We have become used to considering Europe as a continent. What if the political and economic realities transform it from an American dependency to an Asian peninsula?

1. Grazia.tanta@gmail.com 1/6/2021 1
Europe - a continent that turns into a peninsula
We have become used to considering Europe as a
continent. What if the political and economic realities
transform it from an American dependency to an Asian
peninsula?
1 - The European Union of inequalities
In advanced capitalism, with a neoliberal profile, borders are seen as obstacles that can make it
difficult for goods to be processed. And the internet has exponentially facilitated contacts in
general, capital operations and speculative dementia in particular. As for human beings, things
are somewhat different; Citizen cards, passports, visas, residence permits and … in progress, a
certificate on the situation vis-à-vis covid-19 will be required.
The EU intended to be a factor of homogeneity in terms of rights and usufructs in the sense of
facilitating exchanges between member countries, as a response to the great rivalry that
emerged from World War II, between the North Americans and the Soviets. Initially, the political
and economic differences between its members were not many until the integration of Greece
(1981) and the Iberian countries (1986), with degrees of economic development clearly inferior
to the founders. Later, with the inclusion of the countries that left Comecon and the bloody
dismemberment of Yugoslavia, inequalities within the enlarged EU grew substantially,
presenting huge pockets of potential emigrants destined to work in the richer countries,
desertifying and aging their countries of origin, taken as labor exporters. Like the Levels of
training in these countries are among the highest in Europe (especially in the East) and, with this
training being paid for by the families of the countries of their origin, it is immediately seen that
those who will benefit from the qualification of these emigrant workers are the rich countries,
with enough money to pay salaries that are not practiced in the countries of origin. As these
inequalities are of interest to contractors (rich countries) and contractors (workers from poor
countries), to speak of social and territorial cohesion within the EU is a lie consolidated over
time.
The godly goal of unification and solidarity has not been fulfilled. Countries or regions in the
process of population regression and those that attract population are perfectly visible ,
although in the EU there is not only migration between member states but also of people from
abroad. For example, Turks go to Germany, Moroccans to Spain, Indians and Pakistanis to Great
Britain, Brazilians to Portugal…
The richest countries saw the poorest countries integrated in the EU as interesting destinations
for investments, taking advantage of low local wage levels and, in many cases, linked to high
educational levels (especially in the former Comecon countries); in these territories there were
people eager for consumption and well-being, ready to work and improve their lives.[1] . On the
other hand, the integration of these countries would work as a model for the consolidation of
centers and peripheries, with these orbiting countries with greater economic, demographic or
financial strength; a model of spatial and economic reorganization, generating inequalities that

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are of interest to be permanent, namely in the chapter on labor prices. All, however, well
camouflaged in a language of egalitarianism that reality proves to be false; registering among
the peripheries cases of some success, such as total failure.
All this architecture is well wrapped up in legal texts, extensive and detailed, which clearly show
the difficulties for countries that want to go back, leaving the Union; notwithstanding the
obvious disaster of an exit for any member state with lesser status, especially if included in the
euro area[2] . Great Britain managed to leave but took with it problems that jeopardize the
continuity of its peripheral parts – Scotland and Ulster – leaving Greater London to royalty as a
powerful financial center linked to the numerous offshore points spread across the planet. The
viability of the exit of unstructured, poor countries, with trade largely carried out within the EU
and dependent on community support, is doubtful. The EU replicates in its midst the inequalities
typical of the federated states; in the US the differences between Florida and West Virginia are
stark; in Brazil, the state of São Paulo has an income capitation three times higher than that of
Ceará; in Spain, income in the Community of Madrid is double that of the poorest autonomy
(Extremadura); and in Portugal, the North region presents an income slightly above 2/3 of that
registered in Lisbon and Vale do Tejo. In short, the EU replicates the social and economic
inequalities existing in all nation-states and these will never disappear in a framework of
capitalist competition; the global management of the current pandemic reveals to the full the
differences that capitalism generates and sustains. Cooperation and mutual help give better
results than the insanity of accumulating capital to infinity.
If initially, the CEE countries had approximate income levels and productive structures, after the
entry of Greece into the then CEE, things changed with the inclusion of that poor country, with
very different production structures and incomes; and followed by the Iberian countries, etc. As
is evident, the political classes of the less developed countries, eager to become the link and
protagonists of a corrupt absorption of community funds, did not bother to consult the
populations on the acceptance or not of such a geopolitical change. On the contrary, they made
full use of what they could and some became “entrepreneurs” benefiting from the good
connections within the PS/PSD party-state, in the Portuguese case. The so-called international
investors know that they have to pay a specific fee for any business with a country where
corruption is natural, and they try to hire authorized intermediaries – law firms.
Where a political plan of territorial, political and well-being cohesion was affirmed, in reality
there was only a hierarchy of countries with different levels of political, commercial and
technological power, competing with each other to take advantage of the community funds that
would make it possible for capitalists from the richest countries to invest in the less rich ones,
with the lowest salary levels, also giving scope for the application of these funds in accordance
with the interests of the party mafias, national or local authorities. Europe of Regions, does
anyone remember?
In reality, the poorest countries remain at the bottom of the hierarchy, with the EU remaining a
union of unequals.

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In this context, there is a “specialization”. EU countries with more powerful economic structures
and productive specializations with greater technological content tend to focus on trade
relations with a wide range of countries, mainly on exports – this is the obvious case for
Germany. Countries with less advanced specialization patterns tend to focus on the production
of goods with lower technological content, such as agricultural or tourist products, with the
richest countries in the Union as buyers. And, in the case of agricultural export products, there is
no shortage local mobsters for the integration of non-community immigrants under
substandard conditions and wages .
2 - The EU at the global level
At the end of World War II, Europe became a politically and militarily shared area. In the western
part, the presence of North American troops would be aimed at defending against any Soviet
advance; and, to this end, NATO was created in 1949, to which Greece and Turkey joined in
1952. In response, in 1955, the Warsaw Pact emerged, covering the countries with a Soviet
model, led by the USSR. A segmented, bipartite Europe, forced to accept the end of centuries of
colonization, presented itself even more fragile before the two colossi of the moment – USA and
USSR.
With the end of the so-called cold war, NATO maintained its existence, expanded its geographic
scope with the integration of the countries of the extinct Warsaw Pact, with military
interventions in the Balkans and, outside the European scope, in Libya, the Sahel and in
Afghanistan. The US military and political dominance in the European scenario also represents
the guarantee of a captive market for the enormous North American weaponry production; It
keeps the political influence of the US west of the Russian border and, the Mediterranean; and, it
also intends to contain the penetration of China's commercial and political influence in all
corners of the planet (see map at the end of the text) .
The combined military spending of the USA, France, Great Britain and Germany in 2020 was
$942,700 million of which $778,000 million is for the US and, knowing that the use of such
resources is widespread across the planet and not just in Europe. Russia's military spending was
$61,700 million, certainly not just centered on the European scene . And China, for its part, spent
$ 252,000 million, concentered in the Far East.
Other factors draw the European underage Euro failed to supplant the dollar as the global
currency, the renminbi Chinese also did not and, the pound is a shadow of its past. It is not
strange that Europe shows itself as an exporting power (despite its glaring internal inequalities)
but with a reduced capacity for intervention in the global political chessboard. It remains,
therefore, the situation of a Europe as a US base for the strategic area of the North Atlantic and
the Mediterranean, counting even the US with the political and economic disintegration of the
space stretching from Lebanon to Mesopotamia and the sea of Oman, encompassing there,
obviously the Persian Gulf [3]; and, above all, with the support of the faithful Zionist entity. In
short, the US retains its strategic control over Europe; and this highlights its political minority
focusing on bureaucratic minutiae, leaving the distance global leadership marked at Lepanto
(1571) and, consolidated in the second siege of Vienna (1683).

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A major change is underway coming from East Asia, after a first phase led by the economic
performance of Japan and South Korea, countries that have continued since the end of World
War II under the protectorate of the USA (as in Europe with the presence of NATO ) although
not dispensing with high military costs; those two countries in 2020 spent with the armed forces
a little less than $ 50,000 M each.
This militaristic fad that characterizes the US, with bases and fleets around the world, with the
involvement in wars and astonishing destruction, made the US totally distanced from the
creation, in 2014 of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB); or, in 2020, the Regional
Comprehensive Economic Partnership ( RCEP) which includes countries militarily protected by
the USA (South Korea and Japan) or, under its political influence (Australia and New Zealand)
and in which India did not want to participate… by while, during the consulate of the Hindu
fanatic, Modi. History records that trade, exchanges, bring peoples together, promote cultural
interactions and constitute an enormous instrument of economic development, unlike
militarism; as can be seen in the following table.
Percentage of world GDP (in terms of purchasing power parity )
1980 1990 2000 2010 2015 2020 (est)
EU 30.2 27.6 23.7 19.0 16.9 15.6
USA 21.9 22.1 20.7 16.8 15.8 14.7
China 2.3 4.1 7.5 13.9 17.3 19.0
Source: IMF - Economic Outlook 2016
In 2020, the Chinese economic power meant that the EU has become China as its biggest
trading partner, sending the US for second place; the way both countries faced the coronavirus
outbreak reveals the decay of the US and its replacement by China as the world's main economy
.
The relationship that will be established in Euro-Asia involves several aspects. One is the
strengthening of Russia as a vital link between East Asia and Europe; a link that could be
practiced across the Arctic. Another is a development of the Russian gas supply to Germany via
the Baltic, in the face of US bitterness.

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A third aspect is the establishment of several sections of the Silk Road, integrating the countries
of Central Asia and the Muslim countries of the Near and Middle East, through high speed
trains, an area in which China has a high performance, as it reveals below. According to Keith
Bradsher of the New York Times, in 2012, China inaugurated a high-speed rail line that runs
2298 km between Beijing and Guangzou, with 35 stops in ten hours; transposed to Europe, this
infrastructure would make a London-Belgrade journey in… eight hours. The above distance is
equivalent to the distance between New York and Key West, in South Florida; however, a
current, slightly shorter rail route (New York/Miami) is now completed in … 30 hours of travel.
Such developments in China as in Europe may offer diversified routes for transactions between
Europe and the East and include the countries of the aforementioned ASEAN and the East coast
of Africa.
Taking into account the population of the “European Peninsula”, Eurasian integration (for the
time being, excluding India) goes beyond 2500 M people connected by a continuous and
diverse continental mass, culturally and in terms of living or upbringing of wealth.
A war in Europe with a global dimension is not to be expected. The US military presence was
justified for nearly half a century with the existence of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact. The
extinction of the latter would have been a good opportunity for the burial of military alliances;
however, NATO continues to exist, happy to have encompassed the Balkan countries; and
hoping, after the inclusion of the countries of the extinct Comecon, to encircle the Russian
borders in Ukraine and the Caucasus .
After the end of the Cold War, the US, with or without the NATO mask, waged wars in the
territory of the former Yugoslavia, invaded Libya and Afghanistan, armed ISIS to destabilize Syria
and Iraq, with the strengthening of the connection to the monarchies Gulf to isolate Iran and,
develop the Zionist cancer the exact extent of the Palestinian people crushing. The US continues
to be present in Africa conflicts, keeping the seat of its Africom, located in Stuttgart (!), a
showing of their role as strange entity among the peoples of the continent; and including,
among other auxiliaries, also in Africa, Portuguese mercenaries.
The militarized bet of the USA is a real dementia, especially when taking into account the degree
of poverty of a large part of its population and its deficiencies in terms of infrastructure, as
exemplified above. Its military presence in Europe continues to use and reproduce the Cold War
scenario, attributing to Russia an economic and military power it does not have. Russia has only
150 million inhabitants and its military spending is more than twelve times less than that of the
USA.

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.
Where there seems to be a lot of homogeneity among EU members is in strategic subservience
to NATO, with the acceptance of US leadership[4]. The EU seems to want to keep the US with
one foot in Europe, to avoid a total immersion of the European Peninsula in the infrastructure of
the Silk Road, the implementation of which will keep the US fleets in the Indian Ocean and the
Pacific, which tend to be obsolete. from a strategic point of view, with the increasing relevance
of land routes in the connection between the East, Central Asia and Europe. China's economic
strength, combined with its demographic strength (more than double that of the EU countries)
promises to give Europe a second place. This marginalization, in the past, was very evident in
Bretton Woods, with the segmentation of Europe into West and East, with the presence of
military bases of occupying powers and, with bloody decolonizations (Algeria, Vietnam and
Portuguese colonies).
What role will Europe have in the medium or long term?
 Regional economic power without a relevant role in international politics inserted,
without protagonism, in the strategic confrontation China/USA?
 As for China, Europe will seek a relationship of mutual economic advantages by joining
the planned logistical corridors for whose construction most European countries have joined
(the AIIB mentioned above);
 Maintenance of current and glaring regional inequalities within the EU susceptible to
deviant political positions, such as what the GB decided with its Brexit? And enhancers of
diversified cleavages, facilitated by the great diversity of cultures and recent historical
frameworks?
A preference as a subordinate ally of the USA whose relative decay is evident, as observed
in the management of the pandemic, in the huge pockets of poverty, for the political and
social problems resulting from an ancestral importance given to “race”? A nation-state that
spends as much on armaments as all the others and that forces its allies to buy what they
need to maintain its huge and influential military-industrial complex?
This and other texts in:

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http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.com/
http://www.slideshare.net/durgarrai/documents
https://pt.scribd.com/uploads
[1] An exemplary case lived in Portugal is related to the Volkswagen factory in Palmela, whose
genesis is interesting to be known. In the last years of the fascist regime (ended 1974), it was
intended to place as the centerpiece of industrial investment the port of Sines with
petrochemical facilities and as an interface for large oil tankers coming from the Middle East
via the Cape route, since the Suez was closed after the war of 1967 between Egypt and the
Zionist entity occupant of Palestine; and, on the other hand, to install large shipyards for
shipbuilding/repair and an area of chemistry in the Setúbal Peninsula. As the Suez Canal
reopened in 1973, the entire project became meaningless and the facilities were eventually
nationalized in 1975, after the fall of the fascist regime. This change came to be harshly
reflected in that Peninsula, an area then marked by the most radical activism in the country.
Volkswagen ended up establishing a factory in the region (1991), with community funds
financing means of communication, training for workers, a hospital, becoming one of the main
exporters in the country and an anchor for several supplier companies.
[2] On a supposed exit of Portugal from the euro zone, see:
http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2017/05/europa-periferias-e-desastres.html
http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2016/06/centro-e-periferias-3-portugal-uma.html
http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2016/06/centro-e-periferias-na-europa-2.html
http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2016/06/centro-e-periferias-3-portugal-uma.html
[3] Not forgetting Afghanistan, where the US and its allies have stood against the Taliban and in
favor of the opium trade. It would be unfair to forget the importance of Portuguese mercenaries
guarding the airport in Kabul. The big Bagram base will see the US evacuation. Throughout this
time, Chinese and Indians have established businesses in the country.
[4] See the European commitment to the tension of relations with Russia or Turkey, knowing
that these countries are essential pieces in a Eurasian integration that is at the door. The
relevance given to Navalny or to the Belarusian trapped in a plane diverted to Minsk is frankly
overblown, giving rise to sanctions that prove useless or ridiculous but satisfy the interests of
the USA in maintaining disagreements in the European space. On the other hand, the EU offers
troops to frame Africom's activity in the Sahel or Afghanistan and keeps Assange imprisoned,
under a curtain of silence because he was the protagonist, years ago, in the dissemination of US
war crimes. In European politics, the case of the plane diverted to Minsk serves to make us
forget the occupation of Palestine and the most recent crimes of Zionism against the Palestinian
people. The political dwarves who run Europe can only see in Africa and Asia refugees and
immigrants arriving in Lesbos, Pantelleria or Ceuta, ready for a total precariousness of life and
pushing wage levels down.