Emilian M. Dobrescu

Austria este o republică parlamentară federală cu un șef de guvern (cancelarul) și un șef de stat (președintele). Țara este formată din nouă state (Bundesländer). Puterea executivă este exercitată atât de guvernele regionale, cât și de cel federal. Parlamentul federal are două camere: Camera Inferioară (Nationalrat), cu membri aleși prin vot direct, și Camera Superioară (Bundesrat), cu membri aleși de parlamentele regionale. Parlamentul European are 18 membri aleşi din Austria.

Guvern de dreapta în landul Austria Inferioară

Pe 17 martie 2023, un tabu important a fost încălcat în Austria Inferioară, unde guvernatoarea landului Johanna Mikl-Leitner (reprezentând Partidul Popular din landul Austria Inferioară, în germană Die Volkspartei Niederösterreich, ÖVP, partid de centru-dreapta) și Udo Landbauer, liderul partidului de extrema dreaptă Partidul Libertății din Austria (în germană, Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, FPÖ) au anunțat un acord pentru următorii cinci ani, în pofida apelurilor comunității israeliene (https://cursdeguvernare.ro/tabu-incalcat-austria-inferioara-fpo-alianta-guvernul-regional.html). ÖVP și-a pierdut majoritatea la alegerile regionale de la sfârșitul lunii ianuarie 2023, când a înregistrat o scădere cu 10% a voturilor obținute. După ce negocierile pentru o coaliție cu social-democrații (Partidul Social-Democrat Austriac, în germană Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs, SPÖ, un partid de centru-stânga din Austria) au eșuat.

După alegerile regionale de la jumătatea lunii martie 2023, ÖVP (care a obținut patru locuri) și FPÖ (trei locuri) în Parlamentul local al landului Austria Inferioară au anunțat formarea unui guvern de dreapta ce ar putea prefigura o viitoare alianță după alegerile din 2024: „Acesta este un drum greu pentru ambele partide”, a declarat pe 17 martie 2023, Johanna Mikl-Leitner, liderul local al ÖVP. În campanie, aceasta avertizase asupra amenințării reprezentate de extrema-dreapta și a descris FPÖ ca pe un partid radical. La rândul său, FPO promitea în campania electorală că nu o va ajuta Mikl-Leitner.

Cele două formațiuni au explicat electoratului lor că este o relație de colaborare „în interesul statului și al cetățenilor din Austria Inferioară” și „nu o relație amoroasă”, a subliniat ea. „Sunt multe lucruri care ne separă”, a explicat și Udo Landbauer, liderul FPO, viitorul guvernator adjunct. Numeroși artiști importanți care trăiesc în Austria Inferioară, printre care scriitorii Robert Menasse și Peter Turrini, i-au trimis o scrisoare deschisă guvernatoarei: „Viitorul Austriei Inferioare constă în deschiderea internațională și în angajamentul pentru o democrație modernă într-o Europă comună. O coaliție cu partidul naționalist și xenofob FPÖ reprezintă o abatere de la această cale”.

OVP, marcat de anchete de corupţie, dar şi de crizele globale, a ajuns la 39,8% – cel mai slab rezultat înregistrat în acest land după 1945, pierzând majoritatea absolută în Parlamentul Austriei Inferioare şi în guvernul regional. În schimb, FPO a întrunit 24,5%, cel mai bun rezultat al său de până acum în provincia estică a Austriei. Liderul regional Udo Landbauer a subliniat în mod repetat că formaţiunea sa vrea să pună capăt “sistemului OVP” din Austria Inferioară, învinuind totodată OVP, condus de cancelarul Karl Nehammer, pentru creşterea semnificativă a numărului de solicitanţi de azil pe parcursul anului 2022.

Poziția Partidului Popular (ÖVP)

Vă prezentăm câteva extrase din programul ”Austria 2030” al actualului cancelar, Karl Nehammer, președintele  ÖVP: ”În spatele nostru stă o perioadă dificilă. Primul meu an în calitate de cancelar federal a fost marcat de crize. Inaugurarea mandatului meu avut loc pe fondul unui blocaj[1]: 80 de zile mai târziu (24 februarie 2022 – n.n.), în Ucraina a izbucnit războiul, care a dus la o criză economică globală cu inflație record. În plus, a existat riscul unei penurii de gaz pentru iarnă. În calitate de cancelar al acestei republici, prioritatea mea principală a fost întotdeauna să-i ghidez pe austrieci prin aceste vremuri dificile. Vom depăși aceste provocări împreună, cu curaj și încredere. Nu s-a terminat, dar am învățat să facem față consecințelor. Acum este Timpul să privim spre viitor.

Lumea noastră se reorganizează și Austria va avea succes pe termen lung doar dacă acceptăm împreună provocările Timpului nostru ca oportunități. Viziunea mea pentru țara noastră este de a crea condiții-cadru care să permită fiecăruia să-și modeleze propriul viitor. După un an de management al crizelor, acum învățăm lecțiile din aceste crize. Este important. pentru a oferi Oamenilor din Austria o perspectivă și pentru a gândi în afara cadrului acestei perioade legislative. „Austria 2030” ste planul meu pentru viitor… El oferă răspunsuri la multe întrebări despre cum și în ce direcție ar trebui să se dezvolte țara noastră.

Austria este o țară a diversității și Austria a realizat ceva cu care ne putem mândri cu toții: și anume, să promoveze tradiția și arta contemporană – pentru că toate acestea sunt necesare. La oraș și la țară, pentru că Oamenii din țara noastră sunt la fel de diverși ca arta și cultura. 

Sunt necesare mai multe beneficii în natură în loc de prestații în numerar pentru migranți. Austria nu trebuie să fie un magnet pentru refugiații economici. În viitor, migranții ar trebui să primească mai multe prestații în natură decât în ​​numerar. În plus, de acum înainte numai cei care au locuit în Austria de cel puțin 5 ani ar trebui să primească întreaga sumă a prestațiilor sociale – până atunci, acestea ar trebui să fie oferite doar pe jumătate. 

Potențialul neutralității austriece trebuie utilizat mai bine. Folosim neutralitatea în loc să ne gândim la ea: este nevoie de Austria, cu politica sa activă de neutralitate, atât în ​​interiorul, cât și în afara UE. 

Veto-ul pentru intrarea în spațiul Schengen al Austriei rămâne în vigoare (se referă la veto-ul pentru România și Bulgaria – n.n.). Frâna de azil este încă necesară. Un sistem defect nu poate fi extins. De aceea, veto-ul Schengen rămâne în vigoare. În plus, este necesară o protecție consecventă a frontierelor externe ale UE. Prin urmare, la inițiativa Austriei, în Bulgaria începe un proiect pentru a se ocupa de procedurile de azil la frontiera externă a UE. Acest lucru ar trebui să reducă și mai mult presiunea pentru azil la granițele Austriei. 

Să compensăm penuria de muncitori calificați din Austria prin imigrarea calificată a specialiștilot din străinătate.

În sectorul asistenței medicale, în special, nevoia de muncitori calificați va crește brusc. Pentru a ne asigura că toți Oamenii îmbătrânesc cu demnitate, trebuie să ocupăm aceste posturi cu lucrători bine calificați. Pe lângă faptul că profesia de asistent medical este mai atractivă în Germania, trebuie să existe și o căutare țintită a lucrătorilor calificați din străinătate. Acest lucru necesită să rezolvăm problema majoră a recunoașterii formării, în special în sectorul asistenței medicale . 

Uniunea Europeană trebuie să revină la ceea ce o face puternică și mare. O uniune economică care creează pace și prosperitate. Este necesară reforma azilului, securității și apărării. Este nevoie de o Europă a națiunilor care să abordeze marile probleme și să lase Uniunii problemele care pot fi rezolvate la nivel național. În cazul în care este necesar un nou tratat UE, Austria va pleda pentru acesta”. 

Poziția Partidului Social Democrat (SPÖ)

Sub deviza “O țară. Un viitor comun”, președinta SPÖ, Pamela Rendi-Wagner, a ținut un discurs principal cu privire la situația politică actuală din Austria și Europa în Aula der Wissenschaften din Viena și a precizat că Austria are, din nou, nevoie de o conducere social-democrată[2]: “Este Timpul pentru prima femeie cancelar social-democrat! Diferența dintre cine guvernează poate schimba o întreagă generație și poate aduce o țară întreagă înainte”, a declarat Rendi-Wagner celor aproximativ 150 de invitați, printre care cei cinci foști cancelari ai SPÖ: Franz Vranitzky, Viktor Klima, Alfred Gusenbauer, Werner Faymann și Christian Kern – “Cancelarii noștri social-democrați au avut cu toții un lucru în comun: respectul pentru democrația noastră și instituțiile sale, respectul față de Oameni și interesul pentru situația și oportunitățile lor de viață”, a declarat Rendi-Wagner, care a subliniat că “decența politică și integritatea personalităților politice implicate s-au pierdut în ultimii cinci ani. Din cauza numeroaselor schimbări de guvern și a scandalurilor politice, țara noastră a ajuns la un minim fără precedent. Țara noastră are nevoie de o direcție diferită”, a declarat Rendi-Wagner, care și-a prezentat modelul de viitor pentru o Austrie cu un nivel ridicat de securitate socială și o economie inovatoare. Pentru Rendi-Wagner, este clar că securitatea internă și socială trebuie gîndite împreună.

După 2017 au existat numeroase guverne “care nu au acționat în interesul oamenilor harnici”, a declarat Rendi-Wagner, care a criticat atacurile Partidului Popular (ÖVP) asupra sistemului judiciar independent, haosul corona și lipsa măsurilor împotriva valului de inflație. ”Această grămadă de cioburi trebuie îndepărtată”, a mai spus Rendi-Wagner. În ceea ce privește securitatea socială, Rendi-Wagner a declarat că misiunea Austriei este o politică externă și de pace activă. “Neutralitatea nu înseamnă să fii neutru în minte”.

Rendi-Wagner respinge în mod clar aderarea Austriei la NATO. Pentru a ne apăra neutralitatea și suveranitatea austriacă, forțele armate federale trebuie să fie bine echipate. Securitatea socială a reprezentat întotdeauna preocuparea principală a social-democrației, “pentru că este seva noastră. Nu poți să joci securitatea internă și externă împotriva securității sociale. Fără securitate internă nu există securitate socială și fără securitate socială nu există securitate internă. Ele trebuie considerate împreună. Această securitate socială necesită șanse egale, justiție, libertate, democrație, respect și prosperitate. Toate acestea necesită un stat social puternic pe care oamenii se pot baza. Mai sunt încă multe de făcut aici”, a spus Rendi-Wagner, abordând sărăcia tot mai mare în rândul copiilor, activele distribuite inegal și oportunitățile educaționale și de carieră: “Este Timpul să dăm țării noastre o direcție diferită. Sunt multe de făcut: de exemplu, mai puține impozite pe forța de muncă, impozite mai mari pentru corporațiile online internaționale, taxe pe milioane de moșteniri și active, sunt necesare 100.000 de noi locuri de îngrijire a copiilor pe tot parcursul zilei, 180.000 de locuri școlare suplimentare pe tot parcursul zilei, o ofensivă de formare în domeniile îngrijirii personale, dar și al tehnologiei, introducerea protecției de bază a copilului, transparența salarială pentru salarii echitabile, precum și o creștere a indemnizațiilor de șomaj.

În ceea ce privește actualul val de inflație, Rendi-Wagner a spus că guvernul ar putea și ar trebui să ia contramăsuri, dar nu face acest lucru. În schimb, există facilități fiscale pentru milionarii selectați.

Având în vedere numărul mare de noi infectări, personalul medical suprasolicitat și spitalele care funcționează în regim de urgență, președinta SPÖ a declarat: “Nu aceasta este calea de a lupta împotriva unei pandemii. Austria poate fi mândră de sistemul său de sănătate bun, solidar, pe care social-democrația l-a construit și l-a apărat din nou și din nou, dar trebuie consolidat și făcut mai rezistent la crize, pentru protecția tuturor”.

Având în vedere provocările care variază de la digitalizare la tranziția energetică, este clar: “Avem nevoie de o nouă politică economică. O politică de cooperare cu un stat activ și hotărât care aspiră să-și asume responsabilitatea, aceasta este forța motrice.” În ceea ce privește tranziția energetică, este clar: “Dacă Austria dorește să își atingă obiectivele de protecție a climei, trebuie să facem un lucru mai presus de toate: să devenim mult, mult mai rapizi. Ca locație industrială, Austria trebuie, de asemenea, să fie consolidată cu toată puterea noastră pentru a menține valoarea adăugată și locurile de muncă în țară.

În plus, importanța științei și cercetării în Austria trebuie să devină mai mare pentru a supraviețui în competiția internațională și pentru a stăpâni provocările viitorului, de la pandemii la schimbările climatice. Austria ar trebui să devină din nou o țară în care progresul este posibil, cu oportunități educaționale echitabile, respect pentru oamenii muncii, o rețea socială puternică și sindicate puternice; o țară în care umerii mai largi poartă poveri mai mari, care are un loc ferm în Europa și este respectată la nivel internațional. Avem o singură țară, avem un singur viitor comun și, prin urmare, este de datoria noastră să profităm la maximum de acest viitor. Și vom profita la maximum de acest viitor împreună”.

Concluzii

Poate remarcile de mai sus, referitoare la ceea ce este acum mai important în aceast țară europeană, nu sunt suficente pentru a ne forma o opinie corespunzătoare despre cadrul geopolitic în care este închistată această țară. Este clar că Austria își cunoaște foarte bine interesele, pe ccare le urmărește cu obstinație, ca întotdeauna în Istoria ei imperială sau în Istoria ei recentă…

Prefigurăm mari schimbări politice în această mică țară europeană, dar cu o politică mare, pe măsura trecutului ei… 

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[1] Vezi site-ul https://www.dievolkspartei.at/, vizitat pe 23 martie 2023

[2] Vezi site-ul Die Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs kämpft seit 130 Jahren für ein besseres Leben der Menschen. Freiheit, Gleichheit, Gerechtigkeit und Solidarität sind unsere Grundwerte. › SPÖ (spoe.at), vizitat pe 23 martie 2023

(Reversibility of Anthropogeographic Inversion)

Anis H. Bajrektarevic        

Economic downturn; recession of plans and initiatives; systematically ignored calls for a fiscal and monetary justice for all; €-crisis; Brexit and irredentism in the UK, Spain, Belgium, France, Denmark and Italy; lasting instability in the Euro-Med theatre (debt crisis of the Europe’s south – countries scrutinized and ridiculed under the nickname PIGS, coupled with the failed states all over the MENA); terrorism; historic low with Moscow culminating in the unprecedented opened armed conflict of West with Russia on the territory of yet another Slavic useful idiot, ill-fated Ukraine, all this combined with a confrontational but in fact frightened and disoriented Washington administration; influx of predominantly Muslim refugees from Levant in numbers and configurations unprecedented since the WWII exoduses (with an institutionalized racism in the Western migration policy while giving to fleeing Ukrainians diametrically different treatment); consequential growth of far-right parties who – by peddling reductive messages and comparisons – are exploiting fears of otherness, that are now amplified with already urging health labour and social justice concerns; generational unemployment and socio-cultural anxieties, in ricochet of sanctions; long-ago ‘prophesised’ than doctored health, post-C-19 and energy ‘crises’, oil anti-diplomacy; painful de-dollarization as well as the Sino-US trade wars, while rifting in dilemma to either letting Bolivarism or supporting Monroeism…

And, just when we thought – it can’t get worse, just when we thought that the history judgement can be escaped and that Europe can avoid inevitable – acceptance that there is no more moral triumph of the west (ever since dizzy 2020), the devastating earthquake reduced foundations of the western civilisational superiority to a rubble: arrests of the top officials of the most democ-ratic EU institution of all – the Euro Parliament, and extensive raids that are still ongoing.[1]    

The very fundaments of Europe are shaking.

Strikingly, there is a very little public debate enhanced in Europe about it. What is even more worrying is the fact that any self-assessing questioning of Europe’s involvement and past policies in the Middle East, and Europe’s East is simply off-agenda. Immaculacy of Brussels and infallibility of Atlantic-Central Europe-led EU is unquestionable. Corresponding with realities or complying with a dogma?

*                *                      *                      *

Triangular economy of othering

Why does our West so vigilantly promote the so-called international trade all over the place? Answer is at hand; the US President George H.W. Bush clarifies: “No nation on Earth has discovered a way to import the world’s goods and services while stopping foreign ideas at the border.”[2]   

There is a consensus within the academic community what was the critical factor in redefining the world’s periphery – from a sub-permafrost – Europe into the advanced West. Undeniably, it was the extension of its strategic depth westward, to the Americas upon 1492 – a huge continent unreported in the Bible and unknown to Europeans. There is also a consensus over the two factors facilitating the initiation of the age of Grand discoveries. The push effect was the fall of Constantinople, relative decline of the Maghrebian Arabs and the Ottoman techno-military and demographic threat onto Europe from south and southeast. And, the pull effect was the Ming dynasty inward retreat and to it related dismembering of the superior transoceanic Sino-fleet.[3]  

This unleashed the so-called triangular transcontinental trade that incorporated one more previously unknown continent to Europe – (sub-Saharan) Africa. Triangular trade was a brutal instrument imposed by Europeans: Enslaved Africans shipped as cattle to America to dig for gold and silver which was destined for European colonial centres.[4]

(Needleless to say that soon after American continent has been ‘discovered’, Europeans brutally derogated its indigenous civilisation. Only 100 years later, Americas have suffered loss of 90% of its total pre-colonial population – a final solution in one of its most effective workings. The same went on in sub-Saharan Africa. Far from being an undiscovered prior to the European conquistas, Africa was for many centuries an integral part of the Afro-Asian trading and manufacturing system. All that have dramatically changed with the arrival of Europeans. Soon after, they derogated an indigenous socio-political, civilizational and cultural and the demographic structures of Africa beyond the point of reparation.)

Once in Europe, stashes of these precious metals were used to cover massive European deficits created by extensive imports of the cutting-edge technologies, manufactured products, other goods and spices from a that-time superior Asia and the Middle East. Only later, gold and silver will be replaced by the equally powerful but less expensive ‘trade facilitators’ – iron and opium (guns and drugs). For instance in early 1800s, many British MPs and cabinet ministers had shares in the UK narco-companies. Hence, the Narconomics was introduced and imposed as both a powerful strategic deterrent and as a wealth accumulator. (Eg. Still by the late 19^th century, some 40 million mainland Chinese were heavy drugs addicts – roughly 10% of population.)

The Afro-America yields were so colossal for Atlantic Europe that many scholars assume the so–called Industrial revolution rather as an evolutionary anomaly than a natural socio-technological process of development, which was primarily pivoting in (Sino-Indian) Asia.[5]  In order to illustrate a magnitude (or to validate the so called Schumpeterian creative destruction claim), let us note a following data: Starting from an early 16th century for consecutive 300 years, 85% of the world’s silver production and 70% of the world’s gold output came from the Americas. For the same period, 2/3 of globally manufactured goods were originating from Asia. Notably, while Europe spent unearned, Asia worked (to get gradually even pauperised through subsequent unfair trade practices, as Europe projected its military and ‘free trade’ dogma).

Further on, during the 17th, 18th and 19th century the role of Black slavery, slave trading, American Black slave-driven production centres and Negro markets, all significantly contributed to Atlantic Europe’s agricultural and industrial ‘breakthrough’ – as we are celebrating it today. In short, it was a wealth of Americas extracted by the enslaved men-power from Africa, and shipped to Europe under the minimal costs, all that for centuries.[6]   

This colossal ‘oversea discovery’ reinforced Europe’s path on defensive modernisation (usage of technology for a narrow geostrategic end) – European empires building became a scientific project and the science evolved into an imperial project. For instance, French Dutch and Britons (the so-called second and third round of colonisers) learned one think from Portuguese and Spaniards (the first round of European colonisers) – nobody wishes to pay taxes but likes to invest. Therefore their colonial expansion was primarily conducted as a corporate undertaking (West India company, East India company, WIC, VOC, Mississippi company, etc.)[7]  

Hence, it was a magic vicious circle of scientifically erected empires and imperial capitalism: Credits financed overseas discoveries, discoveries led to colonies, colonies made profits (by imported slaves and rarefied locals), profits built trust in tomorrows, and the trust in this shiny colonial tomorrow was translated into ever more credits for the larger corporate undertakings. Small wonder that the exegesis of (Newtonian science and Smith’s) capitalism started blindly to believe in a never-ending and ever-expanding economic growth. The fact that such a ‘faith’ contradicts all cosmic laws bothered none in that time Europe – the continent was dizzy and triumphant in its planetary conquest. Le Capitalisme Européen meant expansion – in every possible sense.

Such a rapid shift from a peripheral status to an ‘advanced civilization’ of course necessitated a complete reconstruction of western identity – furthering the weaponisation of religion for ideological purpose. This acrobatics –in return– caused the rift in Europe and enhanced the Continent’s continued split on two spheres: the Eastern/Russophone Europe – closer to and therefore more objective towards the Afroasian realities; and the Western (Atlantic/Scandinavian/Central) Europe, more dismissive, self-centred and ignorant sphere.

While the Atlantic flank progressively developed its commercial and naval power as to economically and demographically project itself beyond the continent, the landlocked Eastern Europe was lagging behind. It stuck in feudalism, and involuntarily constituted a cordon sanitaire – from eastern Baltic to Adriatic shores – against the Islamic Levant/south and the Russo-oriental East.

Gradually, past the 15^th century, the idea of ‘Western Europe’ begun to crystallise as the Ottoman Turks and the Eastern Europeans were imagined and described as barbarians. During the 17^th and 18^th century as the triangular ‘trade’ progressed, Atlantic Europe firmly portrayed itself as the prosperous West that borders ‘pagan/barbarian’ neighbours to its near east, and the ‘savage subjects’ to its cross-Mediterranean south, overseas west, and the mystical Far East. Consequently, we cannot deny a huge role that the fabricated history as well as the ‘scientific’ racism and its theories played in a formation and preservation of European identity construct.[8]

The Enlightenment was a definite moment in the reinvention of European identity. The quest came along with the fundamental question who are we, and what is our place in the world? Answering that led on to the systematisation, classification of anthropogeographic inversion and – frankly – to reinvention of the world. From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, a kind of an intellectual apartheid regime was forming.

(This historical anomaly I usually describe as anthropogeographic inversion in which the periphery asserted itself into the center by periferising that core and managing to present itself as a center. Thus, our current geopolitical and ideological core resides in geographic peripheries of the planet. It is in the hands of late developmental arrivals, such as the UK, Scandinavia, Russia, Canada, the US, Japan, Australia, New Zeeland, Korea, Singapore, South Africa. To achieve and maintain this colossal inversion was impossible without coercion over the extended space and time. Consequently, it necessitated a combination of physical and metaphysical (hard/coercion and soft/attraction) instruments: Physical military presence of the periphery in the center, combined with a tightly guarded narrative and constructed history. How does my anthropogeographic inversion theory correspond with an institutional interpretation of history? Real anthropogeographic peripheries are certainly a new civilizational arrival – Interference, intrusion and discontinuity is suffered in a core not on edges. (E.g. It is not centrally positioned Syria, Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan intervening in the geographic peripheries, such as the UK, US, Russia, Canada.) Periphery faster coagulates as it is rarely intruded. Center itself melts and is melted constantly. In the world of our realities; periphery sends, center absorbs.)      

The rise of the West was portrayed as a pure virgin birth as John M. Hobson fairly concluded. Europeans delineated themselves as the, only or the most, progressive subject of the world’s history in past, presence and future. At the same time, the Eastern peoples – e.g. Asian as ‘the people without history’ – were seen as inert, passive and corrosive.[9] While the Solar system ‘became’ heliocentric, the sake and fate of our planet turned plain – Europocentric. The world is flat mantra set the stage, turning all beyond Europe into a sanitary corridor, a no-fly-zone.

Ambient, anti-Orient

 “The idea of Europe found its most enduring expression in the confrontation with the Orient in the age of imperialism. It was in the encounter with other civilizations that the identity of Europe was shaped. Europe did not derive its identity from itself but from the formation of a set of global contrasts. In the discourse that sustained this dichotomy of Self and Other, Europe and the Orient became opposite poles in a system of civilizational values which were defined by Europe.” – notes Delantry.

Even the English word to determine, position, adapt, adjust, align, identify, conform, direct, steer, navigate or command has an oriental connotation. To find and locate itself opposite to Orient, means to orient oneself.

Feudal Europe had identified itself negatory towards Levant and Islam. It reinvented a historical unity and continuity of Roman Empire (precursor of today’s Euro-MED) into an us-them binary[10] categorisation:  The peripheral outcast became thus the Rome (Western Empire) and the legitimate successor – who outlived its move to Bosporus for over 1.000 years – became peripheral,‘Byzantium’.[11] No wonder, tireless binary categorisation is an essential glue and galvaniser.

Clearly, it was an identity heavily resting on insecurity. Proof? An external manifestation of inner insecurity is always aggressive assertiveness.

Is this still alive or even operative? How does it correlate today?

*          *          *          *

Europe repeatedly missed to answer to the East and Middle East through a dialogue (instruments) and consensus (institutions) although having both (via CoE; OSCE’s MPC; EU’s ENP, Barcelona Process, etc.). For the past 31 years, it primarily responded militarily in the MENA (or/and with sanctions, which is also a warfare, a socio-economic one) – via ‘Coalitions of the Willing’ (justified by the West and the Rest, Democracy vs. Putinism mantra). However, for a rapidly economically and demographically contracting Europe, the confrontation does not pay off anymore. While practically still yesterday (by the end of WWII), four of the five largest economies were situated in Europe, today only one is not in Asia. None is in Europe.[12]

(Likewise, while the US economy contributed with 54% of the world output in 1945, today it hardly covers 1/3 of that share. Hence, Americans are not fixing the world any more. They are only (partially) managing its decline. Look at their footprint in former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Yemen, Syria or today in Ukraine.)

The same way the Islam has started as an exclusive Arab monopoly to be soon after taken over (for good) by the Turks, Persians and southeast Asians (who are today far more enhanced), the same way the Modern age has started with Europe. But, today it is a planetary undertaking that the least resides within its originator. Simply, the Old Continent is not a wealthy club anymore. It is a theater with a memory of its wealthy past. Presently, Asia, Africa, Latin America are rapidly self-actualising and learning much more from each other than from the West.

And, Europe? Still to this very day, its national institutions are too quickly turning to culture and identity to explain politics, especially at election times. Of course, insisting – in the best spirit of the religious dogma – on the infallibility of its narrative. As simple and convenient as it seems, it is not as accurate as such. All across Europe, the governments repeatedly failed at distributive justice (just recall the Corona shame), not on culture or behavioural recognition. Thus, the EU has to learn how to deescalate and compromise. Certain identity cannot be put in line only with its geography. It has to respond to other realities as well. This is in the Continent’s best interest, for the sake of its only viable future. Therefore, it is a high time for the Brussels-headquartered Europe to challenge its rigid socio-political choices, and to evolve in its views and actings – for at home and for abroad. 

Due to emergence of Asia, Europe will never be as central to the US and Russia as it used to be after the WWII, least after Brexit. Therefore, an old Continent will have to focus on ensuring the survival of its own model of multilateralism before being again able to claim any global ambition. There is no time for re-invention of European postcolonial cartography – be it Kiev, Khartoum or Kinshasa.

If we are any serious, let us start by answering the following: Is the so-called Russian expansionism or MENA ‘Islamofascism’ spontaneous or provoked, is that nascent or only a mirror image of something striking in front of it? And after all, why the indigenous Europe’s Muslims (those of the Balkans) and their twins, indigenous Christians of MENA (those of Levant) are now two identically slim shadows on a (bulletholes scarred) wall; while Ukrainians – whom we ‘protect’ Europeanisticly for the past several decades, are the most tragic the most dislocated the most income-gapped and the least secure national on the planet.   

Anis H. Bajrektarevic           

Vienna, 22 DEC 2022

Prof. Anis H Bajrektarevic is chairperson and professor in international law and global political studies, Vienna, Austria.  He has authored eight books (for American and European publishers) and numerous articles on, mainly, geopolitics energy and technology. Professor is editor of the NY-based GHIR (Geopolitics, History and Intl. Relations) journal, and editorial board member of several similar specialized magazines on three continents. Earlier this year, his 9^th book was realised in New York.

References:

1. Kabani, R. (1994), Imperial Fictions: Europe’s Myths of Orient, Pandora Books
2. Brading, D.A. (1991), The First America: the Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots, and the Liberal State 1492-1867, Cambridge University Press, (pages 80-88)
3. Kaplan, R.D. (2013), Revenge of Geography, Random House New York
4. Losada, A. (1971), The Controversy between Sepúlveda and Las Casas in the Junta of Valladolid, The Northern Illinois University Press, (pages 280-282)
5. Toynbee, A. J. (1934-61), A Study of History, Vol VII: Universal States; Universal Churches (Oxford University Press 1954) and Vol XII: Reconsiderations (Oxford University Press 1961)
6. McBrien, R. (2000), Lives of the Popes, Harper San Francisco
7. Thiesse, A-M. (1999), La création des identités nationales: Europe XVIIIe-XXe siècle, Editions du Seuil, Paris,
8. Wright, L. (2006), The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, First Vintage Books
9. Kipling, R. (1899), The White Man’s Burden: The United States and The Philippine Islands, NY 2(99) McClure’s Magazine, (reprint, 1934)
10. Disraeli, B. (1847), Tancred: Or the New Crusade (Complete), (reprint: Echo Library August 28, 2007)
11. Khana, P. (2019), The Future is Asian, Simon & Schuster
12. III Reich (1942), Biology for the Middle School, The 5th Grade Girls; (Chapter: The Laws of Nature and Humanity), Reichsministerium für Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung, Die Reichsdruckerei Berlin (https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/textbk01.htm, accessed as of 181218)
13. Curtain, P.D. (1984), Cross-Cultural Trade in World History, Cambridge University Press
14. Abu-Lughod, J. L. (1989), Before European Hegemony, Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. Lorimer, J. (1880), The Institutes of Law: a Treatise of the Principles of Jurisprudence as Determined by Nature (2 ed.), Edinburgh – London: William Blackwood & Sons (retrieved via Archive.org as of 14102018) 
16. Wolf, E. R. (1982),  Europe and the People Without History, Berkeley: University of California Press 
17. Hobson, J.M. (2004), The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization, Cambridge University Press
18. The State Archives, South Africa, National Library (http://libguides.wits.ac.za/LegalDeposit accessed 12122018)
19. Manning, P. (1996), Slave Trades, 1500-1800: Globalization of Forced Labour (Variorium: Aldershot, UK). Volume 15 of An Expanding World, edited by A. J. Russell-Wood. (ed. and introduction).
20. Acemoglu, D. and Robinson, J.A. (2012), Why Nations Fail, Crown Business (Random House) NY
21. Diamond, J. (2019), Upheaval – Turning Points for Nations in Crisis, Little Brown and Company NY
22. Harari, Y.N. (2018), 21 Lessons for the 21^st century, Penguin – Random House UK
23. Delantry, G. (1995), Inventing Europe, London, Macmillan (p.84)
24. Bajrektarević, A. (2018), From WWI to www., Addleton Academic Publishers, New York
25. Palacio, A. (2016), Europe on the Sidelines, Project Syndicate (13 Feb 2016, pg.27).

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[1] Even this unprecedented purge is not deprived from cynicism; The only corruption detected ever since 2020 is one having the Europe’s south (e.g. Greece), European Socialists and Arabs as its protagonists. All the rest is clean.   

^[2] This deep historical animosity towards the externally induced, aggressively pushed and coerced trade – so foreign to the organic tissue of the nation – is deeply rooted even with the champion of the world’s trade of today: China. Not so long ago, its Communist Party leader, Jiang Zemin in his inaugural speech of 1989, defined entrepreneurs as: “self-employed traders and peddlers who cheat, embezzle, bribe and evade taxation.”     

^[3] The so called Chinese strategic dilemma remains hotly debated chapter of the world history:

During the Song dynasty (960–1279 AD), China was a world leader in essentially all relevant technological innovations. The Chinese brought up precise clocks, the compass, gunpowder, printing paper and paper money, porcelain, firework (with a rudimentary postulated rocket science to fire it with a precision), and blast furnaces to produce cast iron far before Europeans. The Spinning wheels and waterpower was also in place, if not before Europe than at least simultaneously. No wonder that, by the end of XV century, Chinese standard of leaving was ahead of the one in Europe. Highly skilled meritocracy stuffed the administrative ranks and China enjoyed the uninterrupted centuries of highly bureaucratised and centralized state.

The Administration’s centralising grip even increased during the Ming and Qing dynasties that followed the Song. For the vast Sino-civilisation, the central dilemma remained the same: How to prevent fragmentation and how to maintain the territorial integrity. When the Ming dynasty came to power in 1368, it was Emperor Hongwu – in his three decades long rule – who restricted Chinese overseas exploration, travel and trade. Hongwu was clearly concerned about the destabilising socio-political effects if Chinese overseas activates are not under the strict control of the central government. This would remain a central Sino-dilemma for centuries to come: How to effectively transpond successes of the coastal areas onto the poor hinterlands – all that to prevent divisions and ultimate partition of Sino-world into two or more confronted fractions.

When in 1402 Yongle became an Emperor, he initiated one of the most glorious periods of Chinese history. The Royal Court sponsored Admiral Zheng He to conduct six colossal missions, far beyond Asia. The first fleet comprised of 27,800 persons (not only seaman, but their concubines, wives or families) and 62 large treasure ships (up to 11 masts, several decks, 14 sails, with a crew of up to 1,500), accompanied by almost 200 smaller ships. Food and fresh water supplies were on transport ships as well as samples of animals and plants.

After the sixth mission, a ban has been introduced for almost a decade (under Yongle 1422-24; Hongxi 1424-25; Xuande 1425-33). By 1433 Admiral He was conducting his final 2-year long mission, after which he was retired while the tracery fleet dismantled, maps and charts confiscated and locked within the walls of Forbidden City. By 1436 the construction of seafaring ships was proclaimed illegal. Since then, the total ban on overseas activity was in place until 1567.  

In 1661 the Emperor Kangxi, after the decades long calamities over the territorial integrity and partition, ordered that all Chinese subjects living along the coastal line from VietNam to Chekiang – practically the entire southern coast, the most commercially active and riches portion of China – should resettle 30 km inland. The coast was policed by imperial troops to enforce the measure, and for the following three decades, there was a moratorium on shipping everywhere on the Sino-coast.

Such a ban was periodically re-imposed throughout the 18th century. Clearly, no Emperor of the Ming and Qing states was eager to trade political stability and therefore territorial integrity for a (uneven) economic prosperity. All the way to Mao of 1949, China had become inward looking and consequently one of the poorest countries of the world. However, the Sino-civilisation avoided dissolution, remaining intact. 

^[4] Historian Patrick Manning estimates that at least 8 million people were exported to Americas as slaves from the West Africa alone between 1700 and 1850. To this number, it has to be added at least 30% more that died in in the enslaving related struggles all over the Atlantic coast of Africa from a present-day Mali to Angola. Early French colonial records for the western Sudan; a large swath of western Africa (from Senegal via Mali and Burkina Faso, to Niger and Chad) accounted for over 30% of population being slaves as late as in 1900. Even Liberia – founded for freed American slaves – accounted up to one quarter of its population as slaves or in a slavery-like conditions, as late as in 1960s!   

^[5] This of course creates a source of everlasting debates between advocates of historical determinism and those who portray human development as a working of historical contingency. Borrowed from evolutionary biologists, the Path dependence or Contigent path of history is a theory originally developed by economists to explain technology adoption process and industrial r/evolution of the West (allegedly) triggered by an incident or anomaly (biological, genetic, cosmic, geo-morphological, climatic, and then anthropo-cultural, socio-political, etc.).  

^[6] Even the US Founding Fathers were slaveholders (5 of the 7 principal ones: Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and George Washington).

^[7] Eg. the British East India Company controlled Indian sub-continent with its private army of 350,000 soldiers – considerably more than the British monarchy had at its own disposal. It was only in 1858 that the UK Crown put India under its direct rule. Dutch took Indonesia from the VOC company after 200 years of its corporate rule over the largest world’s archipelago.

^[8] Explaining the notion of the Bantu Education Act of 1954, one of the chief architects of Apartheid the Dutch-born prof. dr. Hendrik Verwoerd, Prime Minister of South Africa, bluntly spelled out the following in his speech of that year: “The Bantu must be guided to serve his own community in all respects (Bantustan). There is no place for him in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour … For that reason it is to no avail to him to receive a training which has as its aim absorption in the European community while he cannot and will not be absorbed there.” (The State Archives, South Africa, National Library)

^[9] Undoubtedly, (western) Europe owes its prosperity to extension of its commerce and colonial expansion. But let us take a closer look: “The profitability of European colonial empires was often built on the destruction of independent polities and indigenous economies around the world, or on the creation of extractive institutions essentially from the ground up, as in the Caribbean islands, where following the almost total collapse of the native populations, Europeans imported African slaves and set up plantations systems. … We will never know the trajectories of independent city states such as those in the Banda Islands, in Aceh, or in Burma would have been without the European intervention. They may have had their own indigenous Glorious Revolution. But this possibility was removed by the expansion of the Dutch East India Company. … The British East India Company looted local wealth and took over, and perhaps intensified, the extractive taxation institutions of the Mughal rulers of India – coinciding with the massive contraction of Indian textile industry. The contraction went along with the de-urbanisation and increased poverty. It initiated a long period of reversed development in India. (Find the living parallel with a colossal de-industrialisation and de-population of Eastern Europe past its westernisation from 1989 on – op.aut.) Soon, instead of producing textiles, Indians were buying them from Britain and growing opium for the East India Company to sell in China. … The Atlantic slave trade repeated the same pattern in Africa. Many African states were turned into war machines intent on capturing and selling slaves to Europeans…” – noted Acemoglu and Robinson (Why Nations Fail, page 271-273).    

^[10] For more on the topic, see my complementary writings on the so-called binarization of foreign policy conduct.

^[11] All until late XVIII century, the word ‘Byzantium’ was unknown beyond the old-Illyrian name for a small ancient Greek colony of Byzantion. The emperors from Constantinople everybody referred as the Romans. Even the famous codification of Roman law under Iustinianus (Corpus Iuris Civilis) – which lawyers celebrate as the origins of modern law and planetary legal systems – physically took place in Constantinople.

^[12] The moment of ‘liberal truth’ always comes from Atlantic. Thus, Ana Palacio who served both sides of Atlantic (as the former Spanish Foreign Minister and the former Senior Vice President of the Washington-based WB) – among many others – recently warned the Western Ummah: “After years of handwringing over Obama’s strategic “pivot” to Asia, even as Russia was stirring up trouble in Ukraine, Europe is once again a strategic focus for the US. But the deeper message is far less encouraging. The US is acting because its European partners have not. This divergence is troubling. American engagement is necessary to provide momentum, but it is Europe’s weight that has served as the critical mass required to move the world’s liberal order in a positive direction. From the perspective of the European Union, the latest US security bailout raises the possibility that after more than two decades of growing prominence, Europe will lose its agenda-setting power.” (part of quotation underlined by A.B.)

Emilian DOBRESCU

               Între anii 2011-2014, Portugalia a devenit a treia ţară din Zona Euro (după Grecia şi Irlanda) care a fost nevoită să solicite ajutor extern. Conform unui acord cu Uniunea Europeană şi Fondul Monetar Internaţional, Portugalia a primit un pachet de sprijin în valoare de 78 de miliarde de euro, din care 12 miliarde de euro au fost alocate pentru sprijinirea băncilor portugheze. Cu toate acestea, Portugalia a raportat în 2015 un deficit de 4,4% din PIB, faţă de obiectivul de 2,5% negociat cu partenerii din UE.

            Șomajul din Portugalia a scăzut la 8,4% în octombrie 2017, cea mai scăzută rată lunară din ultimii peste 12 ani, în scădere constantă de la atingerea vârfului de peste 17% din timpul crizei datoriilor; totuşi, şomajul în rândul tinerilor rămâne ridicat, crescând de la 25,1% în septembrie la 25,6% în octombrie 2017, a treia cea mai ridicată rată din UE.

            Cu un PIB per capita raportat la puterea de cumpărare de 28.229 de dolari (estimăriFMI pentru 2018), Portugalia este considerată unul dintre cele mai sărace state membre ale Zonei Euro.

            În noiembrie 2021, Portugalia a închis ultima sa termocentrală pe bază de cărbune, devenind a patra ţară din UE[1] care pune punct utilizării acestui combustibil fosil pentru a produce electricitate.

            Bănci amendate

            După o investigaţie de lungă durată, Autoritatea pentru Concurenţă din Portugalia (AdC) a amendat 14 bănci cu un total de 225 de milioane de euro (248,6 milioane dolari) pentru practici concertate de schimb de informaţii comerciale sensibile privind produsele de credit[2]. Amenzile au fost aplicate celor mai mari bănci din Portugalia, CGD, Millennium BCP, BBVA, BIC, BPI, BES, BANIF, Barclays, Caixa de Credito Agricola, Montepio, Santander, Deutsche Bank şi UCI. Instituţiile financiare nu au făcut declaraţii cu privire la această situaţie.

            “AdC nu are cunoştinţă de sancţiuni similare în alte state membre ale Uniunii Europene şi, prin urmare, este o condamnare fără precedent”, a precizat autoritatea. AdC a menţionat că mai bine de un deceniu, între 2002 şi 2013, băncile au făcut schimb de informaţii sensibile cu privire la furnizarea de produse de credit bancare retail, inclusiv ipoteci, împrumuturi de consum şi credite corporate. Conform AdC, fiecare bancă a cunoscut în detaliu “caracteristicile ofertelor altor bănci, ceea ce a descurajat băncile ţintă să le propună clienţilor condiţii mai bune, prin eliminarea presiunii concurenţiale”. AdC a adăugat că schema a avut un impact semnificativ asupra clienţilor.

            “Printr-o coordonare ilegală care le-a permis băncilor să reducă riscurile şi incertitudinea cu privire la performanţele concurenţilor lor direcţi, comportamentul băncilor a afectat competiţia şi, în mod direct, consumatorii”, a precizat AdC. Amenda aplicată s-a bazat pe “severitatea şi durata încălcării normelor de către fiecare bancă”, a adăugat AdC. Ancheta a fost lansată din decembrie 2012, iar AdC a percheziţionat de atunci 25 de sucursale aparţinând unui număr de 15 bănci care au încălcat legea.

               Boom-ul turismului

            În condiţiile în care Portugalia se pregăteşte pentru ceea ce ar putea fi un sezon turistic record, cei din industrie se tem că nu vor putea face faţă valului de turişti[3]. Deja în 2017 hotelurile portugheze au primit un număr record de 20,6 milioane de turişti, aproximativ dublul populaţiei ţării. Ajutată de boomul turismului, economia ţării a crescut până în 2019 cu cca 3% anual, cel mai rapid ritm de expansiune din anul 2000.

            Şomajul a scăzut la 8,1% în trimestrul patru al anului 2017, de la un nivel record de 17,5% în 2013. Deşi redresarea pieţei muncii a constituit o veste bună, unii proprietari de hoteluri se lovesc de un deficit de forţă de muncă. 

            Apoi, din 2020 a venit pandemia de Covid-19 cu tot cortegiul ei de efecte economice negative, inclusiv pentru sectorul turismului, populat de nestemate unice în lume…

            Madeira, Estalagem do Ponta do Sol

              O astfel de nestemată se află în Macaronesia, salba insulară compusă din patru arhipelaguri atlantice împărțite între trei țări – Portugalia, Spania și Capul Verde. Insula Madeira este situată la 700 km de coasta marocană și la 400 km de o altă destinație turistică majoră – Insulele Canare[4]. Nu Madeira în sine, loc vizitat anual de cca un milion de turiști, este nestemata ascunsă pe care vă propunem să o descoperiți, ci, un mic hotel din Ponta do Sol, pe coasta sudică a insulei.

            Ponta do Sol prospera în trecut de pe urma portului și a agriculturii; azi, turismul este motorul economiei locale. În regiune se află multe hoteluri bune – între care se află și Enotel Baia do Sol, Villa Sophia, Casa do Piquinho, Casa do Serrado, Moradia do Alto de São João și așa mai departe. De altfel, toată coasta sudică a insulei Madeira este înțesată de proprietăți deschise oaspeților, turismul profitând de pe urma panoramelor splendide; locurile de cazare sunt pe alese, de la cele nu foarte costisitoare la cele de cinci stele, de la vile cochete la grand hoteluri.
Estalagem da Ponta do Sol este un hotel cu 50 de camere, suficient de mare pentru a oferi facilități splendide de vacanță – restaurante bune, piscină în aer liber, terase ample etc. – care suferă foarte mult acum în pandemie…

            La Ponta do Sol, coordonatele vizuale sunt dominate de ocean și de relieful dramatic, în vreme ce orașul aduce acea doză de șarm specifică vechilor așezări pitorești care nu și-au pierdut identitatea sub asaltul valurilor de turiști. Proiectul Estalagem da Ponta do Sol este rodul unei lungi prietenii, proprietarul său, André Diogo, antreprenor cu o îndelungată experiență în industria ospitalității, inaugurând hotelul la finalul anilor ’90, cu ajutorul unui prieten din copilărie – arhitectul Tiago Oliveira. Au fost exploatate din plin toate atuurile incredibile ale locului, creându-se pe coasta stâncoasă un refugiu binecuvântat, dedicat relaxării: „Estalagem” înseamnă „han” în limba portugheză; aici, nu există spectacol mai frumos decât cel al Naturii însăși, iar el nu trebuie tulburat.

            Dacă ați ajuns la Ponta do Sol, vă recomandăm să explorați uscatul urmând așa-numitele „levadas”, faimoasele căi de irigație din Madeira. Puteți face scufundări în apropierea coastei, admirând uluitorul tablou subacvatic. Cum adâncimea crește foarte rapid lângă coastă, balenele, delfinii și țestoasele marine se apropie foarte mult de cei veniți să le privească în mediul lor marin; lângă Estalagem da Ponta do Sol se află un punct de observație a faunei marine. Cei cărora le place aventura vor fi încântați să afle că în zona Ponta do Sol se practică surfingul, wind- și kitesurfingul și parapantismul, „ingrediente” ale unei vacanțe active în care momentele de adrenalină alternează cu cele de serenitate. 

               Fără eutanasie

               Eutanasia solicitată de către pacient este legală în state UE ca Belgia, Olanda și Luxemburg[5]. La finalul lunii mai 2018, parlamentul portughez a respins patru proiecte de lege care susțineau legalizarea eutanasiei. Decizia legiuitorilor pune astfel capăt procesului parlamentar de dezincriminare a morții asistate, în această țară în care 81% dintre locuitori se declară catolici.

            „Conferința Episcopilor portughezi a salutat faptul că au fost respinse propunerile pentru legalizarea eutanasiei de către Adunarea Republicii”, a spus Joaquim Manuel Gomes SCJ Barbosa, secretar general al Conferinței episcopale portugheze, care a continuat: “Este o victorie a vieții”, care nu ar trebui supusă niciodată la vot, astfel încât ea să fie eliminată, și este, de asemenea, o victorie pentru democrație și pentru toți cei care sunt implicați în apărarea vieții”.

            Înaintea votului,  mai multe organizații anti-avort, dar și organizații ale unor elevi,  au demonstrat în fața Parlamentului din Lisabona. Ei au scandat „Da, vieții, nu eutanasiei!” și au purtat banere pe care scria: „Vrem îngrijire paliativă pentru toți” și „Eutanasia este o rețetă pentru abuzarea bătrânilor”.

               Ieşirea din recesiune

               În 2012, deficitul bugetar a fost de 6,4% din PIB,  în 2013 – de 5,5%, iar în 2014 – de 4% din PIB. În trimestrul doi din 2013, economia portugheză a înregistrat prima creştere din 2010, datorită accelerării exporturilor[6]. Premierul Pedro Passos Coelho trebuia să scadă cheltuielile în 2014 cu aproximativ 3,3 miliarde de euro (4,5 miliarde de dolari), după ce în 2013 s-a bazat mai mult pe majorarea taxelor pentru a îndeplini obiectivele stabilite în schimbul asistenţei financiare.

                 Portugalia a revenit deplin pe pieţele financiare după ieşirea din programul de asistenţă financiară, în iunie 2014. În august 2015, un articol din The Telegraph arăta, pe baza unei analize de la FMI, că “îndatorata Portugalie rămâne copilul problemă al Europei”. Tot Fondul a atras atenţia cu privire la “iluzia redresării prin intermediul exporturilor”[7]. Politica de austeritate urmată de guvernul Coelho, pe fondul presiunilor externe, a inclus majorări ale taxelor, care au condus la o recesiune de trei ani. Măsurile nu au avut succes, în condiţiile în care datoria publică şi-a continuat creşterea, pe fondul unei economii care nu a revenit la nivelul anterior crizei.

            Produsul Intern Brut era în 2014, cu 7,1% sub nivelul celui din 2008, în timp ce PIB-ul nominal a înregistrat o scădere de 3% în aceeaşi perioadă. În schimb, datoria publică a crescut cu 76,1% între 2008 şi 2014. În acest context, FMI a avertizat că nivelul “sufocant” al datoriilor publice şi private, precum şi volumul ridicat al creditelor neperformante afectează puternic economia ţării. Datele oficiale arată că ponderea datoriei publice în PIB este de 127%, iar a datoriei totale de 370%, ceea ce demostrează o situaţie mai gravă decât a Greciei. Pentru redresarea economiei, FMI a recomandat restructurarea masivă a datoriilor sectorului privat şi lichidarea companiilor “zombi”.            

            Pedras Parideiras

            Pietrele Parideiras sunt un fenomen geologic rar, un tip de pietre care “încolțesc” dintr-o rocă mamă, un bloc nodular de origine granitică, având dimensiunile de 1.000 x 600 m, de aceea sunt numite Parideiras (“care nasc”)[8]. Nodulii cu diametrul de 1 până la 12 cm cu forme discoide și biconvexe sunt compuși din aceleași elemente mineralogice de granit, stratul exterior fiind alcătuit din biotită, iar stratul interior are un nucleu de feldspat de cuarț și potasiu. Acești noduli apar atunci când decrustarea rocii mamă prin termo sau crioclastie lasă un strat exterior, care iese în relief ca un nucleu născut din roca mamă și se răspândesc în jurul ei.

            Situat în satul Castanheira, în mijlocul platoului Serra da Freita, fenomenul este unul dintre cele mai emblematice ale geoparcului Arouca. Din punct de vedere geologic, roca se numește granit nodular de castanheira și se întinde pe o suprafață de aproximativ 1 kmp. Prin acțiunea eroziunii, unii noduli sunt eliberați din piatra mamă și se acumulează pe sol, lăsând în granitul în care au apărut, o cavitate.

            Fenomenul a fost descris prima oară în 1751, în “Dicționarul geografic”, de către părintele Luiz Cardoso, care îl descrie pe baza rapoartelor locuitorilor ca fiind “stânci pe care localnicii le numesc pietrele care se nasc, care apar din substanța pietrei respective, în diferite forme, ca alte pietricele mai mici, în anumite luni ale anului, lăsând apoi libere gropile/cavitățile în care s-au format”.

            Pietrele Parideiras simbolizează fertilitatea în tradiția ancestrală a regiunii, această tradiție fiind încă prezentă la populațiile locale: se crede că dormitul cu o piatră parideira sub pernă crește fertilitatea. Acest fenomen geologic a transformat Arouca într-o atracție unică. Acesta este un fenomen rar în lume. Și de aceea este atât de faimos. Când nu exista explicația științifică, Oamenii au crezut că a fost magie, o lucrare a zeilor sau a diavolului, dar astăzi este un fenomen înțeles chiar și de localnici: din roca de granit apar acești noduli care, la o temperatură specifică, ”senasc” din piatra “mama” și cad pe terenul înconjurător sau rămân în cavitatea în care au apărut. O legendă populară atribuie proprietăți magice acestor noduli în ceea ce privește fertilitatea feminină. Nodulii sunt bulgări de minerale care ies spontan dintr-o matrice, datorită dilatației produse de încălzirea pietrei mamă/caniculă.

            Pandemia   

          Subvarianta Omicron     

          O subvariantă Omicron a alimentat o creștere bruscă a numărului de cazuri de COVID-19 în Portugalia, care a avut la începutul lunii iunie 2022, a doua cea mai mare rată de infectare din lume, ceea ce ar putea amenința redresarea sectorului turistic[9]: Portugalia a înregistrat o medie de 2.447 de cazuri noi la un milion de locuitori în ultimele șapte zile, în comparație cu cele 449 de cazuri din Spania și 70 din Marea Britanie.

            Institutul de Sănătate Publică Ricardo Jorge a anunțat că subvarianta Omicron BA.5 a reprezentat aproape 90% din noile infecții cu COVID-19. Subvarianta BA.4 a fost, de asemenea, detectată în Portugalia. „Portugalia este, probabil, țara europeană cu cea mai mare prevalență a acestei subvariante și acest lucru explică parțial numărul mare (de cazuri) pe care îl observăm”, a declarat ministrul Sănătății, Marta Temido. Guvernul a ridicat majoritatea resticțiilor COVID-19, inclusiv utilizarea obligatorie a măștilor în majoritatea spațiilor publice închise, în aprilie 2022 și a declarat că nu există planuri de reintroducere a măsurilor.

---

[1] celelalte trei state sunt Austria, Belgia și Suedia

[2] Alina Vasiescu, 14 bănci din Portugalia, amendate pentru schimb de informaţii sensibile, în Ziarul Bursa, 11 septembrie 2019

[3] Cătălina Apostoiu, Hotelurile portugheze au primit un număr record de 20,6 mil. turişti, dublul populaţiei ţării, în Ziarul Financiar, 8 martie 2018, p. 10

[4] Vezi site-ul https://www.forbes.ro/estalagem-da-ponta-sol-apusuri-peste-atlantic, postat și vizitat pe 14 octombrie 2010

[5] Vezi site-ul www.activenews.ro, postat pe 31 mai 2018, orele 13:12 și vizitat pe 6 iunie 2018

[6] sursa: Agerpres, 9 decembrie 2013

[7] Călin Rechea, Faţa slută a “democraţiei” europene s-a arătat şi în Portugalia, în Bursa, 30 octombrie 2015, p. 1

[8] Vezi site-urile https://www.photoblog.com/angil/2016/02/27/geological-phenomenon-pedras-parideiras-procreating-stones/ și https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedra_parideira, vizitat pe 6 aprilie 2021

[9] Vezi site-ul O subvariantă Omicron alimentează creșterea COVID-19 din Portugalia (descopera.ro), postat și vizitat pe 5 iunie 2022

(Part II)

Prof. Dr. Anis H. Bajrektarevic

Economic downturn; recession of plans and initiatives; systematically ignored calls for a fiscal and monetary justice for all; €-crisis; Brexit and irredentism in the UK, Spain, Belgium, France, Denmark and Italy; lasting instability in the Euro-Med theatre (debt crisis of the Europe’s south – countries scrutinized and ridiculed under the nickname PIGS, coupled with the failed states all over the MENA); terrorism; historic low with Moscow culminating in the unprecedented opened armed conflict of West with Russia on the territory of yet another Slavic useful idiot, ill-fated Ukraine, all this combined with a confrontational but in fact frightened and disoriented Washington administration; influx of predominantly Muslim refugees from Levant in numbers and configurations unprecedented since the WWII exoduses (with an institutionalized racism in the Western migration policy while giving to fleeing Ukrainians diametrically different treatment); consequential growth of far-right parties who – by peddling reductive messages and comparisons – are exploiting fears of otherness, that are now amplified with already urging health labour and social justice concerns; generational unemployment and socio-cultural anxieties, in ricochet of sanctions; long-ago ‘prophesised’ than doctored health, post-C-19 and energy ‘crises’, oil anti-diplomacy, as well as the Sino-US trade wars, while rifting in dilemma to either letting Bolivarism or supporting Monroeism… 

And, just when we thought – it can’t get worse, just when we thought that the history judgement can be escaped and that Europe can avoid inevitable – acceptance that there is no more moral triumph of the west (ever since dizzy 2020), the devastating earthquake reduced foundations of the western civilisational superiority to a rubble: arrests of the top officials of the most democratic EU institution of all – the Euro Parliament, and extensive raids that are still ongoing. The very fundaments of Europe are shaking. 

Strikingly, there is a very little public debate enhanced in Europe about it. What is even more worrying is the fact that any self-assessing questioning of Europe’s involvement and past policies in the Middle East, and Europe’s East is simply off-agenda. Immaculacy of Brussels and infallibility of Atlantic-Central Europe-led EU is unquestionable. Corresponding with realities or complying with a dogma?

 

*                *                      *                      *

Triangular economy of othering 

Why does our West so vigilantly promote the so-called international trade all over the place? Answer is at hand; the US President George H.W. Bush clarifies: “No nation on Earth has discovered a way to import the world’s goods and services while stopping foreign ideas at the border.”[2]   

There is a consensus within the academic community what was the critical factor in redefining the world’s periphery – from a sub-permafrost – Europe into the advanced West. Undeniably, it was the extension of its strategic depth westward, to the Americas upon 1492 – a huge continent unreported in the Bible and unknown to Europeans. There is also a consensus over the two factors facilitating the initiation of the age of Grand discoveries. The push effect was the fall of Constantinople, relative decline of the Maghrebian Arabs and the Ottoman techno-military and demographic threat onto Europe from south and southeast. And, the pull effect was the Ming dynasty inward retreat and to it related dismembering of the superior transoceanic Sino-fleet.[3]  

This unleashed the so-called triangular transcontinental trade that incorporated one more previously unknown continent to Europe – (sub-Saharan) Africa. Triangular trade was a brutal instrument imposed by Europeans: Enslaved Africans shipped as cattle to America to dig for gold and silver which was destined for European colonial centres.[4] (Needleless to say that soon after American continent has been ‘discovered’, Europeans brutally derogated its indigenous civilisation. Only 100 years later, Americas have suffered loss of 90% of its total pre-colonial population – a final solution in one of its most effective workings. The same went on in sub-Saharan Africa. Far from being an undiscovered prior to the European conquistas, Africa was for many centuries an integral part of the Afro-Asian trading and manufacturing system. All that have dramatically changed with the arrival of Europeans. Soon after, they derogated an indigenous socio-political, civilizational and cultural and the demographic structures of Africa beyond the point of reparation.)

Once in Europe, stashes of these precious metals were used to cover massive European deficits created by extensive imports of the cutting-edge technologies, manufactured products, other goods and spices from a that-time superior Asia and the Middle East. Only later, gold and silver will be replaced by the equally powerful but less expensive ‘trade facilitators’ – iron and opium (guns and drugs). For instance, in early 1800s, many British MPs and cabinet ministers had shares in the UK narco-companies. Hence, the Narconomics was introduced and imposed as both a powerful strategic deterrent and as a wealth accumulator. (Eg. Still by the late 19th century, some 40 million mainland Chinese were heavy drugs addicts – roughly 10% of population.)

The Afro-America yields were so colossal for Atlantic Europe that many scholars assume the so–called Industrial revolution rather as an evolutionary anomaly than a natural socio-technological process of development, which was primarily pivoting in (Sino-Indian) Asia.[5]  In order to illustrate a magnitude (or to validate the so called Schumpeterian creative destruction claim), let us note a following data: Starting from an early 16th century for consecutive 300 years, 85% of the world’s silver production and 70% of the world’s gold output came from the Americas. For the same period, 2/3 of globally manufactured goods were originating from Asia. Notably, while Europe spent unearned, Asia worked (to get gradually even pauperised through subsequent unfair trade practices, as Europe projected its military and ‘free trade’ dogma). 

Further on, during the 17th, 18th and 19th century the role of Black slavery, slave trading, American Black slave-driven production centres and Negro markets, all significantly contributed to Atlantic Europe’s agricultural and industrial ‘breakthrough’ – as we are celebrating it today. In short, it was a wealth of Americas extracted by the enslaved men-power from Africa, and shipped to Europe under the minimal costs, all that for centuries.[6]  

This colossal ‘oversea discovery’ reinforced Europe’s path on defensive modernisation (usage of technology for a narrow geostrategic end) – European empires building became a scientific project and the science evolved into an imperial project. For instance, French Dutch and Britons (the so-called second and third round of colonisers) learned one think from Portuguese and Spaniards (the first round of European colonisers) – nobody wishes to pay taxes but likes to invest. Therefore, their colonial expansion was primarily conducted as a corporate undertaking (West India company, East India company, WIC, VOC, Mississippi company, etc.)[7]  

Hence, it was a magic vicious circle of scientifically erected empires and imperial capitalism: Credits financed overseas discoveries, discoveries led to colonies, colonies made profits (by imported slaves and rarefied locals), profits-built trust in tomorrows, and the trust in this shiny colonial tomorrow was translated into ever more credits for the larger corporate undertakings. Small wonder that the exegesis of (Newtonian science and Smith’s) capitalism started blindly to believe in a never-ending and ever-expanding economic growth. The fact that such a ‘faith’ contradicts all cosmic laws bothered none in that time Europe – the continent was dizzy and triumphant in its planetary conquest. Le Capitalisme Européen meant expansion – in every possible sense.

Such a rapid shift from a peripheral status to an ‘advanced civilization’ of course necessitated a complete reconstruction of western identity – furthering the weaponisation of religion for ideological purpose. These acrobatics –in return– caused the rift in Europe and enhanced the Continent’s continued split on two spheres: the Eastern/Russophone Europe – closer to and therefore more objective towards the Afroasian realities; and the Western (Atlantic/Scandinavian/Central) Europe, more dismissive, self-centred and ignorant sphere. 

While the Atlantic flank progressively developed its commercial and naval power as to economically and demographically project itself beyond the continent, the landlocked Eastern Europe was lagging behind. It stuck in feudalism, and involuntarily constituted a cordon sanitaire – from eastern Baltic to Adriatic shores – against the Islamic Levant/south and the Russo-oriental East. 

Gradually, past the 15th century, the idea of ‘Western Europe’ begun to crystallise as the Ottoman Turks and the Eastern Europeans were imagined and described as barbarians. During the 17th and 18th century as the triangular ‘trade’ progressed, Atlantic Europe firmly portrayed itself as the prosperous West that borders ‘pagan/barbarian’ neighbours to its near east, and the ‘savage subjects’ to its cross-Mediterranean south, overseas west, and the mystical Far East. Consequently, we cannot deny a huge role that the fabricated history as well as the ‘scientific’ racism and its theories played in a formation and preservation of European identity construct.[8]

The Enlightenment was a definite moment in the reinvention of European identity. The quest came along with the fundamental question who are we, and what is our place in the world? Answering that led on to the systematisation, classification of anthropogeographic inversion and – frankly – to reinvention of the world. From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, a kind of an intellectual apartheid regime was forming. 

(This historical anomaly I usually describe as anthropogeographic inversion in which the periphery asserted itself into the center by periferising that core and managing to present itself as a center. Thus, our current geopolitical and ideological core resides in geographic peripheries of the planet. It is in the hands of late developmental arrivals, such as the UK, Scandinavia, Russia, Canada, the US, Japan, Australia, New Zeeland, Korea, Singapore, South Africa. To achieve and maintain this colossal inversion was impossible without coercion over the extended space and time. Consequently, it necessitated a combination of physical and metaphysical (hard/coercion and soft/attraction) instruments: Physical military presence of the periphery in the center, combined with a tightly guarded narrative and constructed history. How does my anthropogeographic inversion theory correspond with an institutional interpretation of history? Real anthropogeographic peripheries are certainly a new civilizational arrival – Interference, intrusion and discontinuity is suffered in a core not on edges. (E.g. It is not centrally positioned Syria, Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan intervening in the geographic peripheries, such as the UK, US, Russia, Canada.) Periphery faster coagulates as it is rarely intruded. Center itself melts and is melted constantly. In the world of our realities; periphery sends, center absorbs.)   

The rise of the West was portrayed as a pure virgin birth as John M. Hobson fairly concluded. Europeans delineated themselves as the, only or the most, progressive subject of the world’s history in past, presence and future. At the same time, the Eastern peoples – e.g. Asian as ‘the people without history’ – were seen as inert, passive and corrosive.[9] While the Solar system ‘became’ heliocentric, the sake and fate of our planet turned plain – Europocentric. The world is flat mantra set the stage, turning all beyond Europe into a sanitary corridor, a no-fly-zone. 
 

Ambient, anti-Orient 

“The idea of Europe found its most enduring expression in the confrontation with the Orient in the age of imperialism. It was in the encounter with other civilizations that the identity of Europe was shaped. Europe did not derive its identity from itself but from the formation of a set of global contrasts. In the discourse that sustained this dichotomy of Self and Other, Europe and the Orient became opposite poles in a system of civilizational values which were defined by Europe.” – notes Delantry. 

Even the English word to determine, position, adapt, adjust, align, identify, conform, direct, steer, navigate or command has an oriental connotation. To find and locate itself opposite to Orient, means to Orient oneself. 

Feudal Europe had identified itself negatory towards Levant and Islam. It reinvented a historical unity and continuity of Roman Empire (precursor of today’s Euro-MED) into an us-them binary[10] categorisation:

The peripheral outcast became thus the Rome (Western Empire) and the legitimate successor – who outlived its move to Bosporus for over 1.000 years – became peripheral, ‘Byzantium’.[11] No wonder, tireless binary categorisation is an essential glue and galvaniser. 

Clearly, it was an identity heavily resting on insecurity. Proof? An external manifestation of inner insecurity is always aggressive assertiveness. 

Is this still alive or even operative? How does it correlate today?
 

*          *          *          *

Europe repeatedly missed to answer to the East and Middle East through a dialogue (instruments) and consensus (institutions) although having both (via CoE; OSCE’s MPC; EU’s ENP, Barcelona Process, etc.). For the past 31 years, it primarily responded militarily in the MENA (or/and with sanctions, which is also a warfare, a socio-economic one) – via ‘Coalitions of the Willing’ (justified by the West and the Rest, Democracy vs. Putinism mantra). However, for a rapidly economically and demographically contracting Europe, the confrontation does not pay off anymore. While practically still yesterday (by the end of WWII), four of the five largest economies were situated in Europe, today only one is not in Asia. None is in Europe.[12] 

(Likewise, while the US economy contributed with 54% of the world output in 1945, today it hardly covers 1/3 of that share. Hence, Americans are not fixing the world any more. They are only (partially) managing its decline. Look at their footprint in former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Yemen, Syria or today in Ukraine.)

The same way the Islam has started as an exclusive Arab monopoly to be soon after taken over (for good) by the Turks, Persians and southeast Asians (who are today far more enhanced), the same way the Modern age has started with Europe. But today it is a planetary undertaking that the least resides within its originator. Simply, the Old Continent is not a wealthy club anymore. It is a theater with a memory of its wealthy past. Presently, Asia, Africa, Latin America are rapidly self-actualising and learning much more from each other than from the West.

And, Europe? Still to this very day, its national institutions are too quickly turning to culture and identity to explain politics, especially at election times. Of course, insisting – in the best spirit of the religious dogma – on the infallibility of its narrative. As simple and convenient as it seems, it is not as accurate as such. All across Europe, the governments repeatedly failed at distributive justice (just recall the Corona shame), not on culture or behavioural recognition. Thus, the EU has to learn how to deescalate and compromise. Certain identity cannot be put in line only with its geography. It has to respond to other realities as well. This is in the Continent’s best interest, for the sake of its only viable future. Therefore, it is a high time for the Brussels-headquartered Europe to challenge its rigid socio-political choices, and to evolve in its views and actings – for at home and for abroad. 

Due to emergence of Asia, Europe will never be as central to the US and Russia as it used to be after the WWII, least after Brexit. Therefore, an old Continent will have to focus on ensuring the survival of its own model of multilateralism before being again able to claim any global ambition. There is no time for re-invention of European postcolonial cartography – be it Kiev, Khartoum or Kinshasa.

If we are any serious, let us start by answering the following: Is the so-called Russian expansionism or MENA ‘Islamofascism’ spontaneous or provoked, is that nascent or only a mirror image of something striking in front of it? And after all, why the indigenous Europe’s Muslims (those of the Balkans) and their twins, indigenous Christians of MENA (those of Levant) are now two identically slim shadows on a (bullet holes scarred) wall; while Ukrainians – whom we ‘protect’ Europeanisticly for the past several decades, are the most tragic the most dislocated the most income-gapped and the least secure national on the planet.  
 

(End of Part II)

References:

Kabani, R. (1994), Imperial Fictions: Europe’s Myths of Orient, Pandora Books
Brading, D.A. (1991), The First America: the Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots, and the Liberal State 1492-1867, Cambridge University Press, (pages 80-88)
Kaplan, R.D. (2013), Revenge of Geography, Random House New York 
Losada, A. (1971), The Controversy between Sepúlveda and Las Casas in the Junta of Valladolid, The Northern Illinois University Press, (pages 280-282)
Toynbee, A. J. (1934-61), A Study of History, Vol VII: Universal States; Universal Churches (Oxford University Press 1954) and Vol XII: Reconsiderations (Oxford University Press 1961)
McBrien, R. (2000), Lives of the Popes, Harper San Francisco 
Thiesse, A-M. (1999), La création des identités nationales: Europe XVIIIe-XXe siècle, Editions du Seuil, Paris,
Wright, L. (2006), The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, First Vintage Books
Kipling, R. (1899), The White Man’s Burden: The United States and The Philippine Islands, NY 2(99) McClure’s Magazine, (reprint, 1934)
Disraeli, B. (1847), Tancred: Or the New Crusade (Complete), (reprint: Echo Library August 28, 2007)
Khana, P. (2019), The Future is Asian, Simon & Schuster
III Reich (1942), Biology for the Middle School, The 5th Grade Girls; (Chapter: The Laws of Nature and Humanity), Reichsministerium für Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung, Die Reichsdruckerei Berlin (https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/textbk01.htm, accessed as of 181218)
Curtain, P.D. (1984), Cross-Cultural Trade in World History, Cambridge University Press
Abu-Lughod, J. L. (1989), Before European Hegemony, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Lorimer, J. (1880), The Institutes of Law: a Treatise of the Principles of Jurisprudence as Determined by Nature (2 ed.), Edinburgh – London: William Blackwood & Sons (retrieved via Archive.org as of 14102018) 
Wolf, E. R. (1982),  Europe and the People Without History, Berkeley: University of California Press 
Hobson, J.M. (2004), The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization, Cambridge University Press 
The State Archives, South Africa, National Library (http://libguides.wits.ac.za/LegalDeposit accessed 12122018)
Manning, P. (1996), Slave Trades, 1500-1800: Globalization of Forced Labour (Variorium: Aldershot, UK). Volume 15 of An Expanding World, edited by A. J. Russell-Wood. (ed. and introduction).
Acemoglu, D. and Robinson, J.A. (2012), Why Nations Fail, Crown Business (Random House) NY
Diamond, J. (2019), Upheaval – Turning Points for Nations in Crisis, Little Brown and Company NY
Harari, Y.N. (2018), 21 Lessons for the 21st century, Penguin – Random House UK
Delantry, G. (1995), Inventing Europe, London, Macmillan (p.84)
Bajrektarević, A. (2018), From WWI to www., Addleton Academic Publishers, New York 
Palacio, A. (2016), Europe on the Sidelines, Project Syndicate (13 Feb 2016, pg.27).

About author:

Anis H. Bajrektarevic is chairperson and professor in international law and global political studies, Vienna, Austria.  He has authored eight books (for American and European publishers) and numerous articles on, mainly, geopolitics energy and technology. Professor is editor of the NY-based GHIR (Geopolitics, History and Intl. Relations) journal, and editorial board member of several similar specialized magazines on three continents. Earlier this year, his 9th book was realised in New York.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect IFIMES official position.

Anis H. Bajrektarevic   

Economic downturn; recession of plans and initiatives; systematically ignored calls for a fiscal and monetary justice for all; €-crisis; Brexit and irredentism in the UK, Spain, Belgium, France, Denmark and Italy; lasting instability in the Euro-Med theatre (debt crisis of the Europe’s south – countries scrutinized and ridiculed under the nickname PIGS, coupled with the failed states all over the MENA); terrorism; historic low with Moscow culminating in the unprecedented opened armed conflict of West with Russia on the territory of yet another Slavic useful idiot, ill-fated Ukraine, all this combined with a confrontational but in fact frightened and disoriented Washington administration; influx of predominantly Muslim refugees from Levant in numbers and configurations unprecedented since the WWII exoduses (with an institutionalized racism in the Western migration policy while giving to fleeing Ukrainians diametrically different treatment); consequential growth of far-right parties who – by peddling reductive messages and comparisons – are exploiting fears of otherness, that are now amplified with already urging health labour and social justice concerns; generational unemployment and socio-cultural anxieties, in ricochet of sanctions; long-ago ‘prophesised’ than doctored health, post-C-19 and energy ‘crises’, oil anti-diplomacy; painful de-dollarization as well as the Sino-US trade wars, while rifting in dilemma to either letting Bolivarism or supporting Monroeism…

And, just when we thought – it can’t get worse, just when we thought that the history judgement can be escaped and that Europe can avoid inevitable – acceptance that there is no more moral triumph of the west (ever since dizzy 2020), the devastating earthquake reduced foundations of the western civilisational superiority to a rubble: arrests of the top officials of the most democ-ratic EU institution of all – the Euro Parliament, and extensive raids that are still ongoing.[1]     The very fundaments of Europe are shaking.

Strikingly, there is a very little public debate enhanced in Europe about it. What is even more worrying is the fact that any self-assessing questioning of Europe’s involvement and past policies in the Middle East, and Europe’s East is simply off-agenda. Immaculacy of Brussels and infallibility of Atlantic-Central Europe-led EU is unquestionable. Corresponding with realities or complying with a dogma?

*                *                      *                      *

One of the leading figures of European Renaissance that grossly inspired European renewal is Dante. Alongside with Petrarca and Boccaccio, he is considered as one of the three fathers of European humanism. Hence, Dante puts Prophet Muhamed to the 8^th circle of his famous Inferno. The only individuals bellow Muhamed were Judas, Brutus, and Satan. “Islam was seen as the negation of Christianity, as anti-Europe…and Muhammed as an Antichrist in alliance with the Devil…” as Rana Kabbani noted in her luminary piece Imperial Fictions.

However, both religions trace their origins back to Abraham. They both lived in harmony (or at least they successfully cohabitated) for centuries within the MENA proper, notably in Lebanon, Syria Egypt and Iraq. Why than there was no harmonious relationship between Christian Europe and the Middle East? Was Europe opting to demonise the Muslims in order to artificially generate a homogenous European self? No enemy at gate, no unity at home?

This is a story of the past centuries – one may say. Still, absence of any self-reflection on the side of the EU towards its policy in the Middle East today, makes it worth to revisit some of the bleak chapters of European history, and the genesis of its pre-secular and secular thoughts.  

Civitas Dei Brussels: Extra Euro-Atlanticum, nulla salus

Europe came to be known as ‘Christendom’ because its identity was imagined or invented as the Catholic in contradistinction to the Islamic Middle East and to the Eastern (authentic, true or Orthodox) Christianity.[2]

The Christianity, of course, originated in the Middle East not in Europe. It was subsequently universalised and, by spreading onto peripheral world, Europeanised by the Balkan-born Roman Emperor – Constantin the Great (Edicto de Milan, 313 AD). He himself spent much of his life on Bosporus and hence, was buried in Asia Minor. Surely, it was by the legal design of this glorious Emperor (fully backed by the Empire’s political elite) that the city of Rome was (re)turned into an administrative periphery, politico-ideological outcast and geostrategic suburbia (by 324 AD). The official seat of Roman Empire including the Roman Senate – by yet another historic edict of 330 AD – became Constantin-polis (Constantinople), and it remained as such until a very end of the Empire, 11 centuries later.  

Therefore, the post Roman/Byzantine inauguration of ‘Christendom’ as a pure western culture necessitated a sustained intellectual acrobatics – starching the truth away from an elementary geography and historical evidence. Such an inversion by which an ideological and geopolitical periphery presents itself as a centre required considerably emasculation – both, physical coercion and imposed narrative over the extensive space and time.[3]

This a ’la card creation of Catholic Christendom or to say; Western Ummah, served two vital objectives: domestic and external. Both helped solidification of the feudal socio-economic and politico-military system, and based on that of a precolonial European collective identity. Domestically, it served for a coherent sense of selfhood – us vs. them paradigm: Unity, oppression and obedience. Extra ecclesiam nulla salus – no salvation outside the church, following the old Roman rational ‘no world beyond Limes line’, or the modern one: ‘no prosperity outside the EU’. Externally, here was found the ‘moral’ narrative – a justifier for the subsequent military voyages and other forms of organized plunders. Such an image build-up, of course, was coupled with a coercive societal identity – the ‘Dark ages’ for at home, crusaders for abroad.

This is how Europeans started to view the religious conflict as the identifying attribute of the system’s formation, while elsewhere on the globe the interethnic and interreligious coexistence was a traditional modus operandi within and among countries.

By the time of Renaissance, Catholic Europe came to realize that, in order to effectively project itself – to physically and/or mentally colonise overseas territories – it needed either coercion (rarefying and assimilation), labour-camp detention (slavery) or final solution (physical extermination). These strategic dilemmas over the instruments to use, influenced and dominated European debates of the time. It brought about the conception of the ‘noble savage’ – who could be assimilated, versus the ‘ignoble savage’ who was destined for either labour detention or final solution. That coerce-or-exterminate dilemma of ‘soul salvationists’ even culminated within the pre-Westphalian Christian Ummah. It was best epitomised  in the famous Valladolid controversy of 1550, by which Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda’s notion of the ignoble savage faced off against Bartolomé de Las Casa’s view of the noble savage.

In both cases – the claim was offered – the Amero/AfroAsian Natives deserve salvation as they have a ‘strong desire for it’, but the views differed on whether the Natives’ prone wishes exceeded their mental capacity to receive Christianity. Hence, the debates – which were the roots and origins of the later liberal theories as well as the early precursors to the subsequent regime change, humanitarian intervention and preemption doctrines, and to the (onesided ultimatum of) EU Accession criteria – always presupposed the inferiority (and passivity) of the Natives.[4]

Frankly, this remains a constant behaviour in international relations: E.g. views on Libya differed, as they differ today on Syria. However, what is common to all views is; nobody consults the local population and considers what they would like for themselves.[5]

Legitimizing the imperialism of imagination

In a course of subsequent centuries, the notion of final solution underwent through a sophistication, and was eventually replaced by the combination of cultural conversions/ submissions (induced submissiveness), politico-military obedience and socio-economic apartheid. A subtle apartheid (that is easy to deny, but hard to prove) is usually better than the brute genocide (which is traceable and easily quantifiable). At the peaks of imperialism a noble-ignoble savage dilemma was embodied in an implicit and explicit racism. Debate was focused on a question whether the nations’ inferiority can be remedied through the imperial ‘civilizing’ mission, with social Darwinists and ‘scientific’ racists being rather pessimistic, but more forthcoming on possible solutions.[6]

The so-called central dilemma of liberalism – Is it liberal to impose liberal values on illiberal societies – was of course only an innocently looking tip of the large iceberg, of the tireless othering. This ‘epistemology’ was further soft-embedded in the so-called Peter Pan theory with a romanticised image of the Other as more childishly careless and helpless, than intentionally cruel and barbaric. Foreign remained Other, but ‘became’ rather alluring, promiscuous and exotic. Essentially, the East as a child enveloped in innocence, a derided inferior who would never grow up. This, of course, gave rise to various binary categorisations, the us-vs.-them/either-or listings, in order to manufacture rift and hence to facilitate a decisive and long-lasting differentiation between the constructed West and the East.[7]

The West as a constructed male vs. the East as a constructed female. A ‘mind-oriented’ west vs. a ‘body-oriented’ east. Phallusoid peninsulas and islands of (Atlantic-Scandinavian) Europe vs. womb-like continental landmass of Afro-Asia; Erective and explosive vs. reflective and implosive; an Omnipresent (ever seafaring and trading) extroverted male vs. humble, handcrafting, waiting female. Masculine, phallusoid, progressively erected temporal linearity vs. periodic menstrual leakages of femininity in regressive cycles of stagnation. Clearly, anything beyond that was deemed inconsequential.

Physical, material, ideological, active, polarizing, determined vs. metaphysical, spiritual, esoteric, atmospheric, inclusive, holistic. No wonder that all operationalized ideologies originated solely in Europe. What else, since no one ever, but Asians revealed any significant religion to the world.[8] Ideology penetrates, religion embraces.

Invictus Veritas: Infallibility of West (AgitProp – Non-stop)

Gradually, the imperial civilizing mission (Expansion is a path to Security) got a new form, often under the watchful care of ‘Five Eyes’. It became a moral duty – R2P (Responsibility to Protect), as much as the parental duty is to raise their infant child. The handsome, masculine and strong Western Prince Charming has one duty – to emancipate his Eastern Sleeping Beauty. Giving a ‘kiss’ meant projecting the western physical military presence, Christianity and commerce.[9] Who was/is the Eastern Sleeping Beauty?

Rudyard Kipling’s famous 1899 poem, The White’s Man Burden offers some answers while describing the Eastern peoples as ‘half-devil and half-child’. “The blame of those ye better / The hate of those ye guard” – Kipling warns and instructs, he describes and invites. In his classic novel of 1847, Tancred – The New Crusade, much celebrated British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli claims “A Saxon race, protected by an insular position, has stamped its diligent and methodic character of the century. And when a superior race, with a superior idea to Work and Order, advances, its state will be progressive…All is race!”[10] Quite an intellectual acrobatics for Disraeli himself, who was neither Saxonic nor Christian.

Over the period, western Catholic missionaries constituted one of the most powerful and influential lobbying voices for this civilizing mission. It was of course weaponisation of religion, a notorious misuse for ideological purposes. Same like today, fanatics then and there, were identified, manipulated and further radicalised, to say ’inspired’. In that time Europe, they would have usually got hired as the AGITPROP – Ideological police by the predatory elites which hid behind the Feudal European states.

Naturally, the justifications were looked upon in any Biblical narrative. E.g. the re-invoking the Genesis story of Noah’s three sons, and interpreting it as the ‘duty’ of Japheth (Europe) to absorb Shem (Asians) and enslave and colonise Ham or Canaan (Black Africa and Indianos of America). Amazingly, according to Genesis ch.9, verse 27: “God shall enlarge Japheth and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant”.[11]

(While Europe than was to face a holocaust of its 30-years War among essentially Rimo-Catholic Christians, “Asians commercial and cosmopolitan cities formed a network of hubs spanning numerous multi-ethnic and multilingual empires” – says Parag Khanna.)

The later Protestant revival infused the next wave of Christian missionaries to force this narrative into the matrix of colonisation as ‘wilful’ implants onto the minds and bodies of overseas peoples. Therefore, James Lorrimer and other architects of that-time political and international legal order divided the world in three segments: civilized White, barbarous Yellow and savage Black. Yellows were ‘fallen people’, inhabiting a terra infantilis, bound to civilize (what will later evolve into indirect rule, with a social apartheid in place). The area occupied by the Blacks, Redbones and Aborigine was a ‘borderless space’, terra nullius just to conquer and settle, since the indigenous have no ‘birthright’ to it (meaning: physical colonisation and direct rule, displacement final solution and genocide).  

Even the champion of European rationalism, Max Weber, divinised Europe: “Protestant Reformation and the Protestant ethic it spurred played a key role in facilitating the rise of modern industrial society in Western Europe.” Before him, the world’s most famous egalitarian, Karl Marx – who sow nations and states not as a statistical reality but as a revolutionary cause – was not so enthusiastic in preaching the proletarian revolution beyond the narrow western world. In Marx’s writings, Revolution is reserved for the advanced peoples (that even excludes the eastern European Slavs), and is not meant for those civilisationally behind.

Nevertheless, the unfinished business of ‘salvation of the world’ came back home; to Europe of the 20^th century. Hitler’s interpretation of it was: civilized White (Arian) – Central Europe; Yellows (fated for indirect rule, with ‘only’ social apartheid in place) – Atlantic and Scandinavian Europe; Blacks (whose territory is predestined for a physical colonisation by the superior race upon a decisive final solution and genocide) – all Slavic states of Eastern and Russophone Europe.[12]

Indeed, ever since the 18^th century on, European notion that ‘civilization’ was the monopoly of the West, clearly implied that there is no civilization – and therefore, salvation – outside the western model.[13] To comply fully with this new myth and infallibility of such narrative, the civilizational late comer from the geographic suburbia – actually a remote peninsular northerly extension of the huge Asian continental mass – started calling itself an Old Continent.Historian Toynbee calls it “a secularized version of the primitive Western Christian proposition Nemini salus …nisi in Ecclesia.” See for yourself how much current debates, sparked by either the ongoing security, and previous economic or refugee crisis, or the sports and cultural issues, follow the above patters.                       (end of Part I)

Anis H. Bajrektarevic           

Vienna, 22 DEC 2022

anis@corpsdiplomatique.cd   

Prof. Anis H Bajrektarevic is chairperson and professor in international law and global political studies, Vienna, Austria.  He has authored eight books (for American and European publishers) and numerous articles on, mainly, geopolitics energy and technology. Professor is editor of the NY-based GHIR (Geopolitics, History and Intl. Relations) journal, and editorial board member of several similar specialized magazines on three continents. Earlier this year, his 9^th book was realised in New York.

References:

1. Kabani, R. (1994), Imperial Fictions: Europe’s Myths of Orient, Pandora Books
2. Brading, D.A. (1991), The First America: the Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots, and the Liberal State 1492-1867, Cambridge University Press, (pages 80-88)
3. Kaplan, R.D. (2013), Revenge of Geography, Random House New York
4. Losada, A. (1971), The Controversy between Sepúlveda and Las Casas in the Junta of Valladolid, The Northern Illinois University Press, (pages 280-282)
5. Toynbee, A. J. (1934-61), A Study of History, Vol VII: Universal States; Universal Churches (Oxford University Press 1954) and Vol XII: Reconsiderations (Oxford University Press 1961)
6. McBrien, R. (2000), Lives of the Popes, Harper San Francisco
7. Thiesse, A-M. (1999), La création des identités nationales: Europe XVIIIe-XXe siècle, Editions du Seuil, Paris,
8. Wright, L. (2006), The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, First Vintage Books
9. Kipling, R. (1899), The White Man’s Burden: The United States and The Philippine Islands, NY 2(99) McClure’s Magazine, (reprint, 1934)
10. Disraeli, B. (1847), Tancred: Or the New Crusade (Complete), (reprint: Echo Library August 28, 2007)
11. Khana, P. (2019), The Future is Asian, Simon & Schuster
12. III Reich (1942), Biology for the Middle School, The 5th Grade Girls; (Chapter: The Laws of Nature and Humanity), Reichsministerium für Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung, Die Reichsdruckerei Berlin (https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/textbk01.htm, accessed as of 181218)
13. Curtain, P.D. (1984), Cross-Cultural Trade in World History, Cambridge University Press
14. Abu-Lughod, J. L. (1989), Before European Hegemony, Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. Lorimer, J. (1880), The Institutes of Law: a Treatise of the Principles of Jurisprudence as Determined by Nature (2 ed.), Edinburgh – London: William Blackwood & Sons (retrieved via Archive.org as of 14102018) 
16. Wolf, E. R. (1982),  Europe and the People Without History, Berkeley: University of California Press 
17. Hobson, J.M. (2004), The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization, Cambridge University Press
18. The State Archives, South Africa, National Library (http://libguides.wits.ac.za/LegalDeposit accessed 12122018)
19. Manning, P. (1996), Slave Trades, 1500-1800: Globalization of Forced Labour (Variorium: Aldershot, UK). Volume 15 of An Expanding World, edited by A. J. Russell-Wood. (ed. and introduction).
20. Acemoglu, D. and Robinson, J.A. (2012), Why Nations Fail, Crown Business (Random House) NY
21. Diamond, J. (2019), Upheaval – Turning Points for Nations in Crisis, Little Brown and Company NY
22. Harari, Y.N. (2018), 21 Lessons for the 21^st century, Penguin – Random House UK
23. Delantry, G. (1995), Inventing Europe, London, Macmillan (p.84)
24. Bajrektarević, A. (2018), From WWI to www., Addleton Academic Publishers, New York
25. Palacio, A. (2016), Europe on the Sidelines, Project Syndicate (13 Feb 2016, pg.27).

Apx.

German Biology Book of 1942 (Biology for the Middle School, For 5th Grade Girls; chapter: The Laws of Nature and Humanity)

We have established that all creatures, plants as well as animals, are in a constant battle for survival. Plants crowd into the area they need to grow. Every plant that fails to secure enough room and light must necessarily die. Every animal that does not secure sufficient territory and guard it against other predators, or lacks the necessary strength and speed or caution and cleverness will fall prey to its enemies… The battle for existence is hard and unforgiving, but is the only way to maintain life. This struggle eliminates everything that is unfit for life, and selects everything that is able to survive. Mankind, too, is subject to these natural laws, and has won its dominant position through struggle. Our Führer tells us:

He who wants to live must fight, and he who does not want to fight in this world of perpetual struggle does not deserve to live!” (Mein Kampf, p. 317)

Each life form strives to ensure the survival of its species… The number of offspring must be greater than the number of the parents if the species is to survive (law of the larger number of offspring). Each species strives to conquer new territory. Here, too, we can recall the Führer’s words: The goal of female education must be to prepare them for motherhood. (Mein Kampf, p. 460)

These natural laws are incontrovertible; Those who resist them will be wiped out. Biology not only tells us about animals and plants, but also shows us the laws we must follow in our lives, and steels our wills to live and fight according to these laws. The meaning of all life is struggle. Woe to him who sins against this law. Our Führer reminds us: The world does not exist for cowardly nations. (Mein Kampf, p. 105)

---

^[1] Even this unprecedented purge is not deprived from cynicism; The only corruption detected ever since 2020 is one having the Europe’s south (e.g. Greece), European Socialists and Arabs as its protagonists. All the rest is clean.   

^[2] Western animosities towards Russia that are constantly here (with some short-lived exceptions during the Metternich post-Vienna congress period, Bismarck chancellorship and Yeltsin dizzy years) are escaping any rational explanation. The only possible logics to find is if going back to the moment of split of the Christian Church, mid XI century. That is the time when the Roman curia decided to compete with Constantinople by organising the invading tribes in Europe for its ‘civilising’ mission (read: geostrategic ends), alongside the parallel process that have started with the Russophones undertaking a similar mission in the norther and north-eastern portions of Eurasia. Two parallel ‘civilising’ missions, competing over concept and territories for centuries.  

^[3] Transferring the official seat of the Roman Empire to Bosporus marked far more than just an event of the peripheral maturity; periphery pressing onto the centre. It meant that – at the peak times of the Milan’s Edict of Constantin the Great – the peripheral power successfully relocated itself closer to the centre; ideologically (metaphysically, religiously) but also geopolitically (physically, geographically). Not to insert itself (like during the subsequent Crusaders), but to transcend. That is a real meaning of the transfer of imperial capital from Rome to Bosporus once for good. This will be the first and the last such a successful move from Europe, in human history. With this adjustment – past its failed European experiment, Roman Empire returned to its origins; Balkans and the Middle East, which extended the Empire’s life impressively – for over 1,000 years.  

^[4] Let us take a closer look at the so-called R2P (Responsibility to Protect) – ideological-operative instrument to justify liberalism in its illiberal actions beyond its parameter, in terries barbarorum countries labelled as the III World. In literature it is already known as the Killer Aid: Foreign aid regularly fails to rebuild up the country. The usual rituals are always repeated. Scores of aid works come. They hire the best nationals of the poor country since they usually pay better 4-5 times than the local government can offer. Billions are spent but little goes on the infrastructure like schools, hospitals, roads, public services without which is impossible to restore law and order.

Usually, out of the total generated at the Donors conference, the first 20% is automatically taken as an overhead for the UN Head operation office in Geneva. Than, the remaining amount is subcontracted to different NGO who take additional 20% for their Brussels, Geneva or Vienna-OSCE office overheads, and on and on – for another three layers – which turns the originally donated amount into only 20% of initial total that eventually reaches the designated country.

Numerous studies (including those of the WB and OECD) estimate that only 10-20% of aid ever reaches the final destination. “There are dozens of ongoing fraud investigations into charges of the UN and local officials siphoning off aid money. But most of the waste resulting from foreign aid is not fraud, just incompetence or even worse: simply business as usual for aid organisations…”   (Why Nations Fail, page 452).

^[5] For centuries, it follows the same matrix: doctrinated/induced inferiority, denouncing, attack, marginalization, passivation, plunder, indirect rule, remote control presence. Or, reduced to a binary code formula: victimisation-criminalisation. Namely: humanitarian intervention.

^[6] E.g. Cecil Rhodes, the 19^th century British businessman and the architect of Apartheid, used to say that to be born an Englishman was to have ‘won first prize in the lottery of life’. He is also remembered of the following: “I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race.” Large part of colonial Africa was called after his name – Rhodesia, until rather recently, 1979.  

^[7] Small surprise that the 43^rd US President (un)famously claimed: ‘you are either with us or against us’. His father, the 41^st US President, viewed the Cold War and summarised its epilogue effectively: ‘We win, they lose’. For the Atlantist’s world all should be Kierkegaardian either-or, a binary choice.

^[8] To this end: Inventive, proactive, scientific, rational, disciplined, sell-controlled/self-constraining, sane, sensible, practical, ‘mind-oriented’, independent, and most of all paternal West. The East, of course, was on the opposite side and inferior: imitative, passive, superstitious, lazy, irrational, spontaneous, insane, emotional, exotic, body-oriented, dependent, and above all, child-like. Tall, matured ‘masculinity’ vs. immature and physically underdeveloped ‘femininity’. The masculine phallus of military, industry, technology, shipping and trade that is welcomed, if not heartedly invited, to tap and drill the womb-like dwell of resources, while at the same time seeding the ideological semen of ‘civilization’.

^[9] To this very day, most of the so-called Multinational/Cross-continental Trade Pacts are closer to the capitulation agreements (like those that Britain imposed on China after the Opium Wars) than to any fair, balanced and mutually beneficial commercial accords. Their stipulations are regularly kept away from public eyes. When was the last time you have seen one of them publicly available? No wonder, what a popular language of today calls barriers to trade are in fact the remaining socio-economic sovereign rights and other rarefied checks-and-balance instruments of nation’s well-being that these Trade Pacts are derogating. “By hook or by crook” – as the Dutch East India Company formulated it in its XVII century business model moto.  

^[10] The novel itself is named after the Norman leader of the First European Crusades, that later became the Prince of Galilee, and regent of the satellite Europe’s state on the territory of today’s Syria and Turkey – Antioch.

^[11] “The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me…” /Mark 14:7-9 (NIV) New International Version/ was a Biblical verse, allegedly spelled out by Jesus from Nazareth. It was among most quoted and misused lines – as to justify Europocentrism, exceptionalism and institutionalisation of inequality which then and there have started its global conquest.

^[12] To illustrate a centuries-long residual climate of jingoism, later conceptualised and postulated as the European ideology of Biologism, let us quote the III Reich’s Biology schoolbook: “The meaning of all life is struggle. Woe to him who sins against this law. Our Führer reminds us: ’He who wants to live must fight, and he who does not want to fight in this world of perpetual struggle does not deserve to live!’ (Mein Kampf, p. 317) Hence, ‘the world does not exist for cowardly nations’. (Mein Kampf, p. 105).” (For the full quote see appendix: Biology for the Middle School, The 5th Grade Girls; chapter: The Laws of Nature and Humanity, Textbook of 1942)

^[13] The Spirit of Laws and other writings of Montesquieu were the most decisive influencers on the French revolutionaries, Jacobins and Napoleon himself. In the hands of French revolutionaries, Buonaparte and later his own nephew – Napoleon III, the Montesquieu’s teaching shaped the administrative and legal order of Europe up to this very day. How did Montesquieu see Europe and the world? Well, Montesquieu registered the geographic regularity in prosperity and poverty concentration. His explanation to it was the geography hypothesis: that people in tropical climates tended to be ‘lazy and to lack inquisitiveness.’ Consequently, they didn’t work hard, were not innovative, which ultimately led them to poverty. Montesquieu further speculated that lazy people tended to be ruled by despots – due to their tropical location – a political phenomenon of (wrong) geography, linked with economic failure, and harsh primitive dictatorships.

Emilian M. Dobrescu

                  Slovacia, fostă ţară comunistă cu o populație de 5,4 milioane de locuitori şi unul dintre membrii cei mai săraci ai Zonei Euro, a fost singurul stat ce a refuzat să participe la un pachet de salvare pentru Grecia în 2010. Este o țară mică, a fost parte componentă a Cehoslovaciei și are o economie care se bazează pe producţia de automobile şi electronice. În ultimii doi ani – 2014 și 2015 – a evoluat aidoma multor ţări membre UE, cu motoarele economice la ralanti sau cu viteze interesante de creștere economică. În ultimul trimestru din 2015 a fost campioana regională la creșterea economică a țărilor din centrul Europei, cu o expansiune a PIB-ului de 4,2%, înregistrând totodată și cea mai buna performanță a ultimilor cinci ani.

               Slovacia a intrat în UE în 2004 şi a devenit membră a UE în 2009. Economia este dependentă puternic de exporturile industriale, în special de cele auto. La nouă ani de la adoptarea monedeiunice europene, o analiză a băncii centrale arată că Slovacia a rămas în urmă la convergenţa economică cu statele europene mai avansate. Raportul arată că economia creşte, dar poziţia ţării în ceea ce priveşte performanţa şi productivitateanu s-a îmbunătăţit suficient. Performanţa economică a ajuns la 77% din media UE pe 2016, ceea ce ar însemna că 2016 a fost al patrulea an consecitiv de stagnare în ceea ce priveşte convergenţa cu Europa dezvoltată.

Cea mai mare rată a mortalității din lume la COVID-19  

            La câteva luni după ce a devenit prima țară din lume care și-a testat întreaga populație, Slovacia are acum cea mai mare rată a mortalității, cauzată de coronavirus, din lume[1]. Slovacia a a avut în februarie 2021 cea mai mare medie de decese COVID raportate la 1 milion de locuitori, comparativ cu orice altă țară, într-un interval de șapte zile. Începând cu 15 februarie 2021, țara a avut o medie de 17,82 noi decese la 1 milion de persoane (fiind urmată de Portugalia cu 14,81, Muntenegru cu 12,63, San Marino cu 12,63 și Cehia cu 12,23 la 1 milion de locuitori). Marea Britanie, care a înregistrat peste 117.000 de decese de când a început pandemia, se află pe locul șase, cu 9,70 decese la un milion de locuitori. Aceste cifre vin după ce Slovacia și-a testat întreaga populație în octombrie 2020, strategie care a fost lăudată pe scară largă. Cazurile din țară au fost reduse arunci cu peste 60% într-o săptămână, potrivit unei analize făcute de London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

            Patru luni mai târziu, rata Slovaciei la decesele provocate de COVID este cea mai mare din lume. OMS a formulat recent noi reguli privind testele PCR folosite pentru depistarea persoanelor infectate cu noul coronavirus: deși în 2020 acestea au fost folosite pe scară largă în SUA și peste tot în lume, testele PCR nu sunt concepute pentru a fi întrebuințate ca mijloace de diagosticare, deoarece ele nu pot face distincția dintre virusurile inactive și cele „vii” sau reproductive.

Deficitul de resurse umane

            Slovacia nu mai este o ţară care oferă forţă de muncă ieftină iar situaţia de pe piaţa muncii acestei ţări a devenit foarte tensionată,  lipsa de muncitori calificaţi fiind o adevărată provocare pentru economia slovacă[2]. Situaţia de pe piaţa muncii în 2017 a afectat în mod vizibil companiile individuale şi drept urmare economia Slovaciei ca întreg, iar multe companii au ajuns la limita capacităţii în ceea ce priveşte personalul în 2017. Această tendinţă continuă și în 2018. Companiile au dificultăţi în a găsi noi angajaţi, în timp ce numărul celor fără un loc de muncă se situează în continuare la aproximativ 162.000.

            Motivul pentru acest paradox este legat de deficitul de forţă de muncă calificată. Există o nepotrivire între ceea ce pot oferi cei aflaţi în căutarea unui loc de muncă şi competenţele specific cerute de angajatori. Angajatorii cer condiţii mai facile pentru angajarea de străini şi reformarea sistemului educaţiei. Aceştia vor ca programa şcolilor şi universităţilor să fie mai bine aliniată la necesităţile companiilor în condiţiile în care-şi pun în continuare speranţele în programul dual de educaţie. Acesta, reintrodus pentru a genera suficienţi muncitori pentru fabrici, nu a atins obiectivele iniţiale.

            Drept reacţie, guvernul a relaxat reglementările privind intrarea pe piaţa locală a străinilor şi a introdus o măsură prin care slovacii cu datorii foarte mari sunt iertaţi de datoriile către instituţiile de stat. Guvernul estimează că această măsură va duce la întoarcerea a 40.000-70.000 de slovaci pe piaţa muncii. Pe de altă parte, guvernul a majorat suprataxele pentru munca în timpul nopţii, weekenduri şi sărbători, dar  a introdus cel de-al 13-lea şi al 14-lea salariu.

            Deficitul în creştere de forţă de muncă calificată, numărul în creştere de locuri de muncă vacante şi şomajul în scădere au fost principalele condiţii de pe piaţa muncii în perioada 2017-2021. În aceste condiţii, angajatorii nu ezită să investească în recalificarea muncitorilor. În plus, muncitorii au devenit mai îndrăzneţi în negocierea salariilor.

               Economia țării în 2017 și 2018

               Deşi creşterea economică a depăşit ușor 3%, viteza nu este suficient de mare pentru a ajunge din urmă statele dezvoltate din Vest[3]; economia slovacă a început să rămână şi în urma partenerilor din Grupul Vişegrad (Ungaria, Polonia şi Cehia, numite Grupul V4). Situaţia a fost evidentă în prima jumătate a anului 2017, când economiile Ungariei, Poloniei şi Cehiei au avansat mai rapid decât cea a Slovaciei. Banca centrală atribuie această încetinire faptului că după criză consumul privat nu s-a dezvoltat în Slovacia la fel de mult ca în economiile vecine. Consumul general înregistrat în Slovacia a fost mai dinamic decât cel al celorlalte state din V4, însă nu a reuşit să recuperezec ce s-a pierdut prin consumul privat mai lent.

               Strategii văd creşterea PIB accelerând la 4,2% în 2018 şi la 4,6% în 2019 şi performanţa economică ajungând la 82% din media UE în 2019. Optimismul se bazează în parte pe lansarea producţiei la fabrica din Nitra a Jaguar Land Rover, pe evoluţiile pozitive de pe piaţa muncii şi pe accelerarea consumului privat. Separat, vicepreşedintele pentru Uniunea Energetică a Comisiei Europene, diplomatul slovac Maros Sefcovic şi-a asigurat conaţionalii că devin mai puternici din punct de vedere economic şi că vor fi un factor important de stabilitate în viitor. El a explicat că economia slovacă a crescut cu 60% de când a aderat la UE: „Pentru prima dată după mulţi ani pot spune că evoluţiile pozitive din Slovacia nu mai ţin atât de mult de exporturi, ci, de creşterea consumului intern. Iar aceasta este dovada că şi consumatorii slovaci devin mai puternici din punct de vedere economic”.

               Salariile slovacilor s-au majorat cu 3,9% în 2017, iar creşterea ar putea fi de 3,4% în 2018, potrivit unor prognoze ale PwC. Evoluţii dinamice sunt înregistrate mai ales în sectorul manufacturier. „Angajatorii se confruntă cu provocări în special pe partea de resurse umane în vestul ţării, unde rata şomajuluieste redusă, iar forţa de lucru calificată disponibilă lipseşte”, spun analiştii PwC.

               La finalul anului 2017, cabinetul premierului Robert Fico se pregăteşte să livreze cel de-al patrulea pachet social pentru cetățenii slovaci: acesta conţine, printre altele al 13-lea şi al 14-lea salariu, creşterea salariului minim, exceptarea pensionarilor care lucrează de la plata impozitului pe venit şi majorarea bonusurilor pentru nopţile şi weekend-urile lucrate. Angajatorii  au fost extrem de critici la adresa acestor măsuri.

Fraude cu fonduri europene

În estul Slovaciei, grupuri de inte­rese care recurg la metode mafiote au descoperit că granturile directe EU pentru zone agricole pot fi folosite ca sur­să de venit şi încearcă să smulgă tere­nuri agricole din mâinile proprie­ta­rilor[4]. Mai multe grupuri de fer­mieri au de­venit victimele unor forme moderne de în­suşire frauduloasă de terenuri agri­cole. Grupurile de interese recurg la sche­me legale, reţele formate din poli­ticieni şi oameni de afaceri locali pen­tru a prelua controlul asupra terenu­rilor arabile pentru a putea băga în bu­zu­nar granturile directe UE pentru zonele agricole; situația este posibilă de por­tiţele existente în cadrul reglemen­tă­ri­lor slovace privind subvenţiile, dar şi prin structuri de putere existente într-o ţară în care relaţiile bune cu elitele aflate la putere sunt vitale.

După uciderea jur­na­listului Jan Kuciak la sfârşitul lunii fe­bruarie 2018, multe cazuri de corupţie şi cri­mă organizată au fost aduse la supra­faţă. Pentru cazurile agricole a fost înfiin­ţat un comitet investigativ, dar fermierii simt că sunt duşi de nas în continuare. Mulți dintre ei au fost nevoiți să-şi vândă din proprietăţi pentru a-şi finanţa bătăliile în instanţă și spun că şi-au pierdut încrederea în statul slovac.

            Interzicerea cianurilor în minerit

            Pe 12 septembrie 2014 parlamentarii slovaci au adoptat un nou amendament al legii minelor. Tehnologia pe bază de cianură, folosită de industria minieră la extracția aurului, a fost astfel interzisă[5]. Pe 10 septembrie, Adunarea Generală a Parlamentului slovac a adoptat în plenul său amendamentul menționat. Inițiativa a venit din partea SMER, partidul de guvernământ, care are o majoritate confortabilă în Parlament. Slovacia se alătură astfel altor state care au interzis deja folosirea cianurii în minerit, cum ar fi Cehia sau Ungaria. În mai 2010, Parlamentul European a adoptat o rezoluție privind interzicerea generală a utilizării tehnologiilor miniere pe bază de cianură pe întreg teritoriul Uniunii Europene.

            Cu toate acestea, Comisia Europeană a refuzat să transpună decizia Parlamentului într-o directivă motivând că “o interzicere generală a utilizării cianurii ar avea un efect negativ asupra ocupării forței de muncă”. În realitate studii independente contrazic această retorică și din ce în ce mai multe comunități din Europa se confruntă cu pericolul proiectelor miniere ce implică utilizarea cianurii. Din Grecia, România, Spania, Franța, Bulgaria până în Finlanda, cetățenii se mobilizează pentru a se asigura că această substanță toxică este interzisă.

            În cazul Slovaciei, interzicerea cianurii a venit ca răspuns la proiectele miniere de extragere a aurului planificate în Kremnica și Detva (ambele localizate în regiunea Banská Bystrica). După cum a explicat profesorul Jan G. Laitos, “mai mult de 90% din tot aurul extras la nivel mondial se bazează pe folosirea cianurii. Cianura este un compus chimic care face reacție cu aurul, permițând separarea acestuia de alte elemente. Este din punctul de vedere al industriei un proces simplu și eficient mai ales când vine vorba de cost. Nu există alternative cu costuri de producție într-atât de mici. Cu alte cuvinte, interzicerea utilizării cianurii încetează extracția și producția de aur toxic”.

              “A fost un efort considerabil, dar am făcut progrese substanțiale pentru a opri exploatările toxice de aur nu numai în Kremnica, dar peste tot în Slovacia”, a declarat un membru al grupului de inițiativă “Kremnica nad Zlato” (Kremnica dincolo de aur). “Suntem încrezători că victoria noastră va încuraja și alte comunități să lupte în țările lor pentru un viitor curat și pentru interzicerea cianurii. Mai mult, Slovacia ar trebui să fie de asemenea un exemplu pentru oficialii UE ce trebuie să oprească practicile miniere toxice din Europa și să pună în aplicare voința cetățenilor europeni de interzicere a cianurilor”.

        Noua conductă Slovacia - România - Bulgaria     

                  În perioada 2005-2014, Rusia a întrerupt de trei ori livrările de gaze către Ucraina, măsură care a afectat în special regiunea balcanică, unde multe ţări depind aproape în totalitate de gazele ruseşti primite printr-o singură rută de tranzit. Pentru a preveni această situaţie, transportatorul naţional de gaze din Slovacia, anunţă că încheie un memorandum de înţelegere cu companiile similare din România şi Bulgaria, pentru construcţia unui gazoduct care să reducă dependenţa regiunii balcanice de Rusia[6]. Eustream a propus livrarea de gaze din terminalele europene prin sistemul de conducte al Slovaciei, în Ucraina şi de acolo în România şi Bulgaria. Susţinătorii proiectului spun că acesta va face ca state precum Bulgaria şi Serbia să poată primi gaze chiar dacă Rusia întrerupe livrările către Ucraina. În afara gazelor ruseşti, noua conductă ar putea transporta gaze dintr-un terminal din Austria sau din surse alternative, precum Marea Caspică sau Marea Mediterană.

               Eustream - promotorul principal al acestui proiect - analizează înfiinţarea unei companii mixte cu mai multe companii străine, pentru construcţia proiectului, al cărui cost estimat este cuprins între 750 milioane euro şi 1,2 miliarde de euro, în funcţie de traseul final care va fi stabilit. Parteneri în proiect sunt compania austriacă OMV şi Gaz de France. Conducta cu o lungime de 570 de kilometri ar avea o capacitate de transport de până la 20 de miliarde de metri cubi de gaze pe an şi va putea să transporte gaze din Rusia către Balcani, precum şi din Occident spre această regiune. Gazoductul ar conecta actulul sistem al Eustream, care are o capacitate de peste 80 de miliarde de metri cubi, la conducta ucraineană Soyuz, utilizată în prezent sub capacitate, care ajunge la graniţa cu România.

          Prima emisiune de obligațiuni

            În luna mai 2018, Slovacia a emis prima obligaţiune pe 50 de ani din istoria sa, fiind în primul său an de intrare pe pieţele europene de capital și oferind investitorilor o emisiune duală de obligaţiuni pe 10 şi, respectiv 50 de ani[7].

            Valoarea totală a obligaţiunilor guvernamentale emise a atins 1,5 miliarde de euro, dintre care 1 miliard de euro au reprezentat obligaţiunile pe 10 ani cu un cupon de 1% pe an şi 500 milioane obligaţiunile pe 50 de ani cu un cupon de 2,25% pe an. Vânzarea a fost intermediată de un sindicat de bănci ce a inclus Barclays, Citi, Slovenska Sporitelna şi Tatra Banka.

          Prima femeie șef de stat

            Avocata liberală Zuzana Caputova a devenit pe 30 martie 2019, prima prima femeie şef de stat în Slovacia, potrivit rezultatelor parţiale aproape complete din turul al doilea al alegerilor publicate de Oficiul de statisitici[8]: militanta anticorupţie a obţinut 58,38% din voturi, conform rezultatelor din 99,84% de birouri electorale. Rivalul ei, Maros Sefcovic, comisar european susţinut de actuala putere, a fost creditat de 41,61% din voturi. Imediat după publicarea primelor rezultate, Caputova a lansat un apel slovacilor pentru a se uni: “Să căutăm ceea ce ne uneşte, să punem cooperarea mai presus de interesele personale. Pentru mine, această alegere a dovedit că putem câştiga fără a ne ataca adversarii şi cred că această tendinţă se va confirma la alegerile pentru Parlamentul european şi la legislativele slovace din 2020. Rezultatul meu arată că este posibil să nu cedezi populismului şi să câştigi încrederea oamenilor fără să recurgi la un vocabular agresiv şi la atacuri persoanale”, a declarat preşedinta țării.    .

            Victoria detaşată a Zuzanei Caputova poate fi explicată, potrivit experţilor, de un val de nemulţumire populară faţă de putere după asasinatul jurnalistului de investigaţie Jan Kuciak şi a logodnicei sale în 2018.

          Șase luni în fruntea Uniunii Europene

            Slovacia a deţinut în semestrul al II-lea din 2016, presedinţia prin rotaţie a Consiliului Uniunii Europene. Nu foarte mulţi oameni politici europeni au mizat că Slovacia ar putea să se ridice la înălţimea momentului. Micuţul stat est-european a reuşit, însă, să depăşească cu brio o serie importantă de încercări, totul culminând cu organizarea summit-ului de la Bratislava, acolo unde, pentru prima dată, s-a discutat viitorul Uniunii Europene fără Marea Britanie ca membru al blocului european.  

            Iniţial, programul preşedinţiei slovace a Uniunii Europene s-a axat în jurul îmbunătăţirii climatului economic şi al investiţiilor din Uniunea Europeană, a privit modernizarea pieţei unice, adoptarea unor politici sustenabile privind gestionarea fenomenului migraţiei şi al acordării de azil precum şi la promovarea unor politici de vecinătate pentru a pregăti terenul ţărilor non-membre din Europa pentru a accede în Uniune.

            Planurile Slovaciei au fost date peste cap de Brexit. Summit-ul de la Bratislava a căpătat accente istorice, prioritatea numărul 1 fiind securizarea graniţelor Uniunii. Reunirea celor 27 de şefi de state ale UE s-a concretizat cu adoptarea Foii de Parcurs de la Bratislava, cu semnarea unei declaraţii comune şi cu adoptarea unor măsuri concrete pentru combaterea fluxului de imigranţi, precum: a) punerea în aplicare a acordului UE-Turcia b) înfiinţarea Pazei de Europene de Frontieră şi de Coastă, care a ajuns la capacitate maximă la finele lui 2016; c) cooperarea şi dialogul cu ţările terţe, care să conducă la reducerea fluxurilor de migraţie ilegală şi creştere a cotelor de returnare; d) măsurile necesare pentru a se asigura că toate persoanele, inclusiv cetăţenii din statele membre ale UE, care traversează frontierele externe ale Uniunii, să fie verificate în bazele de date relevante, care trebuie să fie interconectate; d) crearea unui Sistem European de Informaţii şi de Autorizare privind Călătoriile (ETIAS) pentru a permite verificarea în avans şi, dacă este necesar, a refuza intrarea călătorilor scutiţi de vize.

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[1] Vezi site-ul https://www.activenews.ro/externe/%E2%80%9ETestati-testati-testati-n-a-functionat-Tara-care-a-testat-intreaga-populatie-pentru-Covid-19-are-acum-cea-mai-mare-rata-a-mortalitatii-din-lume-165325, postat și vizitat pe 18 februarie 2021

[2] Cătălina Apostoiu, Slovacia: Deficitul de muncitori creează tensiuni pe piaţa muncii. Angajatorii cer să angajeze mai uşor străini şi reformarea sistemului educaţiei, în Ziarul Financiar, 13 martie 2018, p. 10

[3] Bogdan Cojocaru, Consumul privat a crescut prea lent:Slovacia, singura ţară est-europeană care a adoptat euro, se plângecă se apropie de Vest mai rapid la preţuri decât la performanţa economică, în Ziarul Financiar, 3 noiembrie 2017, p. 2

[4] Cătălina Apostoiu, Fraudă cu fonduri europene în Slovacia: lupta murdară pentru terenuri arabile, în Ziarul Financiar, 28 iunie 2018

[5] *  *  *, Moment istoric: Slovacia a interzis cianura în minerit, pe site-ul www.rgnpres.com, vizitat pe 26 septembrie 2014

[6] Anca Dumitrescu, Slovacia va încheia un memorandum cu România şi Bulgaria pentru un gazoduct către Balcani, sursa: Mediafax, 28 ianuarie 2015, orele 20:11

[7] Cătălina Apostoiu, Slovacia lansează prima emisiune de obligaţiuni pe 50 de ani din istoria sa, în Ziarul Financiar, 12 iunie 2018, p. 10

[8] D.I., Avocata liberală Zuzana Caputova va deveni prima femeie şef de stat în Slovacia, în Ziarul Bursa, 31 martie 2019