The Duran Podcast - Russia retaliation against EUROCLEAR. France-Italy entente

Episode Date: May 18, 2025

Russia retaliation against EUROCLEAR. France-Italy entente

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is going on in Europe. We have a 17th sanctions package against Russia. Kayakalis announced that there will be an 18th sanctions package against Russia. Actually, it appears that Russia is taking the first steps towards retaliation against the EU legal, retaliation against the EU. More specifically, Euroclear. And we are getting reports that they're going to take Euroclear to. to courts in, I believe in Hong Kong is what they said. And basically, it'll block Euroclear from doing any business in Asia. Interesting reports, if they are true. It is a good retaliation,

a very strategic retaliation from Russia to get at Euroclear. And it will have effects on Euroclear's business. We also have Mertz, the Chancellor the new chancellor of Germany talking about how he's going to build the biggest and strongest army in all of Europe. And he's being pushed to do this by his European buddies. So that shouldn't worry anybody, Germany trying to build the strongest military in Europe. Can it be done, given that costs in Germany are so high? They don't have any cheap energy anymore that powers their economy. Anyway, a lot of things going on in Europe. The one force that's driving Europe and that keeps them unified in all of this madness is, of course, Russia.

Well, you called it madness, and that is exactly what it is. I mean, Putin called it something else. He called it idiocy. He called these people idiots. And that's unusually strong language from Putin. But that is indeed exactly what it is. So we've had another 17th sanctions package, which does exactly the same things, all the other 16th sanctions packages. It's going to do absolutely nothing. It's not even going to dent the Russian economy. We're now hearing about an 18th sanctions package. We're getting some European officials complaining to Bloomberg, for example, that all of these sanctions are now destroying Europe's credibility, because it's beginning to look like Europe is the big bad wolf.

Huffs and puffs and baths and buffs, but it can't blow the house down. And people are starting to laugh at Europe and are not taking it seriously anymore. Well, that's quite a how it was couched in Bloomberg, but you can start to see that. You have meth not only talking about building the strongest army in Europe, something which people in Germany absolutely do not want. I am in close contact with sentiment in Germany. And I can tell you for an absolute fact that young people in Germany have no, they're not attracted to this in any way.

Mertz has already had to walk back the talk about reintroducing conscription. So it's not a popular policy in Germany. And he's followed this up with one of the most, extreme anti-Russian speeches that I've seen even compared to other German politicians, even compared to Habek and Beirburg and Schultz, I mean, this was, I mean, the language that was used was just off the scale about Russia,

but it's all intended to talk up this idea of this great German rearmament program. This, as Germany, Germany's deindustrialisation processes accelerate, this despite the fact that more and more people in the German business community are now openly rebelling and are saying we've got to get oil, sorry, gas, pipeline gas and Russia are moving again, even as people like Mario Draghi in Italy are finally acknowledging that one of the major problems in Europe is a lot of the the fact that energy costs are rendering European industry or what's left of it, uncompetitive.

We still have this fixation with this policy. More sanctions, rearmament in Germany, more attempts to crank down on other European countries. Ossila coming up with this incredible, elaborate, ludicrous plan. of proofing the existing sanctions against a Hungarian veto. I was reading about it in the Financial Times, and I was saying these people have taken leave of their senses. I mean, they are saying, having insisted for ever since the 60s, that EU law takes precedence over national law,

they're now going to try to use national law. to protect their precious sanctions against a veto in the European Council, which would mean that those sanctions are no longer enforceable by EU law. I mean, it's crazy. They're apparently looking now to tap those frozen Russian reserves that you were talking about even further. That's apparently what the 18th sanctions package is going to face. focus on, this reports, which I found completely bizarre, that they're going to sanction

Nord Stream 2, which is clearly intended to block the American, you know, these rumors that the Americans and the Russians are having discussions about reviving North Stream 2, and the Americans gaining a stake in Nord Stream 2. So they want to stop that, they want to deprive themselves as cheap gas, apparently, even if the Americans are involved. I mean, I just have no words, no simple words to describe what is happening now. And of course, further attempts to destabilise the situation in various EU states. Robert Feetso, he's plain, try to, They tried to prevent him flying to Moscow. All these countries closing their airspace to him.

This is a head of government. He's got diplomatic protection. Plains carrying leaders are not supposed to be restricted in that way. But of course, forget about all of that. You try and stop FISA flying to Moscow. We are past the point now, where there is any logic or reason behind any of this. I mean, once upon a time you could argue that the European Union was at least doing this

in order to acquire more power for itself and to integrate itself, to integrate more effectively. And that was true. But now it's becoming a kind of emotional spasm. They seem to be so fixated on their sanctions. policy. They're so fixated in stopping an American-Russian rapprochement that they clearly fear, that they're prepared to go on doing worse and worse things to their own economies and their own people, which lack all sense. And as you say, you wrote clear, now facing legal claims in Hong Kong,

I am going to make a guess that there will be follow-up legal claims in Singapore if the claims in Hong Kong succeed, which they probably will, by the way. And that could be the end of Euroclear. Just saying. Yeah, they deserve it. Right. Yeah, they look, they play politics. Absolutely. If Euroclear can't access Asian markets, people in the Gulf are not going to keep their money in Euroclear. I mean, it's absurd to think that they will. I mean, the Gulf states will start taking their money out of Euroclear. The Saudis have already threatened. Yeah. So what you do, you press forward with more packages, sanctions packages, looking to access those Russian funds in Euroclear. I mean,

even as the court cases get underway, it is completely rational now. They want that money. They want that 200 or 300 billion. That's what they want. They don't care what happens to Euroclear after they get that money. That's how the political elite in Europe are thinking. They're getting worse, too. Is it me or are they just getting worse?

I mean, Stommer is getting worse. with his obsession with Ukraine, with Russia, really, with sanctions. Merch is seems to be 10 times worse than Schultz. Macron has just completely lost it. The leaders in Europe are getting even more fixated and obsessed with Russia, with Putin, and with Project Ukraine. Well, the French finance minister has now again come out and make comments about how it's important to cripple the Russian economy.

No. In order supposedly to make Russia agree to, you know, a fair and just peace. In other words, to capitulate. I mean, they've been saying this for three years. And they haven't managed it, and they still believe that they will manage it. Stama, his own MPs, we were the first people, by the way, to say this publicly, that he's spending too much time on foreign policy. And when we talk about foreign policy, what he's really spent.

in too much time on, is on Ukraine, Project Ukraine. He's giving, I suspect he's spending more time on Project Ukraine than pretty much everything else altogether. I mean, he is constantly talking and thinking and speaking about Project Ukraine. Anyway, there was a furious, there was a meeting in Parliament, the British Parliament of the Labour Party's parliamentary faction. This is Stama's own parliamentary faction. And he wasn't there.

He didn't turn up. And that made them very angry. Remember, they've suffered a major electoral defeat two weeks ago. Their polling, we now know, was just 15%. That they've fallen to 15%. His support already down from, you know, the relatively low 333, that they got in the general election 10 months ago. They've now more than half that. I mean, 15% is existentially dangerous for the Labour Party, I should say. If we got into that

situation in a general election, the Labour Party would go from, what is it, it's 280 MPs that they have today to probably around 30, 40. I mean, it would be a collapse. So, anyway, Stama, they're expecting to hear Stama, to, Stama, to, Stama, to. come along and talk about the problems and how he's going to deal with them. He wasn't there. He sent another minister, but not a particularly senior minister. The MPs were absolutely furious, furious, and they started publicly to complain for the first time that he's spending too much time on foreign policy. They didn't say Ukraine, but everybody knows what they mean when they say that he's spending too much time on foreign policy.

And what I'm hearing about that meeting is that there was an absolutely almighty row. People were very, very angry. And these are his own parliamentary faction, which before the general election, he made sure that he'd packed with loyalists. So even they are beginning to get angry. Then he tries to balance, to deal with that anger.

He's polling things. tell him that people in Britain are unhappy about immigration, which they absolutely are, by the way. So he comes along, he gives a speech which obviously someone else has written for him. And he talks about immigration. And he talks about in the most anti-immigration terms, he uses language which no British Prime Minister has used before, and which famously got an earlier British politician in Opelm, when he used it in the 1960s. He got him sacked and basically expelled from British politics. Anyway, Starma talks in that way.

So he infuriates all the left because they don't agree with that immigration is the big issue that many people, most people in Britain think it is. But they are, remember he's supporters or supposed supporters. So they're angry with some. And of course, what does he actually announce? What are his proposals to deal with this problem? There aren't any. He's going to deport all of the immigrants that come into Britain illegally to Albania.

So that was his original plan. The previous Conservative government deported them to Rwanda. He said, well, the Rwanda plan is terrible. this is when he was in opposition, and he cancelled it as soon as he becomes prime minister. Now he wants to revive it all over again, except this time he's going to send them to Albania. So he's in Albania for this meeting. The Albanians say absolutely no, we're not here to sort out your problems. And of course, who comes to Albania as well?

He's old friend, a dear, dear friend Vladimir Zelensky. It's just all of these, all of the leaders in Europe are hopeless. They're all over the place. The one person amongst the big leaders who, the leaders of the big countries, who is starting, as you can see, step by step to distance herself from the other, this is Maloney. And interestingly enough, Salvini, remember him? He's apparently a rising force again in Italian.

politics. He had a very successful and very friendly meeting with Marine Le Pen. Both of them went out of their way to say complementary things about Maloney. Now, remember, Marine Le Pen and Salvini have not got on well with Maloney in the past. But this time, they gave the impression, yeah, we've had our differences, but fundamentally, we all think highly a Maloney and it looks like she's going in the right direction and we support her and all that. Maloney apparently is now starting to develop contacts with Orban in Hungary, which is interesting. And Le Pen and Salvini, who gave me the impression, Salvini, that he was actually meeting Le Pen with some sort of green light from Maloney. They're talking about Italy and France, establishing a new

Ent-to-a-ans, basically the end of the Franco-German axis, which has been driving the whole process of European integration. Le Pen said it hasn't worked. It's been a disaster for France. Italy is much more our natural ally. France is natural ally than Germany is, where the two most alike countries amongst the big countries in Europe. And it is we, France, and it is, we, and Italy who should come together and bring sanity to this entire project. And both Salvini and Le Pen, by the way, also speaking up against this whole warmongering trend in European politics. There's an interesting meeting and as I said, I suspect that Maloney, as I said, quietly approved

it. Yeah, need to be careful with Melani. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, need to be careful with her. But you know, she's, she's, whatever she is, she's clear. and she knows how to maneuver and she wants to be close to Trump. And I think she does have a very good saying. That's what's driving it.

Exactly. Well, I also think there's something else which is driving it, which is Italian public opinion, which is very sensitive to. I mean, she's, whatever else she is amongst the leaders of the big European states, she is the one who takes the opinion of people in her own country most seriously. I mean, Matt's Starva Macro. They don't care what their people think. Ursula obviously doesn't care what anybody in Europe thinks, you know, outside of the elite. But I think Maloney does.

I think Maloney, you know, had to fight her way up from the bottom, you know, organise a party. take organizer party, fight very groaning and difficult elections, all of that. So she's much more of a politician than what any of the others are. So I agree. You have to be careful with her. But anyway, that do seem to be trends in that direction there. Well, it's good that she's speaking with Orban. They used to get along in the beginning.

Orban actually helped her out a whole lot. And then she turned her back on Urbana. She betrayed Orban. So that's why I say, you have to be careful with Malone. I know. And got all her smart friends, Ursula Macroft. She sided with them. And Schultz and all of this.

And then of course, well, she saw maybe the dead end is going. She went to the dark side. She went to the dark side. Well, and I will see if she could come back. Well, indeed. But it's good that she's speaking with Orban, France and Italy. That would be an interesting alliance, if you can call it that. Germany and France, Macaron and Mertz and Ursula and all these people, LaGarde,

all these people will fight tooth and nail to make sure that never happens. Absolutely. Absolutely. The one thing I have to say this is, as it going back to what we were saying earlier in the program, I mean, they are becoming so disconnected from the realities of Europe now, that there has to be a point when this is no longer sustainable anymore. I mean, we've seen this shift in German politics. By the way, going back to Germany, American pressure appears to have had an effect because they've had to call the Wolves of the IFDA.

You remember the IFDA was going to be an extremist. organization and subjected to surveillance and all that kind of thing. The Americans made it very clear that they were very unhappy with that. And the German courts and all the rest seemed suddenly to have switched emphasis. And the IFDA has been allowed to appeal. And apparently there's not going to be that surveillance and pressure on the IFDA for the moment. For the moment, doesn't mean anything. The elites have changed their views in. Germany. But again, we see rebellion in Germany. We see political problems in Italy. We see an economic crash across Europe. As I said, there will come a point when this will crash, how long it's

going to take, how much damage is going to be done. Who knows? And as you absolutely rightly say, they will pull out all the stops to prevent it happening. We saw what they did in Romania, though there are now people who say, who are saying that they went too far in Romania. It did go too far. It did go too far. Absolutely. They went way far. Way too far.

But anyway, we'll see what they do. Yeah. Simeon is shaping up to be someone who would actually join this group of South. Well, absolutely. I mean, Romania, of course, she's a... Or Bahrain. If Lepen, Lepen also has her issues that she does to deal with as well. Absolutely.

But Romania, Italy and France are natural allies. I mean, remember, Romania is a Latin country. I mean, I understand that Romanians and Italians can understand each other, for example. I mean, I don't speak in Romanian, obviously. I used to speak a little Italian, but I've lost it long ago. But I understand that people from Romania in Italy, it takes them a couple of, you know, a day or so. before they're able to start speaking to each other. Yeah, that would be an interesting one.

Yeah. Well, we have the elections coming up, the second round coming up. We'll report on that. I believe that's the 18th. Yes. And it does look like Simeon is positioned to win. Yes. Yes.

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