(This article originally appeared in the Kurdistan Chronicle at March: A Defining Month for the Kurds)

March always holds a great significance for the Kurdish people, as it commemorates historic agreements, political shifts, and events of deep cultural importance. This year is no different, but it is amplified by numerous political developments that are reshaping the outlook for Kurds.

Perhaps the most groundbreaking development is the recent agreement between Damascus and the administration in Western Kurdistan (northern Syria), also known as Rojava. For the first time since Syria’s inception, Kurdish rights have been officially recognized. While this milestone has been met with widespread optimism, questions remain: will the Syrian regime under Ahmad al-Sharaa genuinely uphold these rights in a post-Assad future?

Meanwhile, in Türkiye, the peace process has taken a dramatic turn. On February 27, Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned PKK leader, called on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party to disarm and dissolve. His message has sparked cautious optimism among officials in Turkiye and the international community.

As these events evolve, the Kurdistan Region remains committed to working toward peace and dialogue with both nations. Recent meetings held by President Masoud Barzani with Syrian Democratic Forces Commander Mazloum Abdi and a delegation from Turkiye have reinforced the call for dialogue and reconciliation. As regional tensions fluctuate, the Kurdish leadership remains committed to fostering peace through negotiation and supporting talks between Kurds, Turkiye, and the emerging Syrian administration.

In Iraq, political and economic disputes are intensifying. The dispute over Kurdish oil exports has drawn international attention, with U.S. officials urging Baghdad to strike a balance between sovereignty and economic pragmatism. If Iraq intends to maintain strong bilateral relations with the United States, it must navigate these tensions carefully and limit external influence.

Another dramatic event occurred on March 14, when a U.S. airstrike executed with Iraqi and Kurdish support eliminated ISIS’s second-in-command, Abdullah Makki Muslih al-Rifai, also known as Abu Khadijah. U.S. President Donald Trump took to Truth Social, declaring, “PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH,” while commending U.S., Iraqi, and Kurdish forces for the joint operation.

Against the backdrop of these transformative events, this issue of Kurdistan Chronicle explores a range of topics – art, mythology, music, craftmanship, refugee support, sports, and the enduring legacies of influential Kurdish and American leaders – the entire spectrum of the rich cultural life of the Kurdish people is on display.

Key March events in Kurdish history

March 1: Kurds honor the legacy of General Mustafa Barzani, the father of the Kurdish revolution and a central figure in modern Kurdish politics. Barzani passed away on this day in 1979 in Washington D.C.

March 5: The 1991 uprising against Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime began on this day in Ranya. Spreading rapidly, the peshmerga and hundreds of thousands of Kurdish men and women reclaimed nearly all major cities, paving the way for the Kurdistan Region’s first democratic elections in 1992 and the establishment of the Kurdistan Regional Government.

March 11: This day marks the Iraqi-Kurdish Autonomy Agreement of 1970, also known as the March Accord, when Baghdad formally recognized the political and cultural rights of the Kurdish people for the first time.

March 14: This date commemorates the 122nd birthday of General Mustafa Barzani, a key architect of the modern Kurdish struggle for liberation, democracy, and self-determination.

March 16: In a single attack using chemical weapons, the Ba’athist regime killed 5,000 innocent Kurdish men, women, and children in what is known as the 1988 Halabja massacre. This atrocity was part of the Anfal Campaign, which took the lives of 182,000 Kurdish people.

March 20: The 1991 uprisings culminated in the liberation of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, a defining moment in the Kurdish revolutionary movement.

March 21: Newroz! The Kurdish New Year brings joy, color, and tradition, as families gather to participate in vibrant festivities and rituals. Coinciding with the vernal equinox, it is a public holiday in the Kurdistan Region observed over three days.

Nahro Zagros is a senior fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy and the Editor-in-Chief of Kurdistan Chronicle.

(This article was written by Hermann Tertsch and appeared in El Debate. Sin presupuestos y sin elecciones)

Pedro Sánchez says that he does not need a budget in order to go on governing. That what he himself used to say to Mariano Rajoy, that “if there is no budget, we must go to elections”, was a mere political ruse to throw the People’s Party simpletons out of power. Which he did indeed achieve. But he makes it clear that nobody should come to him with such nonsense, because for the second year running he intends to govern without a budget, rolling over those almost forgotten accounts that have nothing to do with the current Spanish reality and cannot serve even to attempt a year of sound and effective government.

Sánchez could not care less, because his priorities are different. Sánchez wants to stay. And let nobody doubt that if he has to create tensions in order to roll over not only the budget but the parliamentary term itself without calling elections, he will do it. They will come up with ways of generating states of emergency with the same ease with which he proposes to destroy the cross and the basilica of the Valley of the Fallen.

In countries considered democratic, one of the most firmly established elements of institutional hygiene was that accepted obligation to comply with the presentation of the supreme law of government, which is the budget. Should that prove impossible for lack of a majority, the question of confidence was raised, or outright dissolution of parliament and elections, because the government had ceased to have the support of a majority and was therefore stripped of legitimacy.

But imagine how much legitimacy can matter to Pedro Sánchez, when he does not care a fig about legality itself. He does not need a budget, because governing the country with general plans for the national and common good is something he has never done and has neither the intention nor the interest to do now.

Today more than yesterday but less than tomorrow, Sánchez governs exclusively to hold on to power for the sake of impunity for himself, for his family and for a whole government and leadership complicit in the brutal plunder of which Spaniards and the national patrimony are the victims.

Sánchez, without having murdered and tortured as his ally and partner Nicolás Maduro has done, is in the same situation as the criminal Venezuelan dictator: if he loses power he will have immense difficulty in preventing the full weight of the law from falling on him and his troops.

Not even the certain willingness of the People’s Party to forget everything that has happened and to sweep all the mountains of socialist misdeeds under the carpet,

—you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours—, will be able to save them this time, because the brazenness and the haste with which so many have enriched themselves have led them into excess and carelessness. The Dominican Republic is everywhere. That is why we should all be aware that the people who govern today with Sánchez at their head are capable of anything in order to carry on.

And think about the context. The virtual single party of social democracy that the People’s Party members and the socialists make up in Europe feels besieged by the national and sovereigntist parties they call “far right”. The panic has soared after Trump’s victory. That is why they are taking all kinds of measures to preserve the hegemony and power they believed eternal and now see in danger. And those measures are not overburdened with democratic scruples.

In Romania they suspend the elections because they do not like the candidate, and Brussels applauds and awards itself a medal for it. In Austria, obscene outside interference has prevented a coalition government of the conservative forces, the People’s Party and the People’s Party, an alliance that has existed in Austria before and that has nevertheless not been tolerated this time from Germany and Brussels.

And in Germany itself a grotesque event has occurred which nevertheless all the media of synchronised social democratic opinion, and the European Union itself, have accepted with complete calm and applause. In Berlin a triple and far-reaching constitutional reform has been approved by the outgoing and expired parliament a month after the election, because in the new parliament there is no majority for that reform.

All of that has happened in these past months in EU countries without anyone raising their voice except against Hungary and the well-known mania of Viktor Orbán for keeping his electoral promises, defending his national sovereignty and the express will of the Hungarians. Imagine what could be cooked up in the Spain of Pedro Sánchez, Bolaños, Junts, Delcy Rodríguez, Acento, Zapatero, the Chinese embassy, Otegui and the São Paulo drug forum triumphant along the Guadalquivir, in order to find a pretext that prolongs the political life of the usurper, with or without an embrace from the party of Núñez Feijóo and Ursula von der Leyen.

Hermann Tertsch is a Distinguished Fellow (Honorary) at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Derk Jan Eppink and appeared in Wynia’s Week. Friedrich Merz paait links en gooit de financiële cohesie van Europa te grabbel)

Friedrich Merz, leader of the CDU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, has undergone a ‘Gesinneswandel’ since the elections of 23 February. He ran a right-wing campaign, above all on migration, but as the coming Chancellor he threatens to walk on the leash of the German socialists (SPD) and the Greens. He practises the opposite of what he preached before the elections. That gives him a major credibility problem. Above all with his own voters.

On Tuesday the Bundestag supported, with 513 members in favour and 207 against, the financial package to borrow 1,000 billion euros on the capital market for ‘investments’ in infrastructure and defence. The German debt level, now 63% of gross domestic product (GDP), will rise with this amount towards 100%. Germany is becoming ‘Schuldenland’.

Before the elections Merz turned against ‘running up debt’ and praised the ‘debt brake’ in the German constitution as a way of protecting citizens against a spendthrift government. That turned out to be deception. His grand coalition of socialists and Christian democrats (Groko) is becoming the biggest debt-maker in the history of the Federal Republic.

The ‘debt brake’ has been ceremonially buried by an amendment to the constitution. The brake stipulated that the German federal government may raise debt by a maximum of 0.35% of gross domestic product (GDP). With a gross domestic product of 4.3 trillion euros in 2024, the Federal Republic will over the years borrow 1 trillion (1,000 billion). This Schuldenbremse was cleared away by the ‘old’ Bundestag because there was still a two-thirds majority of Christian democrats, socialists and greens. In the new Bundestag, which takes office next Tuesday, that majority no longer exists because of the gains of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and the losses of socialists and greens.

Merz admittedly had little choice, because the AfD is excluded by the other parties, even though it doubled its score in the Bundestag elections to 20.8% of the vote and 152 seats in the Bundestag. Unlike the PVV in the Netherlands, the AfD sits behind a ‘Brandmauer’. Merz was condemned to govern with the SPD; together the two have a small majority.

Merz’s negotiating talents turned out to be heavily overrated. Christian Dürr, parliamentary leader of the liberal FDP (which is disappearing from the Bundestag), said during Tuesday’s debate that Merz had completely failed as a negotiator. ‘You went to talk with the SPD, gave everything away and thought: now I will get my things back. But you got nothing.’ When socialists negotiate they want to take everything home. Merz had only one coalition option, and afterwards stood empty-handed. The debt package of 1,000 billion euros was a gift to the SPD. The German bourgeois press was beside itself, and Bild Zeitung furious.

It became even worse, because switching off the debt brake required a change to the German constitution, and the CDU/CSU and SPD had to knock on the door of the Greens. They immediately demanded a hefty share. The debt package consists of 500 billion euros for the improvement of infrastructure. It was given the name ‘Sondervermögen’, but it simply has to be paid back. In addition, 500 billion euros is being set aside for strengthening German defence.

Merz entered into negotiations with the Greens and offered them 50 billion for environmental policy out of the Infrastructure Fund. The Greens felt insulted: too little. Merz immediately offered 100 billion: deal!

The Greens received another gift, and worse still: the climate neutrality of the German economy around 2045 has to be written into the constitution. It sounded like a meagre dessert, but economically it is disastrous. The German economy has been in recession for three years, de-industrialisation is increasing and citizens are becoming poorer. The earning power of ‘Standort Deutschland’ is broken. After the ‘debt brake’ comes the ‘growth brake’.

Realising this climate target is virtually impossible, because the nuclear power stations also remain closed. Germany gets higher energy prices, continues to struggle economically and saddles itself with a compulsory climate neutrality in 2045. Unlike in France, the constitution is not a scrap of paper there. NGOs will, with government subsidy, go to court to enforce climate neutrality in 2045. And to block ‘fossil’ investments. This is a poison pill for Germany. But Merz found coalition-building in the short term more important than the consequences in the longer term.

Alice Weidel, parliamentary leader of the AfD, said in an earlier debate: ‘Herr Merz, you cannot do it. I have to say that Angela Merkel was right on that point. You cannot do it.’ A scathing remark.

The ‘investments’ were sold in the Bundestag with a great deal of scaremongering. After all, there are two notorious villains: Trump and Putin (who, incidentally, were at that very moment on the telephone about a peace settlement for Ukraine). Merz cast himself as a visionary who knew how to placate ‘red and green’, with lines such as: ‘a first big step towards a European Defence Community’. Merz acted as if it were a new idea, but in 1952 a European Defence Community was founded, with Germany, France, Italy and the Benelux countries. That so-called Pleven Plan advocated a European army (even then), but the treaty was never ratified.

Now that the Bundestag has approved the financial package, the Bundesrat, in which the representatives of the Bundesländer sit, must do the same, with a two-thirds majority. Their problem: since 2020 the federal states are not allowed to take on structural debt. Merz offers: 100 billion out of the Infrastructure Fund. Hosanna! Even Bavaria agrees, because Minister-President Markus Söder wants more Mütterrente, extra pension for women who raised children. Every Landesvater or -mutter has a wish list of some kind. Merz bought everyone in: red, green and the federal states. But he left his voters out in the cold.

The winners of this debt avalanche are the greens with their constitutionally enforced climate neutrality around 2045. The losers are German taxpayers. Germany dreams of a ‘clean conscience’, but the road to a fossil-free society produces a planned economy with bureaucratic directives and subsidies for desired policy.

The Swedish battery manufacturer Northvolt built a production plant in northern Germany. Last week Northvolt went bankrupt. Too little demand. Tesla has the largest factory for electric cars in Germany, but is going backwards. The subsidies are coming to an end and the artificial market is collapsing. The economy of the GDR worked on that basis, but Merz and his red-green friends have learned nothing from that socialist experiment, which lacked free-market corrections.

The debt avalanche has a major impact on Europe. The Stability and Growth Pact, meant to keep budget deficits and government debt within bounds, has undergone the same fate as the debt brake. Kaltgestellt. Member states may spend more money on defence, up to 1.5% of GDP, which does not count towards the stability criteria: a budget deficit of at most 3% and a debt ratio of at most 60%.

Germany of all countries is sinning, which is music to the ears of President Macron. The French national debt amounts to 115% of GDP. Former German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble once said that Germany was ‘Zahlmeister und Zuchtmeister’. Germany paid but also demanded fiscal discipline. The Zuchtmeister is dead.

This also affects German creditworthiness; if German earning power falters, loans become more expensive. Germany moreover stands surety for loans that the EU raises on the capital market, such as the Corona Recovery Fund and Von der Leyen’s Defence Plan. If Germany loses its AAA credit status, the debt package becomes more expensive. Only the Netherlands and Luxembourg would then still meet the AAA status. The ice beneath the palace of debt is becoming too thin. Germany is indispensable for financial cohesion in Europe. And Merz of all people is throwing that away.

Derk Jan Eppink is a Distinguished Fellow (Honorary) at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

It is time to see through the lies and resist an elite that, under the guise of

‘liberal values,’ is steadily consolidating authoritarian power.

History does not repeat itself exactly, but those who pay close attention recognize recurring patterns. The Great Depression of the 1930s—preceded by excessive debt and culminating in a stock market crash—not only led to economic collapse but also triggered political instability, radicalization, and the rise of totalitarian ideologies. Chaos and uncertainty made citizens susceptible to simplistic solutions offered by both fascists and communists. As we know, this ultimately resulted in an unprecedented global catastrophe. Now, nearly a century later, we find ourselves in another crisis—not due to excessive private debt, but due to unprecedented national debts, the threat of war, and a political elite trading freedom for control.

The left-liberal establishment consistently points to ‘far-right extremism’ as the greatest threat, but is this assessment justified? The parties labeled as ‘extreme’ advocate for sovereignty, limited government, freedom of speech, and free market principles—the very values that once triumphed over fascism. Without capitalist America and Britain, Europe would not have freed itself from the grip of dictatorship in 1945. So who, then, are the true enemies of freedom?

Ronald Reagan once warned: “If fascism ever comes to America, it will come in the name of liberalism.” This is precisely what we are witnessing today. Under the guise of ‘liberal values,’ freedom is being steadily eroded. In Europe, we see it in the Digital Services Act (DSA), supposedly designed to combat ‘disinformation’ but in reality a mechanism to enforce censorship and self-censorship. We see it in a state-controlled economy, where private enterprises can only grow if they conform to the Brussels agenda. We see it in perpetual warmongering, where European leaders prefer continued bloodshed over diplomatic solutions. Trump is on the verge of brokering peace between Ukraine and Russia, yet the European establishment refuses to consider it. U.S. neocons and NATO provoked tensions as early as 2014 with the coup against the democratically elected President Yanukovych. Now, we are being primed to send our own sons and daughters to the front lines of a war that is not ours to fight.

The parallels to the 1930s are alarming. The media functions as a propaganda machine, silencing dissent and normalizing war as a ‘necessary evil.’ Political opponents are labeled as ‘threats to democracy’ in the same manner as before. In Germany, there are efforts to ban the AfD; in the EU Council, there are calls to strip Hungary under Orbán of its voting rights; in Romania, an EU-disfavored presidential candidate—who was democratically chosen by his people in the first round of elections—has simply been canceled. All of this is done under the pretense of ‘protecting democracy.’ But democracy without free speech and political diversity is an empty shell.

We also see the return of state-driven economic manipulation. A war industry led by Brussels, fueled by €800 billion of borrowed money and more national debt. Programs such as ReArm EU demonstrate how private businesses are increasingly brought under state control, mirroring the regulated economies of historical fascism. Entrepreneurs operate under the illusion of freedom but must adhere to stringent guidelines from Brussels, blurring the line between public and private sectors. This is precisely the structure in which individual agency diminishes while bureaucratic elites take control.

Meanwhile, supranational institutions such as the EU and the UN continue to erode national sovereignty. Decisions that directly impact our lives are made by unelected technocrats who hide behind abstract ideals such as ‘climate neutrality’ and ‘social justice,’ while citizens lose more and more of their freedoms.

Simultaneously, society is becoming increasingly collectivist. Criticism of migration policies, climate policies, or EU directives is no longer treated as legitimate debate but as ‘dangerous extremism.’ The exclusion and demonization of political opponents directly parallel the propaganda techniques used in the 1930s to silence dissenting voices. The elite presents itself as the defender of democracy while undermining that very democracy through unilateral control over media and legislation.

Throughout history, authoritarian regimes have justified repression by promising order, security, and protection from impending chaos. Fear and propaganda have often been used to make restrictive measures seem necessary and acceptable. Are we not witnessing a similar pattern today? Criticism of the prevailing narrative is censored, central authority is strengthened, and citizens are increasingly dependent on the state. The individual is vanishing into a collectivist mass, where dissenting opinions are labeled as dangerous.

We must wake up now. The true defenders of freedom are those who advocate for sovereignty, free market principles, small government, free speech, and peace. It is time to see through the lies and resist an elite that, under the guise of ‘liberal values,’ is steadily consolidating authoritarian power. We cannot afford to wait until it is too late.

Those who wish to preserve freedom must be willing to defend it. If fascism ever comes back, it will come in the name of liberalism. You have been warned!

Rob Roos is a distinguished fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington, DC-based think-and-do tank.

(This article was written by Derk Jan Eppink, appeared in the Wynia’s Week. Derk Jan Eppink: Soon Europe will be a planned economy with a debt bubble – Wynia’s Week)

In the European Union, plans are piling up. In the summer of 2020, the corona recovery fund of 750 billion euros was portrayed as ‘once in a lifetime’. Apparently a short ‘lifetime’, because on September 9, 2024, the former ECB president launched the Draghi plan with a price tag of 800 billion euros. Last week, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, presented the ‘ReArm Europe’ plan. Bill: another 800 billion euros. In the EU, a lifetime is five years, the term of office of a European Commission.

The corona recovery fund has already shown which way that financial bonanza is heading. For the first time, the European Commission itself went on the capital market to collect 750 billion euros, under the guarantee of the member states; The Netherlands for about 46 billion. To the shock of the Commission, interest rates went up and the costs of the operation rose by 57 billion. The final amount now stands at 807 billion.

Casino Budget

The budget of the European Union evokes the image of a casino. In the current 2021-2027 budget cycle, with a size of more than 2 trillion euros, 30 percent is ‘climate-related’. Frans Timmermans’ Green Deal, presented in December 2019, permeates the entire EU budget. The ‘Green Deal Investment Plan’ (2021-2030) comprises a total amount of 1 trillion euros, with partly financing from the EU budget, the EU Emissions Trading System and funds through the European Investment Bank (EIB).

The energy and climate transition is now encountering realities. The ‘Timmermans Plan’ has unachievable goals, such as Europe as the ‘first climate-neutral area in the world by 2050’. Europe is pricing itself out of the market. Companies are leaving the continent because of high energy costs. The economy is stagnating, and the Timmermans Plan has to be lowered a notch.

But don’t worry, there is the aforementioned Draghi plan, from the mind of the former ECB president who wanted to save the euro in 2012 with the statement ‘whatever it takes’. The ECB then printed unlimited money. ‘Super Mario’ cannot be left behind and launches a ‘competitiveness compass’ to get the European economy back on its feet.

How does that work in Brussels? The European Commission sees the ‘unforeseen damage’ of the energy transition and is making a ‘rescue plan’ of the climate plan. The report is written in Brussels, with a ‘headpiece’ for the sale. No one can do that better than Draghi, both famous and notorious in Europe.

The Draghi plan is in line with the internal market, because it is about competitiveness. Draghi conjures up a ‘competitiveness compass’ with two goals: more decarbonization and more competitiveness. In the current situation, this is contradictory. Anyone who wants to implement climate policy even faster (fossil-free by 2050) completely torpedoes Europe’s competitive position. China and the US immediately jump into the gap. But Draghi is not to be fooled, because he wants a ‘Clean Industrial Deal’ after Timmermans’ Green Deal himself. This is an acceleration law with ‘action plans for decarbonisation of intensive sectors such as steel, metals and chemical products’.

Bureaucratic centralism

Draghi then launches a ‘compass’ that belongs in the GDR handbook of bureaucratic centralism. He formulates ‘three transformative, horizontal imperatives: innovation, decarbonisation and safety’. He then unleashes five ‘enablers‘ (kind of drivers) of competition vertically on this: simplification, fewer obstacles in the internal market, more competition on financial markets, quality jobs and better coordination. This mix should strengthen competitiveness.

It would be better if Draghi started by simplifying his own plan. It is a mystery what that 800 billion euros is needed for, albeit as a financial lubricant for his policy mix. Expensive, though. But Draghi will not do it for less than 800 billion.

Ursula von der Leyen cannot be left behind. The quarrel in the Oval Office of the White House between President Trump and his Ukrainian ‘counterpart’ Zelensky gave her the long-awaited opportunity to turn the EU into a military power factor: from toddler to giant in record time.

She immediately spoke of a ‘Wiederbewaffnung‘ (sounds different in German than in English) and the official title became: ‘ReArm Europe Plan’. She joined the leading group: 800 billion! ‘Uschi’ (her pet name among intimates) won’t settle for less. The EU wants to borrow money on the capital market, just like during the corona recovery fund: 150 billion euros. The Commission then lends that money on to member states that set up common defence production or make joint purchases. There must be a European internal defence market. It should be mentioned that Von der Leyen, as German Minister of Defense, left the Bundeswehr in a lamentable state, even though she took parades on horseback.

Box of tricks opens

For her 800 billion, however, the commission president is 650 billion euros short. The bag of tricks opens. The member states are in financial distress. The criteria of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) – a maximum budget deficit of 3 percent and public debt of a maximum of 60 percent of GDP – are widely violated. There is no room for a financial arms race, unless, for example, member states cut pensions, close hospitals, reduce education and lay off civil servants. This leads to a revolution on the home front.

Von der Leyen has a magic formula: 1.5 percent of GDP for defense does not count in the assessment of the SGP criteria. She invokes Article 26 of Regulation 2024/1263 which provides for a ‘national escape clause’ due to ‘extraordinary circumstances, beyond the control of the Member State, which have a major impact on finances’. The European average of defence spending is 1.5 percent of GDP. Some are far above it; others far below. With that Brussels arithmetic, Von der Leyen comes to an extra 650 billion euros for defense spending: 150 + 650 = 800. The European flag is flying.

It remains to be careful, because the Commission is setting its sights on European savings and pension assets: around 300 billion euros are held on capital markets outside the EU. This makes sense because capital flows to markets with the highest returns. They are happy with it. Not everyone is like pastor Harmen van Wijnen, chairman of the executive board of the ABP, who withdraws money from lucrative markets in faraway places because they are ‘not morally responsible’. As a pastor preaching in the pulpit of the capital market, he can now invest ABP’s assets in the ‘European arms industry’. The European Commission wants to bring that 300 billion euros back to the ‘European Capital Markets Union’, now renamed the term: ‘Savings and Investment Union’.

The question is: how long will this money bonanza last? The annoying thing is that loans have to be repaid. The corona recovery fund has already shown how quickly interest rates can rise, and with it the costs. Prices are also rising, especially in the defense market where there is now a huge demand, and delivery times are getting longer. Higher inflation undermines purchasing power, savings and pensions.

Debt bubble

There are bubbles in the European plans. Of the corona recovery fund, 52 percent is a gift and 48 percent is a loan. Who pays back those ‘gifts’? Repayment will start as early as 2028. Countries that received the most gifts, Italy and Spain, shout: no! – want a gift. Will net contributors in the Netherlands have to pay extra again? The interest costs make the corona recovery fund extremely expensive, up to about 860 billion; The coverage is buttery soft. Result: the call for European taxes.

All planned economies have failed so far. The Pavlovian reaction to failure is: plan even more. The European planners are blindly heading towards the debt bubble. It snaps. We just don’t know when. But at this rate certainly ‘within a lifetime’.

At the end of 2024, ‘Rechtsomkeert’, the new book by Derk Jan Eppink, was published. In it, he outlines in clear language how a political revolution is taking place in Europe, the United States and certainly also in the Netherlands. The book was published by Blauwburgwal Publishers, costs € 22.95 and can be ordered HERE.

Derk Jan Eppink is a Distinguished Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C. based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Hermann Tertsch and appeared in El Debate. La enajenación anti Trumpista)

Spain has now lived for many years with a polarised society. The reasons are obvious. An increasingly radicalised left decided to break the rules of the game, the laws and the Constitution. It brought the reopening of the civil war into political struggle, and in more than twenty years a great deal of crockery has been broken. If we add to that the fact that literally everything the current socialist rulers say, under the greatest liar of them all, Pedro Sánchez, is a lie, and that Spain has never been robbed as it is being robbed now, both in volume and in brazenness, there are reasons for extreme hostility in politics and in the media. Add to that the growing and ever more credible fear that those who commit so many crimes in power will be capable of anything, of absolutely anything, in order not to lose it.

Now another factor has burst into Spanish politics, and it has not merely sharpened the confrontation. It has shifted the front lines, or perhaps it has simply made more visible the real lines of the political and ideological fronts in Spain. That added factor of polarisation is the American president Donald Trump. The 45th and 47th president of the United States arouses passions everywhere. In his own country, so many that people have long spoken of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), which affects those whose hostility toward Trump has taken them to heights of irrationality that border on, or already amount to, deranged thought and conduct. That was already discussed during his first term, and it was also clear that this hostility found especially fertile ground in Europe and, of course, in Spain.

Trump is immensely polarising and generates as much enthusiasm and devotion as rejection, indignation and hatred. Even among many who applaud his policies and consider his intentions correct, who approve of his “script” as a good one, there are those who regret that he personally is a mistake of “casting”. Many believe that a more measured and less self-centred man would better play that role of leading a revolutionary change that resolutely fights the blights accumulated by the leftward drift across the West over the past 70 years. They believe that those personal traits and the overwhelming and chaotic elements of his passion, obsession and will endanger those political objectives of his, which in themselves are not only desirable for greater freedom and prosperity throughout the West, but absolutely necessary. Others of us think that all these defects are an inseparable part of his extraordinary qualities of tenacity, fighting spirit, endurance, drive, intelligence and enormous strength, which form part of a picture of absolutely extraordinary characteristics. And that without all his defects he could never have had the energy and the vision to deploy his very many virtues.

His overwhelming entry into this second term has “the world on tenterhooks” because many things have begun to happen that more and more citizens in the West wish would happen in their own countries, with a dismantling of the corruption, hypocrisy and ideological obediences that have taken root under the total social democratic hegemony imposed over the past half century in the West.

It is only logical that this should appal the social democratic forces that want to lead the West, supposedly by a gentler path than the communists, though that is no longer clear, toward a regime so egalitarian that it requires no freedoms. The governing elites believed they already had everything on track in this multilateral world in which soon nobody would think it necessary, nor would anybody be capable, to defend their identity, their history, their individuality, their nation, their family and their right to be different.

Social democracy today is Friedrich Merz as much as Olaf Scholz, Emmanuel Macron as much as Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Pedro Sánchez as much as Núñez Feijóo. By this I do not mean to equate one with another as persons, because some are criminals and some are not. But their political differences are of nuance and of pace in reaching the goal of equality and of their brave new world with absolute control of information and of wills. A few days ago the differences between socialists and People’s Party members became clear when they spoke about the delirious process of decarbonisation. Which is a pure programme for impoverishing the population by ideological decree. The People’s Party wants to ban the same things as the socialists, but three years later. These are the differences between the parties that govern in alliance in the European Union, which is today the spearhead of this process toward the final phase of socialism.

It is in order to interrupt that final phase radically and to correct the whole brutal Gramscian drift that the national parties have emerged all over Europe and the rest of the West. Trump is not one of them, because Trump emerges as a personal project with his ideological shifts and with the only real aim of serving the interests of the United States. The European national parties have had, since before Trump, very clear objectives in that defence of the interests of their respective nations. But Trump coincides in his objectives of renewal and reconstruction, and of war on hyper-regulation and on socialism, with the patriotic, national, conservative and sovereigntist parties of Europe.

Since in Spain Vox is the only party that carries the banner of the fight against that social democratic drift, it is VOX that receives all the charges of hostility that Trump generates around the world. It is true that there is also a great deal of political calculation, because there is a great deal of fear in the social democratic camp of the only party in Spain that is growing and the only one that offers a real alternative to what is in practice a single party with ill-matched tendencies. If with the PSOE’s civil-war rhetoric there were still doubts within the PP about where it stood, with Trump’s irruption the front has been clarified and the PP is with the PSOE against Trump and Abascal. The PP is with the PSOE, but also with the communists and even with the separatists, as was shown a few days ago in Rentería. And as we see in the European Parliament, where they all collaborate to deny posts and other rights to Vox and its allies.

Thus Santiago Abascal has become the target, on the one hand, of all the hatreds that Trump may generate through his policies, whose results, by the way, nobody yet knows because they are only beginning, but which everyone attacks and disparages. On the other hand, Abascal is also the head to be eliminated because he is the only leader in Spain who represents a national offer of reconstruction and freedom in the face of the socialist drift, which is ever more brutal and unscrupulous, and of the moral submission of a People’s Party that does not dare to oppose the party it always ends up imitating.

The aggressions, defamations, insults and outrages that are heard about Abascal and other Vox leaders often fall squarely within that delirium of Trump/Abascal Derangement Syndrome. Nevertheless, this whole process that is deranging so many has only just begun and there are many things that are going to move. And everything that Trump and the MAGA movement have endured, Abascal and Vox are prepared to withstand. For the first time in many years, and in the midst of enormous movements, dangers and upheavals, one can have hope and some certainty that, among the many things that are going to happen, quite a few will be very good.

Hermann Tertsch is a Distinguished Fellow (Honorary) at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Derk Jan Eppink and appeared in Wynia’s Week. Trump heeft de macht moralistisch Europa te degraderen tot een hok met kakelende kippen)

In The Hague, life-size placards of almost Eastern European proportions have been put up for the NATO summit on 24 and 25 June; but will it come to that, and if so, will American President Donald Trump come? Atlantic relations are a shambles. ‘Europe’ sees itself in a new role: as a strong force on its own continent. How many ‘battle-tested’ divisions does ‘Europe’ have, and what nuclear power does it possess to frighten the Great Bear, with its 6,500 warheads?

The arrival of Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House looked like a formality last week: the signing of the Raw Materials Agreement that would give the United States the right to exploit strategic minerals, in exchange for the military support it had received from America. Once again a ‘deal’, the key word as soon as the name of President Trump comes up.

The meeting was preceded by a visit of two European leaders to Washington; first French President Macron on 25 February and two days later British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Both presented superlative forms of flattery to please Trump, with Macron performing the most pirouettes. He has known Trump since his first term and knows how to charm him. Trump, impressed by the restoration of the Nôtre Dame, being himself a ‘builder’, praised Macron in every register.

Since the French president can hold his own, he had the honour of formulating Europe’s greatest wish: an American ‘backstop’ in Ukraine for European peacekeeping troops, after a ceasefire has been concluded. If the Europeans in Ukraine get into difficulties, à la Srebrenica, America would have to intervene with an iron fist to save the well-meaning Europeans. Weapons versus words. Macron even embraced and hugged the American president for a ‘backstop’. But it remained Siberian cold.

Then Prime Minister Starmer appeared in Washington with the same exercise; the Briton is clearly stiffer by nature than the agile Macron. Moreover, as a Labour politician he was still an outspoken ‘anti-Trump activist’ in 2020. Starmer made an extra effort, and he too came with the request for an American ‘backstop’. Again Trump stared grimly ahead. To save the meeting, Starmer pulled the joker from his sleeve: an invitation from King Charles for a state visit by Trump to the United Kingdom. Trump’s sense of honour was flattered and he accepted. Mission accomplished.

There was one last formality left, and that of all things became a disaster: the signing of the Raw Materials Agreement between Ukraine and the US. Never before had a fireside conversation, under the eye of cameras and journalists, got so far out of hand as the meeting between Trump and Zelensky.

The press conference, preceding the signing of the agreement, seemed to run smoothly, but exploded in the final minutes. What went wrong? During the first 40 minutes everything seemed to go easily, but that was an optical illusion. Tensions were piling up in the Oval Office, like odourless gas in an enclosed space. It seemed as though Trump and Zelensky were speaking about an ‘agreement’ that they each interpreted differently.

The body language spoke volumes. Trump sat there, full of expectation, calm, confident and relaxed. In his view, once again a ‘great deal’ of his own making. Zelensky’s body language was completely different. His posture was restless, uncertain and hesitant. He regularly asked for American ‘security guarantees’ preceding a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia. Trump’s answer was that the American presence in Ukraine for the extraction of the valuable minerals was already a sufficient security guarantee. ‘Those are not persons but American interests’, he said.

Zelensky kept shifting uncomfortably in his chair. He was not reassured and extended the theme to the ‘backstop’ that European states wanted for their peacekeeping troops. He ‘Europeanised’ his problem, but Trump, just as with Macron and Starmer, did not make a sound. Zelensky’s position came down to the fact that he did not want a ceasefire without American security guarantees. But America does not want to give them. In the eyes of the Americans it was about signing the Raw Materials Agreement, which was at the same time the security guarantee; two birds with one stone.

Everything remained calm as far as the seating went, but the tension built up further in Zelensky. He feared being portrayed as a Ukrainian Chamberlain if he simply had to give up the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia. Once again he took the opposite line; he did not want a ceasefire without a withdrawal of Russian troops from occupied territory.

Trump pointed out that ‘compromises’ would have to be made and that Ukraine did not have ‘the cards’ to change that situation. Trump wants haste. ‘The war has to stop and as quickly as possible.’ Did Zelensky see the horror image of Chamberlain; Trump imagined himself in the role of ‘Peacemaker’. The self-images of the two men did not match. Nor did their images of Putin. Zelensky sees the Russian leader as a ‘warmongering dictator’ and Trump sees him as a counterparty for a deal. Crook or no crook; the ‘deal’ comes first.

This mismatch and Zelensky’s rising nervousness led him to interrupt Vice President J.D. Vance when the latter, for the first time, said something and pointed out that an agreement had to be concluded ‘according to the rules of diplomacy’. At that moment Zelensky raised his tone and said: ‘What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about? What do you mean?’ The press conference turned into a quarrel between the contracting parties of the Raw Materials Agreement. Zelensky lectured Vance, who responded personally, and in the end Zelensky ended up in a row with Trump.

The debacle was unprecedented. There was a ‘deal’ on paper, but its meaning differed in the minds of the signatories. The signing did not go ahead, Zelensky was put outside the door and in the Kremlin the champagne bottles were undoubtedly popping.

On his way back to Europe Zelensky made a stopover in London, where he could join a summit meeting of European countries that support Ukraine, including the Netherlands. Zelensky was the hero there and was received by King Charles as if he had broken an Olympic record. But his visit to America was a train wreck. Only the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, pointed out to Zelensky that he ‘has to repair’ his relationship with Trump.

On Thursday Zelensky may take his seat again, this time in Brussels during a session of the European Council of heads of government, many of them in anti-American ecstasy. Only Italian Prime Minister Meloni keeps a cool head, which makes her suitable for a mediating role.

Europe is drifting towards the ravine. Trump can say: ‘Fine, Europe, sort it out for yourselves and have fun with Zelensky.’ America stops the support, by far the largest, sends no weapons to Ukraine and Article 5 of the NATO treaty becomes a dead letter. That reduces Europe to a coop of cackling chickens.

For Americans Ukraine is ‘far-away-istan’. The strategic map in Washington is broader: number 1 is China, the biggest rival. For America, Israel is a core point of American politics, both foreign and domestic. Trump may be seeking Russian support in order to put America’s arch-rival Iran in a vice. Moscow has seen many of its allies in the region weaken (Iran) and disappear (Syria).

In the world of power politics, Europe lives in a fairy tale of morality. America conducts Realpolitik, playing chess on three boards at once. Trump’s patience is limited. What will the NATO summit in The Hague look like at the end of June, if a summit takes place at all, with America?

Derk Jan Eppink is a Distinguished Fellow (Honorary) at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Derk Jan Eppink and appeared in Wynia’s Week. Duitsland moet nu stoppen met moraalpolitiek en aan machtspolitiek gaan doen)

Europe has come adrift in a turbulent world because Germany had lost its bearings. In the Bundestag elections the red-green camp was voted out. The initiative now lies with the CDU/CSU, and in particular with their candidate for chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said: ‘We need a functioning government. The world out there is not waiting for us. Germany is back!’ Let us hope that last part is true.

At present Germany behaves in the world like a small country, such as the Netherlands or Denmark. Invisible, overlooked, but full of good intentions. Europe’s strongest country is laid up and needs to get back on its feet quickly. Americans and Russians are negotiating about the future of Ukraine, without Ukraine. This week French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer travel to Washington D.C. to talk with President Donald Trump. Germany is sitting at home.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) is a decent man, but his party took an enormous beating: its worst result since 1890, when the SPD entered the Reichstag during the German Empire. The party of Friedrich Ebert, Reich President during the Weimar Republic, and of Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt, both chancellors of West Germany, has been demoted. It lost heavily in its strongest regions, such as the Ruhr area. In Gelsenkirchen the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) even became the largest party. Telling. Ordinary men and women have deserted the SPD.

With Friedrich Merz as chancellor things could turn out differently, but first he has to form a coalition with the SPD. That may take a while.

Germany must, however, return to the front rank of Europe, with insight and self-confidence. That is the task facing Merz. With a paralysed Germany, Europe becomes a playground for other, larger powers in the world. It would be good if the Dutch showed a little more trust in Germany, giving the country more self-confidence so that it becomes more self-assured.

Germany lived far too long under the illusion that the world improves if you give in and transfer money. Christoph Heusgen, the chairman of the Munich Security Conference (MSC), found that out recently. American Vice President J.D. Vance gave the hall a cold shower with his criticism of German migration policy and the restriction of freedom of expression. The criticism left the complacent conference-goers gasping for breath.

When Heusgen closed the conference, he said: ‘We have to fear that our common value base is not that common anymore.’ At that he burst into tears. Yet it was this same Heusgen, a confidant of former Chancellor Angela Merkel, who in 2018, as German ambassador to the United Nations, burst out laughing during the General Assembly when President Trump warned Germany about its dependence on Russian gas through Nord Stream 2. He was sitting there with the German foreign minister, Heiko Maas. They have since lost their appetite for laughter.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Trump’s re-election, the world has been in a ‘new era’. Some call that ‘geopolitics’, but geography has been the basis of all politics since antiquity. It is only that Europe, and above all Germany, assumed that ‘European core values’ would heal the world. Europe behaved as if it were morally superior.

Germany above all, among the large European countries, clung to ‘values politics’. Smaller countries do that because they have little else with which to make themselves bigger. Germany, the most populous country in Europe, actually makes itself smaller because it does not want to appear too big.

The differences between the German dream and the real world became visible after Trump’s return. Three great powers now have the same view of the world: the United States, Russia and China.

• For the trio, politics is by definition power politics; German politics believes above all in moral politics.
• The big three believe in hard power; Germany in soft power.
• Trump, Putin and Xi Jinping think unilaterally; the Germans multilaterally, and advocate a rule-based world order.
• The three presidents, two of them ‘president for life’, see themselves as the ‘Strong Man’; a concept Germany has (understandably) difficulty with.
• The three great powers think purely in terms of ‘national interest’. Germany thinks in terms of ‘common values’, such as climate policy.
• The US, Russia and China are proud of their armies. A soldier in Germany is defined as a ‘Staatsbürger in Uniform’.
• The big three are ideologically ‘anti-woke’; Germany rapidly became ‘woke’.

What applies to Germany applies to the Netherlands as well, but the difference is that Germany is the largest country in Europe and has to display ‘Führung’, while making itself nervous in the process.

It is up to Merz, chancellor-in-waiting, to fulfil that role, as quickly as possible. He must show leadership in Europe and on that basis enter into talks with larger powers. The key word is power. The first test: Ukraine.

Trump and Putin want to settle the Ukraine question between themselves, without Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was brusquely pushed aside by Trump. He did so in a blunt manner, just as he did during the campaign with rivals in his own country. In 2016 Marco Rubio, senator from Florida, was a presidential candidate, but Trump ridiculed him as ‘little Marco’. Rubio broke out in a sweat and gave up, which did not prevent Trump from later appointing him secretary of state. After the punishment Trump is friendly again. Diplomacy, however, works differently from the practices of ‘Saloon Donald’.

In the negotiations around Ukraine, Merz will have to hold his own against Trump. Merz knows the Americans; for years he was the top man in Germany for the American asset manager BlackRock. There he had to think in terms of power and money, not morality.

According to the former head of the British intelligence service MI6, Sir Alex Younger, Trump makes the mistake of thinking that Ukraine is about ‘land’. Yet no country has more land than Russia. ‘Trump thinks this is about territory, characteristically as a real estate guy. It’s about land, giving land to Russia in return for peace. And Putin said it’s about sovereignty’, Younger said recently on BBC Newsnight. ‘He will not stop until Ukraine isn’t a country anymore.’ On the other side of the world Chinese President Xi Jinping is watching. If Trump bungles Ukraine, what does that mean for Chinese aspirations regarding Taiwan?

Germany and its new chancellor must learn again to think in terms of Otto von Bismarck. In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS) of 22 February, Jochen Buchsteiner observed that European NATO member states may have to take on the costs of the American military presence in Europe. That means, alongside the necessary extra investments in defence, an additional price tag. Which raises the question: who is going to pay for that?

Poland advocates a ‘European Defence Fund’ modelled on the Corona Recovery Fund, which raised 800 billion euros in loans on the capital market. Many European euro countries already have a national debt above the ceiling of 60 percent of GDP: Germany is at 63, France at 113, Italy at 130. The Netherlands sits neatly below 50 percent.

Europe has to get used to the world of hard power. In October 1944 Winston Churchill travelled to Moscow to conclude a ‘secret agreement’ with Joseph Stalin on the division of spheres of influence in Eastern Europe, preferably around 50/50. When the Soviet army stood in Berlin, the division became very simple: Eastern Europe 100/0 for Stalin. Putin is an admirer of Stalin and repeats his recipes.

Germany must therefore not ‘play Holland’ but once again be part of the club of large countries, in order to throw its geopolitical weight into the scales. It is time for Chancellor Merz to begin the ‘cultural turn’ in his own country.

Derk Jan Eppink is a Distinguished Fellow (Honorary) at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.