The Duran Podcast
Germany dismantles Schengen. Draghi reports EU in TATTERS
All right, Alexander. Let's talk about what is going on in Germany. And let's talk about the effective suspension of Schengen, which is what Germany has basically done. And the reasons behind this decision that Olaf Schulte has made to impose border controls entering Germany. And then we can also discuss, because it is connected to everything that's happening with this decision that Schulte has made with the borders in Schengen. We can talk about the terrible state of the EU economy. And Draghi actually commissioned to, commissioned by Ursula, she told Draghi to big surprise there, to come out with a report and to try and figure out why is the EU economy in such a bad state? Draghi, trying to figure out where do things go wrong. And Draghi has issued his report, his statement, as to what has happened to the EU. And he's also talked about his solution, which is more EU, actually, his solution to fixing the problems of the EU. Anyway, so let's start with Germany and Schengen, and then we can move into the report from Draghi and the economy and the European Union. This is actually important use, this is really important use, and it shows, actually, the extent to which the IFD are changing the weather in Germany. Because to be absolutely clear, if the IFD had not won, the vote in Thuringieu last week, and had come almost within a whisker of winning the vote in Saxony, and if they weren't the rising party, and if they weren't gaining ground even in West Germany itself, then it's most unlikely that we would have had a decision like this, because what the Germans have done is that they've now suspended Schengen, in effect, for six months, imposed border controls, strict border controls, or so they say, things which, when the IFD proposed it, it was all outrageous, unacceptable, or the R word and the F word were thrown around all over the place, you know, the city can't possibly do this, and violates all, you know, the humanitarian principles, and of course it is wholly contrary to EU rules and EU laws. But anyway, faced with a political challenge from the IFD, one that looks like it might expand in the next parliamentary election, the German political class had, basically in a state of panic, and this isn't just Scholz, the CD-U, or also apparently agitating to do this, they've rushed unilaterally, and without any apparent real consultation, and without even consulting the EU centre, they've rushed to impose border controls. Now, they're saying they're only going to do it for six months, and that's probably true, that's probably what they intend to do, if, of course, it continues and Schengen starts to collapse, and without Germany, I mean, you know, it's difficult to see how Schengen can continue to work, then I mean, it would be a colossal blow to the EU centre, and if Schengen starts to break down, you start to see other things break down as well. But to be clear, this is a cynical move, because the Espedere, the traffic-like coalition, the CD-U, all of them, they still remain wholly committed to the EU project. They don't really mean to undo Schengen, they don't really mean to dismantle the whole system of EU controls. They've done this as a manoeuvre, an electoral manoeuvre, in advance of the elections in Germany next year. But the fact that they've done it is nonetheless a big step, and it's one that is already sending, you know, shockwaves across the entire EU, and which the EU centre itself is extremely unhappy about. And of course, other countries, Poland, for example, Donald Tusk, the Donald Tusk government in Poland, they're already criticising. Notice, of course, that the previous government in Poland, the law and justice party government, the government that Donald Tusk defeated in the elections of a year or so ago, of course, they tried to impose controls on movement and to defend borders. And they were relentlessly criticised for doing that, including part of the traffic-like coalition in Germany. So you can understand why Donald Tusk, who was the great defender of the EU and of the EU centre and Schengen and EU rules and all of that, feels particularly exposed by this German move and feels that the rug is, to some extent, being pulled under his feet. And of course, the other political leader in Europe who feels vindicated at the moment, as he's not delayed in pointing out, is Viktor Orban, and of course, where Germany leads, why would, say, Maloney in Italy hold back? So, you know, the EU, the people in Brussels are going to be worried about this, and there'll be lots of telephone calls to Berlin, and they'll be telling people, "What are you doing? This is extremely dangerous to our whole project. We can't allow it. Maybe we'll have some kind of EU summit meeting to discuss the way forward. Let's agree on more border controls on the EU's borders, rather than internal controls, and they'll try and persuade everybody to sign up to something like that, and perhaps in six months' time, that's what will happen, and everything will go back to normal. Because, as I said, I don't believe that Scholz, that's meant all of these politicians from the traffic line coalition and the CDU are really serious about this. No, it's a reaction to the election results, the EU parliament elections, the election results in Thuringius Exony and the rise of the IFA. But can you make the argument that by doing this, even if it is for only six months, Germany has effectively canceled Schengen. I mean, even if they have a meeting in six months, an EU Brussels meeting, and they get Germany to reinstate Schengen, whatever they come up with, whatever mechanisms they decide to put in place, it has exposed Schengen as being non-enforceable, really. I mean, Germany can come back in a year or two or France or Netherlands, whatever country can decide, I want to impose border controls. And there's nothing really that the EU can do. I mean, this has exposed the weakness it has in Brussels, in the center of Europe. They thrive for power. They want things to be more centralized. They want control of all of the EU member states. But now we've seen that they still can't get that control. I mean, this is big news. This is very big news. You're absolutely right because of course Schengen is only one of these things. Provided you're big enough, if you're Germany, you can carry, you can do this. If you're France, you can do this. You can't, the EU can't do to you what they can do to Hungary or Greece or even Italy or Spain. So the big core countries, what this episode has demonstrated, still have power if they decide to exercise it. And they have now exercised it. And it has caused a shock in the system. And the major political beneficiary of this, by the way, is going to be the IFK because the IFK will come along and say, "Look, what you said that we have advocated, what you've always said is outrageous. You see that you yourself are prepared to do." So it can't be that outrageous. And you say that it's against EU law, but you're prepared yourself to take steps which suggest that you're not actually that bothered with that. So why do this for only six months? Why not follow what we are saying and make it permanent? So I think the IFK actually have a major, they come out, they have a major advantage out of this. And I think that some of the IFK leaders that I've been following are clever enough to understand this and to make use of it. So this is a shock. It does demonstrate the continuing fragility of the EU system. It does show that the center, the EU center, can only dominate, provided the Germans support it. And the Germans first and foremost, but the French are important as well. Schengen is flexible in Germany, it says it is. So that brings us to the state of the economies of the European Union. The EU economy as a whole, all the member states. And things are looking very bad. And of course we go back to Germany. If the German economy is de-industrialized, and it is collapsing, well then all of the European Union economies, the European Union economy as a whole is going to collapse along with it. And that brings us to Draghi's report. And Draghi talks about Eurobonds, that's the solution, getting countries to borrow as one EU. And that's the way that Europe is going to solve there. The economic troubles, which in Draghi, to his credit, I guess you could say if you want to credit Draghi with anything, he basically said that the EU for many, many decades to come is screwed. Yes. Whether it comes to innovation, competing with the US, competing with China, whether it comes to birth rates. Across the board, industry, inflation, losing, he said losing Russian energy, though he didn't get any details. The EU is screwed, he said. And his solution was to borrow more and to borrow as a collective, as an EU collective, which takes us once again right back to the never-ending story of Eurobonds. So what are your thoughts on the EU economy as a whole? And it is connected to Germany. He's connected to Germany. It is connected to the whole malaise that has been gripping Europe for some time, and discussing in program after program. It's interesting that Draghi's finally come round again to our point of view. I'm just saying we don't have all of the massive resources at our disposal that Mario Draghi has had. We don't have the teams of accountants and prevent notaries and economists and statisticians in computer power, no doubt Draghi had to use in order to produce this report. But nonetheless, let's be kind to him. He has stated the obvious. It was obvious to us, it's obvious to many other people, but he's finally understood that things are not good in Europe. What he's not prepared to admit to, and this is the key problem, is that the reason the situation in Europe is so bad, the reason the European economy is intertwined. Maloney made a very interesting point. But in 1990, Europe, the EU, which remember was much smaller in 1990 than it is today. It was the Western countries. It had not expanded to the extent that it has now. Anyway, in 1990, it accounted for around a quarter of world GDP. And by the way, a more solid GDP at that time than the GDP we have now. That, according to Maloney, has fallen to 16%. I've actually heard that it's fallen below that. I've heard that if you really do the figures in a different way, it's fallen below 15%. So it's come down. What happened in 1990? We started moving towards Maastricht, towards economic monetary union. We started to have all of these things happen. The whole convergence, so-called, of the European economy is the expansion of the EU. And it's redefinition from what was essentially a trading block into a sort of proto-state with its own currency and its own central bank and its own pseudo-government, which is, of course, the commission and its own parliament, of course, and its own set of laws, the acquis and all of that. So that's what happened. And the interesting thing is, Draghi can't join up the dots just as he doesn't really want to join the dots up about the disastrous results of cutting yourself off from cheap energy, from Russia. So he says, we've got this, Maast. We haven't innovated. We don't know how to innovate. We're far behind the Americans. We're far behind the Chinese. He gives all kinds of figures here, which I'm not going to get into because, to my mind, the figures that are given are skewed in favor of the US, but they show a terrible situation in Europe, which is true. Europe hasn't produced a single significant social media platform. It's way behind on AI. It's way behind on digital technologies. It's way behind on pretty much everything that matters. So what is Draghi's solution? Since he cannot admit to the original problem, which was to transform a trading block into a proto-superstate, his only answer is to continue to develop the proto-superstate to make it even more like a state. And that, of course, means mutual debtage issuance. In other words, Eurobonds, a massive spending program. He's talking about Eurobonds, but of course, if you're starting to issue Eurobonds, then you need essentially a treasury department at the center, the EU center, a finance ministry, if you prefer. And the finance ministry then has to issue the Eurobonds, and the Eurobonds have to be repaid. And that brings you to the topic of taxation, centralization. He doesn't go there, but that's the direction that he wants to take us towards. So his solution to the problem of centralization, which is the underlying problem that afflicts the EU, is more centralization. You centralize even more. You control things even more from the EU center. You convert it even further into an actual government structure. You subordinate the EU states, which is where, historically, over millennia, economic activity and enterprise in Europe has been concentrated. You rob them as even more power, and ultimately even more political vitality. And you try to do everything from Brussels. That's really what his plan amounts to. And of course, he comes up with this massive plan. 800, was it, billion euros, a year spent on a massive program of economic and industrial innovation. Of course, the only way you can do that is if you set up centralized planning agencies as well. Because how else is such a thing? Such vast sums of money going to be administered. And well, planning agencies, when they set up at an EU level, have not had a particularly good record. They've had a terrible record. The drug, he doesn't want to talk about that either. More EU. Of course. What else to expect from Draggy, though? Anyway, all right, we will. It's an astonishing thing. The EU works to make the situation worse. But it does. It made one decision after another since 1990, which has made the situation in Europe worse and worse and worse. So stagnating, living standards, declining industrial industry, reducing innovation, problems of business. So what its solution always is that this institution that's making the situation worse should be given more power to make them worse still. It's a sort of negative feedback loop that no one in Europe, no government in Europe, none of the major governments in Europe seem to be prepared to break. I find it incredible that just a couple of months ago, Ursula was re-appointed. I was going to say re-elected, re-appointed as commission president. And she's two months into her re-appointment. And she basically tells Draggy, you know, I need you to do a study because the EU economy is just in tatters. I mean, it's incredible. You did this, Ursula. I mean, you didn't do all of it. Obviously, like you said, it's been happening over many decades, but over the past three, four years, Ursula has really sped up the decline of the European Union. And two months into her, her second term, she goes to Draggy and she wants Draggy to figure out why things are so bad. Exactly. Can I just say, it's all but inconceivable. The Draggy's plan will ever be implemented in the way that he says it will. But assuming it is, it's not going to solve the problems in Europe. It's only going to make them even worse. It's going to add another massive burden of debt on top of all of the other problems that Europe already has, and it's going to produce nothing. Nothing good. More money to the center, though, more money to the center, more opportunities for many people to make lots of money themselves. It's going to create a, I mean, we already have a Paris city class of people in Europe. We know about them. All of the member states, we can see them. But I mean, there's going to be even more of that. But if we're talking about the underlying problems of the EU economy, they're just going to go and get significantly worse if what Draggy is proposing is ever put into effect. I wonder if they even care. All right. We will end it there. TheDRAD.locals.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, but you've done a gram. Rock, Fit, and Twitter, X, and go to the DRAD shop. Pick up some merch. Like these shirts that we are wearing today in this video. The link is in the description box down below. Take care. [MUSIC PLAYING]