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Europe
European Union
September 2024. The future of European competitiveness: Part A | A competitiveness strategy for Europe / Mario Draghi - 66 p.
(Source: commission.europa): https://tinyurl.com/4jp6ndvc
22nd September 2024 Even arch-Eurocrats are admitting that Brussels is leading Europe to ruin. The largely unspoken trade-off involved in membership of the European Union is that democracy and national sovereignty are sacrificed in return for economic prosperity. Member states give up much of their control over critical policy areas to an unelected, technocratic elite who are entrusted with delivering higher living standards and productivity. But Brussels is not keeping its part of the bargain – and hasn’t for some time. Worse, the EU economy is about to endure decades of ‘slow agony’. This is the grim prognosis of one of Europe’s most senior technocrats, Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank and ex-prime minister of Italy. Last week, Draghi unveiled a 400-page doorstopper report, commissioned by the EU, on the ‘future of European competitiveness’. Without radical economic reform, he warns, EU member states will suffer from stagnant living standards, technological backwardness and geopolitical impotence. At the turn of the century, the EU and US were on a relatively equal footing. But, on a per-capita basis, real disposable income in the EU has grown at only half the rate of the US since 2000. The US now massively outperforms the EU in advanced technology. Only four in the world’s top-50 tech firms are European. Almost a million manufacturing jobs were lost in the EU in the last four years alone. The growing gap between the EU and US is the calamity. Draghi’s bleak assessment actually underestimates the scale of the EU’s economic malaise across the 27-member bloc. The economies of Italy, Spain and Greece are actually smaller than they were in the late 2000s. Germany is rapidly deindustrialising. In France the debt is spiralling. The cost of all this foregone growth is a diminished quality of life, stretched public services and decaying infrastructure. According to Draghi, nothing less than a fundamental rethink in how Brussels approaches investment, trade policy and business regulation will dig Europe out of its hole. His demand is for an EU-funded investment plan worth €800 billion per year – more than double the size of the postwar Marshall plan. Slow agony is what Europe will get. The core proposal of an EU-wide investment fund was, within a matter of hours, effectively vetoed by German finance minister Lindner. The Netherlands, have also rejected the plan. France’s new technocratic government is planning a harsh round of austerity to meet demands laid down by Brussels. The great irony here is that if a national government were to propose such a large investment plan, it would be instantly smacked down by the EU for breaking rules on fiscal deficits and state aid. Member states are blocked from making large public investments by Brussels, while Brussels is blocked from pursuing an EU-wide strategy by the member states. Draghi notes that 60 per cent of companies in the EU see labyrinthine regulation from Brussels as a barrier to investment and innovation. While the US federal government passed 3,500 pieces of legislation and 2,000 resolutions between 2019 and 2024, the EU added 13,000 regulations in the same period. Brussels’ great ambition is to become a ‘regulatory superpower’ – that is, to be the setter of rules for vast swathes of the world. EU apparatchiks may boast of their ‘world-leading’ regulations on tech, but where are the large homegrown, innovative tech firms Europe needs if it wants to drive economic growth? Regulating for regulation’s sake is what Brussels does. Draghi’s report notes alongside low investment, another leading cause of Europe’s industrial stagnation: high energy prices. On average, EU firms pay 158 per cent more for electricity and 345 per cent more for natural gas than their US counterparts. But Draghi chooses to ignore the key reason for this. The US has embraced fossil fuels. The EU generates energy expensively – and has to import much of it from outside the continent – because has shunned domestic fossil-fuel production and embraced unreliable renewable energy to meet Net Zero targets. Yet Draghi’s proposed ‘solution’ is to combine the push for ‘competitiveness’ with ‘decarbonisation’. Of the €800 billion being demanded in his proposed investment plan, €450 billion would be spent on Net Zero projects. This would mean doubling down on a failed strategy, potentially accelerating Europe’s decline. Fundamentally, Europe’s economic problems are not going to be solved by the EU, even with proposals as far-reaching as Draghi’s. The EU itself is the problem here. Member states are constrained from pursuing economic policies according to their national interests, hampered from investing in their domestic priorities, and forced to adopt uniform rules as dictated by functionaries in Brussels. And when the EU fails to deliver the growth and prosperity it has promised, voters are largely powerless to hold its leaders accountable or to force a change in direction. (Source: spiked *)
* a British Internet magazine
by Myers, Deputy Editor
Albania
22.09.2024 Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama confirmed plans yesterday to establish a ’Sovereign State of the Bektashi Order’ in the nation’s capital of Tirana to "promote a tolerant version of Islam that Albania is proud of." The proposed state, expected to be a quarter the size of Vatican City, would lack traditional sovereign features such as an army, border guards or courts. Rama admitted that a few close aides were aware of the plan, with NATO allies, including the US, not yet informed. Albania's latest census data showed that Bektashis comprised 115,000 of the country's 2.4 million people. (Source: aa *)
* Anadolu Agency (Turkey)
Russia
(Sunday), 01:42 BST, 22 September 2024 Yesterday morning a secret ammunition silo facility at Toropets in Tver region was hit by Ukrainian kamikaze drone, it was claimed yesterday. A huge explosion was triggered. The 'Satan-2' missile was hit, destroyed. It allegedly happened just ten miles from an 'indestructible' 30,000 ton munitions storage site that had been obliterated on Wednesday. It was also claimed that another site, which is reported to house North Korean missiles supplied by Kim, was hit in the Russian town of Tikhoretsk in the Krasnodar region. Kondratyev, governor of Krasnodar region, wrote on his official Telegram channel that Tikhoretsk was 'subjected to a terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime.'Two drones were suppressed by air defence and electronic warfare forces. 'Due to the fall of debris from one of them, a fire broke out, which spread to explosive objects. Detonation began. 'Currently, for safety reasons, residents of the village located near the site of the fire are being temporarily evacuated to nearby settlements.' The detonation site is believed to be a base of military unit 57229-41. The Tikhoretsk missile and ammunition complex is at the end of a 6,000-mile transit route across Siberia from North Korea for mountains of munitions sent by Kim. The North Korean firepower was stashed here before being sent to the frontline. Among supplies from Pyongyang are deadly KN-23 missiles and 122mm and 152mm artillery shells. There were Russian fears of casualties at both exploded arms depots. The blowing up today of two more arsenals - 1,000 miles apart - will have acute ramifications. (Source: dailymail)
Asia
Israel
Sun, 22 Sep, 2024 - 08:10 On Friday, an Israeli air strike took down an eight-storey building in a densely populated area in Beirut’s southern suburbs as Hezbollah members were meeting in the basement, according to Israel. Among those killed was Akil, a top Hezbollah official who commanded the group’s special forces unit, known as the Radwan Force. Akil had been on the US most wanted list for years, with a seven million dollar reward, over his alleged role in the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Beirut and the taking of American and German hostages in Lebanon during the civil war in the 1980s. Rockets fired from Lebanon early today were intercepted further south than most of the rocket fire to date. Lebanon’s Hezbollah has launched more than 100 rockets across a wider and deeper area of northern Israel, with some landing near the city of Haifa, sending thousands of people scrambling into shelters. In Kiryat Bialik, near Haifa buildings were damaged and cars set on fire. Israel cancelled school across the north, deepening the sense of crisis. The barrage came after an Israeli air strike in Beirut on Friday killed at least 37 people, including one of Hezbollah’s top leaders as well as women and children. The Israeli military said it carried out a wave of strikes across southern Lebanon over the past 24 hours, hitting some 400 militant sites, including rocket launchers. In a separate development, Israeli forces raided the West Bank bureau of Al-Jazeera, which it had banned earlier this year, accusing it of serving as a mouthpiece for militant groups, allegations denied by the pan-Arab broadcaster. (Source: irishexaminer)
Lebanon
(Sunday, 22 9 2024 10:16 AM) The death toll from an Israeli air strike that targeted Hezbollah military commanders in Beirut's southern suburbs this week has risen to 45, Lebanon's health ministry said today. (Source: gulftoday *)
* Gulf Today, an English-language daily newspaper. Headquarters Sharjah, the United Arab Emirates.
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