Mrs von der Leyen asks if the World since the year 2000 is a better place? She may say yes in her Globalist View. She thinks of the Advance of Democracy, New Technologies, Reduction of Poverty etc. But she sees also new frictions. Eg with supply chains weaponized – and metions the example of Russia.
Von der Leyen seems to be honest: now the World enters into a new era of global competition. There is shortage of energy, of raw material, of acess to new technologies and to global trade routes etc. There is increasing geopolitical competition in eg. the Arctic and the South China Sea and at many other places in the World.
She says very honestly that the «race is on» and that this competition intensifies and the World will likely continue to see frequent use of economic tools – such as sanctions, export controls and tariffs – that are intended to safeguard economic and national security. This is very scary and Mrs von der Leyer must be reminded that economic instruments such as sanctions can be considered as acts of war.
Further, von der Leyen puts forward her opinion that it is more important to secure national security than prosperity or innovation. National security is therefore the leading argument in all political and economic discussions. Also this statement is very scary and leaves open and admissible considerable ways of military actions and economic agression on the expenses of wealth and livelyness of the EU citizens. The way for wars is open at the expense of ordinary people.
Von der Leyen admits that Germany and the EU have gained great profit from the cheap energy from Russia. Considerable wealth was created thanks to cheap Russian energy. Huge economic and technological progress was made thereof, in particular, in Germany. But those days are gone. She now wants to replace cheap Russian energy by … a technological change and decarbonization, to make European growth faster, cleaner and more equitable. Did she learn how futile and ineffective these policies were in the US – they are destroying wealth, creating economic losses and reducing the national infrastructure – as well reducing the capabilities for real national security?
Von der Leyen remarks are noteworthy: European houshold savings are pushed overseas every year and an amount of yearly EUR 300 billion is lost outside the EU. Will the EU close off overseas investments to its citizens? Would it be not more interesting to make local investments more profitable to keep money in the EU? She admits that too many firms hold back investments in Europe. But does she really understand why?
Von der Leyen ‘s vision is also to enact European-wide sets of rules allowing big corprations to work all over the EU under the same sets of laws – so that every EU country will have to adopt all the same business, insolvency, labor, tax etc. rules. This might be horrifying to many EU countries which have their own culture, way of life and way of doing business.
Further, and again, von der Leyen admits that the loss of cheap energy from Russia is a big problem. EU does import 75% less Russian gas, and Russian oil is only 3% of total consumption. But she blames Putin for it. Does she forget the wide range of energy sanctions, the terror bombings on pipelines etc. by non Russian actors?
She says: Freedom came at a price. EU citizens now suffer under sky-high energy prices and EU economic competitiveness is in the cellar. Her answer is: clean energy: wind, solar etc. … and in some countries: nuclear. To a big part an utopian idea.
Von der Leyen also hopes to keep the Paris Agreement regarding Climate Change etc – but she must know that Donald Trump made the US leave this Agreement on day 1 of his Presidency. Does she know that the Paris Agreement without the US makes no sense?
Von der Leyen concludes that the EU will need to engage constructively with China. She also wants more coopertaion with the US and points to the enormous importance of US products, energy (eg huge amounts of LNG), services and technologies on which the EU depends. In particular, digital services are very important to her – does she mean Elon Musk’s X platform?
She does seemingly not want to engage with Russia – as she does not mention Russia.
