. This was a big mistake and now the chicken have come home to roost.
The EU didn't rest on it's laurels, it spent and is STILL spending time ensuring no MORE wars happen internally. That involves a LOT of negotiating between countries, cultures and goverments. The US didn't have any of that. Do you know how complicated and long it took to get even Ireland into the EU, even when the UK left, there is so much beuracracy between Ireland and the UK it was one of the blocking points.
How, when the EU was an infant in the 90's are we as a block supposed to start throwing investment collectively into a new thing nobody's heard about before, and then convince the newly joined countries, who are struggling to adapt to a Union, balancing individual currencies at the time also.
People clearly have absolutely no idea about the history of the EU and Europe in general and therefore should take a step back from giving their opinions as if it's some kind of insight.
> It wrongly thought that the US would always be there in case of crisis. This was a big mistake and now the chicken have come home to roost.
Again, it was not an assumption, it was an agreement. After WW2. Yet again you're showing either your ignorance or unwillingness to consider what you're saying.
> The EU didn't rest on it's laurels, it spent and is STILL spending time ensuring no MORE wars happen internally. That involves a LOT of negotiating between countries, cultures and governments. The US didn't have any of that. Do you know how complicated and long it took to get even Ireland into the EU, even when the UK left, there is so much bureaucracy between Ireland and the UK it was one of the blocking points.
First you claim that the lack of tech companies rivaling with the US ones is because the EU countries had to rebuild themselves after the war and now you claim that is because the EU itself was just a baby back in the 90s and that somehow stopped Europe from producing these types of companies.
> People clearly have absolutely no idea about the history of the EU and Europe in general and therefore should take a step back from giving their opinions as if it's some kind of insight
People who claim to have all the answers should refrain from engaging with other people as their feelings could get hurt in the face of reality.
The fact of the matter is that Google, AWS, Microsoft an consorts have existed for multiple decades at this stage. The fact is also that the EU has been preaching about digital sovereignty for the last 10 years++ and that barely anything has come out of it.
The same can be said for the defense of the EU countries which basically has consisted in the EU countries joining NATO because they decided that outsourcing their own defense was cheaper instead of building a proper European military alliance between themselves.
The reason is the same, this military alliance would have required to actually invest in their own armies and taken cash away from other things.
> Again, it was not an assumption, it was an agreement. After WW2. Yet again you're showing either your ignorance or unwillingness to consider what you're saying.
Is the agreement, the article 5 from NATO? Because if it is, this is an agreement for countries to support each other militarily in case of aggression but the agreement never stipulated that the EU should become completely reliant on the US goodwill to insure it's territorial sovereignty.
In fact the NATO agreement specifically stipulates that all member countries need to invest a set amount each year in their own defense and guess what, only a few of them actually fulfill the term of this agreement. So who is at fault here?
If I make contract with you and you don't fulfill your end, am I wrong to think that it is null and void?
The EU is waking up with it's pants down after multiple decades of under investment in many strategic sectors but instead of taking the blame and trying to fix the issue, we just point fingers and claim some sort of wrongdoing. That is the problem here.
It's time for the EU leaders to grow up and make amends and course correct or be relegated to the dustbin of history.
> First you claim that the lack of tech companies rivaling with the US ones is because the EU countries had to rebuild themselves after the war and now you claim that is because the EU itself was just a baby back in the 90s and that somehow stopped Europe from producing these types of companies.
There are more than one single reason for things to happen, again highlighting that the EU had other priorities at the time.
> The same can be said for the defense of the EU countries which basically has consisted in the EU countries joining NATO because they decided that outsourcing their own defense was cheaper instead of building a proper European military alliance between themselves.
I completely agree with you here, NATO is our saving grace but really even this feels uncertain these days.
> In fact the NATO agreement specifically stipulates that all member countries need to invest a set amount each year in their own defense and guess what, only a few of them actually fulfill the term of this agreement. So who is at fault here?
Complete complacency and thinking that there will not be any war once everyone is economically dependant on eachother and the US is always there. Agreed.
> It's time for the EU leaders to grow up and make amends and course correct or be relegated to the dustbin of history.
Again I agree with you, I'm not saying there wasn't some complacency, but it's not as simple to get things to move in EU, which again, is both a blessing (everyone is 'kind of' catered for) and a curse, things move unacceptably slow. The sentiment seems to be changing and I have to be optimistic about it and push my local politicians to get the finger out. I don't accept the nihilism I'm seeing though.
I really am not saying that the EU did everything right, just that it's not as simple for the EU to get everything done as it seems to people. I would have much preferred we had our defense infrastructure in place properly before we started investing in tech.
The problem now is that institutions are literally infected with strongly US leaning people. I don't even mean politicians but just people who tied their careers and lives to some US technology. Look at Microsoft - there is whole industry of IT admins who have lifetime of experience in that Microsoft stack. You will have many Microsoft former employees at top positions at universities teaching programming with Microsoft stack.
Even in just economical sense it never really made sense when you have local companies like SUSE that could give you well functioning IT infrastructure. The money would at minimum stay in EU. It probably made sense for export of the talent (which countries don't make money on) but you just locks yourself to infinite Microsoft payments.
There are many conservative european corporations (like postal services) that never were on Microsoft stack. It was always hailed as the "poor" economical but secure solution. They probably still reap benefits. But afaik it was always uphill battle with governments because of the strong lobby from US.
Imagine if the europe started to switch to something like SUSE. It would make so many peoples skills immediately outdated. So many will fight this.
It is the fault of the EU leaders. No question about it.
> Under the presidency of Charles de Gaulle, France pursued diplomatic independence and promoted a vision of European collective security that conflicted with American leadership in NATO, especially regarding the integration of member states' armed forces under a US-led unified command and the control of NATO’s nuclear arsenal.
Charles de Gaulle believed that France and the EU countries should stay out of NATO so that it could foster it's own military defense, yet the French leaders and their other EU countreparts decided that it was much more convenient to have the US as a back-stop because they needed the cash that should have gone to their armies for other purposes. This has been happening for decades.
That lead to the situation that we are in today where most of the EU's defense strategy is in fact subsidized by the US. The NATO EU countries despite signing the treaties have barely managed to keep up with the minimum NATO required spending on their own defenses.
And the EU could have a thriving competitor to silicon valley that had US engineers falling over themselves to come. There are a lot like me who would love to do so (even giving up some salary) but the opportunities aren't there.
And I'm astonished Hetzner hasn't built a proper AWS competitor already.
I think there is contradiction in that what makes europe attractive is the thing that doesn't allow building Silicon Valley. You cant't have Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon... without intense surveillance and financial speculation. That are things that europeans view as bad (atleast they say that).
Best what europe could hope for is finding different tech path than SV. That path most likely won't be as profitable but that might be OK. In a way companies like Hetzner might already be on that path of not trying to replace AWS.
What is much more likely is that europe will just become even more reliant on US tech. But it will be because of politic not for technical inability.
Yes, the reality that China and the US are driving is that you can't take off 5 weeks in the summer, have 42 public holidays a year, only work until 4pm, and not be able to fire underperforming people and hope to be magically be competitive.
I know this isn't popular, and I wish it was different too, but you can't have it both ways.
The EU could defend itself against Russia on its current budget.
Germany had to reduce its army as part of the reunification deal and is now criticized for not having a big army. Only France has nuclear weapons and the incentive to spend huge amounts on defense while being dependent on leased and US controlled nukes is not great. Do you prefer that all EU countries get their own nukes?
The EU has real tech like ASML, Airbus, Siemens, Alsthom etc. What the US calls "tech" is not regarded as vital in the EU and somewhat belittled. This kind of "tech" is only possible with US hype and massively speculative investments.
The US is begging (and blackmailing with tariffs) countries from all over the world to build factories in the US. That doesn't sound like a great success.
Energy? The US tries to control all energy choke points of energy flow to the EU. The Nord Stream sabotage was hailed as a great operation, enabling the US to sell overpriced LNG to the EU. The US leased a corridor from Azerbaijan to Turkey to control vast amounts of natural gas from Turkmenistan. A Trump adjacent billionaire floated the idea to buy and revive Nord Stream.
What exactly should the EU do? Switch to nuclear energy and buy uranium from Russia like the US does (the US also buys fertilizer)?
The EU needs to do the things that it has prided itself on not doing for the last 30 years. That is the fundamental problem, and I don't see how it can change. Germans work 400 hours less per year than Americans. 400! That's 50 days!
How do you get people to work 50 more days a year without mass voting to keep (or even "improve") the status quo?
And this doesn't even touch on the heavy regulatory side, which just makes the EU a generally unattractive place to invest.
Airbus is more profitable than Boeing and has fewer accidents as of late. Maybe you don't mix up bolts in a door if you are more fresh mentally.
Companies are free to pay overtime, and the salaries would still be less than in SV. So you could absolutely found a software company in the EU with the same amount of work hours in a competitive manner and still pay less than in the US (under the assumption that the hours are really needed, which I doubt).
The real advantage that the US has is that they can more easily exploit users because there are no privacy laws.
The fact you need to compare companies that are 50+ years old, because Europe doesn't have a single competitive modern age company should be enough for me to rest my case, and enough for Europeans to do so serious reflecting.
Americas golden child of 1960 now sucks, oh well. In other news Nvidia has a market cap that nearly eclipses the GDP of Germany. Ah! ASML makes the machines for those chips! But then why isn't the EU reaping the fruit...
Telling Europeans to develop their own tech is hardly in the interest of US corporations...
Europe is on track to slip into stagnation (if it isn't already) and they seem to think that they can regulate/bureaucrat their way out of it ("If companies aren't making money, make it illegal to not make money!" level thinking).
Once economic conditions get tight, which will happen on the current trajectory, especially with a bunch of pensioners in the pipeline and not enough young people to fund it[1], the EU will fracture and the resentment and finger pointing will begin. Nationalist energy will explode (which is already forming), and Russia will be licking it's lips. Think of what Europe would be right now if daddy USA didn't bankroll half of Ukraines aid, including tons of USA weapons and tech.
Economic faltering will put Europe in either full scale war (who knew forgotten history can repeat), or they will be back at daddy USA's doorstep begging for protection.
Or they will need to fill the gaps with AI, which will probably be US tech AI at this point.
I don’t believe it. Part of the deal is that EU has to buy certain amounts of LNG and weapons from the US. That sounds like a win for the US, but the EU wanted to secure this anyway, to build up defence, send equipment to Ukraine, and reduce dependence on Russian gas.
Sure, that's why Germany was building NordStream-2. EU secretly just wants to buy Russian gas because it's cheap and easy.
I guarantee ~5 years after the war is over new deals will be made in place to start pumping gas from the biggest gas station in the world which is right next to EU.
> EU secretly just wants to buy Russian gas because it's cheap and easy.
It's no secret, reliable cheap source of the most important resource on the planet right now is essential for any economy today.
What do you expect us to do? Please enlighten me. Buy from ships for much higher prices because the US doesn't like Russia ?
There's a war on now and we are reducing our dependency greatly, did we get complacent, absolutely. Are we working towards getting away from it, absolutely.
Your attitude is just negative for negatives sake.
And we still don't even know what we paid for the COVID vaccines. They're about to roll out ChatControl with exemptions for themselves, while they're using Signal with disappearing messages despite transparency of government rules... I'm not feeling a lot of love for our leadership recently tbh.
People are clueless about economics, so such polls are irrelevant. It can still have been a bad deal, of course, who knows, given the specifics of trade deals with Trump are ever changing.
Ultimately it just reflects the EU's largely self-inflicted economic weakness.
It's simply another nail in the coffin of the narrative that the EU countries need the "EU" to survive.
The EU was sold as tool that would bring prosperity to the EU countries and this is less and less the case as the years go by. Sure, you have a few bright spots here and there but those are few and far between.
Spain, Italy, Greece and the other sick "countries" of Europe were sacrificed in the 2010s to save the Euro and now France and Germany are going through some tough soul-searching.
Then there is the the growth of many Euro septic parties throughout Europe which are gathering steam year after year.
The EU needs to reform itself very quickly because for a lot of people, the question that is being asked is: do we really need it?
UK is much better without EU. Or actually it is not?
Countries don't need EU to survive, but growth and development is better in the union. Try to travel somewhere outside the EU. Get a visa, exchange money, get health insurance, get sim for roaming.
Everyone is so accustomed to benefits of the union that forgot how it was without it.
"Benefit the US". Nonsense. Trade barriers hurt both sides. And if the US wants to lower its trade deficit and/or bring back manufacturing some things that actually make economic sense are: stop being the reserve currency of the world, raise your interest rates, and start running a government surplus instead of deficit. Ah... you notice that all of these things are the opposite of what the idiot in charge of the US is actually doing. Well, the shortened summary of the whole thing is that the US is the very curious case of a superpower attempting to become a third world country. So who is actually winning here? Well, if the rest of the world decides to start doing some more free trade, the one losing is at the least very clear.
You know, trump is all about optics. If you have no idea what is actually going on it may well look like the mascot is the most important person on the field. Trump has made it its life purpose to be a mascot. In the meantime the collapse is brewing in the back.
...the US is the very curious case of a superpower attempting to become a third world country...
The really sad part... Argentina already went down this path with Peronism. They weren't a super-power, but they were economically very successful. And then they weren't.
Can you support this claim? From cursory reading (and looking at GDP per capita), the failure was of neoliberal policies (which caused several massive crises), not peronism.
Aspects of Peronism likely contributed to Argentina's fall. Authoritarianism led to political instability and frequent coups. Trade barriers prevented the nation from taking advantage of global trade. Spending on welfare and price subsidies accelerated inflation.
I think part of the issue is that "Benefit the US" heavily confuses the beneficiary. Is the the organization that identifies by the flag and holds the land? Is it its various owners? Is is the government? And if it is, which part thereof? Is the population? When? Now? In the potential future?
None of this is specified -- on purpose -- to muddle the waters, because the reader will read into it what they want to read.
Europeans finally understanding what imperialism feels like to the rest of the world. Perhaps we will even grow a spine or develop empathy, hopefully sooner rather than later.
The EU has benefitted trillions of euros over the decades by leaning on the US for defense spending and subsidizing amazing healthcare benefits for their citizens.
Their gamble did not pay off because they mis-underestimated Russia.
Now the check has come due, but it was inevitable assuming Russia was always going to do this.
Regardless, this is the result of the Russian invasion.
> Their gamble did not pay off because they mis-underestimated Russia.
Like all economies we depend primarily on fossil fuels. It's unfortunate that we can get it ridiculously cheap from Russia but that's the free market. We are working more than anyone else to remove all dependency, but don't start pointing fingers at us just because we purchased the cheapest fossil fuel we could for ourselves. We don't all have the luxury of invading oil rich countries, or have massive reserves ourselves.
EU is a big customers of lots of stuff from US military vendors so US didn't exactly give things for free to the EU either.
Should have EU relied less on US and actually spend those agreed upon 2%+ of GDP like Poland, Finland and others have and be self reliant? Yes. Very much so.
Whatever the economic merits and demerits of this deal, politically it's a disaster, as this article indicates. There wasn't even an attempt to sell this to the public. But as there are no elections until 2028, I expect major changes in strategy in a year or so, otherwise the center-right parties in charge now will be wiped out in favor of the anti-American factions of the far right and far left.
My suspicion is that there's a quid-pro-quo regarding Ukraine. Economically, the EU is in a strong position, but militarily, a mercurial US has the EU over the barrel due to the Ukraine war.
I predict that Europe's notoriously hard-nosed negotiators (Brexit) will ramp up the pressure as the midterms get closer and if the situation in Ukraine improves.
I think many Americans don't understand that the war in Ukraine is not a hobby for Europe like the Vietnam/Korea/Afghanistan/Iraq war were for the US.
European security depends on winning the Ukraine war.
Anders Puck Nielsen explains it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxapAZRYJ6I
This is why it makes sense to eat the tariffs as long as it keeps the weapons flowing from the US and why EU doesn't mind much paying for them.
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The kind of conditions for peace Russia seems to be going for allows them an unfair position to restart the war in a few years, or pressure Ukraine to become a satellite state for Russia with threat of a new invasion.
This is via demanding Ukraine imposes restrictions on their armed forces, Ukraine giving up territories Russia doesn’t even control today but which are awfully convenient invasion grounds in a potential future attack on Kyiv and declaring Western peacekeepers in Ukraine post-war as a dealbreaker by their FM.
Not to even mention denying any future entry to an alliance like NATO.
And all this by a country that has a record of breaking such agreements time and time again.
Is this really a sound deal Ukraine should take?
Sure, Vlad.
If Russia stops fighting, they lose the war. If Ukraine stops fighting, they lose the country.
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>> They will take all the Russian speaking parts like Odessa
That's a ruzzian dream.
Ruzzians can afford to take few villages near the front line, destroying every building in the process.
Odessa? Why not Kyiv? There is no way they can take any major city, especially one of the biggest one.
The best deal they can get is to keep occupied territory, without any recognition.
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Russia is free stop killing Ukrainians at any minute they want, why are you suggesting that Europe's support should stop and Ukraine must cease their defence?
The Ukrainians have lost a lot of men. Do u want more to die?
That would be up to the Ukrainians, Vlad. Not my call.
And it's also up to Putin, of course.
That is always funny how ruzzian supporters follow victim blaming patterns.
Ukrainian war could be ended anytime, ruzzians can simply go home instead of dying for $20000.
The second option to end the war is for Ukrainians to surrender. To surrender their country, culture and future. And become in 10 years a part of ruzzian occupation army somewhere in Estonia.
> European security depends on winning the Ukraine war.
This is absurd.
Before 2021 and people were told to "care" about it, Ukraine was a "Westworld" type place for Europeans and others.
If European security depends on Ukraine, why didn't Europe sent any troops there?
This is very new, we fight an existential war now without sending any troops, money should be enough.
Anyway the fact is almost 4 years in Ukraine is probably dead demographically. You can't really reboot a country after having so much of its "fighting age" male population dead. Especially because the one who will be left will be deranged, violent and addicted to all sort of things.
And then having this type of nightmare on or within your borders is another pandora box. So now whether the EU declares it wins or looses the war, it has lost anyway.
On the EU internal politics side, we are literally living in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. No need for much explanations.
> Anyway the fact is almost 4 years in Ukraine is probably dead demographically. You can't really reboot a country after having so much of its "fighting age" male population dead.
You should actually look up the facts before making assumptions. Or, for example, actually visit Ukraine. Currently conscription is between ages 25 and 55; mobilization of younger men is not done specifically to ensure the next generation is not depleted, and men of all ages are fighting. You're actually more likely to get called up if you are in your 30's and 40's than if you are younger.
There's about five million males currently in Ukraine in that age range, of which under 100,000 have been killed and under 500,000 wounded. That's just not an existential crisis at all. Germany the country survived WW2, and about half of their male population died in the war.
This matches the on-the-ground reality: I've visited plenty of Ukrainian cities during the war, and there are plenty of males of all ages. Including young males. Any crisis they face is the same birthrate crisis that all developed countries face. And hopefully, the psychology of war will help reverse that --- Israel also has a notably high birthrate.
> Especially because the one who will be left will be deranged, violent and addicted to all sort of things.
I personally know quite a few Ukrainian soldiers who have seen action. They're all well functioning people. Combat when you're on the side of good rather than evil doesn't have the psychological toil people think it does. It's not nothing. But the supermajority of people recover just fine and go on to lead productive lives.
An important part of that is recognizing that Ukraine is up against an irredeemably evil enemy. You were killing orcs, not men.
I sure hope you are right but I wouldn't trust too much the official numbers we are told. We know during a war every incentive is there too minimize the causalities of one side. The real number usually appear long after and are always much larger.
> Germany the country survived WW2, and about half of their male population died in the war.
One way to see it is Germany and Europe did not really even survived WWI. The demographic shock and the trauma then lead directly to WWII. At the end Europe has been a shadow of itself since. Most of the problems Europe have today are rippling effects of the deep traumas of the two WW.
Let's say just a third or half the men between 25 and 55 are dead/badly wounded/traumatized/addicted, it will destroy the next generation and society.
Just look on much smaller scale at what the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq did to the US in the last 20 years. Even the few professionals and volunteers who fought it abroad brought back a lot of problems still clearly visible in today american society.
This is why those type of wars need to be avoided or stopped at all cost.
>Economically, the EU is in a strong position
Compared to who/what/when? The US? China? Not a chance. Economically, the EU is as weak now as it ever was.
About 2 decades ago, EU had the same GDP as the US, or even slightly more. Now it's at half of the US and stagnating or even shrinking due to a series of issues it has no solution to, since a lot of it's economy hasn't recovered much post-2008 crash. The EU knows the economic deck is not staked in its favor so it has to bend over to the US now. 2 decades ago the EU would have been able to fend of such actions from a hostile US administration and even more so fron China. But it can't today because it's twice as weak and the US and China are much stronger.
And it's actually very easy to understand why we're here in this situation. If you look at the government budgets in most EU countries today, about a third everywhere is going to welfare and retirement spending with retirement spending dwarfing absolutely everything else in the country by far, with some pensions being higher than some full time wages, which is absurd IMHO. Now, caring for the people and the elderly is noble and all, but you can't win any competition against nations that take that third of GDP that you spend on retirees and they spend it on on economic and military development instead. You just can't win like this, straight up, the math doesn't math. Eventually over the long run, they'll economically or militarily conquer you. So you'll have to choose between spending on providing a cushy lifestyle for retirees, or ensuring a prosperous future for your country.
EU fell asleep at the wheel for over two decades and woke up today that it needs to start the fire again, but it has no money to do so because it's in a economic downturn, an energy crisis, a demographic crisis, a cost-of-living crisis, political extremism crisis left and right, and war next door needing to fight all these fires at once. Very bad timing for EU, and China, Putin and Trump know this and are taking full advantage of "buying the dip" now in Europe the same way European powers were "buying the dip" in their (former) colonies in Africa and across the world. All, and I really mean ALL countries, engage in economic imperialism every chance they get, and Europe somehow forgot its own lesson thinking they are somehow untouchable.
The EU economy is $20T vs USA $30T, so 60%. Also, Britain was part of the EU 2 decades ago. The EU economy has almost doubled in that time, with large regional differences (Ireland, Poland on fire, southern Europe flat), but the USA has done better than the eu average.
I wouldn't mind "security in exchange for better economic treatment" deal, but I don't understand how anybody still trusts US in terms of security. They clearly showed that they fear Russia, plus Trump made several allegations that they may not provide military help even to NATO allies. I am from Poland, theoretically we have US troops stationed here but over 70% of population (including myself) don't believe they will stay here long once we're attacked.
US got concrete economic concessions in writing in exchange for words about security.
A good example we just saw today. Countries with security arrangements with the USA can be bombed freely by those with more favor with the current US leadership.
My guess the negotiators had somehow the information that the tariffs will soon be declared illegal so would be smart to let the narcisist think he won, I hope I am right and there is still rule of law in USA.
Is there such a thing as the "anti American far right"? As far as I can tell, all these wannabe despots are buddy-buddy with Trump, Musk and MAGA in general.
Not sure if this is generally known, but historically, going back as far as the second world war, the European far-right has been quite anti-American.
This trite comment obscures the long history of transatlantic ties on the far right, from American businesses supporting Nazi Germany[1] and Hitler drawing inspirations from America's immigration, segregation and eugenics policies[2] through the murky events around Operation Gladio later in the 20th century[3] and into the 21st century "dark enlightenment" hyper-online right[4].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_collaboration_with_Na... [2]: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691183060/hi... [3]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/jun/24/terrorism [4]: https://archive.is/A3Gb1#selection-2423.27-2423.39
Well, the American far right is now also anti-American...
Well, the American far right is now also anti-American...
Just as it was in the pre-WWII timeframe. Henry Ford could have taught Elon Musk a thing or two about racial purity. And if there's even a smidgen of truth to Smedley Butler's testimony about the so-called Business Plot...
None of what's happening now is new. We just forgot, that's all.
no. there isn't. there is also no anti-america far left. especially not in the context of any future negotiations with the US.
There are clearly in the EU some far-left parties who believe that being part of NATO and/or following the foreign diplomacy of the US is not in our best interests.
I am leftist of the opinion that being in NATO is against european interest. However, I don't see it (and I don't think I am alone in that view) as an antiamerican position as such, more like internationalist position of rejecting imperialism. I believe all countries would benefit by having less nuclear weapons, for instance.
Communist far leftists hating America has been a thing all over Europe. They said far left, not just left.
No True American
Tbh. I think more that everyone just names a number to make Trump happy and that it's not enforced.
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> There wasn't even an attempt to sell this to the public.
EU policy about everything in a nutshell. We are not consulted or taken into account about absolutely anything. What would we even do about it?
They think things will go back to normal. Once/if they do, they think (probably correctly) that the "normal" rulers will reward those who deferred to the crown despite disliking the one who wore it.
That's the essence of normalcy to them. They cannot imagine any alternative to the US foreign department dictated world order - or they just don't want to imagine it.
They rose in a system where imagination in foreign policy matters -- well, if they had it, they wouldn't have risen to the top in this system. The height of irresponsibility to them is to imagine something outside the present order (such as Varoufakis making practical plans for leaving the Euro during the Greek debt crisis). The very action of imagining things threatens the stability which is the base of everything they actually value, which is little more than peer prestige and comfort for themselves.
Wow there is a lot to unpack here.. Firstly don't speak as if 'they' in some absolute consensus please, in the EU we are nothing if opinionated about our own interests, hence the amount of bureaucracy and the length of time it takes to enact certain things.
> They cannot imagine any alternative to the US foreign department dictated world order - or they just don't want to imagine it.
Dictated or not, you're missing the main point that we are 'aligned'. Why would we not embrace an open and free market. That's what works for the EU itself and so when a world leader also shared the same policies, naturally we would embrace that and vice versa. It's not some dictator sitting in the US, a good example of this are how many products are not allowed to be sold in the EU from the US due to health risks we asses as unacceptable. We decide that, free market.
> The height of irresponsibility to them is to imagine something outside the present order (such as Varoufakis making practical plans for leaving the Euro during the Greek debt crisis)
Again you are assuming that mitigations and considerations haven't been considered, there are MANY provisions for leaving the EU, but why would we focus primarily on those situations when we as a union have a parliment to come together and work together. That is always the priority. We don't have one overarching federal system. We have a collection trading block who internally are independant and externally we can negotiate trade deals as one union, meaning better deals. That's it.
> The very action of imagining things threatens the stability which is the base of everything they actually value, which is little more than peer prestige and comfort for themselves.
This makes no sense and it's purely conjecture. Is the EU perfect, no, does anyone think it is, nope. Is it constantly in flux to improve, absolutely.
Sure, it's how I see them. My view of them has been pretty good for me personally, for predicting what they're going to do, though.
I'm sure they have considered a very limited number of mitigations, but nothing radical. But they always end up with the default choice. Do you disagree? If so, tell me when they did something the slightest bit imaginative or radical, or even surprising. I don't think you even disagree with me, you just think it's good that they don't.
> Why would we not embrace an open and free market.
Because it's not actually on the table when dealing with Trump?
It might be less beneficial than the previous position, but nonetheless more beneficial than the alternative.
If the deal was the best available then its not "selling out", its being realistic.
That's what Europeans tell themselves, but showing weakness just sets them up for more humiliation.
I see no benefit in ginning up tensions for myself, but I accept that there are power centers that do benefit from it. In a very practical sense, having a slightly less bad situation is better than a bad one.
I could offer a real life anecdote, but I am not certain where you are going with this conversation.
See https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_danegeld.htm
Trump is "making deals" by making the other option worse. But the problem is, if you take the current best option, that may not be the deal for long. He may do it again... and again...
"I am altering the deal. Pray that I do not alter it further."
When dealing with someone like this, don't play the game the first time.
I don't disagree. It is a reasonable and forward looking consideration. That said, it may be a little late to do that. Not to mention, for all the talk about how Americans being unable to handle hardship, higher prices and whatnot.. I am reasonably certain that this extends to most of the '1st world'.
This is good, once you realize you are weak and accept it, hopefully folks will sit down and have a plan to get stronger.
It’s better than pretending for decades and then getting wiped out.
This was always going to happen eventually.
Yeah but EU leadership did everything in their powers to work themselves into these set of cards. I would bet Russian political elites are laughing their asses of because they were successful in their pivot to Asia and away from Europe. Into a westless world order, where they are actually sitting at the table and are not part of the menu.
Europe just fell for Trump's oldest trick: ask for the world and get a large concession in return. Doesn't anyone in EU know how to deal with con men like Trump? Look at other countries like China and Brazil. They're not conceding anything.
Trump has backed down on most of the outrageous tariffs (200% tarriff on China). The alternative was a false reality that the EU believed because they are scared of Trump and bad at negotiating.
I'm glad the American people at least know how weak the EU is, we should elect someone next time that will bring those tariffs up to 100%, and the EU will have to take it because it's better than a 200% tariff alternative. That's just being realistic, right?
As far as I know (am I mistaken?) the US reduced tariffs to 10% in return for China reducing tariffs to 10%, and reducing restrictions on the exports of rare earths.
That sounds more like China backed down than the US did.
The EU is a lot weaker than China. China dominates critical areas of manufacturing, and does not have the level of dependence Europe (non-EU as well) has on the US - I hardly need remind people here of the dependence in IT systems.
This is a rather confused view of the situation. 30% tariffs on EU imports would be very bad for _the US_.
Trump tends to present trade as a zero sum game, but it very much isn’t; outside of limited scenarios (generally developing countries protecting otherwise unviable local industry with targeted tariffs), tariffs generally hurt both sides.
Trump may present trade imbalances as a zero sum game, I am pretty sure he does not believe it.
The real thinking is that being a net importer gives you more negotiating power so you can use that to get a better deal.
its well worth looking at what people like Miran and Bessent said (before they were in government) to see what is driving all this.
Man, you are really butthurt about the EU, see also your comment on the Mistral/ASML post
Europe took PTO after the wall fell, and stayed on it long enough that now a new generation has grown up thinking its the norm. Tech? We have the US's tech. Defense? We have the US's defense. Energy? We have Russia's and the US's energy
Obviously Europeans don't want to be the US's b*tch, but even more so they seem to want heavy regulations ensuring their right to relax and cripple growth, err, evil corporations.
This isn't Europe's fault.
But the fact that US's diplomatic policy USED TO make us not want to do it.
Europe using US tech was a bonding measure between the two parties.
We can quickly and easy build european "FAANG" overnight, even now more with AI search making it easy to replace Google.
We even already have it: think Ecosia, Protonmail etc. There are tons of those.
The same is for social media. It would be very easy to flip a social media app akin to Instagram, or FB.
The issue is getting users and have alignment that this would be the "european version".
We never had to do this, or think of it, because US had a very benevolent and good relationship with Europe, and US big tech used to make us feel even more connected.
Doesn't the existence - and lack of adoption - for Ecosia and similar services suggest that Europe cannot easily build FAANG overnight?
Technically, we can do it.
But unless we go the Chinese route of blocking US vendors, a lot of people will always flock to the better product that has the bigger marketing budget. And there I do not see how Ecosia could compete with Google, Xing with LinkedIn, Mistral with OpenAI, OHV/IONOS with AWS, or Hetzner with GCP.
>Doesn't the existence - and lack of adoption - for Ecosia and similar services suggest that Europe cannot easily build FAANG overnight?
Even mentioning Ecosia in the context of FAANG alternatives is embarrasing. Ecosia is a wrapper around Bing and has less than 200 employees.
Europe cannot easily build FAANG because it requires punishing working conditions and free/low tax capital flow. It would also have the side effect of creating many European billionaires and skewing wealth equality metrics.
All the things that Europe prides itself on having transcended, are the things needed to build theses industries. So while it's totally physically possible, and Europeans are both smart and industrious (well they ancestors were industrious at least), the knife in the side of Europe is the prevailing psyche of low-work/high-benefits as a human right.
Sorry; it is Europe’s fault. They could have taken the hundreds of billions in savings from not having to fund a defense industry and used that to fund amazing technologies for this moment.
Wups
> Sorry; it is Europe’s fault.
Did everyone forget after WW 2 central Europe had to rebuild basically all of its infrastructure ?
The hubris in this chat today is deafening.
That was true... 80 years ago. But it's not 80 years ago any more.
By 1980, Europe was rebuilt. What did they do then? Continue to depend on the US for both tech and military.
> By 1980, Europe was rebuilt. What did they do then?
No it wasn't, and also the EU wasn't even in it's crawling stages. Negotiations were still taking place about EU memberships so no, you are objectively wrong.
> Continue to depend on the US for both tech and military.
In what sense? For the cold war? That was benefiting who?
You seem to be moving the goalposts. Nobody had to wait for EU membership to complete their rebuilding from WWII. Nobody had to wait for EU membership to establish a tech industry. By 1980 they had everything they needed, and the "needed to rebuild from WWII" excuse was over.
To claim that the EU does not have competitors to AWS or Google Cloud or AWS because it had to rebuild it's countries after the war is more than a stretch.
The internet economy started in the early 90s, 45 years after the war ended in Europe.
GP is correct the EU rested on it's laurels, it wrongly thought that the US would always be there in case of crisis. This was a big mistake and now the chicken have come home to roost.
> GP is correct the EU rested on it's laurels, it wrongly thought that the US would always be there in case of crisis. This was a big mistake and now the chicken have come home to roost.
The EU didn't rest on it's laurels, it spent and is STILL spending time ensuring no MORE wars happen internally. That involves a LOT of negotiating between countries, cultures and goverments. The US didn't have any of that. Do you know how complicated and long it took to get even Ireland into the EU, even when the UK left, there is so much beuracracy between Ireland and the UK it was one of the blocking points.
How, when the EU was an infant in the 90's are we as a block supposed to start throwing investment collectively into a new thing nobody's heard about before, and then convince the newly joined countries, who are struggling to adapt to a Union, balancing individual currencies at the time also.
People clearly have absolutely no idea about the history of the EU and Europe in general and therefore should take a step back from giving their opinions as if it's some kind of insight.
> It wrongly thought that the US would always be there in case of crisis. This was a big mistake and now the chicken have come home to roost.
Again, it was not an assumption, it was an agreement. After WW2. Yet again you're showing either your ignorance or unwillingness to consider what you're saying.
[0] https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/gatt47_e.htm
So you are now changing your argument.
> The EU didn't rest on it's laurels, it spent and is STILL spending time ensuring no MORE wars happen internally. That involves a LOT of negotiating between countries, cultures and governments. The US didn't have any of that. Do you know how complicated and long it took to get even Ireland into the EU, even when the UK left, there is so much bureaucracy between Ireland and the UK it was one of the blocking points.
First you claim that the lack of tech companies rivaling with the US ones is because the EU countries had to rebuild themselves after the war and now you claim that is because the EU itself was just a baby back in the 90s and that somehow stopped Europe from producing these types of companies.
> People clearly have absolutely no idea about the history of the EU and Europe in general and therefore should take a step back from giving their opinions as if it's some kind of insight
People who claim to have all the answers should refrain from engaging with other people as their feelings could get hurt in the face of reality.
The fact of the matter is that Google, AWS, Microsoft an consorts have existed for multiple decades at this stage. The fact is also that the EU has been preaching about digital sovereignty for the last 10 years++ and that barely anything has come out of it.
The same can be said for the defense of the EU countries which basically has consisted in the EU countries joining NATO because they decided that outsourcing their own defense was cheaper instead of building a proper European military alliance between themselves.
The reason is the same, this military alliance would have required to actually invest in their own armies and taken cash away from other things.
> Again, it was not an assumption, it was an agreement. After WW2. Yet again you're showing either your ignorance or unwillingness to consider what you're saying.
Is the agreement, the article 5 from NATO? Because if it is, this is an agreement for countries to support each other militarily in case of aggression but the agreement never stipulated that the EU should become completely reliant on the US goodwill to insure it's territorial sovereignty.
In fact the NATO agreement specifically stipulates that all member countries need to invest a set amount each year in their own defense and guess what, only a few of them actually fulfill the term of this agreement. So who is at fault here?
If I make contract with you and you don't fulfill your end, am I wrong to think that it is null and void?
The EU is waking up with it's pants down after multiple decades of under investment in many strategic sectors but instead of taking the blame and trying to fix the issue, we just point fingers and claim some sort of wrongdoing. That is the problem here.
It's time for the EU leaders to grow up and make amends and course correct or be relegated to the dustbin of history.
> First you claim that the lack of tech companies rivaling with the US ones is because the EU countries had to rebuild themselves after the war and now you claim that is because the EU itself was just a baby back in the 90s and that somehow stopped Europe from producing these types of companies.
There are more than one single reason for things to happen, again highlighting that the EU had other priorities at the time.
> The same can be said for the defense of the EU countries which basically has consisted in the EU countries joining NATO because they decided that outsourcing their own defense was cheaper instead of building a proper European military alliance between themselves.
I completely agree with you here, NATO is our saving grace but really even this feels uncertain these days.
> In fact the NATO agreement specifically stipulates that all member countries need to invest a set amount each year in their own defense and guess what, only a few of them actually fulfill the term of this agreement. So who is at fault here?
Complete complacency and thinking that there will not be any war once everyone is economically dependant on eachother and the US is always there. Agreed.
> It's time for the EU leaders to grow up and make amends and course correct or be relegated to the dustbin of history.
Again I agree with you, I'm not saying there wasn't some complacency, but it's not as simple to get things to move in EU, which again, is both a blessing (everyone is 'kind of' catered for) and a curse, things move unacceptably slow. The sentiment seems to be changing and I have to be optimistic about it and push my local politicians to get the finger out. I don't accept the nihilism I'm seeing though.
I really am not saying that the EU did everything right, just that it's not as simple for the EU to get everything done as it seems to people. I would have much preferred we had our defense infrastructure in place properly before we started investing in tech.
The problem now is that institutions are literally infected with strongly US leaning people. I don't even mean politicians but just people who tied their careers and lives to some US technology. Look at Microsoft - there is whole industry of IT admins who have lifetime of experience in that Microsoft stack. You will have many Microsoft former employees at top positions at universities teaching programming with Microsoft stack.
Even in just economical sense it never really made sense when you have local companies like SUSE that could give you well functioning IT infrastructure. The money would at minimum stay in EU. It probably made sense for export of the talent (which countries don't make money on) but you just locks yourself to infinite Microsoft payments.
There are many conservative european corporations (like postal services) that never were on Microsoft stack. It was always hailed as the "poor" economical but secure solution. They probably still reap benefits. But afaik it was always uphill battle with governments because of the strong lobby from US.
Imagine if the europe started to switch to something like SUSE. It would make so many peoples skills immediately outdated. So many will fight this.
It is the fault of the EU leaders. No question about it.
> Under the presidency of Charles de Gaulle, France pursued diplomatic independence and promoted a vision of European collective security that conflicted with American leadership in NATO, especially regarding the integration of member states' armed forces under a US-led unified command and the control of NATO’s nuclear arsenal.
Charles de Gaulle believed that France and the EU countries should stay out of NATO so that it could foster it's own military defense, yet the French leaders and their other EU countreparts decided that it was much more convenient to have the US as a back-stop because they needed the cash that should have gone to their armies for other purposes. This has been happening for decades.
That lead to the situation that we are in today where most of the EU's defense strategy is in fact subsidized by the US. The NATO EU countries despite signing the treaties have barely managed to keep up with the minimum NATO required spending on their own defenses.
This was entirely the doing of Europe.
And the EU could have a thriving competitor to silicon valley that had US engineers falling over themselves to come. There are a lot like me who would love to do so (even giving up some salary) but the opportunities aren't there.
And I'm astonished Hetzner hasn't built a proper AWS competitor already.
I think there is contradiction in that what makes europe attractive is the thing that doesn't allow building Silicon Valley. You cant't have Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon... without intense surveillance and financial speculation. That are things that europeans view as bad (atleast they say that).
Best what europe could hope for is finding different tech path than SV. That path most likely won't be as profitable but that might be OK. In a way companies like Hetzner might already be on that path of not trying to replace AWS.
What is much more likely is that europe will just become even more reliant on US tech. But it will be because of politic not for technical inability.
Yes, the reality that China and the US are driving is that you can't take off 5 weeks in the summer, have 42 public holidays a year, only work until 4pm, and not be able to fire underperforming people and hope to be magically be competitive.
I know this isn't popular, and I wish it was different too, but you can't have it both ways.
The EU could defend itself against Russia on its current budget.
Germany had to reduce its army as part of the reunification deal and is now criticized for not having a big army. Only France has nuclear weapons and the incentive to spend huge amounts on defense while being dependent on leased and US controlled nukes is not great. Do you prefer that all EU countries get their own nukes?
The EU has real tech like ASML, Airbus, Siemens, Alsthom etc. What the US calls "tech" is not regarded as vital in the EU and somewhat belittled. This kind of "tech" is only possible with US hype and massively speculative investments.
The US is begging (and blackmailing with tariffs) countries from all over the world to build factories in the US. That doesn't sound like a great success.
Energy? The US tries to control all energy choke points of energy flow to the EU. The Nord Stream sabotage was hailed as a great operation, enabling the US to sell overpriced LNG to the EU. The US leased a corridor from Azerbaijan to Turkey to control vast amounts of natural gas from Turkmenistan. A Trump adjacent billionaire floated the idea to buy and revive Nord Stream.
What exactly should the EU do? Switch to nuclear energy and buy uranium from Russia like the US does (the US also buys fertilizer)?
The EU needs to do the things that it has prided itself on not doing for the last 30 years. That is the fundamental problem, and I don't see how it can change. Germans work 400 hours less per year than Americans. 400! That's 50 days!
How do you get people to work 50 more days a year without mass voting to keep (or even "improve") the status quo?
And this doesn't even touch on the heavy regulatory side, which just makes the EU a generally unattractive place to invest.
Airbus is more profitable than Boeing and has fewer accidents as of late. Maybe you don't mix up bolts in a door if you are more fresh mentally.
Companies are free to pay overtime, and the salaries would still be less than in SV. So you could absolutely found a software company in the EU with the same amount of work hours in a competitive manner and still pay less than in the US (under the assumption that the hours are really needed, which I doubt).
The real advantage that the US has is that they can more easily exploit users because there are no privacy laws.
The fact you need to compare companies that are 50+ years old, because Europe doesn't have a single competitive modern age company should be enough for me to rest my case, and enough for Europeans to do so serious reflecting.
Americas golden child of 1960 now sucks, oh well. In other news Nvidia has a market cap that nearly eclipses the GDP of Germany. Ah! ASML makes the machines for those chips! But then why isn't the EU reaping the fruit...
You don't have a case. You just rant, deflect, don't address overtime and privacy laws and change topics.
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Telling Europeans to develop their own tech is hardly in the interest of US corporations...
Europe is on track to slip into stagnation (if it isn't already) and they seem to think that they can regulate/bureaucrat their way out of it ("If companies aren't making money, make it illegal to not make money!" level thinking).
Once economic conditions get tight, which will happen on the current trajectory, especially with a bunch of pensioners in the pipeline and not enough young people to fund it[1], the EU will fracture and the resentment and finger pointing will begin. Nationalist energy will explode (which is already forming), and Russia will be licking it's lips. Think of what Europe would be right now if daddy USA didn't bankroll half of Ukraines aid, including tons of USA weapons and tech.
Economic faltering will put Europe in either full scale war (who knew forgotten history can repeat), or they will be back at daddy USA's doorstep begging for protection.
Or they will need to fill the gaps with AI, which will probably be US tech AI at this point.
[1]https://www.cde.ual.es/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Population...
Maybe he is trying to understand the world a little better (and not trying to defend anything).
Because they did. The question is whether that was just bad optics or a bad deal. Look for follow through.
I don’t believe it. Part of the deal is that EU has to buy certain amounts of LNG and weapons from the US. That sounds like a win for the US, but the EU wanted to secure this anyway, to build up defence, send equipment to Ukraine, and reduce dependence on Russian gas.
Their priorities were already incorrect since the beginning. Trump only doubled down on that.
> EU wanted to secure this anyway
Sure, that's why Germany was building NordStream-2. EU secretly just wants to buy Russian gas because it's cheap and easy.
I guarantee ~5 years after the war is over new deals will be made in place to start pumping gas from the biggest gas station in the world which is right next to EU.
> EU secretly just wants to buy Russian gas because it's cheap and easy.
It's no secret, reliable cheap source of the most important resource on the planet right now is essential for any economy today.
What do you expect us to do? Please enlighten me. Buy from ships for much higher prices because the US doesn't like Russia ?
There's a war on now and we are reducing our dependency greatly, did we get complacent, absolutely. Are we working towards getting away from it, absolutely.
Your attitude is just negative for negatives sake.
And we still don't even know what we paid for the COVID vaccines. They're about to roll out ChatControl with exemptions for themselves, while they're using Signal with disappearing messages despite transparency of government rules... I'm not feeling a lot of love for our leadership recently tbh.
People are clueless about economics, so such polls are irrelevant. It can still have been a bad deal, of course, who knows, given the specifics of trade deals with Trump are ever changing.
Ultimately it just reflects the EU's largely self-inflicted economic weakness.
Yes we did.
Still, it is the lesser of the possible evils.
Trump needs to be "managed" until Russia goes back to pretend to play nicely with the European neighborhood.
Will the US accept a nuclear apocalypse on itself by entering a conventional war with Russia over East European conflicts.
No.
Great. Now where am I going to move to avoid US food???
It's simply another nail in the coffin of the narrative that the EU countries need the "EU" to survive.
The EU was sold as tool that would bring prosperity to the EU countries and this is less and less the case as the years go by. Sure, you have a few bright spots here and there but those are few and far between.
Spain, Italy, Greece and the other sick "countries" of Europe were sacrificed in the 2010s to save the Euro and now France and Germany are going through some tough soul-searching.
Then there is the the growth of many Euro septic parties throughout Europe which are gathering steam year after year.
The EU needs to reform itself very quickly because for a lot of people, the question that is being asked is: do we really need it?
UK is much better without EU. Or actually it is not?
Countries don't need EU to survive, but growth and development is better in the union. Try to travel somewhere outside the EU. Get a visa, exchange money, get health insurance, get sim for roaming.
Everyone is so accustomed to benefits of the union that forgot how it was without it.
"Benefit the US". Nonsense. Trade barriers hurt both sides. And if the US wants to lower its trade deficit and/or bring back manufacturing some things that actually make economic sense are: stop being the reserve currency of the world, raise your interest rates, and start running a government surplus instead of deficit. Ah... you notice that all of these things are the opposite of what the idiot in charge of the US is actually doing. Well, the shortened summary of the whole thing is that the US is the very curious case of a superpower attempting to become a third world country. So who is actually winning here? Well, if the rest of the world decides to start doing some more free trade, the one losing is at the least very clear.
You know, trump is all about optics. If you have no idea what is actually going on it may well look like the mascot is the most important person on the field. Trump has made it its life purpose to be a mascot. In the meantime the collapse is brewing in the back.
...the US is the very curious case of a superpower attempting to become a third world country...
The really sad part... Argentina already went down this path with Peronism. They weren't a super-power, but they were economically very successful. And then they weren't.
Can you support this claim? From cursory reading (and looking at GDP per capita), the failure was of neoliberal policies (which caused several massive crises), not peronism.
Aspects of Peronism likely contributed to Argentina's fall. Authoritarianism led to political instability and frequent coups. Trade barriers prevented the nation from taking advantage of global trade. Spending on welfare and price subsidies accelerated inflation.
I think part of the issue is that "Benefit the US" heavily confuses the beneficiary. Is the the organization that identifies by the flag and holds the land? Is it its various owners? Is is the government? And if it is, which part thereof? Is the population? When? Now? In the potential future?
None of this is specified -- on purpose -- to muddle the waters, because the reader will read into it what they want to read.
The US is Argentina of the 21st century. They're adopting all policies that will make this a 3rd world country.
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Europeans finally understanding what imperialism feels like to the rest of the world. Perhaps we will even grow a spine or develop empathy, hopefully sooner rather than later.
The EU has benefitted trillions of euros over the decades by leaning on the US for defense spending and subsidizing amazing healthcare benefits for their citizens.
Their gamble did not pay off because they mis-underestimated Russia.
Now the check has come due, but it was inevitable assuming Russia was always going to do this.
Regardless, this is the result of the Russian invasion.
> Their gamble did not pay off because they mis-underestimated Russia.
Like all economies we depend primarily on fossil fuels. It's unfortunate that we can get it ridiculously cheap from Russia but that's the free market. We are working more than anyone else to remove all dependency, but don't start pointing fingers at us just because we purchased the cheapest fossil fuel we could for ourselves. We don't all have the luxury of invading oil rich countries, or have massive reserves ourselves.
EU is a big customers of lots of stuff from US military vendors so US didn't exactly give things for free to the EU either.
Should have EU relied less on US and actually spend those agreed upon 2%+ of GDP like Poland, Finland and others have and be self reliant? Yes. Very much so.
Perun has an interesting video about it EU reliance of US military support: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFoJGHZEqAk