Europe Must Reject Empire,
Choose National Sovereignty
by Helga Zepp-LaRouche
Videotaped remarks to the conference "Save Human Dignity for the Sake of Mankind," Moscow, Russia, Dec. 3-4, 2009. Video address in German, with English subtitles.
[PDF version of this transcript]
Dear Friends,
I believe that most of you will agree with me that the system of globalization today is several orders of magnitude more bankrupt than was the Communist planned economy between 1989 and 1991. Those who say that the worst is already over, are lying. As you can see now, it is merely getting, what is called in English, a second wind—that is, a person is really already out of breath, but rouses himself for one final effort.
Twenty-eight months after the outbreak of the systemic crisis at the end of July 2007, the casino economy is more aggressive than ever before. We have bigger banks than we did, even prior to the collapse of Lehman Brothers, because of various mega-mergers. High-risk deals are in full swing. The only thing that has occurred is that unbelievable amounts of liquidity have been pumped in to rescue the banks—which will not succeed anyway, because they are hopelessly bankrupt. In America alone, over $23 trillion in liquidity has been pumped in. Similar sums in Europe—and yet the real economy is in free fall around the world.
A new bubble is taking shape; the commercial real estate market is near collapse; the so-called credit default swap market—i.e., the credit insurance market—is near collapse. A new, very big danger is the new dollar carry trade, which means that the next mega-crash is only a matter of time, and then—unless there is a tremendous change—there is the danger of plunging into chaos and the danger of hyperinflation, like in Weimar in 1923, only this time worldwide.
As my husband, Lyndon LaRouche, explained in his video address, the agreement reached in early October between Russia and China was potentially the beginning of a new credit system. And other sovereign nations should associate themselves with it. If Russia, China, India, and, hopefully soon, the U.S. work together, this can certainly lead to a new credit system.
Europe's Role
In my remarks, I would like to discuss Europe's role in this context. As long as the European nations are trapped in the corset of the EU, Europe has no chance to overcome this crisis. Although, of course, the EU bureaucracy in Brussels says exactly the opposite: namely, that European integration is necessary so that Europe can assert itself as a regional power against other rising regional powers in the world.
This is a falsehood which is usually spread by the proponents of the EU, saying that anyone who is critical of the EU is anti-European. That is absolutely not the case; one can certainly be for Europe, but in the spirit of de Gaulle: a Europe of the Fatherlands.
The problem with the current EU is that, at least since the Maastricht Treaty, it has been on the road to becoming a true empire. If you consider developments after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the manipulation by Margaret Thatcher, with her "Fourth Reich" campaign; by Françcois Mitterrand, who even threatened war, if Germany would not give up the D-Mark; and by Bush Sr., who wanted to force Germany to contain itself, then you can see in retrospect that all these efforts to integrate Germany into the EU were essentially intended, at the very least, to severely restrict Germany's role in the economic development, first, of the Soviet Union, and then, of Russia.
In 1991, the opportunity had existed to place East-West relations on a completely new footing, and to organize real peace for the 21st Century, since there was no longer an enemy. But the problem was that precisely at that time, in the senior Bush's administration, the neocons around Cheney, Bush, Shultz, and Rumsfeld wanted to establish the American Century doctrine, and to establish the special relationship between Britain and the United States as virtually the beginning of a new world government. The result was the first Gulf War.
The pursuit of this idea of a world empire was interrupted during the eight years of the Clinton Administration, but globalization spread rapidly, of course, in its economic and financial aspects. For example, in 1996, Richard Perle placed the policy of the so-called "Clean Break" on the agenda, via then-Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu; this policy was, essentially, that all governments that were hostile to such a new world government would be eliminated by "regime change," in one way or another.
In January 2001, Lyndon LaRouche warned that the new Bush Administration would be faced with so many economic problems that there was a danger that it would stage a new Reichstag Fire. And it happened, exactly nine months later, on Sept. 11, 2001; and just one day later, Dick Cheney stood before the international press and claimed that it was clearly proven that Saddam Hussein and Iraq were to blame for Sept. 11. That was later the pretext for the strike against Iraq, and, of course, for the Afghanistan War.
The Maastricht Treaty, which defines Europe in the form of the EU, must be seen against this background, because it was not just about the containment of the reunited Germany by EU integration, but also about the so-called reform of policy toward Russia, which in the '90s had resulted in economic devastation.
Germany had to give up the deutschemark and accept monetary union and the euro. Chancellor Helmut Kohl said, at that time, that he knew for sure that a monetary union without political union could not work. But he was forced, by various very evil maneuvers—including the murder of Alfred Herrhausen, who was then the head of Deutsche Bank—to give up the D-mark; and one can only conclude that, since that time, the EU has actually become a substructure of globalization.
The behavior of Brussels and the EU Commission since the outbreak of the financial crisis in 2007 proves that they have not deviated from the neo-liberal paradigm in any way. The new EU Foreign Minister, Mrs. Ashton, now has a staff of 7,000 people, who have potentially more power than any of the EU's member governments, and who will have a very large role in foreign and defense policy. The EU has also made it clear that it wants to stick with "perfecting" free trade; they insist on concluding the WTO's Doha Round. It has now been admitted that the EU's policy in the health sector is the same as the British QALY—quality adjusted life years; i.e., prioritization of health care for people who can be quickly re-integrated into the workforce, while children and old people will fall through the cracks and receive less medical care. This goes in the direction of the policy that [the Nazis] called Tiergarten 4 (T4), and which at that time led to the definition of "a life not worth living."
Just what a monster the EU bureaucracy has become can be seen nowhere better than in agriculture, where in Germany, for example, one-third of dairy farmers have lost their livelihoods, and many more are in danger of going bankrupt in the coming weeks and months, because the EU's pricing policy is quite obviously intended to replace family farms with so-called agro-industrial complexes.
I venture the forecast that if the EU maintains its current neo-liberal policies, the worsening of the crisis will lead to a revolt against the EU itself—not only by individual member states, but also by the vocational groups concerned, who, because of this policy, really cannot survive.
If Europe sticks with the current EU policy, then, there is no mechanism that could protect industry and the common good, because the EU Stability Pact and the madness of the so-called "debt brake," which is also enshrined in the Basic Law in Germany now, has robbed governments of any means, such as state credit creation, to do what is necessary to overcome the economic crisis. And if Europe maintains this policy, Europe—no matter what happens in the rest of the world—would plunge into a new Dark Age.
The Alternative
On the other hand, there is an alternative. If agreement is reached among Russia, China, India, and, hopefully, the U.S., then individual European nations, as sovereign states, could become part of this new credit system. In that case, I certainly see a very positive role for Germany, France, Italy, and the other European countries. For example, the German Mittelstand [small and medium-sized enterprises] has industrial capabilities that are urgently needed for the development of Eurasia.
I think that's the path we must take, because every nation in Eurasia, Africa, and Latin America need to evolve as individual sovereign nations, in the best possible way. That, moreover, is the idea that was developed by Nikolai Kusansky [Nicolaus of Cusa]: that harmony in the macrocosm is only possible if all microcosms develop in the best possible way.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has just published in its annual report, that a total of 1.2 billion people go hungry every day. I think that shows the real scandal of the system of globalization. And therefore, one of the new tasks for cooperation among sovereign republics must be to put the elimination of hunger, of poverty—especially in Africa and Latin America—on the agenda.
We must pose to ourselves the common goal, as Mr. LaRouche has indicated, that manned spaceflight be the next stage, which can unite mankind on a higher level. This decision as to which direction we go—chaos and decline, or a new, just world economic order?—is a decision that, in all likelihood, we will face in the coming weeks and months. And I think we should confront this historic challenge with courage and confidence.
Thank you very much.
