The European Union and more so its three biggest countries: Germany, Britain, and France will not let go the “critical” opportunity offered by the present world political and economic conjuncture to ask, and why not impose on the US, a new global order. Given the fact that the European Union increased its economic grip on the entire Old Continent, - including Russia - it will not miss the opportunity now to change overall power sharing on a global scale. The steps toward Russia taken by Germany, France, Italy, and other EU countries have changed the entire world balance of power. The US has lost forever its grip on Russia.
Russia learned an expensive lesson over the last decade. Its old affiliation with the US from the Yeltsin era was not only economically unproductive but disastrous at the political level. The very character of the Russian economy as an immense source of raw materials, energy and semi- finished industrial products dictated an affiliation with the Western European economic system of technology and capital resources. The Americans “used” Russia as an uninhabited “Eldorado” and tried to exploit it, in the old colonial way. There is no question then why Russia has chosen its new position to be near Western Europe, abandoning the American dream.
In view of this new pan-European order, the US now is trying he good old recipe of Euro–missiles. The willing US partners in central Europe, Poland and the Czech Republic, however will find it increasingly difficult to withstand the weight of American missiles on their grounds. Pressure will mount on them because the EU, and not the US, is their natural ally in these difficult times of economic crisis. Recently, the Czech prime minister said something like a Eurozone participation, just to cash in an answer from the president of the Euro-group, who asked him to say it again.
As things stand now, and given the problems from the ongoing credit and real economy crisis, Eurosceptics in central Europe, such as Poland and the Czech Republic, will find it increasingly difficult to pose problems in the functioning of the club. On top of that, the three leading EU counties have found a new understanding amongst them and at least they agree on the need for a new world order, on the economic and the political fronts.
Given the fact that the American President-elect Barack Obama seems ready to renegotiate the American position with the entire world, the Washington G20 Summit seems the best opportunity for a start in this new world road.
However, Obama is not yet ready to negotiate something as big as a new word order. So the G20 meeting on the 20th of November will be rather a “meet Obama” gathering than anything else, even if only on the sidelines if he does not attend. In any case, the EU countries will not let this opportunity go. The idea of French President Nicholas Sarkozy, as the current head of the EU presidency, to set this November 20 meeting of the G20 is a perfect indication that old Europe is ready to contest a new world power sharing. And this will start from the economic front, where Europe is able to impose its terms on the functioning of international markets. Britain has already chosen the EU side.
