Merkel endorses Macron's EU military plan

[DonViejo]

Source: Politico-Europe


The German chancellor has previously been cautious about plans for an EU joint military force.

By JAKOB HANKE 6/3/18, 5:17 PM CET Updated 6/3/18, 5:36 PM CET

German chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday she supports the idea of a joint European defense force, adding that the initiative could be open to British participation post Brexit.

Merkel’s French counterpart Emmanuel Macron has been pushing for the creation of a combined EU military force that could be deployed to trouble spots around the world. The idea had so far received a frosty reception in Berlin, with defense minister Ursula von der Leyen saying the idea was “not an imminent project for tomorrow.” So Merkel’s intervention represents a significant change of tone.

“I am in favor of President Macron’s proposal for an intervention initiative,” Merkel said in a wide-raning interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

Merkel said the initiative “needs to fit into the structure of defense cooperation,” which she said should bring down the number of different EU weapon systems from 180 to “about 30.”



Read more: https://www.politico.eu/article/emmanuel-macron-angela-merkel-endorses-eu-military-plan/

[tazkcmo]

1. Defense cooperation

Yet the article mentions the deployment to "trouble spots around the world". Not sure if the citizens of the EU would support that but if it was a purely defensive force I'm more confident they would support this idea in light of Shitgibon's treatment if our European allies.

[Achilleaze]

2. "We have always been at war with east EurGermanittly" - tHe ennnneME

[heaven05]

3. thank you

more reference research material/information. Unsettling, but the world is in drip, drip, drip mode.

[PatrickforO]

4. Which deflates NATO and takes the US out of it.

Interesting.

Yep, Trump sure is an incompetent monster, isn't he?

Of course, it may not be a bad thing for us to pull our troops back a bit - we're in something like 150 countries, and we really don't need to be in most of them.

In fact, we really don't need to spend more on our military than the next seven countries behind us.

[Uncle Joe]

19. Other than U.S. Defense expenditure, the one that stands out is

Last edited Sun Jun 3, 2018, 10:32 PM - Edit history (1)

Saudi Arabia, they only have a population of around 33 million.

[OnDoutside]

5. There's been a lot of opposition to an EU army internally. I'd much rather have

a European Coastguard, something that is badly needed.

[left-of-center2012]

6. They fear the U.S. will not protect them from Russia

Trump has bad mouthed NATO and kissed up to Putin.

[The Mouth]

7. We shouldn't be spending a damned dime outside our borders for ANYTHING

until every last homeless person is housed and everyone has health care.

Let them do whatever they want in Europe, we shouldn't have a say because we shouldn't be paying a cent.

[fountainofyouth]

8. Sounds like you have an ally in Trump n/t

[The Mouth]

13. Screw Trump. He;s perfectly OK with feeding the Military Industial Complex

And fuck anyone who is

The type of government any other country has or the relationship between that country and any other besides our is none of our business.

We haven't needed to do a damned thing since 1812.

[GulfCoast66]

9. Yeah, America first!

Sure you at the right place?

Because that is not the position of the Democratic Party.

But it is pretty much Trumps position.

[nini]

10. You may want to read up on how important allies are

The thing is we can afford to house the homeless AND contribute world wide. We just suck and don't do it.

The two are not tied to each other.

[The Mouth]

15. We can't afford to do both.

We don't have an infinite amount of funds.

[nini]

16. Yes we can

it would take not pissing off money on defense and tax cuts for the rich, but we could.

[PatrickforO]

21. We could if we:

Repeal the giant tax cut for billionaires, and raise taxes to where they were prior to the Bush tax cuts.

A nice second step, upon a perusal of the US Constitution, as well as a review of a number of historical and economic treatises, would be to repeal the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, and go back to the responsibilities of the US Congress under Article 1, Section 8 - 'to coin money.'

As an economist, I like to ask this: If the national debt is money we owe to ourselves, why are we paying it back to 'investors' with interest? And, in light of Article 1, Section 8, clause 5, why are we allowing Citibank and JP Morgan Chase, the two financial houses with the largest interest in the Federal Reserve, to control the money supply instead of Congress?

Consider this: we have what is called fiat currency. This means that the $1 dollar in your pocket is only worth a dollar because we all agree it is. It isn't backed with anything except the 'faith and credit' of the United States government.

If you're interested, study your history about how Lincoln financed the Civil War. Oh, he went to the banks but they wanted too much interest, so he started the government presses and began printing 'greenbacks.' These greenbacks financed the war and allowed the Union to be preserved without being sold off to banks. Why do you think the British favored the Confederacy? It wasn't because of King Cotton - it was because Lincoln was coining his own money and they had no interest in it - in a financial sense.

And those nice bankers...you know what they did? They flooded the Union with counterfeit greenbacks until upwards of a third of the currency in circulation was fake. This is why the Secret Service was founded in 1865 - not to protect the president but to battle counterfeiters.

There are some good books on this. Ellen Brown's 'Web of Debt' is a good start.

And, at least in my state, several Dems running for statewide office are talking about public banking. Sure is working well in N. Dakota.

As a dear friend is fond of saying, "We have plenty of money to take care of everyone's needs. It is just in too few hands."

A last thought: true democracy is when people have a say in policies that affect them. Lots of good things happening at local and state levels. Americans are FAR more liberal than is commonly supposed.

[Blue_Adept]

11. The fact that you don't realize how counterproductive that is

means you're incredibly uninformed about the world.

[paleotn]

17. You knowledge of how international politics actually works is...well...breathtakingly limited,

if not non-existent. My advice, bone up on things before making barstool pronouncements that make absolutely no sense in the light of the real world.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. MAGA: Trump is Making America Go Alone. . . . nt

[paleotn]

18. Long term...

maybe short term, the EU needs to just tie the knot already. In GDP, together they're larger than China and a match for the US. Together they are more than a match for the petro-kleptocracy known as the Russian Federation.

[roamer65]

20. Smart idea on their part.