The EU Geopolitical Reality
Background
I hesitated to write this, as the EU is not a nation but a grouping of nations, but the dominance of the EU bureaucracy over the constituent nations has progressed considerably (backed up with NATO of course) together with the EU being dominated by its largest and tightly aligned members; Germany, France, Italy and Poland. Of the larger nations, only Spain stands out as having somewhat of an independent alignment, but that is offset by the heft of the other large members. And the latter are also supported by Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Austria, the Baltics, Finland, Luxembourg, Sweden, and Romania (after the local vassals aligned with the EU and NATO elites in stealing the election for president). Only Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia stand in opposition to EU foreign policy against Russia, and Spain with respect to the Middle East. Let’s remember that the European security forces are very fully integrated with the US security services, and US troops occupy Germany (36,000) and Italy (12,600).
The collapse of the Soviet bloc in the 1990s delivered a huge peace dividend to Western Europe, for example German defence spending fell from 3% of GDP in the 1980s to about 1.2% of GDP by the early 2010s. At the same time, Eastern Europe was opened up to gain from the “benefits of backwardness” as Trotsky called it, with a huge ability to leap up the technology ladder aided by generous EU subsidies; with Poland benefitting greatly. The Western European capitalist oligarchy was also provided with extensive opportunities for profits in new markets, and the ability to move production to cheaper Eastern European locations; especially the German oligarchy. Numerous gas pipelines also promised to provide cheap Russian natural gas to support the European industrial heartlands. At the very same time, the vast and rapidly expanding Chinese market provided a cornucopia of profit-making for European corporations. After an early 1990s recession, EU GDP growth accelerated with the German reunification and the opening up of Eastern Europe and even the Soviet Union; with some European nations even surpassing US productivity levels. By the late 1990s, EU GDP growth was even heading above 3% per annum, a high number for such an already rich region.
