The bloc\u2019s economic situation was dire even before the shocks of the Iran war, and yet it doubles down on supporting the US and Israel<\/p>\n
Some observers of the current EU \u2018elites\u2019, including this author, used to believe that their defining feature \u2013 apart from things such as complicity in genocide and wars of aggression with Israel and the US, bigoted xenophobia about Russia and China, and, of course, pervasive corruption \u2013 was an absolute inability to learn.
\nWe must admit, we stand corrected: Those running the EU are able to learn. The real problem is their relentless compulsion to learn the wrong thing. We are not dealing with non-learners but anti-learners: where others progress from experience, they regress.
\nCase in point, their response to the fact that their US-Israeli masters have started a war to end if not strictly all then at least all (barely) affordable energy supplies to the EU\u2019s economies, while its major players are already limping along on a spectrum between walking-wounded (for instance, France, maybe) to comatose (Germany, definitely).
\nIn Germany, still the largest single economy inside the EU, providing almost a fourth of the bloc\u2019s total GDP, industrial demand \u2013 orders from factories \u2013 fell by over 11% in January. Such a decrease \u2013 really, collapse \u2013 in orders is \u201cdrastic,\u201d as German Manager Magazine notes. According to the Financial Times, this \u201cvery weak\u201d start into the new year, puts preceding \u2013 and very modest \u2013 signs of a recovery from years of stagnation in doubt. Indeed. And all of that disappointing data was gathered before the fallout of the Iran war had even started.
\nRegarding the latter, it will be severe. Even Berlin\u2019s Ministry of Economics admits that the risks stemming from the war\u2019s consequences, most of them still incoming, is substantial.
\nIn general, the Eurozone \u2013 different from but covering most of the EU \u2013 is not in good shape either. According to Bloomberg, a very low and yet still over-optimistic Eurostat estimate of expansion by 0.3% for the last quarter of 2025 has just been revised downward to 0.2%. But frankly, who cares at that level of misery?<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Iran war reality check: Why the US miscalculated Tehran\u2019s political resilience<\/p>\n
And for the Eurozone as well, America and Israel\u2019s unprovoked war against Iran is likely to make things much worse. Philip Lane, chief economist of the European Central Bank (ECB), has confirmed that much to the Financial Times: An enduring decrease in oil and gas supplies from the Middle East can (read: will), he warns, bring about a \u201csubstantial spike\u201d in inflation and a \u201csharp drop in output.\u201d
\nAnd what is the EU leadership\u2019s response to this deeply depressing outlook for its economy and the European citizens depending on it? Let\u2019s not dream. It is true, if the EU\u2019s \u2018elites\u2019 were in the business of protecting European interests and prosperity, they would, obviously, take a sharp turn against both the US and Israel (as well as London in case it were to stick to its special-poodle relationship with Washington).
\nYet if the EU leadership had such priorities, it would long have turned against the US, for its blatant exploitation of its vassal regimes via, first, NATO over-expansion and, now, crippling overspending, for Ukraine proxy war outsourcing, and for devastating tariff warfare. It would also long have broken with Israel, for, to name only two compelling reasons, its genocide and serial wars of aggression that are both horrifically criminal and extremely destabilizing and damaging not \u201conly\u201d to the Middle East but the world as a whole and Europe in particular.
\nIn short, the EU would not even be in the mess it is now if it actually took care of Europe. And, by the way, if it were not so craven but had opposed the US and Israel instead of pandering to them, perhaps it could even have contributed to preventing the current criminal war against Iran.
\nThat, however, would not be the EU as it really is. In sordid reality, it is a second iteration of NATO, that is, an instrument of the US empire (notwithstanding showy and silly Greenland hysterics) and of international oligarchic structures. Ordinary Europeans matter only in so far as they are expected to vote \u2013 and think and speak \u2013 in line with EU \u2018elite\u2019 priorities, and when they do not, they are made to.
\nNo wonder then that the utterly unelected and legally extremely challenged EU Commission head Ursula von der Leyen \u2013 really, the EU\u2019s despot and US viceroy rolled into one \u2013 demonstratively does not give a damn about the massive energy price shock that has already started hitting the fragile economies of EU-Europe.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
A new war is threatening the Eurasian economy, and it\u2019s not Iran<\/p>\n
With tanker ships on fire off the Strait of Hormuz, oil surging over $100 per barrel, national reserves being dipped into, gas prices up by 50% in the EU, and, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), oil markets suffering \u201cthe largest supply disruption in history,\u201d\u00a0von der Leyen has had nothing to offer but reverting to the tired \u2013 and less than successful \u2013 playbook of 2022, originally put together when the Western-Russian proxy war via Ukraine escalated. Tinkering, again, with ineffective price caps, taxes and fees, electricity market structures and price distortions, renewables, and wasting money on subsidies (out of budgets that are already vastly overstretched) \u2013 that was about it. No wonder, several national governments have already signaled their impatience with what, in essence, is inactivity and non-strategy.
\nAt least as important, though, was what von der Leyen took pains to rule out: Returning to Russian supplies would be a \u201cstrategic blunder,\u201d the EU\u2019s one-woman decider-in-chief declared. Instead, she insists, the EU must stay the course and continue ridding itself of the last remnants of Russian gas and oil. Clearly, von der Leyen is anxious that not everyone in the EU\u2019s \u2018elites\u2019 is up to her level of ideological obstinacy and economic as well as geopolitical irrationality. \u201cSome,\u201d she chided, \u201cargue that we should abandon our long-term strategy and even go back to Russian fossil fuels.\u201d Perish the thought! As long as von der Leyen and her type run the EU, it will ruin itself before doing the obvious \u2013 making peace with Russia and rebuilding economic ties, including in the energy sector.
\nAnd there you have it: This is a leadership style not simply refusing to learn from experience but repeating the worst blunders of the past. The von der Leyen way of policy making \u2013 from sanctions (now on round 20, I believe) to pipelines \u2013 is akin to negative natural selection: Whatever does not work will be done again, and again, and again. The real question, it seems, is not if the EU \u201celites\u201d will ever stop being perverse anti-learners, but whether \u2013 or when \u2013 they will lose control. Mismanaging the massive shock that the US and Israel have sent their way now may finally provoke enough backlash from below to send the von der Leyens packing. For Europe\u2019s sake, let\u2019s hope for the best, even if it\u2019s delivered by the worst.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The bloc\u2019s economic situation was dire even before the shocks of the Iran war, and yet it doubles down on supporting the US and Israel Some observers of the current…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t