TTIP wird Klage-Welle gegen Staaten in Europa auslösen

TTIP-Investorenschutz:

Die Perversion eines Systems*

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Ein Interview mit Pia Eberhardt**

Staaten erkennen Risiken immer erst, wenn sie verklagt werden - und dann ist es meist zu spät, um das Unheil abzuwenden: Der Investorenschutz im TTIP wird nach Einschätzung von Pia Eberhardt von Corporate Europe Observatory zu enormen Kosten für die europäischen Steuerzahler führen. Es handelt sich um einen Einbahnstraßen-Gerechtigkeit zugunsten der internationalen Konzerne.

Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten: Frau Eberhardt, die aktuellen Daten der UNCTAD zeigen: Im Jahr 1995 gab es gerade einmal drei Investor-Staat-Klagen. Allein 2015 sind 70 neue Klagen eingereicht worden, so viele wie nie zuvor. Insgesamt wissen wir von fast 700 Klagen weltweit. Das ist ein großer Sprung. Spielt die zunehmende Internationalisierung der Unternehmen für diese Entwicklung eine wichtige Rolle oder sind die Unternehmen einfach nur mutiger geworden?

Pia Eberhardt: Im Wesentlichen gibt es für den Anstieg der Klagen zwei Erklärungen. Erstens ist das System in der Unternehmenswelt bekannter geworden. Sie wissen, dass sich damit von Umweltgesetzen bis zu gesundheitspolitischen Maßnahmen so ziemlich alles angreifen lässt. Und, dass das System finanziell lukrativ ist. Zweitens sind Investor-Staat-Klagen mittlerweile ein eigenes Geschäftsfeld geworden. Kanzleien, Schiedsrichter/Innen und Prozessfinanzierer verdienen damit sehr viel Geld und heizen die Maschine weiter an, indem sie Unternehmen ermuntern, zu klagen.

Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten: Teilweise werden bei internationalen Schiedsgerichten schon heute Schadensersatzforderungen in Milliardenhöhe gewährt. TransCanada hat beispielsweise nach dem Nein der US-Regierung zum Pipeline-Projekt Keystone XL eine Klage mit einer Forderung in Höhe von 15 Milliarden Dollar angekündigt. Wie kommen solch hohe Summen zusammen?

Pia Eberhardt: TransCanada hat bisher nur etwa 2,4 Milliarden US-Dollar tatsächlich investiert. Der Rest sind verlorene zukünftige Gewinne, für die der Konzern entschädigt werden möchte. Das ist in Investor-Staat-Klagen üblich – und oft sprechen Schiedsgerichte tatsächlich Schadenersatz für solche entgangenen, hypothetisch in der Zukunft erwirtschafteten Gewinne zu. Auf Basis des aktuellen EU-Vorschlags wäre das ebenfalls möglich.

Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten: Die EU hat statt dem heiß debattierten Investorenschutz-Mechanismus ISDS nun das “Investment Court System“ vorgeschlagen. Lassen sich damit solche Klagen verhindern?

Pia Eberhardt: Nein. Klagen wie die von Vattenfall gegen Umweltauflagen beim Kohlekraftwerk in Moorburg, die des Tabakkonzerns Philip Morris gegen Nichtraucherschutzgesetze in Uruguay oder die angekündigte TransCanada Klage gegen die USA wären auf Basis des EU-Vorschlags genauso möglich. Der Grund dafür ist, dass der Vorschlag genau dieselben Investorenrechte enthält, auf die sich diese Konzerne auch in anderen Verträgen berufen.

Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten: Was sind Ihrer Meinung nach die größten Schwächen des EU-Vorschlags zum eigenen Investorenschutz-Mechanismus?

Pia Eberhardt: Besonders gefährlich finde ich an dem Vorschlag, dass er mit Begriffen operiert, in die Menschen viel Vertrauen haben, also zum Beispiel mit Gerichten, Richtern, Unabhängigkeit. Hinter diesem Geschwafel von Rechtsstaatlichkeit verbirgt sich aber eben ein System, das eine der mächtigsten Akteursgruppen in unserer Gesellschaft – ausländische Investoren – aus der bestehenden Rechtsordnung herausnimmt, ihnen mehr Rechte gibt als allen anderen in unserer Gesellschaft, die sie vor einem für sie eigens eingerichteten Rechtssystem einklagen und weltweit vollstrecken können.

Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten: Gibt es auch positive Aspekte?

Pia Eberhardt: Positiv am EU-Vorschlag ist, dass die Verfahren transparenter werden, dass es einen Berufungsmechanismus geben wird und die Ernennung der Schiedsrichter verbessert wird. Das heißt, das Prozedere der Investor-Staat-Klagen wird verbessert. An den Gefahren für die Demokratie, für Politik im öffentlichen Interesse und öffentliche Haushalte ändert sich dadurch aber rein gar nichts. Die Klagen werden trotzdem kommen, sie werden sich gegen Umweltgesetze & Co. richten und zu hohen Schadenersatzzahlungen führen, die im Rahmen bestehender Rechtssysteme kaum vorstellbar wären.

Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten: Wieso lässt sich die EU überhaupt darauf ein, das mit TTIP ein entsprechender, ganz spezifischer Investorenschutz vereinbart wird?

Pia Eberhardt: Die Generaldirektion Handel in der EU-Kommission und die Wirtschaftsministerien der Mitgliedstaaten der EU, die in dieser Sache federführend sind, vertreten im Wesentlichen die Interessen ihrer großen Unternehmen. Deren Spielraum im Ausland wird durch die Klagerechte massiv ausgeweitet. Es spielt aber auch eine Rolle, dass die Risiken des Systems weiterhin unterschätzt werden. In der Regel verstehen Staaten die Risiken erst, wenn sie verklagt werden – dann ist es aber zu spät.

Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten: Wie stark sind denn deutsche bzw. europäische Unternehmen bei internationalen Klagen vor Schiedsgerichten bisher vertreten? Die Zahl der öffentlich gewordenen Fälle von Investor-Staat-Klagen ist in den vergangenen Jahren explodiert. Die Zahl der öffentlich gewordenen Fälle von Investor-Staat-Klagen ist in den vergangenen Jahren explodiert.

 (Grafik: Corporate Europe Observatory)

 

Pia Eberhardt: Deutsche und europäische Unternehmen sind bei Investor-Staat-Klagen ganz vorne dabei. Nur amerikanische, niederländische und britische Investoren klagen häufiger als deutsche. Nimmt man Investoren aus allen EU-Staaten zusammen, so haben sie weltweit die meisten Investor-Staat-Klagen eingereicht. Übrigens verklagen sie so auch manchmal ihre eigenen Regierungen, indem sie ihre Investition clever über eine Briefkastenfirma oder andere Konstruktionen im Ausland strukturieren. So haben zum Beispiel die rumänischen Micula-Brüder die rumänische Regierung über eine Konstruktion in Schweden verklagt – und zwar deshalb, weil die rumänische Regierungen Subventionen zurückgenommen hat, wozu sie wiederum von der EU verpflichtet wurde. Die EU-Kommission hat mehrmals erfolglos in die Klage interveniert – Rumänien hat trotzdem verloren, obwohl es einfach nur EU-Recht umgesetzt hat. Eine von vielen Klagen, die die Perversion des Systems zeigt – die europäische Unternehmen genauso nutzen wie andere.

Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten: 15 Personen sollen im Vorschlag der EU zum Investorenschutz zukünftig als Schiedsrichter in Verfahren zur Verfügung stehen, jeweils drei werden pro Fall aus diesen ausgewählt. Die EU spricht von absoluter Unabhängigkeit, die so gewährt sei. Können Sie das bestätigen?

Pia Eberhardt: Nein. Die Schiedsrichter werden weiterhin mit lukrativen 3.000 US-Dollar am Tag bezahlt. In einem System, in dem nur eine Seite klagen kann, nämlich der Investor, ist das ein großer Anreiz, zugunsten des Investors zu entscheiden. Denn das bedeutet mehr Verfahren, mehr Einkommen und Macht in der Zukunft. Auch der deutsche Richterbund hat unter anderem deshalb Bedenken an der Unabhängigkeit der so genannten Richter geäußert – und klargestellt, dass es sich beim EU-Vorschlag eigentlich nicht um ein Gericht, sondern um ein permanentes Schiedsgericht handelt.

Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten: Wie wahrscheinlich ist es Ihrer Meinung nach, dass Unternehmen eher von solchen Schiedsgerichten profitieren als Staaten?

Pia Eberhardt: Staaten können in dem System nur verlieren. Sie bekommen nur Pflichten auferlegt – können aber Investoren nicht verklagen, wenn sie beispielsweise Menschenrechtsverletzungen begehen oder die Umwelt verpesten. Gewinnen können tatsächlich nur Investoren. Denn nur sie bekommen weitreichende, einklagbare Rechte.

Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten: In Osteuropa gibt es Investitionsabkommen mit den USA, die extrem investorenfreundlich ausgestaltet sind. Wäre ein reformierter Investitionsschutz im TTIP, der diese Abkommen ersetzen würde, nicht eine Verbesserung?

Pia Eberhardt: Die bestehenden neun existierenden bilateralen Investitionsabkommen osteuropäischer Staaten mit den USA können einseitig aufgekündigt werden. Wenn es mit diesen Verträgen Probleme gibt, gehören sie gekündigt – oder neu verhandelt. Stattdessen missbraucht die Kommission diese Abkommen, um eine massive Ausweitung des Investitionsschutzes zu legitimieren. Statt neun Staaten könnten unter TTIP alle 28 Staaten direkt verklagt werden. Statt ein Prozent der US-Investitionen in der EU wären 100 Prozent abgedeckt. Und über 50.000 Unternehmen könnten gegen die EU und ihre Mitgliedstaaten klagen – verglichen mit 4.500 heute. TTIP bedeutet also nichts anderes als viel größere Klage- und finanzielle Risiken für viel mehr EU-Mitgliedstaaten.

Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten: Sind die Schiedsgerichte, die es heute gibt, und das Investment Court System, das uns eventuell mit TTIP droht, am Ende lukrativer als erfolgreiche Lobbyarbeit?

Pia Eberhardt: Beides greift ineinander. Die Schiedsgerichte eignen sich ja auch als Lobbyinstrument – Konzerne nutzen schon heute Klagedrohungen, um Politik zu bekämpfen. Und TTIP enthält mit der regulatorischen Kooperation noch weitere Kapitel, die Unternehmen mehr Waffen in der politischen Auseinandersetzung an die Hand geben. TTIP stärkt die Macht von Unternehmen in politischen Auseinandersetzungen um Regulierungen, die letztendlich alle betreffen.

Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten: Langfristig ist ein internationales Schiedsgericht geplant, das für alle Konzerne und Länder zuständig ist. Was halten Sie von dieser Idee?

Pia Eberhardt: Gar nichts. Letztendlich wäre das ein Gerichtshof, zu dem nur Konzerne und reiche Privatpersonen Zugang hätten, auf Basis eines materiellen Rechts, das allein ihre Eigentumsrechte und Gewinnerwartungen schützt. Aber gibt es nicht auch noch andere schützenswerte gesellschaftliche Interessen? In Zeiten einer drohenden globalen Klimakatastrophe und drohenden weiteren Finanzkrisen ist die Ausweitung eines Systems, das Lösungsansätze dieser Probleme vereitelt, weil dadurch Unternehmensgewinne geschmälert würden, völliger Wahnsinn.

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* Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten, Veröffentlicht: 20.02.16

**Pia Eberhardt ist die Mitautorin der aktuellen Studie „Investitionsschutz in TTIP: Die EU-Kommission lässt gefährliche Konzernklagerechte als ISDS-Zombie weiterleben“. Pia Eberhardt arbeitet für die NGO Corporate Europe Observatory.

Washington’s War on Russia*

by Mike Whitney


    “In order to survive and preserve its leading role on the international stage, the US desperately needs to plunge Eurasia into chaos, (and) to cut economic ties between Europe and Asia-Pacific Region … Russia is the only (country) within this potential zone of instability that is capable of resistance. It is the only state that is ready to confront the Americans. Undermining Russia’s political will for resistance… is a vitally important task for America.”


    -Nikolai Starikov, Western Financial System Is Driving It to War, Russia Insider

    “Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”

    -The Wolfowitz Doctrine, the original version of the Defense Planning Guidance, authored by Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, leaked to the New York Times on March 7, 1992

The United States does not want a war with Russia, it simply feels that it has no choice. If the State Department hadn’t initiated a coup in Ukraine to topple the elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, then the US could not have inserted itself between Russia and the EU, thus, disrupting vital trade routes which were strengthening nations on both continents. The economic integration of Asia and Europe–including plans for high-speed rail from China (“The New Silk Road”) to the EU–poses a clear and present danger for the US whose share of global GDP continues to shrink and whose significance in the world economy continues to decline. For the United States to ignore this new rival (EU-Russia) would be the equivalent of throwing in the towel and accepting a future in which the US would face a gradual but persistent erosion of its power and influence in world affairs. No one in Washington is prepared to let that happen, which is why the US launched its proxy-war in Ukraine.

The US wants to separate the continents, “prevent the emergence of a new rival”, install a tollbooth between Europe and Asia, and establish itself as the guarantor of regional security. To that end, the US is rebuilding the Iron Curtain along a thousand mile stretch from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. Tanks, armored vehicles and artillery are being sent to the region to reinforce a buffer zone around Europe in order to isolate Russia and to create a staging ground for future US aggression. Reports of heavy equipment and weapons deployment appear in the media on nearly a daily basis although the news is typically omitted in the US press. A quick review of some of the recent headlines will help readers to grasp the scale of the conflict that is cropping up below the radar:

    “US, Bulgaria to hold Balkans military drills”, “NATO Begins Exercises In Black Sea”, “Army to send even more troops, tanks to Europe”, “Poland requests greater US military presence”, “U.S. Army sending armored convoy 1,100 miles through Europe”, “Over 120 US tanks, armored vehicles arrive in Latvia”, “US, Poland to Conduct Missile Exercise in March – Pentagon”

Get the picture? There’s a war going on, a war between the United States and Russia.

Notice how most of the headlines emphasize US involvement, not NATO. In other words, the provocations against Russia originate from Washington not Europe. This is an important point. The EU has supported US-led economic sanctions, but it’s not nearly as supportive of the military build up along the perimeter. That’s Washington’s idea and the cost is borne by the US alone. Naturally, moving tanks, armored vehicles and artillery around the world is an expensive project, but the US is more than willing to make the sacrifice if it helps to achieve its objectives.

And what are Washington’s objectives?

Interestingly, even political analysts on the far right seem to agree about that point. For example, check out this quote from STRATFOR CEO George Friedman who summed it up in a recent presentation he delivered at The Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs. He said:

    “The primordial interest of the United States, over which for centuries we have fought wars–the First, the Second and Cold Wars–has been the relationship between Germany and Russia, because united there, they’re the only force that could threaten us. And to make sure that that doesn’t happen.” … George Friedman at The Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs, Time 1:40 to 1:57)

Bingo. Ukraine has nothing to do with sovereignty, democracy or (alleged) Russian aggression. That’s all propaganda. It’s about power. It’s about imperial expansion. It’s about spheres of influence. It’s about staving off irreversible economic decline. It’s all part of the smash-mouth, scorched earth, take-no-prisoners geopolitical world in which we live, not the fake Disneyworld created by the western media. The US State Department and CIA toppled the elected-government in Ukraine and ordered the new junta regime to launch a desperate war of annihilation against its own people in the East, because, well, because they felt they had no other option. Had Putin’s ambitious plan to create a free trade zone between Lisbon to Vladivostok gone forward, then where would that leave the United States? Out in the cold, that’s where. The US would become an isolated island of dwindling significance whose massive account deficits and ballooning national debt would pave the way for years of brutal restructuring, declining standards of living, runaway inflation and burgeoning social unrest. Does anyone really believe that Washington would let that to happen when it has a “brand-spanking” trillion dollar war machine at its disposal?

Heck, no. Besides, Washington believes it has a historic right to rule the world, which is what one would expect when the sense of entitlement and hubris reach their terminal phase. Now check out this clip from an article by economist Jack Rasmus at CounterPunch:

    “Behind the sanctions is the USA objective of driving Russia out of the European economy. Europe was becoming too integrated and dependent on Russia. Not only its gas and raw materials, but trade relations and money capital flows were deepening on many fronts between Russia and Europe in general prior to the Ukraine crisis that has provided the cover for the introduction of the sanctions. Russia’s growing economic integration with Europe threatened the long term economic interests of US capitalists. Strategically, the US precipitated coup in the Ukraine can be viewed, therefore as a means by which to provoke Russian military intervention, i.e. a necessary event in order to deepen and expand economic sanctions that would ultimately sever the growing economic ties between Europe and Russia long term. That severance in turn would not only ensure US economic interests remain dominant in Europe, but would also open up new opportunities for profit making for US interests in Europe and Ukraine as well…

    When the rules of the competition game between capitalists break down altogether, the result is war—i.e. the ultimate form of inter-capitalist competition.” (The Global Currency Wars, Jack Rasmus, CounterPunch)

See? Analysts on the right and left agree. Ukraine has nothing to do with sovereignty, democracy or Russian aggression. It’s plain-old cutthroat geopolitics, where the last man left standing, wins.

The United States cannot allow Russia reap the benefits of its own vast resources. Oh, no. It has to be chastised, it has to be bullied, it has to be sanctioned, isolated, threatened and intimidated. That’s how the system really works. The free market stuff is just horsecrap for the sheeple.

Russia is going to have to deal with chaotic, fratricidal wars on its borders and color-coded regime change turbulence in its capital. It will have to withstand reprisals from its trading partners, attacks on its currency and plots to eviscerate its (oil) revenues. The US will do everything in its power to poison the well, to demonize Putin, to turn Brussels against Moscow, and to sabotage the Russian economy.

Divide and conquer, that’s the ticket. Keep them at each others throats at all times. Sunni vs Shia, one ethnic Ukrainian vs the other, Russians vs Europeans. That’s Washington’s plan, and it’s a plan that never fails.

US powerbrokers are convinced that America’s economic slide can only be arrested by staking a claim in Central Asia, dismembering Russia, encircling China, and quashing all plans for an economically-integrated EU-Asia. Washington is determined to prevail in this existential conflict, to assert its hegemonic control over the two continents, and to preserve its position as the world’s only superpower.

Only Russia can stop the United States and we believe it will.
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MIKE WHITNEY lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com.
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http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/18/washingtons-war-on-russia/

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/15118f6f2ae22527,

THE NEW «GERMAN QUESTION»

By Dimitris Konstantakopoulos

The other day, while reading an article published in the major German newspaper FAZ, I could not believe my eyes. It was a direct threat against the Chancellor of Austria! More or less the article was telling him to mind his country not becoming Greece, suggesting to him to cut social expenses. His crime was that he showed some sympathy for Greece, which suffered during and because of its “rescue”, an unprecedented economic, social and national disaster, losing 27% of its GDP, which is more than the material losses of France or Germany during the 1st World War.

Inevitably my mind made automatically the connection with Anschluss, the annexation of Austria to the German Reich before the war. You see, events run sometimes faster than the ability of mind and soul to analyze and ‘metabolize’ them!

The European policy of Berlin is not however the only example of Germany’s drastic shift, of the radical differentiation of the basic parameters, which determined Germany’s policy for the whole post war period. A year ago the editor of its biggest financial newspaper Handelsblatt Gabor Steingart wrote an article pointing out the similarities of the anti-Russian tone of the articles published by the German mass media on Ukraine and of those published in August 1914, when Kaiser was starting the 1st World War.

Historic experience shows that massive attacks by the mass media towards countries are nothing less than the necessary preparation of the public opinion for war. The vulgar and almost sadistic attack by the main German press against Greece in 2009-10 preceded the “markets” attack against Athens. The “economic war” against Greece followed suit, by a coalition of Finance Capital, Berlin and EU institutions and led and justified the subjection of our country to the Troika of the Creditors on May 2010. The media’s attacks against Serbia, Iraq and Libya were nothing else than the preparation of public opinion for the bombarding and the destruction of these states. The anti – Russian campaign of the western European mass media is the preparation of a big war against Russia, cold or maybe hot. The indications of “friendship” towards Moscow of a portion of the German establishment, risk to have finally no better future than the Ribbentrop –Molotov friendship, which made simply easier the attack against USSR in 1941. Of course, campaigns of the press and of the television use real events or arguments, particles of truth, but only to give credibility to the lies.

Germany, West and Russia

The existence of the Russian atomic arsenal makes very difficult (but not completely impossible) a direct military conflict between West and Moscow. However, we see already the western encouragement of the civil conflict in Ukraine and an economic war with use of sanctions and with the aim, finally, to cut off Europe from Russian energy. This dual “strategy”, aims both at the containement of Russia and to overthrowing Putin, as well as to the destruction of any Euro-Russian cooperation, which is the conditio sine qua non of European independence.

One would normally expect Berlin to oppose such a course. But even if we assume it wants to do so, it doesn’t seem that it can. Berlin does not possess an integrated view of the international situation, capable of opposing the “vision” and the determination of the extremist “neoliberal core” in the international establishment, which was expressed so clearly in the Ukrainian crisis by Mrs. Victoria Nuland (“fuck the EU”), while it seems too dependent on these forces.

Germany’s awakening

Personally, I always considered as completely unfounded the expectation of the postwar European, Russian and American elites that Germany would accept to remain forever divided, essentially under some form of occupation, a second class power, with only mission to apologize for its past. Not only was such an expectation unfounded, it was also not in the best interests of Europe as a whole – that is including Russia.

Germany, with its educated and disciplined human resources, its technological achievements, its sensitivity to issues concerning the protection of nature and peace, would be necessary for the rescue of the biggest social conquest of European civilization, namely the welfare state, which has allowed until now Europeans to live in circumstances of relative security and dignity. Germany can still, at least in theory, play a leading role in defending this very important achievement from the onslaught of “globalization”, which is nothing else than the attempt a planetary dictatorship of Money. Germany may also contribute to a Europe that, in cooperation with Russia, it can prevent the tendency to push humanity to chaos, war and ecological disaster.

The unprecedented leveling of a number of important Arab states, the return of the specter of war over Europe, the extent of Greek socio-economic disaster, the refusal to take any measures to tackle the ecological threat, reveal to any serious observer the severity of the risks facing mankind.

Germany could theoretically play an important positive role in all these matters. No European could oppose this. But, if it is absolutely necessary to hope and dream and act for the Good, it is also necessary not to have illusions and to dare compare Utopia and Reality, drawing the necessary conclusions. Unfortunately, the ruling political elites in Berlin have made the opposite choices, without meeting so far any significant resistance from the German establishment and the German people.

Many in Europe hoped for the regeneration of the continent when Schröder, in close collaboration with Chirac, Villepin and Putin opposed the US-British invasion of Iraq. Unfortunately, this act of resistance was left without a follow-up, at least by Berlin and Paris. The same leaders, who undertook it, they got so scared of their own courage at a moment, that they ended up apologizing for long after to Washington. The forces of transatlantic dependence returned with a vengeance, in an unprecedented manner, together with international financial capital, the continent’s political elites over the last decade.

Economy and geopolitics

This proved something deeper, the organic unity of the neoliberals’ and the newconservatives’ projects in economic and in geopolitics. That is why politicians are not opposed to neo-liberal plans of deep deconstruction of the social State and democracy, because they cannot effectively oppose the oncoming war.
At least theoretically, there are two roads ahead for Germany. The awakening of German nationalism may be the starting point of an effort to lead the resistance to globalization and war. Instead of trying to subdue the other European people in conjunction with the markets, Germany can lead the resistance against them. Instead of rallying to, or at least not opposing to the neoconservatives’ war against Russia and the Arabs, it could counter them, thus championing Europe’s autonomous role. This would be a splendid victory for a new Germany. Such an option would constitute a historic victory in the best traditions of the German Spirit against the “counter-powers”, to use the terminology of Nietzsche, which persecute this European nation, unique among the major, historic nations of Europe, to failed accomplish a victorious revolution in its history.

Faust’s ghost

But Merkel and Schäuble, assisted in a critical manner by Gabriel, chose another road. In order to “discipline” the Eurozone, Berlin concluded a Faustian alliance with the most extreme forces of global Money, organized around the most extremist neoliberals (and passively tolerating the most extremist forces of the international establishment, the “neoconservatives “).

Allowing the “markets” to attack Greece, a Eurozone country, in 2009-10, armed with the debt and the threat of “bankruptcy” and bringing the IMF into the Eurozone, Berlin acquired the political-economic weapon that it was lacking and also the convincing “ideological” guise (the debt must be paid!) to “discipline” and dominate Europe – or so it thought!

Symbolic of this “immoral” alliance is the appointment of a former Goldman Sachs banker as a President of the ECB’s, the economic supra-Prime Minister of Europe, and the solemn entrance of the IMF in the governance of the Eurozone.

For their part, the “markets”, the major global banks and other financial institutions, organized around the political-ideological core of neoliberals, acquired, through their alliance with Berlin, the political, economic and ‘institutional’ (through the EU ) means to intervene directly in Europe. ‘Not only they did not record losses due to the great crisis of 2008, which they caused, but they made profits, which have to be paid by the people of Europe by increasing sovereign and private debt. They turned the financial sector crisis into a EU crisis and fueled political conflict between the European people.

Faust is a tragic person. Insisting on the roads he took, captive inevitably to its allies, who do not want to see Germany as a leading power, (allies who have a global strategy and “vision”, contrary to the dominant, very “provincial” and historically delayed version of German nationalism), Germany risks paying in the end a terrible price, comparable to that paid twice in its history. The possible outcome of all this was depicted with perspicacity of Homers’s Cassandra by Günter Grass, in the last two poems he wrote.

Always hoping for a timely change in Berlin, the nations of Southern Europe (including France), the Russians and all the good intentioned citizens of the world do not have many options if they want to survive and avoid the worst. In this respect the example of Chamberlain, Daladier and Molotov, but also of modern Greece, is instructive, proving that only a resolute resistance to the above-mentioned plans is perhaps the only way to modify them. This game, so decisive for the future of humanity, as well as the various lesser games in Europe, Ukraine and the Middle East will be won in the end only by whoever has a comprehensive and global strategy.

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(I dedicate this article to Hayo, my great German friend, a democrat, a friend of Greece and fighter for humane architecture).

July 23, 2015

Published by the ANA-MPA news agency

Translated from the Greek by Stathis Habibis