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September 9, 2024 - 2:30pm
The sands are shifting in European perceptions of the need for peace in Ukraine. In a TV interview on Sunday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged intensified effort to end the war through negotiations, saying: “I believe now is the moment when we must discuss how we get out of this war situation faster.”
Significantly, Scholz underlined his belief that Russia must be present at future peace discussions. Having met with Volodymyr Zelensky last Friday in Germany, Scholz asserted that “there will certainly be a further peace conference,” with the Ukrainian President supposedly in agreement that “it must be one with Russia present.”
That a key donor of military aid to Ukraine should call for Russian involvement in peace discussions marks a major shift from the Ukraine Peace Summit held in Switzerland earlier this summer, to which Russia was not invited. It’s a notable — some might say necessary — evolution of the West’s mantra to date: “Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.”
Yet the motivations behind this evolution are complex — and leaders such as Scholz may be increasingly swayed by factors other than Ukraine’s best interests. Two days before the German Chancellor’s interview, new data showed a worse-than-expected slump in the country’s industrial production, down by 2.4% month-on-month in July. Analysts now suggest “weakness in German industry” means “the German economy will broadly stagnate in the rest of this year.” These industrial woes are having a knock-on effect throughout the region, with Germany-reliant economies such as Hungary and the Czech Republic also posting disappointing industrial results.
Economists argue that high energy prices can no longer be blamed for the region’s persistent industrial weakness, and that growing competition from China is “a big part of the puzzle”. Beijing’s move to hijack the EU’s green energy revolution is proving especially harmful to Central Europe’s all-important automotive sector, with China positioning itself as a leader in the production of cheap electric vehicles and EV components. The EU’s €8.8 billion trade deficit with China on EVs alone is putting jobs under threat, with major manufacturers such as Volkswagen now shuttering EV production at European plants.
A much-awaited EU competitiveness report drawn up by former Italian prime minister and European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi, published today, called for a “new industrial strategy for Europe” to address the “existential challenge” posed by this crisis of competition. Yet with experts predicting thousands more job losses in German industry alone, embattled leaders such as Scholz don’t have time to wait for long-term strategic planning to bear fruit.
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Subscribe“I believe now is the moment when we must discuss how we get out of this war situation faster.”
If I weren’t already mostly bald, I would be tearing the hair out of my head every time I read one of these comments.
Why, praytell, is NOW the moment to discuss getting out of this war? Is it because the sanctions failed, Ukraine is losing, and the EU is an economic hot mess?
If so, what in God’s name did the Stand with Ukraine-ers think would happen? The only – LITERALLY ONLY – alternative to the current mess would have been Russia ‘losing’ an existential war, which would have triggered a nuclear response which would have wiped Ukraine from the map forever.
As it is, we have created a permanent Russo-Chinese alliance, including a perfect arrangement to trade cheap Russian energy for cheap Chinese manufacturing, a Russian military industrial complex that is honed and ready to supply the world along the Silk Road. The EU has lost all hope of cheap energy, while it continues its slow economic suicide through Net Zero. Hundreds of thousands of young men are dead, a generation scarred, and nothing else has been achieved. Unless you happen to be a Raytheon or Boeing shareholder…
Unless there are consequences for Scholz and every damn Stand with Ukraine-er, we will continue to self-destroy, dragging our economies and our entire way of life into the ground with us.
It’s just so infuriating…
What nonsense are you talking? Russia was not going to go nuclear because it failed to conquer enough land in Ukraine. It’s an absurd assertion.
Net zero is a self-inflicted wound that has nothing to do with standing up to Russia.
The point made was “losing an existential war”, in which event the use of nuclear weapons by Russia was, and is, absolutely certain. Not taking enough territory is certainly not “existential”, and has not been declared as such by Russia.
In any event the nuclear “events” would probably be limited to the “battlefield” ie Europe, with no use of strategic weapons on either territorial USA or Russia.
That is precisely why “the West” will not allow long range weapons to be used against territorial Russia; they may be believed by Russia to be nuclear armed and pre-emptive retaliation set in train. In short, a presumed existential threat would result in a nuclear exchange with disastrous results…for Europe.
Well, there was never an existential threat to Russia. They could stop shooting tomorrow and go home, and no one would follow. Even Ukraine in NATO with US troops on its territory was never an existential threat. NATO was never going to invade Russia. The alliance would have to triple their ground forces before they could even try.
The Russians are not going to launch a nuclear strike because of a few rockets coming from Ukraine. They know the Ukraine doesn’t have nukes. Any US nuclear strike would be massive and not originate from Ukraine.
You’re just making up scary story to try and get people not to support Ukraine. The fact that any Westerners support Russia or think Russia is some kind of cultural alternative to the decadent West is baffling to me. Of course not one of you would voluntarily move to Russia.
The cultural alternative to the decadent West is the non-decadent West. It’s Bach and Beethoven, du Plessis and Liszt. It’s Pasteur and Newton. It’s Thomas Mann, W.M. Thackeray and Emile Zola. It’s the Kyrie sung by an all-male choir at the Sunday mass of a Benedictine Abbey.
It’s everything I hold dear in this green, beautiful Europe that is mine.
Setting out the position is not supporting Russia. And yes the situation is scary and not a story.
Yes a very good summary of the position.
However whilst the Russia-China axis was clearly not intended (Russia was supposed to succumb to US-Western sanctions, with the non Western world just doing as told by the USA…major mistake in US policy…), it seems likely that detaching Europe from Russian energy WAS intended.
The replacement of Russian gas by US gas has been extremely profitable for the USA, and bound Europe closer to the USA. As always…follow the money.
Agree. Americans didn’t land on the Moon
Yeah, and JFK is still alive, and sharing a flat with Elvis Presley,
I think he was being sarcastic…which doesn’t work well in this medium.
Yes, I know he was being sarcastic. So was I. I was merely attempting to support his sarcasm.
Whatever the outcome in Ukraine, the EU must never buy Russian oil and gas again. To do so would be to sign up to being a permanent hostage with a Russian gun to its head.
This is another good article, and it’s a theme that I’ve written about too:
https://twilightpatriot.substack.com/p/the-poland-paradox
The problem is that Ukraine relied, for its security, on the support of a number of faraway countries, chiefly the United States, whose interest in Ukraine’s survival was slight. Not nothing (which is why this war has lasted as long as it has) but not enough to get any of them to join in the war directly, or even to avoid getting distracted by economic numbers and other things like that as the years wore on.
It was a serious mistake for the Ukrainians to let the US set up a puppet government in their country after the Euromaidan coup in 2014, and then to dictate their foreign policy for the next eight years… only to get abandoned when the day of reckoning came. But this is the fate of small countries that rely too much on faraway allies, like Poland in 1939, Ukraine today, and perhaps Taiwan and the Philippines and South Korea tomorrow.
Not a coup, and also not a puppet government. You do know, I hope, that Zelensky was not involved in the revolution of dignity at Maidan. After the revolution, a caretaker government were set up for some months. Then a free election were held which was won by a guy named Poroschenko. He was then totally beaten by Zelensky when he stood for reelection.
“Puppet Government”? You mean the one that replaced the government headed by the paid Russian stooge who now lives in Russia?
That would be the duly elected President…overthrown in a coup…
Ok, “the paid Russian stooge who was (by some means) elected President”.
Surely if Germany’s industrial production is falling, ramping up weapons production is a good thing?
“….over financing Ukraine’s “hot” war on the battlefield against Russia, about which many EU voters are ambivalent at best“. Maybe they’ll be less ambivalent when Russian troops invade their country.