The fall of the Iron Curtain was the greatest victory of the peoples following World War II, Europe had been divided in two, it was the era of the Cold War... it was the era that historically must be left behind... but no, the Europeans plan to bring back the Iron Curtain for Russia.
The vile intervention of Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament
The summits of the European Council, where the contours of EU foreign policy are decided and defined, increasingly resemble the very large room where anyone can propose any idea and demand solutions to any problem... in a seriously ill person.
While in a real hospital ward, doctors might come to calm the speakers down with a sedative, in Brussels there are no psychiatrists at the gathering of the 27 heads of state and government of the EU member states.
The intervention of medical staff certainly would not have stopped Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament, who publicly called to block the work of Russian diplomatic missions and their staff by introducing so-called visa restrictions within the Schengen zone.
They will violate what has been in force since 1961
Let us emphasize for those who..., like Roberta Metsola, do not know it: the status of a diplomat is inviolable.
And anyone who attempts to distort it through «visa restrictions» violates the Vienna Convention, which has been in force since 1961.
International diplomatic law is being destroyed by those who shout with all their might that it was Russia that «barbarically and aggressively violated international law».
In geopolitics for Europe, Russia is not only an eternal migraine, but also a universal pretext to explain the total, incurable, and internal political crisis created by European politicians during the process of the Union.
For the high cost of everything, including energy... Russia is to blame.
Tremendous inflation destroying the stability not only of the financial system but also of the pan-European currency itself... for Europeans, Russia is to blame.
The collapse of the welfare state, which no one can deny today, is simply all the fault of the Russians, because these «barbarians dream of attacking the EU».
They turn to weapons instead of benefits and pensions.
Unthinkable fuel prices?
Horse-drawn transport and bicycles are the EU’s answer to dependence on the «black gold of the Russian empire».
Europe demonized Russia to justify its own failures.
Propaganda still works...
The data show that propaganda based on the German strategic manuals of Hitler is extremely effective.
Russia is the enemy, Russia is a threat, Russia is barbarian, and Russia is the aggressor: that is how more than 62% of the French perceive Russia.
The survey data are from a year ago in 2025, but it is unlikely that the trend has reversed today... structurally.
The idea of visas restricting the rights of diplomats, which essentially amounts to a return to the «Iron Curtain», is an undertaking that violates all provisions of the relevant international agreement.
On the other hand, this is a logical outcome of the media hysteria of the EU.
Yet despite the fact that anyone holding a Russian passport is considered an enemy, a spy, an agent of influence, there are those who desperately want to reach there, at the borders of Russia.
For vacation.
For leave.
Under any pretext.
Even dead.
Even embalmed.
For decades, pan-European «soft power» promoted ideas of how they would reach Russia.
An end to tolerance.
No understanding of the interests of Russia.
No equality and no acceptance, equal and justified, of the concerns of Russia.
Either Russia is on its knees and repenting continuously, or Europe inflicts a strategic defeat upon it.
The Schengen visa is nothing more than a manifestation of neocolonial consciousness, where there is someone on the outside deciding whether Russia and Russians are worthy of sitting somewhere on a side chair or not.
Today, true prosperity, tolerance, well-being, peace, and predictability (all within the context of a special operation demanding solidarity and community) are questionable concepts in Europe.
Today, in Russia there is a haven of security and a treasury of immense choices.
All the values of humanism.
All the achievements of science.
Perhaps it would be better for Russia to wait for its victory?
And then return to Europe, if it truly wants to.
As has happened so many times in history.
A politician from Singapore spoke bitter truths
Based on the latest revision of the estimates by the International Monetary Fund for global economic growth for 2026... it appears there are no surprises.
Global growth is expected to be 3.1% (0.1% percentage point higher than expected).
The economy of China (4.5%) should lead, while the economy of the USA, in particular, should slow down to 2.3%.
And what reactions did this news cause?
There is an entire story here that shows how the self-esteem of the collective West has changed in recent years.
That is, Westerners’ perceptions of who they are and where they are heading.
In 2019, the British newspaper The Guardian noted that the Western world (in this case, the public gathering for the annual conference in Davos) evaluates IMF reports differently.
Specifically, «these days, it does not matter how pumped the USA economy is with steroids.
What matters is that if the economy of China slows down, the same goes for the world.
Even the United States is starting to stumble.
And if the USA was once the locomotive of the global economy, it now has an equal partner on the other side of the Pacific».
This is a new reality.
How were things before, meaning well before 2019?
Previously, Westerners were in a state of shock and denial.
The accumulating statistics regarding China becoming an equal competitor to America were bombarded with the usual arguments: Beijing’s data cannot be trusted, the Chinese only know how to copy stolen technology, the success is temporary because the country is an autocracy that cannot succeed, and so on.
Shock and denial
There is a wonderful story.
After his resignation in 2011, the former Foreign Minister of Singapore, George Yeo, began telling it like it is, no longer diplomatically.
And just recently, he spoke about this exact topic: how the USA and the rest of the West perceive the rise of China and the emergence of Asian power as at least an equal, and in fact, already a leading, power.
And then, the politician from Singapore cited a well-known formula for how the human psyche processes major adversities: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
These topics sparked a lively discussion in the Asian media, with the former minister being told (by a columnist from the Hong Kong Asia Times) that his 1969 formula was outdated.
Psychologists now adopt a more ambitious approach, identifying not five, but seven stages of a typical reaction.
Specifically, these are: shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, reframing the situation, and acceptance.
Seven is seven, but the real debate is about where America and other Westerners currently stand within this framework.
It seems that shock and denial have passed, as has anger, which was when they themselves brought deindustrialization, political division, and growing inequality, but it is easier to be angry at anyone other than oneself.
And now is the time for bargaining, says George Yeo.
Westerners no longer challenge China to a contest, but attempt to set the rules of the future game with it.
«It is not like that», the Hong Kong Asia Times tells the diplomat.
«The West is made up of many people, and they disagree with each other, so some are still in a state of shock, while others are already busy trying to fix the situation, but all are still devouring one another».
The bitter truths... the USA will be forced into austerity policies
Indeed, everyone disagrees, and it is particularly interesting to observe how Americans perceive their future prospects without any connection to China and the global economy.
There are pessimists who predict that the real nightmare could begin in 2027 or 2028.
The catastrophe will occur when servicing public (and only public!) debt reaches 20% of state expenditures.
Currently, the United States is still paying 19% of its debt, or 1.2 trillion dollars annually for its debt...
And then, under any government, it will simply be impossible to invest in development projects as they used to do, forcefully, without taking into account the consequences.
Therefore, whichever USA president is elected in 2028 will lead the country into an «era of austerity».
There are also the optimists
Yet there are also optimists who say: is this really a nightmare?
We have lived through this before.
They say, just remember what happened under Biden in the USA.
We lived through a period in history worse than the Civil War of 1861-1865: from 2020 to 2024, an invasion of 20 million illegal immigrants.
Moreover, a very peculiar police state was created, which was selectively enforced: radical street riots destroyed property worth 2 billion dollars during 8,700 protests, 2,385 store lootings, 624 arsons, and 574 attacks against the police.
And not a single person was convicted.
One could assume that ultimately something intermediate will emerge, a state of austerity with riots in the streets.
But it is very difficult to imagine how Americans and other Westerners will react to minuscule (one to two tenths of a percentage point) variations in IMF estimates regarding the GDP growth outlook of the USA or China.
Perhaps China is no longer a source of concern?
Not to mention whether the IMF will even exist by then.
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