My Take | More mini-Putins are waiting in the wings across Europe
- As ordinary Europeans suffer from the economic fallout of the Ukraine war, more are turning to the nationalist, xenophobic hard right. Maybe it’s time to make peace with Russia before the 2030s turns into the 1930s
Friedrich Nietzsche is full of quotable quotes like this one: “The more you fight monsters, the more you become one.” Or another one of everyone’s favourites: “If you stare long enough into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you.”
Both sayings now perfectly describe the predicament of the European Union. In the EU’s zeal to fight Vladimir Putin, many potential mini-Putins have been spawned and are now waiting in the wings to take over governments. This ultra-right-wing, xenophobic nationalist continental drift undercutting countries across Europe is largely predictable.
While ordinary people suffer from economic hardships and their children’s future is being sacrificed, their current leaders continue with a proxy war against Russia that has become a bottomless pit. Austerity is being imposed; bullets take precedence over butter.
If you are a European voter, would you blame Putin and the Russians, as you are told to do, or your own politicians and the big corporations, many of which actually profit handsomely from the war in Ukraine?
Over the past year, real hourly wages dropped in 22 EU countries, for example, by 7.3 per cent in Italy, 3.3 per cent in Germany, 1.8 per cent in France, and 1.2 per cent in Greece.
The euro zone is now expected to grow by just 0.8 per cent this year instead of the previously forecast 1.1 per cent. Germany, Europe’s largest economy, is forecast to shrink by 0.4 per cent this year.
Last year in Germany, real wages fell at the sharpest rate in 15 years as a record-breaking inflation rate of 7.9 per cent eroded any rise in earnings. Given the country’s tragic history, its people are especially unsettled by the high inflation.