Analysis of the situation and its potential

PM Theresa May uses the Sergei Skripal case for domestic purposes, by creating an external enemy she wants to bolster her authority. According to our analysis, she cannot make good on her threats, and in the end this new conflict with Russia will only weaken her position.

The attempt at poisoning double spy Sergei Skripal has evoked Great Britain’s response, which in turn raises a number of questions. Skripal was a GRU agent who was convicted in Russia for spying for the British MI6. In 2010 he was released within the framework of a spy exchange and arrived in the United Kingdom. At the beginning of March this year he was attacked with novichok, a paralyzing substance, in the British town of Salisbury and so far has been in a critical condition. The British government accused Russia of using chemical weapons on the territory of a sovereign state. PM Theresa May demanded explanations from Moscow and even went a step further, saying: „Should there be no credible response, we will conclude that this action amounts to an unlawful use of force by the Russian state against the United Kingdom”.As can be seen, London is trying to spark off a diplomatic dispute, and it can be even said that the British PM regards the event as a casus belli. The Kremlin dismisses the accusations as unfounded and warns Great Britain against ill-considered actions.

The Gefira team analyzed a possible scenario of events. Continue reading →

Clouds are gathering: Weidmann will end QE while Macron’s reform will not solve any problem whatsoever. It’ll be the final push for a Eurosceptic Italy, where plans for parallel currencies are popping up. Add Trump’s trade war to the soup and 2020 promises to turn nasty.

It is becoming increasingly clear that at the end of 2019 Jens Weidmann, current President of the Bundesbank, will replace Mario Draghi at the helm of the European Central Bank. The change in terms of economic beliefs will be radical and, combined with the other developing issues in Italy and the US, which will be discussed later in the text, might as well put an end to the misery of the Eurozone.

What does Jens Weidmann believe in?
As a typical post-Weimar German, he believes in strong currency and low inflation. The Financial Times carried an interesting interview with him a few weeks ago,in which the German financier expressed his opposition to everything that Mario Draghi has stood for in the last few years and made known his wish to stop the quantitative easing program and replace it with raised interest rates. What happens when interest rates increase? If they go up too fast, markets crumble. Low interest rates offered for too long have contributed to the subprime mortgages debacle of 2007-8. Continue reading →

The current President of the EU Council has a good reputation in the EU circles, but not in Poland: he had to flee from his home country to Brussels, completely compromised. After all, his government was a catastrophe: mass emigration of young Poles, tampering with the coffers of future pensioners, corruption and benefit scandals, the Amber Gold affair, the all-pervasive nepotism in his Civic Platform (PO) party, numerous sins of omission crowned by Nord Stream.

Young unemployed people can light the torch of a revolution. If you want to secure your position in politics, you leave salaries low and open the borders. The discontented young unemployed emigrate and only those who have less motivation to take to the streets remain. In 2005 Donald Tusk made this trick, this intervention on his nation. He threw Poland into the arms of the EU: since then the population has fallen significantly due to the emigration of many young Poles. Nigel Farage aptly commented on this when he turned to Tusk in the European Parliament: „Your debate is about emigration, and time and again you’ve promised the Polish voters that young poles would return to Poland, and at the same time Mr Cameron has promised the British people that fewer Poles would come to us. Well, it turns out that you’ve both been wrong and your country has been depopulated by 2 million people since you joined the European Union and the reason is obvious: it’s money, isn’t it? And you yourself prove the point. You are the newest Polish emigre and you’ve gone from a salary of 60 000 euros a year to a salary of 300 000 euros a year. So congratulations! You’ve hit the EU jackpot!”What moved Tusk, besides money, to go to Brussels and interrupt his political career in Poland? Continue reading →

2016: Brexit and Trump, “A new hope”.

2017: Macron, “The Empire Strikes back”.

2018: Di Maio and Salvini, “The Return of the Jedi”.

The titles of the original Star Wars trilogy fit the wind of change sweeping through politics. The Western leadership has forsaken its citizens, pursuing the dreams of a global empire; its main victims were its supporters, the moderates, the centrists, the Western middle class,who crashed under the weight of globalization in the forms of tax havens, mass migration, off-shoring, and global wars. The 2018 Italian elections are a reminder that the political upheaval, superficially snubbed as “populism” by an increasingly delusional globalist elite, is here to stay.

The “populist” triumph: the anger of the Italian youth

Movimento 5 Stelle and Lega are Italy’s anti-establishment parties. They were expected to pick up 27-28% and 13-15% respectively. They both exceeded polls predictions. M5S will likely pick 31%, while Lega 18.5%, beating its coalition rival and mainstream party Forza Italia of Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian forerunner of Donald Trump, which now garnered a meagre 13.6%. Continue reading →

Despite the growing importance of alternative energy sources like wind or solar energy (which enormously fuels the imagination of the media), the demand for natural gas is not decreasing, and the resource has a great influence on international politics.

At present, only about 35% of the Union’s gas demand is met by indigenous production. The largest supplier is Russia – 35%, the second is Norway – 32%. As own production is declining, the EU will import 80% of its gas from the middle of the next decade. The smaller the number of suppliers, the more dependency on each of them. In 2015, two-thirds of the EU’s gas imports came from Russia, Norway and Algeria.

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The efforts of individual countries to access the gas fields in the south-eastern part of the Mediterranean make the area very vulnerable to new conflicts and war and can also lead to a dispute within NATO and affect Europe’s energy security, putting the EASTMED pipeline in question. The war for natural resources is looming large.

The first problem is the relationship between Cyprus and Turkey. Ankara, the only capital which recognizes North Cyprus, says that all activities related to the extraction of gas in the Cypriot area are an encroachment on the interests of North Cyprus. While Turkey does not recognize agreements between Cyprus and other countries on the issue of economic exclusive zone (EEZ) or licenses for gas exploration in Cypriot territorial waters, Nicosia holds the opposite opinion. Ankara, through the Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) puts forward claims that it is entitled to look for gas and oil in Cypriot waters and has the right to defend its interests there. Cyprus issued a number of concessions to various mining companies on more than half of the blocks (i.e. parts of the economic exclusive zone on which companies could explore gas or oil) located within the Cypriot EZZ. President Erdoğan warned Cyprus and international gas exploration companies that the violation of Turkish interests would have bad consequences.In the middle of February 2018 the warning was made good and so the Saipem 1200 mining vessel operating for Italian company – Eni was blocked by Turkish ships. Italy responded by sending a military ship to the area.This shows how explosive the situation is now that two NATO member states want to pursue economic goals without backing them with diplomacy.

It is worth mentioning that also in February a Turkish coast guard boat rammed a Greek patrol ship in the Aegean Sea,which shows that the Turkish government is willing to use military force. Continue reading →