Living in Interesting Times

A slight hiccup has threatened to destabilise the EU.

Not another one, I hear you say.

We already have at least half the countries in the bloc complaining about the unelected shysters in Brussels wrecking the whole system, and seeking to take the wrecking bar to even more parts of the edifice. A few more years and there wont be much left except a massive pool of debt and no-one left to pay it.

When I was living permanently in Spain back in the eighties there was a massive movement simply knowns as Otan No! In other words, ‘We dont want NATO’. I even joined my fellow Spaniards at the barricades, although a fat lot of good that did. The government of the time signed up for a pointless war party.

Sadly, a short time later NATO decided to bomb Julie and myself as we were wandering around Serbia.

That created a totally surreal situation where I was paying taxes which went to supporting an organisation that bombed us. You’d think you couldn’t make up this nonsense.

Well, things are back in the limelight. That arch war-monger Trump wants to beef up NATO, and is demanding that EU countries stump up 5% of their annual budget to support this bunch of psychotic idiots.

The Spaniards are still not happy, and this time it looks as though the government might support the people. If they do, that will be something of a u-turn, but who knows? maybe there will be a piece of sanity for a change.

The Spaniards are heartily sick of war. The fact is they never really recovered from their civil war, and they are terrified of a repeat performance.

For my sins, I got visited by the secret police in Barcelona for trying to get my work about the aftermath of the civil war published.

I took the Spanish original and ceremoniously burned it in the Ramblas, Barcelona. Of course, everyone pretended nothing was happening. For the record I was a fearless fifteen year old at the time.

Europe has an appalling history of non-stop wars. Most of us have come to realise that the average person doesn’t gain by war, but, on the contrary, loses big time. War doesn’t pay any more. The Brits, a ruthless lot, even decided that trade was a better way to do business than outright theft. We learned a mantra in our school history lessons: Trade follows the flag.

Nowadays, trade can be impersonal. Trade is a good thing, and it makes all parties richer. That is, if you keep clear of Trump and his tariffs which effectively mean increased taxes, which leads to people becoming poorer at the expense of governments. Not a great move forward.

So where are we now?

The main countries in the EU have non-existent war budgets, non-existent munitions, and no real armies. Since war only makes people poorer that sounds like good news to me.

Do we really want to pay for destroying Ukraine, Georgia, and Azerbaijan?

I quite liked the people in those countries, although I did have problems with the weather, but that’s another story.

So where are we heading? I suppose the answer is “Who knows?” But Turkey and Spain are flirting with BRICS. That’s interesting. And of course, there is that little problem with Hungary and Croatia, who could defect in that direction as well.

And then there is France. Will they, wont they defect from the cabal in Brussels?

Wouldn’t it be nice if Europe simply went back to a free trade area? Or is that too much to ask for?

Sadly, we live in interesting times.