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“If Europe remains an appendage of the US, it will become an insignificant part of the world”

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With the Ukraine war, anti-Russian sanctions, the economic downturn and US-China tensions, Europe seems to be once again engulfed in a major crisis. The level of integration that the Old Continent has reached once again calls for a pan-European rather than a “national” way out.

German researcher, writer and publisher Hauke Ritz has been analyzing Germany, Russia and West-Russia relations for more than 15 years. Ritz says that this work dates back to 2007, when he began to realize that in the future there would be a strong geopolitical confrontation, if not war, between the US and Russia. “And once you understand that,” he says, ”it’s hard to find a more important topic.”

This issue, the German author says, has “to some extent taken over” his life. In order to grasp the “deeper causes” of this tension, he says, he began learning the Russian language and visiting Russia.

One of Ritz’s most striking theses is that the concept of “the West” and “Europe” do not coincide. For him, “the West” refers to the post-World War II order and is clearly the name of US hegemony over Europe. “Europe”, on the other hand, is a continent that dates back thousands of years, a continent of both peace and war, a continent of Enlightenment, revolutions and Reformation, but never ruled by the hegemony of a single power, an oasis of multipolarity, culturally united but politically separate, a place of balance of power…

Hence, when Europe finds itself again, free from the “Western” hegemony of the last 75 years, it will not only become one of the poles in a “multipolar world”, but will also enter a “multipolar” era within itself. How will this happen and through whom? Whether Rtiz has an answer to this is up to the reader.

Hauke Ritz’s new book: Vom Niedergang des Westens zur Neuerfindung Europas [From the Decline of the West to the Reinvention of Europe] To order: https://mediashop.at/buecher/vom-niedergang-des-westens-zur-neuerfindung-europas/

Let’s start with the first part of the title of your book. The “decline of the West” is a recurrent theme in European history. In what sense do you use this term popularized by Spengler and his followers? Do you agree with the idea that the West is in decline? Or to put it another way, how many collapses of the West is this?

First of all, I didn’t refer to Oswald Spengler in the book because I think the decline we see today is a very different kind of decline. At that time, the West as we know it today didn’t really exist. We will come back to this fact later. I just want to point out that today we are seeing the collapse of the West at a tremendous pace in many areas, and we get the impression that it is really accelerating year by year, month by month, and it is becoming very visible.

Compare the current situation with 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down. At that time, most of Eastern Europe and even the Soviet republics were influenced by the West, its products, its music, its way of life, its model of civilization. The same was true for many countries in the south, in the Global South and in the east. At that time, the West was the only manifestation of modernity in the world.

After the Soviet Union collapsed and the system of socialist states dissolved, the West had a kind of monopoly on modernity, on the interpretation of the modern world. And everyone wanted to be connected to this world, whether it was through movies, through products, or by emigrating to a Western country. The West also had the image of democracy, of a just, rich and prosperous society, of innovation.

Now look at what the West stands for today. For sanctions, for war, for strange ideologies like the LGBT movement… which is causing heads to shake not only in the Global South and the East, but also in the West itself. So the Western world has lost not only its moral superiority, but also its soft power, its charm.

And not only that. We no longer see the interpretation of modernity in modern China, we started to see modern India, and Russia has also come back as a great civilization. So the West is in a very different situation now, and the loss of the appeal of its status as a model of civilization is something that I think is too serious to be repaired in a short period of time.

That’s what I always use: Western world. Of course, the opposite term that should be used in this context is Europe. And Europe is something quite different from the West.

We will come to that in a moment. I think you see Europeans and westerners as separate identities and civilizations. Do you think that the US is what we should understand by the West at the moment? And what is the difference between the US vision of the world and the European world?

There are so many differences. I really think that western civilization and European civilization are quite different concepts in many ways.

First of all, the West is something quite new. How long has the West really been around? The West as we know it today first appeared after the Second World War, and at that time it was basically the American sphere of influence that was created by military expansion during the Second World War, and where the soldiers stopped, the West stopped.

North Korea was not part of the West, but South Korea was. The same is true for Germany. East Germany was not part of the West, but West Germany was. So the accidental movements during the war created a sphere of influence and it was called the West.

Of course, you can make an argument, “No, the West is older.” There were revolutions in Western European states. The French Revolution, the English Revolution, the Dutch and others. Yes, but these were also countries that not only made revolutions, but also established colonies in overseas empires. Maybe this is also connected. If you have a big trade over the seas, you have a lot of merchants who start competing with the aristocracy and then you are more likely to have revolutions.

But these early stages of the West were not united. There was a lot of competition between them. But in the late 19th and early 20th century, we see that this rivalry started to turn into a kind of alliance. For example, the Entente Cordiale between Great Britain and France, then the alliance between Great Britain and the United States. This could be a kind of embryo of the West as we know it today.

But the West in general is not more than 100 years old. So it’s a very young entity and it includes North America on the one side and the Europe of the European Union today, which includes the Slavic states like Poland on the other side. And then you have South Korea, Taiwan and Japan. So culturally speaking, these are very different countries, very different parts of the world, influenced by different religions, and all united by one factor: American domination, American hegemony.

So in the end, you come to the conclusion that the West is basically this American hegemony. There is a lack of a cultural base, there is a lack of history.

Europe, on the contrary, is something quite different. Europe is 2500 years old. Europe started with the model of democracy in ancient Greece and democracy came back to Europe in modern times with the French revolution and other revolutions.

But there is a long period in between when Europe had quite different models of government and a different way of organizing its society.

So Europe is an entity that has a vast history of quite different periods and epochs, but there is still something that can define the whole of this time, which is more than 2000 years. So the concept of Europe is much more complex and much deeper than the concept of the West.

Do you think Europeans have some antidote to the West?

Europe, of course, belongs to Western Europe and Western Europe is that part of Europe that started to have colonies expanding overseas and then it became the west. So maybe some Western elements also belong to Europe.

But Europe is more the center of Europe. Germany, Italy are not usually seen as part of the West. They didn’t have big empires overseas for centuries. They were organized in a decentralized way. Then you have the Slavic peoples in the east. So Europe is all of that.

And the term Western suggests that there is a single model for this whole area and the whole history of Europe. Europe is also defined by its achievements in art, literature, music and philosophy. It is also defined by Christianity and Christian history. It is also defined by references to antiquity. That is, by the memory of the ancient Greek culture in ancient Rome, which was common to all European states and created a kind of unified field of knowledge and reference for all European states, for example through Latin and the ancient Greek language. So there is much more to Europe than the West.

There is also a big difference in terms of the concept of world order. The US is protected by two oceans. Nobody can harm them. If they wage a war on another shore, they can be sure that there will be no repercussions for them, that nothing will come back to them.

This was not the case in Europe. Europe has had enormous wars for as long as it has existed. One of the most brutal periods in European history was the Thirty Years’ War in Germany in the 17th century. But there were also civil wars in other European states.

What Europe learned from this war was that you cannot wage war and foreign policy on values. If you start making the issue of Catholicism and Protestantism part of your foreign policy, part of your national expansion, then you will have never-ending wars.

You are pointing to the Westphalian system.

Yes, it is. So after this war, the Westphalian system was created, where these young nation states learned to respect their differences, that each state has the right to manage its own internal affairs and that there should be no outside influence.

Every state, despite its population size and power, was equally a subject of international law, and this was a great civilizational achievement, which of course was lost again and again in the centuries that followed. But this was a very different concept of world order. A world order that accepted multipolarity, that did not interfere with each other, that started to think about each other’s otherness, that accepted the simultaneous existence of various powers.

The US has a completely different conception of world order. First of all, they think that they are somehow chosen by God, that they have a manifest destiny given to them by God. The concept of a sacred mission means that they think they can only get stronger, stronger and stronger. Therefore, the task of ruling the world belongs to them. And they are an indispensable nation. American exceptionalism. That’s why the whole history of American foreign policy is defined by the fact that they cannot be partners. They cannot partner with anyone else because they always think they are superior to others. They always think they have a better system than others.

And that’s why the Americans have so far found it difficult to make a treaty with, for example, Russia or China that they can really stick to because they always think that other nations, other states don’t have the kind of democracy that we have, that the people there are oppressed.

So the contract that we have now is only for a while, because the state that we have this contract with is not as developed as we are. It is not elected in the same way as we are.

This is basically a tragedy because the United States has not been able to create partnerships because of this notion of sacred mission, exceptionalism, indispensable nation. Instead of creating partnerships with Europe, with Germany, with France, with Italy, it has slowly but surely transformed Europe into a kind of colonial status. This is also a tragedy for America itself, because if Europe was a partner for the United States, it could have influenced it in a positive way. For example, we could have avoided many of the mistakes that American foreign policy has made in the Middle East or with Russia.

But because America does not see Europe as a partner, it has learned nothing from us. They always acted as if they already knew everything. This has led to a foreign policy that has antagonized much of the world.

The US now has a contradictory relationship not only with Russia, which is at war, but also with China, with Iran, increasingly with Turkey, with the Arab world, with Africa and Latin America, where they have waged enormous wars and destruction. So there is no area of civilization left in the world where the US has a normal relationship, not even with India.

And this is very destructive for the US because the US has basically created a kind of counter-alliance by antagonizing all the other major nations or civilizations in the world.

BRICS was created by the US, the US created BRICS, even though they were not intended to do that, but BRICS is basically the child of US foreign policy.

So you talked about two very, very different mindsets. On one side you have the manifest destiny, American exceptionalism, and on the other side you have the Westphalian system of Europe. After the Second World War, the unity of Europe was against the Soviet Union and communism, but at the same time it was doing it in conjunction with the hegemony of the United States on the continent. How did they achieve this hegemony over the continent? Or in other words, why did the Europeans allow the Americans to lead them against the Soviet Union?

Europe, as I mentioned earlier, had been organized for centuries as a kind of balance of power. After the Second World War it was difficult to go back to this system. I think the Soviet Union would have wanted to go back to that system because the Soviet Union was already a very large country and it was a burden to control more states outside of itself, especially if you think of the huge destruction that the Second World War caused in the most populated areas of the Soviet Union.

So the Soviet Union had no interest in controlling a large part of Europe and it certainly had no interest in controlling all of Europe. This may explain why, for example, in 1952, the Soviet Union made the offer that it would withdraw its forces from Germany for neutrality, that Germany could be reunified if it became neutral like Austria. But this offer was rejected by the West German government and by the United States, which wanted to keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down.

Now the Americans were there and they started. For them Europe was a kind of gegenko, as we say in German, the opposite shore. So for the US, as a naval power, it was very important for them to control the opposite shore of the ocean and that was Europe and they wanted to stay there.

In their mentality, they saw their presence in Europe as a kind of trophy or a victory because they had the impression that they had a better system. And the US was populated by people who fled Europe because of political oppression or religious oppression. That is why to this day many Americans have a negative impression of Europe. For them Europe is a place that is not as free and democratic as they are. Returning to Europe after the Second World War meant for them that now they had to fix Europe.

They didn’t really do that. Of course there are some Americans who admire European art, literature and philosophy, but on the whole they look down on Europe more than they respect it. For them it was not a problem to reshape, to reorganize European culture. They also wanted to unify it, to create a kind of alliance against the Soviet Union. Because the United States saw itself as an exceptional nation with a sacred mission, they could not accept that there was another nation like the Soviet Union that had a project of socialism and an idea for humanity. So they wanted to dominate, I think.

For the Soviet Union, of course, the American presence on the European continent was a danger because Russia had experienced for several centuries that it could live in peace with Europe as long as there was a balance of power. But every once in a while Europe unites, for example under Napoleon, and then attacks Russia. Or Europe united under Hitler and the conquest of Nazi Germany and then attacked Russia. Now the American presence on the European continent means that Europe is once again united under American rule. For Moscow, this meant the danger of being attacked once again. That’s why they were in Eastern Europe.

Even so, they didn’t really want that.

Which brings us to Russia, to the question of Russia’s relationship with the West. Do you think it is possible to have, for example, a European security architecture that includes Russia again? Or will the Kantian idea of “perpetual peace” prevail? Or will post-EU Europe be a continent of wars? Because even if Europe, even if the European Union disintegrates, it is possible that the axis of Germany and France or only the axis of Germany will prevail. A post-EU Europe because Germany is still the biggest economy in Europe. It has a lot of opportunities to steer other countries.

No, no. It is not possible for the reason I just mentioned. I just said that Europe has always been organized as a balance of power, which means that if there is only one power ruling Europe, it means that Europe is destabilized. This is not good for Europe.

Germany may be the most powerful country in Europe, but it is not strong enough to rule Europe on its own. That’s the beauty of Europe, there are so many states in Europe and some of them are equally powerful: France and Germany, Britain, Italy, Spain, they are all similar, they are the biggest and they balance each other. I think that Europe can only be governed in such a balance, and the countries between which this balance is realized may differ from century to century.

In the era of the European Union, there was the German-French axis, which was a way of rebuilding or replicating this balance. Also, Germany is not very popular in the rest of Europe because of the legacy of the Second World War. Germany has friends. In China, in Japan, in Russia, Germany is highly respected. If you are far away from Germany, Germany is respected. But if you are close to Germany, in Poland, in France, in Great Britain, Germany is not so respected. For all these reasons Germany cannot unite Europe, it cannot and must not lead Europe. Europe has to organize itself in this similar balance of powerful forces.

Then you mentioned the issue of Russia. As soon as the European states or Europe as a whole understands its interest, it will very quickly start organizing a peace with Russia, if peace is possible. Because it is in Europe’s interest.

If you look at European history, you will see that Europe has been strong in times of peace and weak in times of war. In the United States it is the opposite. The US is strong in times of war and weak in times of peace. That’s why Europe needs peace.

Moreover, Russia is part of Europe. So when we talk about Europe, we are automatically talking about Russia and if we exclude Russia from Europe, it is like excluding a large region from China or an important province from India.

So in addition to the integrity of the continent, which can be shown geographically on a map, to exclude Russia from Europe culturally would be to exclude, for example, a great achievement of classical music from Europe. Tchaikovsky, Rahmaninov or the legacy of literature, philosophy or socialism is also part of Europe. The whole history of Eastern Europe during the Cold War is linked to Russia.

So Europe can only be healthy and have a future if it includes all of Europe. A Europe that excludes Russia will be badly divided and will probably have no sovereignty over its own cultural development.

Then we are once again in this distinction between the concept of the West and the concept of Europe. For the first time in history Europe is ruled by an outside power, a power that is located in a completely different geography, on a completely different continent, and it is called the West. You have pushed Russia and Russian culture out of Europe in order to maintain this artificial entity called the West. You have removed the memory that Russian culture and Russian influence is a natural part of Europe, like Italian culture and Italian influence or Spanish culture and Spanish influence. If you have the concept of the West, you will always have borders in the East.

But if we look at the concept of Europe, there is no need for a border in the east. Because Europe has been organized for centuries in a kind of balance of power, it can extend this concept even beyond the borders of Europe. And to some extent, the idea that Europe is organized in a balance of similar powerful states is a concept that very well represents the idea of BRICS, the concept of bricks of a multipolar world made up of similar powerful states like China, India, Russia, which are completely different from each other, but which accept certain ideas about the organization of the world order.

So we can say that we need to cut Russia off from Europe in order to have a US hegemony on the continent, in Europe.

Yes, this is in the interest of the United States. They want to sanctify this European interpretation of the West. So what we call the West today is basically the American interpretation of European culture.

The Americans themselves came from Europe, so they carry the heritage of European culture with them. But for a long time they lived on a different continent, in a different climate, in a different geographical situation. They are also a melting pot of nations. They have a completely different life experience and a completely different space than you have in Europe. Under these conditions, this European culture changed, which became the United States. Now American culture still has European roots, but it has become something different.

This half European, half non-European culture of the United States came back to Europe after the Second World War and started transforming Europe, reshaping Europe in the image of the United States and the EU. The European Union was an attempt to create a kind of copy of the United States in Europe.

And this is also the mistake of the European Union. The mistake of the European Union is that the European Union is not European. It has no connection with the history of European ideas. It does not refer to the 19th century. It does not refer to the 18th century, to the 17th century. It does not even refer to ancient times.

More than 20 years ago, when the European constitution was being planned, some people wanted to write a quote from the famous ancient Greek politician Pericles. Later this quote was removed because it was not politically correct. Pericles might have said something wrong about some minorities. They could not accept Pericles any more and so the quote was removed. This shows you the relationship of the European Union to European history.

Or look at the banknotes of Europe. Maybe I have one in my pocket. This is very meaningful. Here it is. This is a five euro note. Here you see a kind of building. This building is not real. It’s artificial. Fantasy. This bridge isn’t real either. It’s just an artificial bridge imagined by a painter.

So Europe has a very negative relationship with its own history and culture. So much so that we cannot even represent our own architecture on our banknotes.

So you think that in order to become more European, you need to get rid of the European Union as an institution?

This is of course dangerous. We have to look at the reality we have now. Right now we have the euro. There is a huge interconnection between different economies. We have a lot of interdependence within the European Union. The dissolution of the European Union would be catastrophic. Just like the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which created a lot of poverty and civil war. So nobody wants that.

So I think this is a very complex question and I don’t have a final answer to this question. Of course the EU needs at least some kind of restructuring. It needs to be fundamentally reformed. I don’t know whether it is possible or not. Maybe history will show how it will happen, what will happen. Maybe some states will start to leave the EU. Because history shows very clearly that a state that has no real identity of its own, that is built only on the basis of dependencies and laws, is a very weak entity and can disintegrate. And this could also happen to the EU.

Of course, if the European Union really disintegrates, it could be a very ugly process because the economic consequences would be enormous.

But one way or the other, do you think we are heading towards a post-EU era?

You see, there is the emergence of BRICS in the world right now. I just mentioned that BRICS is basically built by the shortcomings of American foreign policy, by its arrogance and selfish behavior.

What is interesting about the BRICS concept is that it includes very different civilizations and some of these civilizations are also states. For example, China is a state but it is also a civilization. India is a state but it is also a civilization. The same can be said about Iran.

In the case of Russia it is more complicated because Russia is also part of the European civilization. Some Russians deny it and say no, we are Eurasian in a similar way to Europe. But if you are in Russia, you see and feel European culture in every corner. So it is really difficult to separate Russia from Europe.

But the concept of civilization state is a very interesting concept or a very interesting term. The question is: Can Europe be a civilization state? The answer is both yes and no.

Yes, it can be, because for the whole history of Europe, after the fall of the Roman Empire, Europe was somehow united. Europe was politically divided but culturally united through the church and the Christian faith and also through the monasteries that were established in many different parts of Europe, all trying to remember the old history, the old literature and writings.

And this went on for 1500 years, Europe was united either through Christianity, through religion, through the church, or later on through the philosophy of humanism, the Enlightenment and the exchange of literature.

For example, different European writers wrote in different languages, but they were always reading each other. In the 18th and 19th centuries, it sometimes took only months for the first translation. All important authors caused a reaction in other countries where they were introduced in translation. German philosophy influenced not only Germany but the whole of Europe. The same is true for the French Revolution.

So Europe is a kind of, in Germany we call it a resonance chamber, a resonance chamber where cultural styles, architectural and painting styles ripple across the continent.

At the same time, we have political fragmentation. This is unique in the world because all other parts of the world are organized differently. If you look at China, for example, China was politically united even though it had many different languages and peoples. The same is true for India. I think the same is true for the Arab world and Russia. So in most parts of the world, at some point you have some kind of political unity.

In Europe, it never happened. It never really happened. There were attempts, for example Napoleon tried, Hitler tried with his strange and brutal ideas, but it always failed.

In the end, we have again political fragmentation with a kind of cultural unity. I think this is a model for the future. If Europe can represent this model, it will also be a mirror of the multipolar world, because in the multipolar world there are different centers of power that are in some kind of balance with each other.

Europe can become a pole of the multipolar world and at the same time represent multipolarity in itself.

This brings us to the second and last part of the title of your book, which is the reinvention of Europe. How can Europe reinvent itself and what elements in Europe have that energy?

First of all, we need to understand the difference between Europe and the West. We need to understand that we have lost a lot in the last 80 years because Europe has tried to make itself more like the West, or because the European Union has tried to reconstruct Europe as a mirror, a kind of copy of the U.S. We need to recognize these differences and then we need to start reclaiming what we really are.

I think these processes are going on in a different way in every European country. I think once we understand once again what Europe really is, what Europe can offer to the world and what has been done to us in the last 80 years, I think we can start to build a kind of European union that will once again be built on culture, history and a complex understanding of culture, which will once again have a kind of utopia in terms of education and civilization.

In the 21st century we are facing great challenges. For example artificial intelligence, genetic engineering. Europe has something to offer in this regard. We have the heritage of humanism and Enlightenment. So we can start with a kind of intellectual discourse, if we really need to do everything we can, because in other parts of the world, especially in the United States, there is a tendency to do everything possible in the field of technology.

Europe can make a different proposal to the world. Let’s try to control technology. Let’s try to put the human being first so that technology adapts to the human being and not vice versa. Europe can also become a neutral part of the world, like a global Switzerland, where intellectual discussions can take place on artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, but also on the preservation of culture.

Europe has a special opportunity to play this role in the 21st century. This is because Europe has influenced the rest of the world for the last 500 years. Since the rise of the Spanish and Portuguese empires, world culture has gradually become Europeanized. If we are in Latin America today and there are political debates, people use terms from European political philosophy to discuss their internal differences. The same is true for other parts of the world.

There is only one world culture in the world, and it has been largely shaped by Europe for several centuries. That is why Europe is now in a very good position to offer a place for discussion, meeting and exchange of ideas on civilizational issues in the 21st century, which will perhaps also be accepted by other civilizations, although they are interested in developing their own traditions.

Maybe in the future we will see a Chinese world culture or an Indian world culture, an Islamic world culture. I don’t exclude it, I welcome it, but it will take time, because if you want to transform your regional culture into a world culture, you have to create art, you have to create, you have to create, you have to write books, you have to create a philosophy, you have to create music that can be attractive to other people in other parts of the world, and this cannot be done in one generation. It cannot be done even in two generations. It needs time.

Europe has already done it for the last 300, 400 years. This is a kind of heritage not only for Europe but for the world and it has to be preserved. That’s why Europe has to be sovereign, it has to be independent, it has to be an independent pole in a multipolar world, not some kind of appendage of the United States, not some kind of American colony that sees itself through American glasses and unfortunately has a kind of colonial consciousness as it is today.

So we have to overcome the colonial consciousness that we have today and start to see what we really are, what we are with our good sides, what we are with our bad sides.

Of course a lot of bad things have happened in Europe. You mentioned colonialism, especially from the Western European states. Yes, there is a bad legacy, but at the same time Europe has given something to the world and we have to see both, the bad and the good. It is not very healthy to see only one side.

So do you think Germany can play a special role in this process? I mean, when you talk about Germany and its special role, it’s a bit terrifying because Germany has historical burdens. But is it still possible for Germany to play a leading role in what you call multipolarity in Europe, as a pole in a multipolar world?

Yes, Germany can be a pole in a multipolar Europe. Of course, like France, like Italy, like other important states and regions, there should be such a pole.

Of course, at the moment Germany is most affected by the current crisis, by the war in Ukraine, for example, the high energy prices have led to a kind of deindustrialization in Germany. So we are starting to feel it.

Usually Germany is not a place where active revolutions take place. Our revolutions, the German Peasants’ War or the Revolution of 1918, of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, all failed.

If there was a revolution in Germany, it was a political revolution. Of course you can say that fascism was a kind of political revolution, which was quite ugly and of course not something we want to point out.

But if you look at history, there were spiritual or intellectual revolutions that came out of Germany. Martin Luther, for example, came up with the idea of Protestantism, which was a reform of the church, which was also a kind of revolution. But it was more of a mental thing, it was not an active political revolution.

The same was true of the idea of socialism, which was rooted in the history of German thought. Marx was, after all, a German philosopher. So maybe in this sense something can come out of Europe, maybe out of Germany. Maybe some Germans can offer an idea.

But I think other European countries are also important. France is important, with its legacy of revolution and activism. Italy is important, Eastern European countries are important.

I think in the end we will see something coming from various corners of Europe. From one side comes an idea, from another side comes political turmoil. And from another corner of Europe a reasonable reform can be realized. In the end they will contribute and help each other.

But right now we are at a crossroads. What if Europe remains as it is now, it will become an insignificant part of the world; it will not be able to play a role as an appendage of the United States; its wealth will decline, its population will probably decline; European societies will lose their coherence and identity and Europe will become an insignificant and poor part of the world.

Nowadays we are beginning to see the situation and we are beginning to come back to ourselves. I think there are forces in Europe that are interested in this. Not only the normal population, but also what we have in Europe, in Germany, what we call Mittelstand in Germany, which are small-scale factories with a hundred or 800 employees, but big businesses that are very specialized in a certain product.

So there is still a lot of wealth in Europe. So there are forces that can do something. I think these processes are already going on.

I can’t see what will happen in the future. I can’t describe to you how this change will happen. Maybe it will come in a surprising way. Just like the change in 1989 happened in a surprising way. Many people thought that the wall would be there for the next 20 years and suddenly, overnight, it disappeared.

So history is completely unpredictable. History is always a surprise. If we have a vision of the future, we can be sure that this vision will not manifest itself 100%. History is always different from what we think.

But I am sure that there is a lot at stake right now. 2500 years of history, 2500 years of emerging cultural complexity, emerging civilization. All this should not be for nothing. Europe is important not only for Europe but for the world.

And I think a Europe that is once again faithful to its tradition of history, literature, philosophy will be respected in the world. Still, we have the legacy of colonial atrocities. But there are always two sides. So I see a future for a cultural and intellectual consciousness for Europe. Maybe this is possible.

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INTERVIEW

‘China will be the primary international issue for the second Trump term’

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3 days ago

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18/12/2024

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Guy B. Roberts, one of the most influential figures in the Trump administration, former Assistant Secretary of Defense and former Deputy Secretary General at NATO, spoke to Harici: “China will be, I think, the primary international issue for the United States. The various statements by the leadership in China indicate that there will continue to be a strong push to fully integrate Taiwan within the Chinese political structure. I think that will be one of the big challenges in the first year of the Trump administration.”

Under former President Donald Trump, Guy B. Roberts served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs and was former Deputy Secretary General at NATO for weapons of mass destruction defense.

Guy B. Roberts answered Dr. Esra Karahindiba’s questions on the expectations for the second Trump term in terms of foreign and domestic policy.

I know that you have been closely working with Donald Trump in his previous cabinet as you were Assistant Deputy Secretary of Defense. You know how his policies were before, and you may foresee how it’s going to continue from January. What is your primary expectation at this point?

Well, it’s actually quite exciting because I think that President Trump has really made it clear that he intends to follow through on all of his campaign promises. He’ll likely focus almost immediately on the immigration issue—the illegal immigration into the United States—and also on revamping the tax structure to maximize tax reductions for middle-class Americans.

On the international side, I fully expect him to put pressure on allies and partners to do more for their defense and meet the commitments they’ve made regarding spending 2% or more of their GDP on defense. That was a key element in his first administration, and I actually was with him at NATO headquarters, where we talked at length about the need for our allies to step up. Once he gets his team in place, I see those things being critical upfront. Of course, the U.S. system is such that it’ll take probably six months before that happens.


Let’s talk about Ukraine. Trump promised to end the Ukraine war, stating he could do so in 24 hours. His aides continue to repeat this claim today. Considering the war is taking a negative turn for Ukraine in recent months, will Trump be able to bring peace to Ukraine? Also, do you think Russian President Vladimir Putin will accept a ceasefire or a peace deal?

That’s the real challenge. I think it’s unrealistic to expect that he can resolve this in 24 hours, as President Trump claims. It’s much more complicated than that. However, I do think he will engage directly with President Putin. I can see that happening, where he’ll pressure Putin to agree to a ceasefire and take steps toward resolving this issue.

Ukraine may not be enthusiastic about giving up territory, but I do think that given the situation in the situation such as the introduction of new weapons systems, the recent intermediate ballistic missiles that Russians fired on Ukraine, Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk region of Russia can set the stage for quid pro quo type of negotiation where each side gives up something at least at the beginning in return for a ceasefire. Peace, I believe, is going to take much longer than 24 hours.

President Biden, nearing the end of his term, has made some significant moves that could complicate things for Trump. For instance, he signed a bill allowing Ukraine to use U.S.-made long-range missiles against Russia. Secondly, he sanctioned Gazprombank, which is crucial for Russian international money transfers and energy trade. Several other banks are placed in sanction list. What is Biden trying to do just before leaving his post? Is he leaving some bombs in the hands of Trump?

I believe that’s certainly in the back of his mind. He’s setting the stage for successful negotiations, whether he wants to give Trump the credit or not. His administration will probably deny that. I do think that given the kinds of things the long-range fires that he’s now authorized in, the additional increases in military hardware that he’s agreed to and his encouragement by other allies to do the same, is helping and will help in arriving at a successful ceasefire negotiation.
About Trump’s upcoming second term presidency, European leaders were not really enthusiastic and they’re not happy. Some of them are not happy that president-elect Trump is going to return to White House. What kind of reorganization do you anticipate from Europe to a new Trump era? From an alliance standpoint, the Secretary General Rutte has been a very enthusiastic supporter and a campaigner, if you will, just like his predecessor, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to see that the Allies do more.  I think overall they have been doing more. I mean, we’ve had, I believe, over 21 countries now meeting the 2% military spending on GDP, and the others are on the road to doing so. The newer allies, like Finland and Sweden, have shown very robust spending on defense and training, even to the point of producing manuals for the population to undertake certain activities in the event there should actually be a war. That, I think, has deterrence value. The message being sent by the alliance is that we are an alliance, and that if you cross that line and attack any of us, you have to face all of us. Likewise, we have seen in the Indo-Pasific region reaching out to building a coalition with partners in the region including of course Australia and New Zealand but also Vietnam. We just recently sold them some training jets and other countries as well. The Trump Administration will probably be less focused on Alliance building and more focused on one-on-one relationships that are self-supporting in terms of defense. That might be a shift in what we’ll see happening between the Trump and Biden administrations.

You mean that Trump will prefer a personal diplomacy instead of a corporate diplomacy.

Yes, I think whereas Biden administration has been building coalition for example we have The Five Eyes, a group of countries reaching out to build a new interconnected relationship very similar to similar actually to what was attempted back in the late 50s and early 60s of something called SETO, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization which was tried to mimic the NATO alliance.  For a variety of reasons SETO didn’t work out and it fell apart.

But now that be in light of the Chinese aggressive behavior and it’s claims over the South China Sea and other areas, its belligerency against Taiwan and its refusal to agree to or accept the opinions by the international court of justice on the law of sea claims, the Hostile relationship they’ve had with the Philippines, so outlining islands all of that makes that particular region a potential hotspot. The recognition that the only way that there’s going to be an ability to stop and deter China from continuing and acting in that way is to build these relationships. And I think you’ll see a lot of enthusiasm for doing so.

Talking about personal diplomacy and personal relationships how would you describe a potential relationship between Trump and Xi Jinping, Trump and Macron, Trump and President Erdogan?

That’s a very important area, and I’m not sure exactly how the Trump Administration is going to proceed. However, I believe that President Trump places a lot of value on personal relationships with national leaders. That’s why I think he’s more comfortable and will be more comfortable building one-on-one relationships as opposed to forming large partnerships.

I would expect to see much more of this one-on-one approach, with Trump meeting with various presidents and prime ministers throughout the region that he considers key to establishing strategic stability, whether it be in Southeast Asia, the alliance partnership, the Mediterranean, or elsewhere. I think we can expect him to be much more proactive in building personal relationships than we saw in the Biden Administration.

Okay, talking about Trump and Erdoğan, and the cooperation and challenges between the US and Turkey, let’s discuss that a bit.  Especially the PYD issue, which is a significant issue for Turkey.  The US is trying to beat one terror group by using another, particularly as Turkey is a NATO ally but the US still ignores regarding Ankara’s concerns about the PYD.  That’s Turkey’s number one issue.

What do you think about the F-35 issue? Could Turkey rejoin the F-35 program?  What do you think about those main issues?  And finally, how do you see Turkey’s role as a facilitator in the Middle East, especially in bringing peace to Palestine and ending the war with Israel?

Well, you have just asked me a question that could take the entire day to answer.

Looking at the relationship with Turkey and its leadership, I believe Turkey is a critical partner in ensuring peace and stability in the region. At the same time, there is a lot of turmoil. One major issue is the apparent strengthening of Turkey’s relationships with Russia and China in term long term, which is inconsistent with NATO’s position on Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and Iran’s support for Russia by providing drones and missiles that we’ve already seen used on the battlefield. There’s also significant political turmoil within Turkey at the moment, you know better than I.  One unresolved issue is what to do with the two million displaced people as a result of various wars in the region.  I think President Trump would be very interested in meeting with Erdoğan to discuss resolving the Syria problem. Trump is likely looking for an exit strategy that would allow US forces to leave that particular area of the Middle East. During the campaign, he referred to such areas as “Forever Wars”, where the US is militarily involved in various regions globally.  Regarding Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist groups, those are major challenges.  I was very hopeful that the Abraham Accords would be the approach that the whole region would take.  This, again, was a Trump initiative during his first administration, involving countries like Israel, the UAE, Sudan, and I believe Morocco. They signed a peace treaty in which they promised to work together to develop economically, scientifically, and in engineering, as well as to maintain and create an environment for peace and security in the region, free from terrorist activities and hatred that have plagued the past several decades. To the point where I saw a country like Saudi Arabia even considering joining this process, it is now all on hold as a result of the Hamas attack on Israel and the response by Israel, which many people consider far excessive to what had happened.

It’s really interesting. I interviewed you in Ankara before, as you may remember. It was a one-hour interview, and we discussed this topic. I don’t want to repeat the same thing; perhaps our audience can watch that episode again. But again, like all the Western discourse, they repeat the same thing as if everything started with the Hamas attack on October 7th. Nobody talks about what has been happening since 1948. Okay, I’m the moderator and the presenter but I want to contribute to this discussion. I really don’t understand why, if the US government is willing to make peace in the region with the Abraham Accords and bring everyone together for a peaceful period, the US does not address Palestine’s need for freedom according to UN resolutions. Under these oppressions since 1948, Palestine has not been given that freedom. The two-state solution is still pending. How many people were injured or killed on October 7? I don’t know the exact number. But now, according to international organizations’ reports, almost 100,000 people have died in Gaza, including those in the West Bank. The West Bank is still witnessing numerous settlements. What do settlements mean? They are taking people’s lands and homes, creating a situation where peace cannot exist. Why doesn’t the US push Israel to implement the two-state solution to bring peace to the Middle East?

Well, that’s a very good question and needs to be addressed. The challenge is that I wouldn’t go back to 1948; I’d go back to 1917 and the Balfour Declaration, which created the environment we are in today. That declaration guaranteed a Jewish homeland. The problem is that you’ve got groups like Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, and others with charters stating that their goal is to exterminate Israel. When that’s a primary goal, it’s very difficult to sit across the table and negotiate a peace agreement. If we got beyond that and all players in the region agreed to Israel’s right to exist, I personally believe that all the issues you mentioned would be subject to negotiation. I think the Israelis would give up quite a bit to have a guarantee that there wouldn’t be hundreds of rockets fired into their territory and that there wouldn’t be terrorist attacks all the time.

Recognition of Israel as a legitimate state with a right to exist would open the door to negotiations. I think everything else would be subject to negotiation, and I think they’d give up a lot. But when you’re at that particular point, and again, you have groups engaging in massive human rights violations—and I certainly wouldn’t put it past the fact that both sides have committed law of war or humanitarian violations—it creates an environment where people are consumed with hatred. As a result, that attitude gets passed on to the next generation, and 10 years from now, we’ll have another intifada or a similar kind of situation where people are already at each other’s throats. To sit here and say, ‘We can come up with a solution’ is absolutely right—we can come up with a solution. But there’s no willingness on the part of anybody to sit down and say, ‘Okay, let’s come up with a good deal.’ And that just doesn’t seem to be happening. I wish it would. I think the Trump administration, again, with President Trump’s personal intervention, has a great opportunity to negotiate some of the things you mentioned as enticement to bring everyone to the table.  We’ve had people come to the table before. In the past, we sat down and tried to hammer out agreements regarding weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East or arms control. We came up with some great ideas—they’re all out there. It just takes political will to implement them.

Unfortunately, there is no political will to do it. So, we just have to keep trying and build consensus among the region’s leaders that it’s in their best interest—and the people’s best interest—to sit down and craft a lasting peace. But whether that will happen, I have to say, after 40 years of looking at this issue, the likelihood is that we’ll face another cycle of violence in 10 years. That’s just the way it is in that region.

But we have the reality in the International Criminal Court, which announced an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, because of war crimes. This is the reality—we’re talking about dozens of thousands of people. We always say 50,000 people, but it is almost 100,000 people, and that is really insane. If you don’t want war in the region, the main issue is: with whom do you have war? With Iran, Lebanon, Hezbollah? You don’t like the Muslim Brotherhood, etc., but all of these are connected to the issue of a free state of Palestine. It’s not happening this way. It’s not going to happen. I don’t want to go deep into this discussion because it has no end.

So, in our last five minutes, I’d like to go back to Trump’s foreign policy. He was really pro-Israel in his first term and moved the embassy to Jerusalem. But later on, he also had negative moments with Netanyahu. For the 2024 campaign, he has garnered greater Israeli support this time around. How will this affect his policies towards Iran and the Middle East in general?

Well, yes. I mean, the primary player in the area right now is, in fact, Iran, because it is recognized as the number one supporter of international terrorism. This has been recognized by the Gulf Cooperation Council. They support Hamas and Hezbollah, both identified as international terrorist organizations. Coupled with the firing of rockets from Iran into Israel, which in turn creates an Israeli response, the spiral of violence continues. This needs to be stopped, and there are ways to work towards peaceful coexistence. But as we know, the rhetoric in Iran is “death to Israel, death to the United States.” That kind of attitude does not make peace negotiations conducive. I wish I could give an answer that says, “This is the solution, and it will be embraced by everyone.” But, as you said, we could talk for hours about the problems and challenges in the Middle East.  For example, in Lebanon, I’m watching what’s going on, and I’m actually thinking back to 1982 when I was in Lebanon. We had an attempt to maintain peace among the various groups, and then we had the Israelis invading Beirut, creating a siege situation, cutting things off. It feels like déjà vu all over again. How can we stop the cycle of violence? It really is beyond me. I’ve been dealing with this issue for a long time, and every time we came up with solutions, those solutions were quickly ignored. Hatred then became prominent. So, we just have to keep trying and, hopefully, someday we’ll get to that point.

Okay, let’s hope. My last question is on relations with China. Trump’s cabinet has hawkish figures who are strongly against China. Trump promised a 60% tax on China, which is a big concern. How do you think U.S.-China relations will progress under a second Trump term?

China will be, I think, the primary international issue for the United States. China’s long-term strategy is clear, and President Xi has made no secret of his ambition for China to become the world’s hegemon by 2049. They made statements to that effect and don’t hide it. They have a very aggressive policy of reaching out to multiple countries to build relationships through loans and various other economic incentives. They have also made claims in the South China Sea, which are very destabilizing. These claims are inconsistent with recognized international law of the sea. They have tried to harass many countries in the region over their territorial sea claims.

This has resulted in countries like Vietnam building a strong relationship with the United States. During one of my last trips as Assistant Secretary of Defense to Hanoi, I found the Vietnamese very enthusiastic about working with the U.S especially on defense sector. Other countries in the region feel the same way due to Chinese encroachment and bullying. China has also built a strong global network, acquiring port facilities in the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal area, the Straits of Malacca, and other choke points. They have created a very strong presence which in a hostile environment could be a way to strangle the world economy. We see these kinds of things happening and recognize within the United States that there are activities on the part of China that have a negative impact on national security and the collective security relationship around the world. I think we’ll see a much more active and proactive confrontation of China on these issues. There are some very big flashpoints or hot points, with Taiwan probably being the number one at the moment. The various statements by the leadership in China indicate that there will continue to be a strong push to fully integrate Taiwan within the Chinese political structure. I think that will be one of the big challenges in the first year of the Trump administration.

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INTERVIEW

‘Indigenous peoples standing to fight against colonialism and imperialism’

Published

2 weeks ago

on

10/12/2024

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In Venezuela, as well as in much of Latin America that was colonized by the Spanish empire more than five centuries ago, the month of October represents a date to remember and take pride in the indigenous roots of the American continent, called by the ancestral peoples “Abya Yala”. However, even today, 500 years after the arrival of Christopher Columbus, Spain continues without recognizing the genocide of the native peoples and their cultures, nor does it recognize the plundering of the riches of these lands. Currently, the empire is represented by another hegemonic power, the United States, and by another type of colonialism, the culture of the “American Dream” that seems more like a nightmare, but the threat to indigenous peoples, as well as Afro-descendant peoples that makes up Venezuela, continues to be the same. And in the face of this imperial and colonialist threat, Venezuela and other countries of the Abya Yala are struggling, resisting and winning the battle.

Within the framework of the Day of Indigenous Resistance in Venezuela, which since 2002 has been commemorated every October 12, we interviewed Clara Vidal, Minister of Indigenous Peoples of Venezuela. Vidal is originally from the Kariña indigenous people, based in the state of Sucre, eastern Venezuela, and has been Minister for Indigenous Peoples since 2022.

Why does Venezuela commemorate the Day of Indigenous Resistance?

Today we reflect on the importance of that tragic date, while today Spain commemorates a national holiday, they call it “Hispanic Day”, with joy, with airplanes, etc. That is, Spain celebrates the death of 90 million indigenous people, they are celebrating the greatest genocide in the history of humanity.

But we from Venezuela commemorate the 532 years of the beginning of the resistance of the indigenous peoples who to this day are in battle for a horizon and a victorious future that awaits us.

So today’s reflection is that nothing and no one, not the Spanish monarchy, nor the decadent U.S. empire will be able to defeat us, because 200 years ago we expelled them from these lands, because we do not want more colonialism or imperialism, we want to be sovereign, free and independent.

What are the references of the indigenous peoples in Venezuela today? And what is its importance? 

Well, let me say that we are today in the land of Commander Hugo Chávez, of the Liberator Simón Bolívar, of the Great Chief of Chiefs Cacique Guaicaipuro, the leader of the resistance of the indigenous peoples, because 532 years ago took place the invasion of our lands, and practically 90 million indigenous brothers were exterminated by an European Empire.

Precisely, according to what we have experienced and what our ancestors experienced, we can say that we are a free, sovereign and independent country, that throughout our history we are not going to allow any empire to controls us, dominates us, and that is why we have among our main historical references, which we must always remember: 

  1. The fight of the indigenous Cacique Guaicaipuro, our older brother. 
  2. Then the fight for our emancipation from the Liberator Simón Bolívar, and
  3. More recently, the rescue of our freedom through our eternal Commander, Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, who after that “For now” of February 4, 1992, and assuming our presidency in 1999, has rescued our freedom, our sovereignty, our independence for the present and for our national future.

The Bolivarian Revolution, what role has it given to the indigenous peoples?

Well, the Bolivarian Revolution gave us the main thing, which is the guarantee of the rights of indigenous peoples. The arrival of the Revolution fought and ensured that each of our indigenous peoples had a special chapter within the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela of 1999. That is where the great appreciation of our revolutionary process towards the recognition and respect of rights begins. of indigenous peoples. In addition to that, the thousands of tools that it has given us as public policies: the Guaicaipuro Mission, the Ministry of Popular Power for Indigenous Peoples, which at an international level is a unique experience. Venezuela is a pioneer in having an institution especially for indigenous peoples, other countries now have ministries, like Brazil, for example, but we paved the way.

In addition to that, we have legislators, in the municipal councils, councilors, we have national deputies, who are indigenous. We have our voice represented before the national, regional and municipal Legislative Power.

The presence of the United States in Latin America

The presence of agencies of imperialism such as the CIA, DEA, or NATO, among other interventionist institutions in Latin America, must be considered according to the excess of their functions. The United States acts not as a country but as an interfering organization in the internal policies of each of the nations.

The United States intervenes in the policies of each of the nations, that is, violating the sovereignty of the people. And the most important thing is that they do not respect the culture and idiosyncrasies of each of the peoples.

Precisely, when we refer to colonialism, unlike imperialism, it is about dominating and controlling and imposing their culture, belittling the cultures of the native peoples. Now, when we talk about imperialism, this is total control, from every point of view: political, social, cultural, military of each of the peoples and nations.

From there the United States and Europe then fall into fascism, neo-fascism and similar expressions. From Venezuela, the indigenous peoples: Say no to the imperial presence in our lands and nations!

Imperialism in neo-fascist governments in Latin America attacks indigenous peoples

The indigenous peoples are brave peoples, in those countries with extreme right-wing, neo-fascist governments, the indigenous peoples have been totally criminalized or have been totally forgotten, denied to exercise their own culture in their own territories. Today we can tell you, from Venezuela, that the indigenous peoples are not alone, and we also encourage them to continue the fight for their rights. The right-wing and neo-fascist governments will never, ever love indigenous peoples, because they want to erase our history.

Those governments will never protect any rights of indigenous peoples. The Venezuelan left, Bolivarian socialism, has been a fundamental part of the demands of all these sectors, mainly indigenous peoples and communities, as well as Afro-descendants, because we are the same people, the oppressed peoples. So to the indigenous peoples of Abya Yala we say that the fight must continue until we get the victory. Venezuela is proof that it is possible to recover our identity, our rights and our indigenous culture.

Imperialism and genocidal colonialism in the world: Genocide in Gaza

We call on the world, the international community, and national and international public opinion to reflect on what is happening in Gaza. Just as today there is genocide in Gaza, against the people of Palestine, we also remember what we experienced more than 500 years ago. Just as it happens today with the Palestinian people, so it happened with our ancestors, just as yesterday our ancestors had victory, because we are alive today. Today we declare our solidarity and tell the people of Palestine that they will also win, because in the face of hatred, in the face of imperialism, in the face of colonialism, love and justice will always win. So today’s reflections are that we continue fighting, because victory belongs to the people who fight for their emancipation.

We are going to remember this date as the beginning of the greatest genocide in the history of humanity so that there can never again be any empire that can raise its arm and its hatred against the people, to impose the slavery of man by man, but rather there is peace, hope as we are proposing from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela with our constitutional president, Nicolás Maduro.

What is the message that Venezuela gives to other indigenous peoples? 

To the brother peoples of the South, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and also of great Brazil, because in Brazil there are also indigenous peoples, indigenous brothers and sister who were also invaded by Portugal like us; Today we tell all of you that this is the time of the people, we are going to unite, we are going to create a network of networks. The historical block necessary so that this decadent empire, or any other that may emerge, can never again defeat us. 

They have tried today with the Internet, with artificial intelligence, to oppress us, but here we say that with the ancestral human intelligence of indigenous peoples they will not be able to win. Here we are fighting. Let no one make a mistake, because there is a homeland here, as Commander Chávez said. So all our ancestors today are together, united to say enough of imperialism and colonialism. Victory will be of the people! Long live the people! Long live the indigenous peoples! Long live peace and long live freedom!

Finally, what is the importance of the union of indigenous peoples and Afro-descendant peoples in Venezuela

On this important day, Venezuela shows the rest of the indigenous peoples of Latin America its struggle and its resistance. Today, 532 years after the great genocide in Abya Yala, here we are, the indigenous peoples present alongside the Afro-descendant people, the indigenous people in general, the Venezuelan people of men and women who continue to resist. Today we can say with a firm voice, with a voice of love and with a voice of joy, that we continue in resistance.

We continue in a tireless fight for the vindication of our indigenous peoples. And that today in Venezuela we have more than 54 indigenous peoples, that means that we have resisted and that we will continue to resist and win.

Afro-descendant peoples have also fought a battle to survive and assert their rights. And here we are claiming the day of indigenous resistance, but we are also fighting for that ancestral history of the Afro-descendant peoples who were the object of imperial ambition, and which forcibly brought them here, but which today has precisely led us to walk the hand making revolution. 

We are now writing a new history, because we were here before the Spanish empire arrived, because the indigenous peoples were on this land, because the men and women who arrived enslaved now have a new horizon, precisely, which is not to forget history, our origins, but that we also know that our destiny is to definitively free ourselves from the yoke of imperialism, to emancipate ourselves from our minds and move forward towards the new generations with the vision of knowing that we are a people that resisted and that continues to resist because Nobody discovered us. We already existed.

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INTERVIEW

‘The majority of the European politicians are pro-war’

Published

3 weeks ago

on

03/12/2024

By

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó told Harici: ‘In the European Union, the majority of European politicians are in favour of war. Since we are not a pro-war but a pro-peace government, it is clear that we do not fit into the current mainstream of European foreign policy.’

Responding to Dr. Esra Karahindiba’s questions, the Hungarian minister harshly criticised the majority of EU member states for their ‘non-peaceful’ policies, and also commented on President Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to use US-made ballistic missiles against Russia and the US sanctions on Gazprombank.

Excellency Minister, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us. Let’s start with the criticism against Hungary by the EU. You are accused of not adhering to the European Union’s common foreign policy. What is your response to this, and how was your experience during your presidency of the Council of the European Union?

Unfortunately, those European politicians are in a majority in the European Union who are in favor of the war. Since we are not a pro-war but a pro-peace government, it is obvious that we are not falling in line with the current European foreign policy mainstream. We have been standing up for a ceasefire and peace negotiations to be started. The majority of the European politicians are pro-war. They make measures which are putting the risk of escalation higher and higher. So definitely, we will not align with that. We will continue our peace efforts, and we hope that, as President Trump enters into the White House in January next year, internationally speaking, pro-peace politicians will gain more strength.

When I interviewed you at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, you told me about that, and you told me that you believe if Trump is elected, peace is possible between Ukraine and Russia. Now Trump is the president-elect, and as you said, he’s going to take his post in January. Are you in contact with the Trump Administration, and are you taking any initiatives for making peace between the two countries? What are the items on your agenda, and what are you negotiating about?

Look, after President Trump has been elected, he has called our Prime Minister, congratulated him, and they agreed that the upcoming four years will be a golden age from the perspective of US-Hungary relations. You know, there are very strict regulations in the United States when it comes to a transition period, so the serious negotiations, the substantial negotiations between us and the Trump Administration will get started, obviously, right after President Trump enters the White House. There are some issues on the agenda already which we discussed way before, but for example, the Democrat Administration has terminated the bilateral tax treaty with Hungary. We hope that this will come into force again. The US Democrat Administration has restricted the access of Hungarian citizens to the ESTA visa system or a kind of visa system. We hope that with the Trump Administration entering into power, we will get back the status where we used to be. Of course, we hope that President Trump generally will carry out a policy which will help peace return to the Central European region and will allow a much better atmosphere in Europe to be created.

Frankly speaking, what is your position about Ukraine’s territorial integrity regarding Crimea and the Donbas region? Because those regions could be the number one condition for Russia to make peace.

Well, territorial integrity and sovereignty are principles that must be respected. On the other hand, I think sequence is important. First, a ceasefire has to take place, then peace negotiations have to be started, and then a peace deal must be made.

Talking about energy issues, today you joined the Istanbul Energy Forum here and had bilateral talks with several counterparts. Hungary announced that it signed an additional contract with Gazprom to use the Turkish Stream pipeline at full capacity. What do you expect from this development?

Look, Russia is a reliable partner when it comes to energy supplies. Turkey is a very reliable partner when it comes to transit. So, it is our honor that we can work together with Turkey and Russia in order to guarantee the security of energy supplies for Hungary. What we expect is that with the increased volumes, the price gets more competitive. Obviously, we have a very important program in Hungary through which we ensure that Hungarian families and households pay the lowest price when it comes to utilities. These additional contracts signed between Gazprom and our gas trading company are essential from the perspective of keeping the utility costs low in Hungary.

Let’s keep on the energy issue. I know that, as an observing member of the Organization of Turkic States, your term in the EU Council presidency is very important to be a bridge between these two regions. Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan are very eager, and actually, the EU is very eager to buy energy from these two countries. There are dozens of billions of dollars of infrastructure expected by the EU to be invested in this OTS region. What are the latest numbers? What is the latest development on that?

When it comes to the Turkic region or the Caucasian or Central Asian region, we do consider those regions as possible sources of future energy deliveries. We definitely count on the so-called Middle Green Corridor project to be successful, through which electricity from renewable sources from Azerbaijan and Georgia will be delivered to Central Europe through Romania to Hungary. We also count on gas from Azerbaijan to play a bigger role in our national energy mix. For that, the bottleneck is the capacity of the Southeast European pipeline network. But we do hope that we can increase the capacity in a way that allows us to increase the role of gas from Azerbaijan and the gas from Turkey in our national energy mix.

The Middle Corridor is gaining so much importance as the northern route is not being able to be used now, as you said. Meanwhile the Biden Administration, just before leaving office, has made its last steps and gave Ukraine permission to use US missiles against Russia. Russian leader Putin says “nothing will remain unanswered”. How do you see the upcoming future?

This is really dangerous. This definitely goes against the interests of the people in Central Europe. This definitely goes against the will of the American people since the American people have elected a different administration. They have elected a pro-peace president. So, I think it’s really dangerous what the current American Administration is doing. These measures can lead to an escalation, and we do hope that by January 20, we can somehow avoid escalation. Then, when President Trump takes office, hopefully, he will still have the chance to make peace. I do hope that the current Democrat Administration will not make it totally impossible to make peace in January.

My last question: what is your take on the Istanbul Energy Forum? What was your agenda here, and what are the expected outcomes for Hungary, Turkey, and other counterparts with whom you have had bilateral talks?

The most short-term duty of ours is now to overcome the challenges put forward by the US Administration’s decision to put Gazprombank on a sanctions list, since we are paying for the gas to the accounts of Gazprombank, as many other countries here in the region are. So, here we came together to find out how to overcome this challenge. I’m pretty sure that since we are united, we will find a way to overcome that and ensure the security of supplies in the future as well.

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