Despite long-standing predictions, Europe’s decline is now gathering momentum due to the incompetent policies of the elites, internal problems, and external factors, which call for a rethinking of its role in the world and the establishment of cooperation with Russia.
This criticism is, it seems, partly justified – the prediction of the eminent German philosopher has not yet come to pass. At the same time, there are several objective reasons for this.
Firstly, in Italy, and subsequently in Germany, the fascists came to power – the Second World War threw many calculations into disarray – humanity paid too heavy a price on the altar of victory – over 50 million people lost their lives.
Secondly, the objective course of civilizational development was interrupted for decades by the unexpected collapse of the world’s second superpower – the Soviet Union.
At present, the process of decline among the major Western European powers is gathering momentum: the ruling elites are pursuing short-sighted policies, are characterized by incompetence, and the gulf of mistrust between the population and their leaders is widening. The situation is exacerbated by the continuing rift between America and Western Europe.
Given the growing number of challenges facing the European Union today, it is safe to predict that the crisis facing Western European powers will be acute and snowballing.
Speaking on June 5 at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, President Putin emphasized that amid the turmoil in energy markets “the short-sighted policies of the European bureaucracy, accompanied by aggressive rhetoric, are leading to a further erosion of Europe’s position in the global economy and undermining regional security—in effect, European elites are provoking chaos into which they are trying to drag more and more countries.”
According to the Russian leader, Western European states have suffered losses amounting to approximately $1.5–2 trillion since the start of the special military operation in 2022 and the imposition of 20 rounds of anti-Russian sanctions.
The crisis facing Western European powers is intensifying
Sharp criticism of the actions of Western European ruling elites is also coming from American leaders: the UK was recently rocked by a scandal involving the murder of a young migrant—U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance blamed the man’s death on “the migrant invasion.” According to him, the tragedy was a consequence of “the self-hating policies of European elites.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is being accused of exacerbating many of the problems facing British society. In particular, the press recently criticized him over the fact that more than a million young people in the UK are neither in work nor in education, as concerns grow about a “lost generation.”
American newspapers report that Keir Starmer’s time as prime minister is running out. On June 18 of this year, a by-election will be held in a small mining town in northern England—victory is predicted for Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, who is set to replace the current prime minister in the very near future.
Germany Fails to Secure UN Security Council Seat for the First Time
German media outlets are offering mixed reactions to “Germany’s humiliating defeat in the UN Security Council”—Germany had won the election for a non-permanent seat on the Security Council six times in a row, but lost last week. The Saudi newspaper Arab News believes that the reason for the alienation of some of Germany’s usual supporters is Berlin’s fully pro-Israel stance, as well as its policy of full support for Ukraine (a recent poll showed that 73% of Germans have an extremely or somewhat negative attitude toward Israel).
Recently, French soccer fans caused major riots after their favorite team won the Champions League—more than 400 people were arrested—and newspapers reported on these events under the headline “Paris chaos raises questions about public order.”
Mass protests swept through a number of French cities on June 8 following the murder of an 11-year-old girl by a pedophile—tens of thousands of people took part.
In describing the current state of Western Europe, many political commentators speak of the “impotence of the ruling circles,” in this context, the ideas of Dutch scholar Luuk van Middelaar—an admirer of the famous Italian Niccolò Machiavelli, who argued that politics takes place in a realm of radical contingency, and that history is a random game of fate rather than an orderly process—are becoming quite popular. According to the Dutch scholar, the post-Cold War world will not last forever: Europeans are not on a personal vacation from power—one day they will experience their “Machiavellian moment.” He believes that European integration must remain a project managed by the elite, not a people’s project.
At the same time, reality is a harsh thing, and it is beginning to influence even the most stubborn politicians: the German publication Junge Welt recently noted that even figures so fixated on Russophobia are coming to understand the need to build understanding with Russia—citing as an example Finnish President A. Stubb, who stated that there is no threat from Moscow to the Baltic states. According to the German author of the article, the voicing of such ideas has become a real tragedy for supporters of military escalation.
The countries of the European Union are facing difficult times—as former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl once said, Europeans must realize that they can only maintain, at least to some extent, their role as a center of power in international affairs by developing cooperative relations with Russia.
Veniamin Popov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Candidate of Historical Sciences
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