INTERVIEW
ERIKA GREY
- You are the president of Pan Europa and was once its secretary general, you are also a federalist, in short you are a globalist, and a leading one.
It has been said that the Russia Ukraine war ended globalization, the world is breaking into regions with Russia aligning with China, India and other nations and the EU with the US, Canada, and the UK.
How will the globalist aim of Pan Europa survive in this new order? Especially since its vision included Russia.
CHRISTIAN D’ANDLAU
Yes, I am a European federalist but certainly not a globalist, because the cultural and geopolitical incompatibilities between us, the European Union, and the USA on one hand and with Russia on the other hand and even between the members of the EU, are enough of a headache.
So I am not sure if I am still a federalist or rather in favor of a European confederation.
As far as globalism is concerned, I think that only the methods of the Chinese dictatorship could enable a World government to survive.
It seems to me that neither you nor I would want such tyranny.
Concerning the Pan European Union, I am not its Secretary General anymore but only the president in Alsace in touch with the European institutions in Strasbourg.
The aim of Pan Europe is « a united states of Europe from San Francisco to Vladivostok » in the words of our founder, Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, in 1924.
Of course, this aim is still remote and idealistic, so keeping it in mind we are in fact just a think-tank.
ERIKA GREY
- The European Union is punching up to its weight,
It is rewriting the rules for the world through its digital services act, and other policy areas,
it is working on its Strategic Compass to complete its army,
is working on its capital markets union and banking union that is earmarking the euro a major global reserve currency,
in addition to its 84 trade pacts, it will be working on adding one with India.
Finally, it has just convened the conference on the future of Europe and will enact many changes to make it a democratic political empire.
Europe has let it be known it is out for its own interests, as did India and Russia.
Where do you see the EU in 5 years and where do you see the US and Russia ?
CHRISTIAN D’ANDLAU
In order to become « a democratic political empire » as you just said, the EU ought to become a democracy and not just a technocratic and authoritarian « Commission » as it is now.
It ought to broaden the conditions for the European Citizens’ Initiative, allow referendums and at least give a real power to the European parliament which is currently only a registration room.
This is where I wish to see the EU in five or in ten years.
Concerning the USA, I wish you to get rid of or at least neutralize the American hawks of the military-industrial complex and the political and financial lobbies within the next five years.
And concerning Russia, I wish them to renounce their detestable policy of lying and brutality.
But all these wishes may just be wishful thinking because most of the time in history, at the end of the day, geopolitics usually have the last word.
From this point of view, I am somewhat surprised that the Chinese have not yet thrown themselves on the throat of the Russians to seize Siberia, taking advantage of their current stalemate in Ukraine.
ERIKA GREY
- What is your view of the EU’s policy with Russia?
and like the US using the euro as a weapon to sanction Russia to death?
What are the concerns of the French vs other members of the EU?
Are you in agreement with Macron’s endeavors to stop this war?
How would Pan Europa approach this conflict ?
The EU’s policy with Russia is a very sad one and both sides are responsible for the present mess.
When the Iron Curtain fell down with the Berlin wall in November 1989, we could have built our dream of a Pan Europe « from San Francisco to Vladivostok », because Michail Gorbachev allowed the reunification of Germany against some guarantees of safety for Russia.
He even went to Washington begging for financial help.
The financial help was refused to him with only an insulting tip and the military guarantees for Russia have been trampled by NATO who did not stop from encircling Russia with strategic missile bases pointed at her.
When he came to power in 1999, Vladimir Putin was quite pro-western.
During the next fifteen years until 2014, he reached out at least three times to the EU and NATO to obtain a cooperation agreement that was always refused to him.
The answer of the West to his third humiliating attempt was the Maidan « revolution » in Kiev organized by an employee of Mr. Soros, Mr. Hans-Joerg Wieck, ex-director of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) the German secret service, and by Mr. James Woolsley an ex-director of the CIA in the mid 1990s.
We all know what happened next :
- the Minsk agreements which were never respected by any of the signatory parties,
- the annexation of Crimea by Russia
- the eight years of non-stop bombing of the Donbass Russian speaking Ukrainian citizens who were denied the right to use the Russian language and who were only asking for an autonomous recognition within the Ukraine and not even dreaming of independence.
Instead of calming the nationalist aspirations of the Russians and Ukrainians by encouraging them to respect the Minsk agreements, every effort has been made to stir up ancestral hatred among them.
Now the question is: Why is that so?
Answer :
Because the soil and the subsoil of Russia and Ukraine make them the two richest countries in the world with all the possible crops and commodities and rare and strategic metals that some birds of prey in the west intend to seize once the two countries are mutually destroyed and immensely indebted.
Until February 2022, Putin had been a skillful chess player and a cold-blooded judoka, but when he lost his temper and responded to the provocations threatening the integrity of his country, by invading the Ukraine, he committed a mistake that, in my opinion, will be fatal to him, sooner or later.
Today we have no choice but to support the Ukrainians militarily against him and help them win this stupid war.
The Ukrainians and the Russians are from now on being used as cannon fodder for the benefit of birds of prey in the West.
In the immediate future, let us hope that the heroic soldiers of the Azov Battalion and of the 36th brigade of Ukrainian naval infantry in the Azovstal complex of Mariupol will survive … as well as the martyred Russian speaking populations of the Donbass …
Christian d’Andlau-Hombourg, Paris, May 8, 2022