Global Research

But neither Baroness Ashton, nor Mr. O’Sullivan (2), in charge of the European External Action Service, nor Mr. Fule who, at the head of the Directorate General for Enlargement, spends his time trying to integrate everything that moves in Eastern Europe (3), didn’t want that. On the contrary, they have forced the Ukraine to “choose sides” (4), thus creating the conditions subsequent to the inevitable events which we know: the Ukraine has in fact chosen… and the country, logically, has entered a dramatic and bloody process of decision which is only just begun. Baroness Ashton and Mr. O’Sullivan have literally set a trap for the Ukraine… and Europe.

Five months later and the damage is huge: over 100 dead (5), the Ukraine is left with an unelected government brought to power by extreme right-wing factions (6), relations between the EU and Russia are broken, the Ukraine and Russia are on the verge of a war that isn’t far from being a war between Europe and Russia (7), the Russian military have retaken control of their Crimean assets, the US fleet is cruising in the Black Sea waters (8), the US army has set itself up in Europe again (in Poland, Lithuania and Romania (9)), the media, excited by blood, are a pure propaganda machine determined to push politicians and citizens into war, the EU-Ukraine free trade Treaty is about to be signed, against Russian interests, by Washington and a non-elected Ukrainian government (10) (if the same method is used for the TTIP, Washington and Baroness Ashton will have signed it in April at the latest), the West is preparing to deny the legitimacy of the Crimean referendum which will aggravate the crisis and continue to ask questions on the West’s democratic struggle… (11)

From a European point of view, what a significant political and diplomatic failure! Working to rebuild the Iron Curtain in 2014 and isolate Europe from all the current dynamics in these famous emerging countries to which Russia binds us, just as the Ukraine binds us to Russia (12).

Unfortunately, beyond a failure, this should also be seen as the result of an all-out attack on the European construction project, a project whose two main goals since the beginning have been peace through cooperation, the sharing of interests and the continent’s independence by the force which, de facto, brought about its union.

The current attack is, in fact, along the lines of that conducted against the Euro in 2010, in the knowledge that in breaking the common currency and taking into account the technical impossibility of returning to national currencies, Europe would find itself de facto integrated in the Dollar zone. This time, Europe resisted and saved its currency… at the price of enormous weakness, especially political.

The TTIP and the attempts to make us urgently sign this obscure Treaty that no one wants, seemed to have the particular objective of putting politicians under economic supervision (even more so than Europe under US supervision). Whatever the case, it would actually create a huge EU-US free trade zone using Dollars and formally annexing Europe to the Dollar zone. Here again, the tools of European independence are targeted, in this particular case its judicial arsenal for trade protection, guaranteeing Europeans’ economic interest, qualitative competitiveness and health. And the methods to obtain the signature of this treaty at any price are, on their own, proof of deep dishonesty.

And we have seen nothing of what Washington and Brussels would be capable of in this area. The Ukrainian crisis was probably triggered for no other reason than, ultimately, to force us to buy US shale gas (13), to sign the TTIP (without which the former can’t be sold in Europe (14)) and to justify a renewed increase of American-NATO military budgets (15) thanks to the restarting of a Cold War between the West and emerging nations (except for this detail that it’s the West which will be on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain this time).

Notes :

1 Source: Le Monde, 05/03/2014.

2 Issue number three of the European External Action Service. A few words are necessary on his path to which investigative journalists should pay more attention. Mr. David O’Sullivan appeared on the radar of our European path at the beginning of the 90s, when he was a unit head at the Directorate General for Education running the TEMPUS programme, a programme which had been singled out by the European Court of Auditors following an open letter from Franck Biancheri denouncing embezzlement in this programme. Given this beginning, Mr. O’Sullivan’s career shouldn’t have gone much further.

But, in the mid-90s, when we came on board the transatlantic TIESweb project in partnership with the European Commission and the White House, a diplomat from the US Embassy in Brussels one day recommended us, around a casual conversation, to follow the career of a certain David O’Sullivan… “who will go far”. Surprise in our ranks, and remarks on the individual’s unsavoury character…but a small smile in the direction of the good and the great. Several years later, under the Prodi commission beginning right at the end of the 90s, DavidO’Sullivan became… Secretary-General of the European Commission, the most powerful position in the whole of the European structure, no less! Under his rule and with his direct personal intervention, the project of institutional reform initiated as a logical follow-on to the resignation of the Santer Commission, which clearly revealed the inadequacy of the way in which Europe worked post the Maastricht Treaty and had brought together a group of officials on Commissioner Prodi’ s instructions to form a “task force on European governance reform” whose work had resulted in a White Paper of the same name, had been given a decent burial (editorial work retrieved, innovative ideas suppressed, publication in August during journalists’ holidays).

However, this reform project was a great moment of hope for European democratization, a hope which had irreparably disappointed. Mr. O’Sullivan is now to be found at the External Action Service as part of an “unbalancing” of the head of the EEAS in favour of Anglo-Saxons: in effect, Baroness Ashton’s nomination had been compensated by that of the Frenchman, Pierrre Vimont as number two (Executive Secretary General)… but the former, to get the upper hand, had created a third post (which doesn’t exist in any European institution: Administrative General Director) to bring in O’Sullivan. This is how the latter found himself at Baroness Ashton’s side in 2013 on the negotiations over the EU-Ukraine free trade agreement…with the results that we can see. But this isn’t all: he is set to become the EU Ambassador to Washington, in order that his partnership with Ashton controls the whole signature chain of the famous TTIP. It’s simple to follow the bad news for Europe, just follow Mr.O’Sullivan’s career path.

3 Did you know that ? Georgia as well. Source : EuropeanVoice, 29/11/2013

4 Source : Le Monde, 05/03/2014

5 Source : KyivPost, 11/03/2014

6 Source : CNN, 06/11/2014.

7 Especially since the EU is doing everything to annex the Ukraine by accelerating the signing of the Association Agreement – which must wait the election of a proper government but which ultimately will be signed in the meantime by the nonelected government in place (source: Radio Ukraine, 26/02/2014) because the next legitimate government could well be pro-Russian again; but also in EU integration – one agreement can hide another and negotiations with Georgia especially are going in this direction, so why not the Ukraine (source : Messenger, 06/03/2014).

8 … and the U.S. Army has shown up again in Europe after so many efforts to dislodge it. Source : Chicago Tribune, 12/02/2014.

9 Source : Ouest-France, 12/03/2014.

10 This article of the 12/03/2014 in EUBusiness has the merit of being clear: “the new Ukrainian leadership will probably sign the much awaited political agreement with the EU next week, announced the interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk following a conversation with the White House”… The EU is there for the taking, we feared it was being taken by the extreme right, its worse: it’s in the process of being taken by a foreign power. But the most amazing is that of 28 governments, of which most (but not all) are democratic governments accountable to their people, not one will repeat it. A US trap, EU treachery… and the European political elite who go to bed… just like the French elite went to bed in 1940. Don’t even mention the Nationalists of all colours who infest national political life short of discussions on the sovereignty of nations… and don’t have the slightest criticism either to make on the hijacking of the European agenda by the US (even if it was for the best, but it’s obviously for the worse). But if we look at the Western-Ukrainian sympathies, they must have the hope of taking back power (a small provincial governorate here and there) in the next configuration.

11 The Soviet bloc collapsed without bloodshed thanks to Mikael Gorbachev; it’s a remarkable fact in history that an empire withdrew quietly. The US doesn’t give the impression of falling into line with the same dignity unfortunately. After the financial approach (after the colossal bailout in 2009, the famous $700 billion TARP, which turned the banking crisis into a country crisis, then the US Fed’s quantitative easing in 2010 and 2012 especially, which have driven the whole planet into widespread indebtedness), the US has raised the tone by attacking Europe (with the collaboration of certain European elite) and attempting a takeover of the continent.

12 In fact the Ukraine is a strategic link between Europe and Russia and, therefore, between Europe and the emerging countries. LEAP knows how important it was to bring Europe closer to the BRICS, which is even why we launched the Euro-BRICS process in 2009, aimed at bringing Europe to its true destiny given its nature: its contribution to the emergence of a multipolar world. If Europe fails to play this role, there is a risk of polarization in the world, between the West and the emerging nations. But polarization needs walls… which is well and truly being rebuilt for us… in the same place as 25 years ago.

Undoubtedly the Western elite haven’t much imagination… or they haven’t learnt much from their history books. If they had, they would have known that wars are rarely cold and that it’s better not to begin to play this kind of game.

13 Source : The Guardian, 05/03/2014.14 Shale gas is an unconventional gas, that’s to say that its price has escaped indexation to that of oil, which is a competitive advantage of course, an advantage not given to it since it can’t be exported. This is how the considerable investment made by the US to become a gas exporting power will only be crowned with success thanks to the signature of these famous transatlantic and trans-pacific free-trade Treaties for which Washington is literally prepared to kill. Source : Office of Fossil Energy.15 The huge cuts imposed on the US military budget by Congress in recent days and the ensuing panic in the Pentagon’s corridors will not have escaped our readers’ attention. Source: USNews, 24/02/2014.