The Duran Podcast - EU Kingdom of the Blind, Orban can see

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

EU Kingdom of the Blind, Orban can see

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the state of the European Union following the Budapest summit and the situation in Ukraine, which is top of the agenda for the EU, because the European Union, they've bet it all on project Ukraine. They now have the election results in the United States. It did not turn out the way they wanted, at least for most of them. For Aban, he's happy. Hungary is happy. Fitsoslovakia is happy. The rest of the European Union, not so happy. And then you have the deteriorating situation in Ukraine. And so the EU is in a panic trying to figure out what to do. While Orban has emerged as the, I would say, the leader of the European Union, given his ability to be the only leader who can engage on the world stage without being left at.

I don't have another way to put it. He bet on all the right horses and he came out correct. He came out ahead while the EU leaders, they've completely miscalculated and misjudged everything over the past two, three years. I completely agree. The thing to say, first of all, is that it is impossible to overstate the sense of shock in Europe following the U.S. election results. The shock in London and the shock right across the various capitals in Europe and in Brussels and all the rest.

Now, they were aware that there was a possibility that Donald Trump might win the election. though most of them believed that it would be Kamala Harris. I know that sounds extraordinary to say, but they had talked themselves into this belief. They'd assumed that all the things, all the right buttons have been pressed and the wires had been called, and that after Kamala Harris emerged as the candidate back in the time of the Democratic Party convention, that somehow it will all come together and she would win.

And that, by the way, was the prevailing view until literally the results started to trickle in. But even then, even those of them who were a little bit more guarded and concerned about this, and there were quite a few who were and were looking at the polls, they assumed that it would be a very, very narrow result, that Trump might win, but he would still be a loser in terms of the popular vote, that Harris would be bound to our outpulgium there. That would enable Trump's legitimacy to be called into question. It was assumed.

I'm talking about the consensus for you in Europe, that he would not win all of the battleground states. He might win some of them, but Harris would be able to pull back a few, you know, Wisconsin, those sort of places. And that Congress, well, the Republicans, might win in Congress, in the Senate, a small majority, but more likely the Democrats would win back the House. So the assumption was that yes, you would get Harris, but if you didn't

get Harris, you might get Trump, but it would be a weakened Trump. It would be one rather like the Trump we got in 2016, 2017, basically boxed in Newton. neutralized and unable to act decisively in the way that the Europeans are worried that he might do. And of course, it has all now turned out otherwise because he won the popular vote. He won a decisive win the electoral college. He won a decisive win the Republicans won decisively in the Senate by a much bigger margin than anyone expected. And they now have a clear and strong majority in the Senate, and it looks like they're going to win the House as well. So there is shock right across Europe.

And they have not really sorted out a good relationship with Trump over the last few months. They felt very unwilling to conduct a proper dialogue with Trump. They're very uncertain about what he's going to do. They've made their hostility to him very, very clear. So he's not been interested in reaching out to them. They have made no attempt to reach out to him. And they are now acutely worried. And yes, they're very, very worried about what he might do with tariffs and economics

and all of those things. But the two things that worry the most are immediately Ukraine, which is the project that they are not just invested in massively, politically, economically and militarily, but which they are also massively invested in emotionally. They really care about Ukraine. They really care about Russia. They care about Russia, of course, an awful lot more than Ukraine. They want to inflict a defeat on Russia. It's what they've been telling each other for three years now. And now, of course, they find that far from being in a position to inflict a defeat on Russia, it looks as if Russia is going to inflict a defeat on them. And the Americans aren't there to help them out of it.

So they're getting very, very worried and nervous and afraid about that. And of course, they're also saying to themselves, is Trump's win, is this huge vote for him, 75 million people and the United States, is this a sign that America finally is saying to itself, well, we've had 80 years of intense engagement with Europe. We started, we first became involved in European affairs back in 1916 during the First World War. We then committed fully to Europe during the Second World War. We were there with them throughout the Cold War. The Cold War has ended, that the Americans are now finally saying to themselves. Well, it's time for us to end these deep, long-term commitments to the Europeans and to start

thinking about ourselves and our own pressing problems and also the many other problems and challenges that we face in the rest of the world. So the Europeans are terrified. They are in shock. They are in great fear. and they all met in Budapest, and they're going around telling each other, what are we going to do?

And they have no idea. They don't know what to do. And they produced out of the summit nothing. No real, constructive, clear plan. And of course, the only person who's left, the only man standing is Viktor Orban, who's able to come up and say to this, then and is saying to them, I told you so.

And the Hungarian foreign minister, who is, you know, very, very intelligent man, Foreign Minister Seattle, he spelled it out for them. He said, look, you're talking about carrying on with Project Ukraine without the Americans. You are talking absolute nonsense. There is no way financially, politically, militarily, economically, we can sustain this thing in Ukraine without the Americans. We all know it. Let's not pretend we can. Let's finally start being realistic about this and start looking for some way to achieve peace. Now, that is what the Hungarians are saying. That's what Orban is saying. Orban also said, let's forget about this loan proposal to

Ukraine, which, by the way, has been the event that triggered the collapse of the German government. Let's forget about this. We're just throwing away money. The Americans aren't interested in it. They're almost certainly going to walk away from it. Let's put all this aside and let's finally work to begin that long-term negotiation with the Russian about security in Europe, which is the only realistic thing we can do. Now, there's this old expression that in the kingdom of the blind, the one man who can see is king, Orban can see. Sooner or later, the way things are, he's going to be king. Because he's the only person who has any possible plan amongst the European leaders, which matches the reality of the moment. And if you saw the faces of the people in Budaphaest,

if you listened to all the comments and all the things, that are going, on there. You could see that for a fact. Yeah, Fidz also said the same thing. Absolutely. Europe without the United States can't do anything when it comes to the project Ukraine. What is the European Union offer the United States these days? I mean, I'm trying to think, what do they offer outside of headaches and sucking up money from the US? What do they offer to the United States that the US can't get elsewhere? You know, Russia has proven that you don't need Europe. Yeah.

To survive or to thrive economically, the same holds true for the US, doesn't it? Yeah, absolutely true. I mean, that is the fear. Even Yosep Borrell has understood that. He said, you know, that we are not, Europe is not a political or a major geopolitical force anymore. You know, either we find a way to become one or we become. an item on the menu. I mean, I don't agree with the last comment, by the way. I don't think anybody

is going to come and gobble up Europe in the way that Borrell says. He's off to Kiev, by the way. Goodness knows what he's hoping to do that. That's another thing. But the point is, never in its history since the 15th century has Europe been so irrelevant in global affairs. Yeah, but I mean, the leaders maneuvered Europe into this position. Absolutely. This is their on doing. Absolutely. Well, the best thing the Americans can do, the very best thing the Americans can do,

in my opinion, is to lead the Europeans to themselves, sort out the issues around the world with the other great powers, Russia, China, India before long, and leave the Europeans to sort out their own problems. If the Europeans are left to themselves, well, maybe just possibly they might. But at the moment, they've been hiding behind the Americans, trying to do that. to use the Americans all the time to advance their own geopolitical strategies, which they don't have the power to do by themselves. If the Americans are no longer there backing them, then they might start to look at reality in the face, which is what Orban and Ciayato and Fizzo

and others are telling them to do. Some of them, I mean, President Pavel of the Czech Republic, sometimes expresses some glimmers of realism, for example. Vodschich in Serbia absolutely does. So, you know, it's not as if there aren't some people in Europe who can see this, but the European leadership is still in denial. They're still running around, as I said, trying to find some way of keeping this thing going, even though the curtain is for. falling on the whole enterprise because as Seattle and Orbán and Fizzo have said, without the

Americans, this whole play simply can't continue it cannot. Yeah, Pavel every now and there says something. Every, every now. He defaults back to stupidities. I know, I know, I know. And he may be on the way out actually. Yeah, yeah. We may have a new government, a government that's more aligned with Orban, and we may have the same in Austria. Yes. And I think that's the only way that Europe can push forward is if you get rid of all of the existing leaders, they have to go.

Because none of these people in power, whether you're talking about the European Union in Brussels, or if you're talking about the member states, the macrons, the Olaf Schultz, the Kirstomers, any of these guys in Europe. And none of them are even remote. capable of coming up with different ideas and different policies outside of the NATO, EU, US construct. I mean, they just can't. Absolutely.

They can't do it. It's just not capable for this to do it. So you have to kind of get rid of all of the current leadership and then you may be able to get to a new start. You can see that in the political crisis that is playing out in Germany at the moment. Of course, there are very strong voices in Germany. in Germany on the IFTA and in Sao Vargiknacht's party that are calling for a change of direction. But the political class is going from an incompetent and feeble anti-Russian government,

which is the one that Olaf Schultz has been leading, to another incompetent people and see Russian government, which is what you're going to get when. Friedrich Mertz takes over. So, you know, they are not yet ready to make the break. And I think this is true still in France. Macron is still determined to keep going. And bear in mind, he's going to continue to be president for another two years. It seems incredible.

But he is. So, you know, he's more than two years. So we've still got two years plus of Emmanuel Macron creating paralysis and problems. in France and Britain is a lost course for the moment. So the EU leadership and the European leadership in general, they still can't bring themselves to change direction. But we see that in the eastern countries, in the former states of the Habsburg Empire, which is quite interesting, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, before long perhaps the Czech Republic as well. The direction is changing. The dial is moving. And well, the Habsburg states, the former Habsburg states, perhaps will lead us out

of this mess that we have walked into. And we haven't even got into the trade wars. No. The talk from Ursula about purchasing US LNG instead of Russian LNG, what a ridiculous comment. That was, you know, they pissed off China with their terrorists and trade wars. There's a possibility that Trump is going to do the same to the European Union. I mean, we've just focused on Ukraine. They've got a whole other big set of problems because of their actions that they have taken, which are on an economic level.

And it's not only the US this time, it's not only Trump, it's also China that they pissed off. Well, of course, it is. If we're talking about LNG, it's a good topic actually to discuss. That was a massive mistake from the first from the get-go. I mean, stopping imports of cheap, reliable, steady Russian pipeline gas going to LNG, which is a product that is freely traded on the international market. There was a good article about this in the Financial Times saying how much more volatile the trade than LNG is as compared with pipeline gas and how the result is that there are many more market and supply fluctuations than you used to get with pipeline gas. So Ursula wants to commit even further to LNG.

She doesn't want to buy LNG from the Russians, even though the Russians are now increasingly big players in LNG and Europe has been buying LNG. from the Russians, but she wants to phase that out. She wants to commit even more to the US, but it's very likely that Donald Trump is going to want to keep prices for gas and oil as low as possible in the US. And it's not inconceivable that he might return to an export ban. El-NG. I mean, the US used to have an export ban on LNG and oil products. So it's not impossible he might decide to go down that route. And where in that case will you open? What a mess. What a mess. All right, I guess we'll lend the video there. Thedurad. Dot locals.com.

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