Professor Wilfried Furman: "The EU will fail after all”

"The EU is a club that is trying to bind its members by extremely high economic and political costs, but it will fail after all,” German professor and economist Wilfried Furman (Potsdam) shared his vision of the current situation in the European Union with Vestnik Kavkaza, commenting on the development of the situation around the UK exit from the EU.

"The club’s management must ensure that its policies do not persistently harm the basic national interests of any member state. But the EU has forgotten about this rule not only in the case of Great Britain. A lot has been accumulated: the refugee and migration policies; the increasingly centralized industrial policies with so-called key sectors and technologies, the growing bureaucracy, planned defense and geopolitical policies, as well as the growing political distance from the United States. Chancellor Merkel’s rhetorics during and following the inauguration of President Donald Trump painted a picture of the allegedly growing unreliability of the United States, fundamental contradictions and new initiatives to strengthen the geopolitical significance and power of irreversibly interconnected EU countries. The economic power, according to Merkel, must be consolidated to become a political and military force.

Similar themes were and continue driving wedges in the special traditional relations between Great Britain and the United States, and also between Great Britain and the politically dominant France in tandem with the economically powerful Germany. The United Kingdom, which has veto power at the UN and is a successful nation for generations with its own, albeit limited nuclear shield, would prefer to be closer to a stronger and more reliable power, " the professor said.

According to Furman, "the German chancellor sowed confusion with France." These include the recent decision to develop a modern fighter jet - the joint French-German model - instead of buying the most modern American fighter jets. "It drives a wedge between the EU and the US, giving the situation unnecessary urgency (now Trump has to be tough with the EU car sector), poses a formidable challenge to the UK and its orientation to the US (at least now, it is inopportunely for London) and also becomes a burden for the relations between the EU’s West and the East  (including Poland with its strong desire for the US presence), ” the expert noted.

"In addition, the EU demonstrates a very different attitude towards the international law in respect of the territorial integrity of states - it is obvious in the situation with Northern Ireland and Catalonia. But neither EU accession nor Brexit is a national renunciation of this international law!

Of course, Brexit once again creates a ‘higher’ border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. And even the fears of the revival of terror in Northern Ireland cannot change the situation. Such hints from continental politicians can be viewed in conjunction with the EU's persistence on the issue of the so-called Backstop solution and, consequently, by preserving a virtually unlimited transition, can be interpreted as an indirect legitimization of the national Irish-Catholic terror (or the liberation struggle), as its psychological preparation and therefore, as an attempt to blackmail the UK, " Professor Furman says.

"Thus, the EU policies and the policies of the US President Donald Trump do not differ very much  - the only difference is that the US really has power, and the EU liberated by the US (and Russia) is not. Angela Merkel could not be ‘re-educated’. And her policy is likely to fail," the German professor concluded.