In the case of a terminally ill person, there is often a consensus to let him go in peace. But finding someone who agrees, say, to stop artificial ventilation is much more complicated. This is what is happening now in the case of the wobbly grouping that is the European Union.
In this respect, since the implementation of this community, the winner financially is Germany thanks, in particular, to a highly surplus trade balance with the other countries in the EU. In short, it has simply destroyed the competitiveness of Latin countries that can no longer defend themselves by devaluing a currency they no longer control. At the same time, Germany has banned itself, by law, to solidarity with the EU countries in difficulty by lending their own money.
The scaffolding on which the EU was built may not be solid but it is opportunistic. To remain competitive with the Americans and Chinese in particular, who have what they need as raw materials on their own soil, the Europeans “had to” keep at their feet the riches of Africa. Since the last Great War, the French have served, in Africa, vassal to the Germans to defend their “mutual interests”, in the exploitation of our agricultural wealth in particular. This intimate cooperation, on which we know a lot, will have been the foundation on which African dependence on the EU has been built. To accentuate the dependence of African products on the EU market, the Machiavellian strategy put in place has been, among other things, to produce a logorrhea of ”strictly European” standards covering everything that Africa produces. Moreover, the Bloc reserves the right to punish any entity, or country that derogates from the standards in question. Nobody is fooled, but the reasons that compel African nations to adhere to that Dogma combine factors such as corruption, the CFA franc, government officials acquired or bought to the cause of the French, see simply a condition of windfall economy in which the metropolis confined African elites.
Yes, but seen from another angle, the EU has in fact arrogated to itself the right to put African trade under supervision for its benefit. The Europeans are not stupid to this point of not realizing that their game is simply grotesque and that it cannot last. It must also be recognized that after centuries of slavery, plunder and squandering of African goods that do not belong to them, it must be very difficult to stop on the way. This attitude is related to some form of severe addiction, such as a drug whose withdrawal is treated in psychiatric hospitals. Because in the end, they will have to, the French above all, relearn to work according to their own abilities and to earn their daily bread sweat of their brow. Unfortunately, the Europeans only know these things in the works of the middle Ages.
But as we all know now, countries around the world are interested in trading with Africa. The advantage of trade is that it produces short-term results, which is of utmost interest to French and European companies in the first place. On the contrary, they no longer appear, and can no longer be, very interested in large structuring investments that produce effects after decades and aim to enhance the quality of African service that colonial empires have always wanted to avoid. Now, countries that take the risk of investing in expensive infrastructure are also interested in trading in the short term. But what to do when people who hold the place cling to their privileges. The Chinese first, but the Americans too, are perplexed. On another side, the Europeans make discrete requests, for, say France-China-Africa triangular cooperation that China has already refused, probably for having seen it without interest. For America, it’s different. So far, they have relied on Europe, mainly Germany, to market their industrial products in Africa. The representatives in the continent are French given their “knowledge of the field”. It is possible that the Europeans, those quoted in any case, expect America to offer them to redefine their triangular cooperation on Africa, built since the Cold War and which is now running out of steam. But President Trump has already largely declined his way of reasoning. What he can do for himself, he is not ready to pay a penny to do it by someone else.
In fact, Europe has been a problem for Americans for decades, in the sense that our neighbors to the north want to be given importance individually, consulting them one by one, and same time, give importance to their hegemonic, albeit shaky, instrument, which is the EU. In short, it is the squaring of the circle to which Americans have “adapted” before the advent of Mr. Donald Trump. There was not a week going by without some officials of European countries making the Washington trip, often followed by visits of officials EU. Their presence across the Atlantic offered them a box of international resonance with, implicitly, the blessing of Washington. It was enough for them, what they excel at, to assert this “privilege” on an international scale. Too bad that President Trump has made them orphan of this advantage. So, we no longer hear the “European” voices that have been bursting the screens before in a recurring way. In this register there is the absence (very occasional appearances) noted of the friendly Federica Mogherini with the pompous title of “High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy“. But Ms. Mogherini is not to be pitied being handsomely paid in Euro, which currency, unlike the rest of the world, is the most used at home in Africa and whose profits go to the EU Grouping as a savings economy on a whole continent.
Now, the Americans have, in turn, bent over the primacy of science in the eventual redefinition of standards of use, including the agricultural sector, between them and the Europeans. The latter are resorting to contortions of language not to address the discussion of standards with Americans. In itself, it is an admission of weakness that Americans are well aware of. The saying goes that one who has just one day to live can be considered dead. You know, maybe President Trump just applies this maxim in anticipation of the fall of the European empire.
