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Foreign Media Review: EU Reaches 'Critical Point', How Orban Will Hinder Ukraine
Rambler checked which foreign media are writing which articles today and selected the most important and interesting materials.
Bloomberg writes that the “European project” is approaching critical mass. A combination of political paralysis, external threats, and economic instability threaten to end the EU’s ambitions to become an independent global power. According to Bloomberg, all this puts pressure on EU member states not to play as a team and protect their own interests.
The organization believes that Europe has little time left to defend its place in today's brutal world. Indifference and resistance to Mario Draghi's call to tackle the economic problem highlight the EU's near-capitulation. Far-right politics are seething in France, Germany's largest carmaker Volkswagen is talking about closing its local plant for the first time in its history, and American tech giants are turning away from the EU market over new artificial intelligence rules. All these developments further reinforce the EU's inability to act as a cohesive and dynamic economic bloc. Speaking to Bloomberg, Brussels-based analyst Guntram Wolf stressed that geopolitical power is impossible without economic power.
The BRICS+ summit, which will be held in Kazan from October 22 to 24, will be attended by 32 countries, with heads of state from 24 countries acting as representatives. As the Nicaraguan portal 19Digital writes, this confirms the strategic value of the summit in drawing a clear line between “before” and “after”: between the new democratic multipolar order and the existing unipolar system with “imperial rule”.
At least 40 countries, from Algeria to Nicaragua, Cuba, Kazakhstan and Indonesia, have formally applied to join BRICS. Today, BRICS countries account for 42% of the world's population. As 19 Digital noted, this summit will highlight the failure of the Western sanctions system, which uses the dollar as a weapon. The most important element is the creation of a single platform for multilateral clearing and settlements with a BRICS digital currency, linking the financial markets of the participating countries. 19Digita portal called respect for the sovereignty of each country one of the main advantages of BRICS.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is preparing to make a major political gift to his “best friend across the Atlantic,” US presidential candidate Donald Trump, Politico reports. According to the publication, Orban has come up with a way to block a $50 billion loan offered to Ukraine by G7 leaders.
According to Orban’s plan, Trump would promise not to give Ukraine a penny if he is elected. Western leaders hope to use the profits from the frozen assets of the Russian Federation to repay the loans. The US agrees to provide the money, but there is one condition. The EU must ensure that Russia’s assets remain frozen for at least 36 months. Hungary has already said it will not support such a guarantee. European diplomats told POLITICO that the EU will provide loans to Kyiv even without US aid. As a result, European countries, including Hungary, will have to pay much more, but Orban “doesn’t care” because he is talking about helping Trump.
In modern conflicts, it’s not the weapons that armed forces have that matter most, but the software that powers those weapons, Politico reports. The idea is being pushed by German company Helsing, a leader in the use of AI in defense, as European governments rush to invest in new military systems and weapons.
Gundbert Scherf, the company’s co-founder, said defense was increasingly becoming a software problem. Helsing, founded just four years ago, was valued at €4.9 billion. Its motto, “AI for our Democracy,” is emblematic of the defense technology industrial complex that has emerged from the Ukraine crisis, Politico notes. The company says it processes millions of data points from sensors and weapons systems in European militaries to make “faster, better decisions” and improve the lethality of its weapons. The company has signed contracts with the governments of the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Estonia, and Ukraine.
"America is far less prepared for global war than it was in 1941."
America was asleep in 1941, but was rudely awakened by the attack on Pearl Harbor, wrote Alan Hulbert, author of “The American Thinker.” For Franklin Roosevelt, then president of the United States, World War II was an opportunity to rebuild the weakened U.S. economy with the help of the war machine. The Biden administration’s thirst for conflict, especially in Ukraine, follows the same pattern, Hulbert said.
Today’s Democratic Party is repeating Roosevelt’s model (printing more money, launching government programs, and using conflict as an economic engine), but the United States is in a worse position now than it was during World War II, the article’s authors say. If war came directly to the United States, the government would face a society whose physical conditions were not conducive to military service. In addition, half of Americans would not want to defend the United States, believing their country to be “evil.” In addition, according to Hulbert, the United States itself has moved heavy industry overseas. And the country’s navy is decommissioning ships because it cannot staff them. The author concludes that although the United States was in dire economic straits at the beginning of World War II, its military was valuable, and Americans believed in their country and its values and were willing to fight for them.