FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

‘Worst French-Italian Crisis Since the End of the War’ Heralds ‘European Decomposition’

Feb. 8, 2019—The French government decision to recall its ambassador to Rome has to be seen as the climax in a conflict that started the very day the “populist” government was formed in Italy. The European elites decided to wage an all-out war against the Italian “populists” in the hope of preventing a “contagion” to other countries. Emmanuel Macron took the leadership of that offensive, generating a war of words which has now become a war of deeds.

The counterpart (the Lega and the M5S) saw this as an invitation to the dance and to increase their popularity against the Eurocrats.

The specific reason adduced by the French Foreign Ministry for recalling the ambassador is the meeting between Italian Five Star leader and Deputy Prime Minister Luigi di Maio with some Yellow Vest leaders in Paris, as Elysée government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux explained in a Europe 1 radio interview yesterday.

The Foreign Ministry issued a long statement, in multiple languages, on its website, which says: “For several months now, France has—as everyone knows or may be aware of—been the target of repeated accusations, baseless attacks and outrageous remarks. These attacks are unprecedented since the end of World War II....

“The most recent intrusions constitute a further, unacceptable provocation....

“France calls on Italy to take action to restore the relationship based on friendship and mutual respect that measures up to our history and our common destiny.”

This crisis is but one of the crises facing Europe. French economist Jacques Sapir has posted an article on his Facebook page describing the “decomposition” of Europe and listing four recent episodes, any one of which would have had the same potential for conflict as the famous “Ems Dispatch” that unleashed the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. And each one of these episodes is tied in one way or the other to the European Union, he writes.

The four episodes are:

1. European Council President Donald Tusk saying yesterday “I’ve been wondering what that special place in hell looks like, for those who promoted Brexit, without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely.”
   
   
2. The statement by the head of the “Les Républicains” party in France, saying in a tweet that the EU should make Brexit “painful” for the British.
   
   
3. The French recall of its ambassador to Rome.
   
   
4. France’s concession to British pressure to oppose Nord Stream 2, breaking its common agreement with Germany. “Voilá what makes even more laughable Emmanuel Macron’s earlier pretense to embody a renewed EU,” Sapir writes.

The Italian sovereignist website scenarieconomici.it, led by Antonio Maria Rinaldi, shares Sapir’s view:

“Current animosity can match 1939 or 1914. We should therefore ask ourselves what is the cause of this hatred which we saw already in 2015 towards Greece from the French-German media? Having created a cage with financial and budget constraints has, on one side, destroyed the great project of international collaboration that had built the real union and the common growth, such as Ariane and Airbus; on the other side, they have laid the basis for a fight of all against all on every bit of law or cent of money. Let us add that even European elections for a Parliament, with no power but with a political value inside individual states, becomes a destructive element for Europe, because it brings an unpleasant but obvious interference of one country into the politics of another country. The euro, bad monetary and economic policy, are progressively destroying Europe and, without corrections, we are going towards a disintegration as in the Soviet Union.”