The Duran Podcast - Wilders win exposes fragile EU system, but don't count Globalists out

Episode Date: November 24, 2023

Wilders win exposes fragile EU system, but don't count Globalists out

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the big election victory for Gert Wilders. In the Netherlands, 37 seats out of 150, he is now going to try and form a coalition government, which could prove to be challenging. We've had some statements from the EU's favorite candidate Timmermans saying that he's going to put up resistance to Gert Wilder. in order to protect democracy, in order to save democracy, Timmermans is going to try to prevent the leading party from forming a government. Anyway, an incredible outcome in the elections in the Netherlands, an absolutely incredible outcome.

And now the world is waiting to see what happens. It is a stunning outcome. I mean, can I just say, I mean, the Netherlands is right at the heart of the EU. It has been one of the sort of core states of the EU. It was one of the original founder states of the original European economic community, you know, in the Treaty of Rome. It was one of the signatory states of the Treaty of Rome. It is, you know, deeply Europeanist or has been up to this point, to the core. And now we have a well-known Eurosceptic, a person who's promotes, who still supports the idea of a referendum.

for the Netherlands might, you know, leave the EU entirely. A person who's a very skilled and very charismatic politician, but, you know, a controversial one in the Netherlands for all the reasons we've just discussed. Anyway, a person like that wins the election in the Netherlands of all places. I mean, the best analogy I can think of is, you know, Nigel Farage coming back into politics. in Britain and winning a kind of landslide there, you know, becoming in a position where he's

in the government. I mean, in some ways, builders is very like Farage, only I'd say with an even harder edge. So, I mean, this is a, you know, this is a huge electoral shock. Now, let's just unpack some of the things you said. First of all, about the fact that it's quite plausible that despite the fact that he's won this election, he won't be. able to form the next government. There'll be coalition talks, there'll be all kinds of things. It's not impossible. We could end up with Tinder months as the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, despite the fact that his party did far worse than Gert Wildes' party did. By the way, that is another thing to say. I mean, Gertvilders only won. His party only 137 seats out of the 150.

in the Dutch Parliament. But of course, the Dutch political system is very, very fragmented. And he won far more seats than any other party in the Netherlands did. The party that came second won just 25 seats. So, you know, this is a big victory for Wilders. But we might very well end up with Tindermans or someone like him. And that is exactly what happens in the EU. We saw that in the Spanish,

elections, the right-wing parties, which had skeptical perspectives about much that's going on in the EU, they came top. And what have we ended up? We've ended up with Prime Minister Sanchez and the socialist party still in control doing, making, forging coalitions with Catalan separatists. So, I mean, we might very plausibly see the same result. in the Netherlands. That doesn't mean in any way, though, that we should discount the implications of this. It shows the trend in opinion in the Netherlands and across Europe now. We're seeing this in place after place, in country after country, even if the eventual outcome might be different. When people are given the chance to vote, they are making it increasingly clear,

that they are voting against the EU combinate if you like in growing numbers and at the same time it also shows the repudiation in the Netherlands of Merkelism

and I say Merkelism because of course just as Germany until recently the political system there had become completely stagnant and immobile with Angerolism Merkel, always in control, always keeping things dead centre, always moving the EU project forward. We had the same thing exactly in the Netherlands with Mark Ruta. Mark Ruta ran the system. He was extremely skilled of doing this. He kept the political system, not just stable, but ultimately

immobile. He was a pillar of the EU and European system. The moment he left the scene, it became immediately clear that none of his successes had the same sort of political skills as he has. Just as no one in Germany has Merkel set of particular political skills. And the moment, you know, the figure that was holding it all together, Merkel or Ruta, leave the scene, the entire system, this sort of Merkelist system, starts to crumble, and we see that in the Netherlands again. Now, as I said, people shouldn't assume that we're going to see an immediate change in policy or politics out of the Netherlands. As I said, it's quite plausible. Someone like Tinder months will again become Prime Minister. And, you know, the EU, the one thing they're good at, as we've discussed

many times is keeping the show on the road, keeping the can forward. But it does reflect how fragile the electoral support for this is now becoming. And we've seen this happening now. I mean, there were the Italian elections with Maloney. There were the elections in Slovakia, which brought FISA to power.

We've had, we're now looking at opinion polls in Austria, which suggests that the Freedom Party there might very well win in the elections next year. So we're starting to see right across Europe an increasing signs of repudiation of the system that we've seen in control for so long. The AIFTA in Germany is rising. And the AIFDA in Germany is rising. And in all sorts of places, things are, as the things are beginning to change. The difference between today and the era of Merkel is that Merkel was able to keep the show on the road, to kick the can because she hadn't cut off Russia.

There was tension. There were some sanctions. There was definitely disputes between Europe and Russia, but there hadn't been a complete. complete cutoff. They didn't sever their access to Russian resources, which we now know. It's the Russian resources that powered the European Union, specifically countries like Germany. So, you know, Urte, I would imagine he understood this.

Maybe he didn't quite understand this. Maybe he had a sense of this. But, you know, you can't continue to keep this thing going while at the same time. sanctioning Russia and essentially sinking your economy and all of Europe, all of the European nations economies. So, I mean, you know, these new figures like Wilders are going to have to navigate, navigate things with the reality that it's going to be very difficult to roll back the sanctions. I mean, Orban is trying to keep relations with Russia going while trying to to navigate the European Union, but, you know, it's tough. It's not going to be easy.

And Merkel, she didn't have that challenge. And so I think, I think that's one of the big differences that we see with today and say maybe four or five years ago. They were able to do what they did because, you know, Germany was still producing. It was still competitive. Well, the years is absolutely true. Now the money's going to go. The money's going to go. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, you have. absolutely right about this in the sense that look Merkel's great skill was keeping everything

the political thing situation in Europe in a kind of suspended animation there was no development but she kept things always as they were so she understood entirely the importance of maintaining this economic

lifeline this energy lifeline to Russia She understood that. But of course, what she was not prepared to do was to take on the entrenched forces within the EU, within the Euro-Atlantic system, that wanted to break those relations with Russia. So the moment she left the scene and everything, you know, the political system then began to function without her, those people who wanted to break relations with Russia. They were able to come into their own. And, of course, they broke relations with Russia. Of course, they didn't see what Merkel saw the importance of maintaining this energy link.

Because, of course, they don't think in that kind of way. They think in a completely different way to the way that Merkel did. But Merkel, by keeping things in suspended animation, just kept everything going. I mean, gradually, steadily, the tensions were increasing, the problems. were accumulating. She never addressed or solved the problems, but she was just able to keep things

on the surface very placid. With her gone, everything's now starting to come up. And if we're talking about the Netherlands, Rutter really, he couldn't survive without Merkel. This is why he's ultimately left the seat. I mean, there are domestic political reasons why Ruta was, you know, obliged to quit the scene.

But ultimately, because Merkel was keeping everything in this state of suspended animation, that was what made it possible for Rutter to do the same in the Netherlands. With Merkel gone, it was no longer possible for Rutter to do this on this much smaller scale. In the Netherlands, he's gone. and we see things starting to change there. Now, you talked about Wilders. Vilders understands many things that other political leaders in Europe do not.

He is very skeptical about Ukraine altogether. He's basically somebody who would want, I think, to see if he were to come back into power. He would want to see some kind of rapprochement with the Russians, some attempt to try and rebuild the economic links with Russia. He understands the importance of that. The IFD in Germany understand the importance of that as well.

We did a programme on the Duran in which we interviewed a high official of the IFD. And he spoke very interestingly about the need for this for Germany. But of course the forces that resist that at the moment remain immensely strong within the Netherlands as well. And though it is remarkable that Wilde's, with that kind of message, has broken through to the extent that he has done, given, you know,

the intense anti-Russian, you know, marketing propaganda, whatever you like, that goes on in the Netherlands, which is probably beyond that, which you will find in any other place. In spite, you know, it's remarkable that in the face of all of that,

he's managed to win through to the extent that he has done. I still think, as I said, that the forces of the moment are too strong to enable him to change course. And that's why the problems are now getting more visible with Merkel gone, and they're becoming worse, but they're also becoming,

in some ways more difficult to manage. So we're going to see lots of tensions. And of course, if we swerve to Germany at the moment, I mean, the other thing that Merkel was very skilled at doing was running the German economy in a kind of way that, again, didn't encourage innovation, tended to cause Germany to reinvest in what we was already doing, reinvest continuously in what we was already doing.

it was letting the German economy become increasingly stagnant in some respects, but he kept the machine harming. We've seen how that's now starting to fall apart. Because Merkel was able to keep the machine harming, she was able to keep the German financial situation in some sort of health. Germany is now running increasingly big deficits, which is something that didn't happen in Merkel's time. And the government, as a result, is coming up against the constitutional breaks, which were by the way introduced, as I understand it, with Merkel's support, which basically don't allow Germany to run deficits.

So they have been running deficits. They've been allowing the debt to GDP ratio in Germany to rise. They've been running deficits. They've tried to get round the constitutional break by using ring-fenced funds to plug the gaps. The constitutional court has come forward and said, you can't do that. That's unconstitutional and illegal. So they now have to make a decision. What do they do?

Do they raise taxes? which is not what Germany needs. Do they cut spending, which is not what the Greens in Germany want? Do they reduce AIDS to Ukraine, which is, of course, a major sticking point for many people in Germany, but is in some respects

almost the signature policy of the coalition. And doing that probably wouldn't be enough. So you can see how in Germany as well, the problems with Merkel no longer there are starting to come. drug. Is one of the options to go more into the conflict with Russia, to double down on it? Because everything's so bad. I mean, Germany obviously is running out of money to continue to run its own country and to continue to fund Ukraine, which is what it's doing, what all of Europe

is doing is keeping Ukraine afloat. But it seems like over the past week or two, what we seen is we've seen the EU and NATO kind of push towards a more aggressive tone, a more aggressive trajectory towards a conflict with Russia. We've seen statements from Pavel. We've seen this NATO Schengen thing that they're trying to put together. There are rumors of a document that's floating around the European Union, according to Bloomberg, which talks about providing the EU providing security guarantees. I mean, the EU and NATO are obviously one and the same, or they're definitely merging to become one in the same.

And it seems like with all the difficulties that Europe is facing, whether it's the elections in the Netherlands and having someone like Wilders coming around and saying, look, we have to we have to listen to what Arban is saying. And we have to get to some sort of an agreement with Russia, some sort of a ceasefire, or whether it's running out of money and the decisions by the courts in Germany. seems like the option that they're choosing or they're being pushed towards maybe by the Americans, whatever, the option that they're moving towards is to go into a full-on conflict with Russia. Well, absolutely. Unless that's bluffing. Unless that's just.

No, I don't think it is a bluff. I think it does reflect growing nervousness about a lots of things that are going on about, the fact that Ukraine is now visibly losing the war. I mean, they don't want to say that, but they all sense that it is, and that's making them very nervous. And they're also becoming increasingly nervous about what the Americans are going to do. I mean, they're worried about the elections in the United States next year and the possible outcome of the elections. And when someone like Parville comes forward and says, you know, that Russia is the greatest enemy, that they're the real threat. And we need to prepare for an intense war with the war.

them in Europe. Now, that is also intended, I think, on the part of some European politicians, and Pavel is not speaking just for himself, as a message to the United States that, you know, it's not China that's the enemy, it's Russia. We must focus on Russia, because Russia is the real danger in Europe. And, you know, we're worried about the fact that you're worrying about China because you're taking your eye away from what the real threat is, and that's Putin and the Russians and all of that. But yes, that's exactly what you said they're going to do. That's exactly what some of them want to do.

Their instinct is not to back off. It's certainly not to reach out to the Russians and try to come to some kind of understanding with them. That isn't part of their agenda at all. It's certainly obviously not to try and restore the energy links, you know, repair Nord Stream 2 or rebuild it or do something of that kind. What they want to do is perhaps move even more towards a full-on confrontation with some kind of more militarised economy, perhaps, and hope that that's going to solve the problems. What it's more likely to do is exacerbate the problems. But when did the EU in the last 30, 40 years make any decision that made problems less grave?

He's always when it's given the choice, taken steps that ultimately make problems more grave. And that's what it's doing. I remember nine months ago, 10 months ago, Borel and some other EU officials were talking about the need for, Europe to enter a war footing for the economies of the EU nations to become war economies. And that idea, that proposal was kind of brushed off because for obvious reasons. But I wonder if that's been the plan all along. Well, it is. It is a plan C.

And that's where they're leading everybody towards is a war, a war economy for all of Europe. I think that is what we- Disasterous, of course. Yeah, we're in a disastrous idea. I mean, I think that is indeed what some of them want to see happen. The fundamental problem with that is, first of all, as I said, a European electorates probably are not keen on that idea. Even if you crank up the hysteria to, you know, stratospheric levels, I don't really think that this is a priority for most Europeans. But putting that aside, you run up against the fundamental problem.

that running a war economy is a very challenging and very difficult thing. It requires you to be an extremely skilled administrator and manager and technocrat. Now, these people are not skilled managers. This is something that we've seen time and time again. And you can see that in Germany. Last year, although Schultz was going around telling you, Germany must rearm, it was re-equip, it was build up, its armments, industries, it was increased the size of its defence budgets, multiples. That's fiscally now more

difficult because of the decision of the constitutional court. But beyond that, to the extent that they've tried to improve things within the German military, every account that I've been reading, and there's been a report now from the, apparently from the Bundestag Committee, says that during the time that Olaf Schultz has been Chancellor, the state of the German military has deteriorated even further. It's got less equipment than it did before. Training levels have fallen. There's more bureaucracy, more disorganisation, because these people are not really there. They don't know how to run things well. And without that, all talk of a war economy is just frankly, empty, huh?

All right. We will leave it there. The duran.com. We are on Rumble, Odyssey, bitch, shoot, telegram, Rockfin, and TwitterX, and go to the Duran shop. 20% off.

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