The French and Germans don't seem best pleased about what she's done, and we can see why. There might be several theses or lines of thought on this.
- It's easy to portray it as craven, but it's solid realpolitik, and shows the EC** in a good light: their strategic priorities (bind USA into European defence / maintain support for Ukraine / stay on reasonable talking terms with Trump) were clear and they did the necessary in a decisive & fairly expeditious way.
- It's an existential triumph for the EC qua bureaucracy-priesthood, not only on the basis of 1 above, but because von der Leyen's people roundly ignored the national governments and have got clean away with it. German & French vetoes? They're history.
- It's a tactical triumph for those wily EC negotiators: their preferred stratagem is to grind down the other side by dragging negotiations out into endless detail / prevarication / cherry-picking / make-believe governance issues (see Brexit); but when faced with an emergency, they still came up with the goods. Knowing that Trump just lurves Big Numbers and of course Done Deals, they've "committed" to bizarre amounts of imports from the USA, and there isn't a cat's chance in Hell that these commitments can be honoured. But the Dumb Donald goes home with his triumph (his own people certainly ain't gonna tell him he's been suckered - and maybe he knows it anyway but just loves the immediate optics) and life carries on.
- It suits DE and FR to bellyache and blame von der Leyen, but they know there was little alternative, and have let her do the deed - & front for it. (But where, ultimately, does 'strategic bellyaching' lead? Surely, only an ever-growing Euroscepticism across the whole continent?)
ND
______________
** I.e. the very real Brussels priesthood, not the abstract political entity known as the EU
If some effing effer starts a nuclear war none of it will matter anyway. I only hope Ukraine surrenders before we reach that point. Come to that, I hope Ukraine surrenders before there are no Ukrainian adult males left.
ReplyDeleteOnly 170 weeks, 1 day, 14 hours, 18 minutes to next US election. Eat an elephant one bite at a time (and hope it does not go rotten).
ReplyDeleteI'm reckoning the US will get rid of Donald. He's not doing them any good, his nastiness seems running out of steam.
The Democrats are still in sleepy land. There is yet hope the Dems will wake up or a successful rooftop voter gets to vote or the Dems get to take a red hot poker where they deserve.
Brussels knows how to handle idiots, they have plenty of their own and nearby.
They buckled when it came to the USA imposing tariffs on the EU and gave Trump what he wanted because they can only come out on top in negotiations when the other side is even weaker (see May on Brexit for example).
ReplyDeleteI don't think the 15% was desired, especially as it looks like the UK got a better deal, but it keeps the US in the EU's garden, and when the US sends in a more pliable kid it'll be resurrected.
ReplyDeleteEveryone seems to be figuring out Trump now, plenty of jam tomorrow promised with no intention of delivering. Given our politicians have been doing that for years to their electorates, it's hardly arduous doing the same to their fellow leader.
dearieme - well according to Trump's social media, Russian losses are 14 times those of Ukraine.
ReplyDelete"Trump declared, without specifying the source of the data, that “almost 20,000 Russian soldiers died this month in the ridiculous war with Ukraine”. “Russia has lost 112,500 soldiers since the beginning of the year. That is a lot of unnecessary DEATH!” he emphasised, without clarifying whether the figure refers only to those killed or also includes the wounded. Trump also shared his data on Ukrainian losses, which he said amount to “approximately 8,000 soldiers since 1 January 2025, and that number does not include their missing”."
If these figures are from the CIA, either the CIA are useless, or they are lying to Trump, or Russia are losing big time.
"they are lying to Trump" is probably axiomatic. It's probably a holding action while they work out how to carry out the assassination that the Secret Service and FBI botched last year.
ReplyDeletereading the entertaining tale of Bernard Looney, who bonked his way through the staff as he climbed the greasy pole from drilling engineer to the top of BP.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/sep/13/bernard-looney-bp-board-faces-questions-over-ex-ceos-personal-relations-with-colleagues
"“The thinking was that he needed to settle down, and not shag around quite so much,” the source said. Looney married life coach Jacqueline Hurst in 2017, but the pair were separated by 2018 and the divorce was finalised the following year, three months before he was appointed BP’s chief executive. After the divorce Hurst wrote a self-published book in which she recounts the “bitter experience” of her divorce, understood to refer to the end of her marriage to Looney, which the book says ended “suddenly and without warning via a WhatsApp message”. She wrote: “I learned later that he had only married me because he wanted to get to the next level of seniority in the company he worked for and he had to be seen to be married in order to be given the promotion. Unbelievable I know, but that was the case.”"
Ms Hurst is quite entertaining herself, with her degree from Bennett Stellar University and Greg Wallace among her clients.
Looney ... nomen, omen, as we sa in Latin. Nomen, omen or I'll tuogh you up in brake.
ReplyDeleteHe went for green energy at the top of the market, AND had to sell their Russian interests to Rosneft. Still, he should be able to devote more time to his hobbies now, although will conquests be as easy when he's no longer the, er, coming man?
ReplyDelete