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Welcome back to Political Misfits on Radio Sputnik, where we bring you news, politics and culture - without the red and blue treatment. I am John Kiriakou here with Michelle Witte.
International affairs and security analyst Mark Sleboda
The EU’s report card on potential new members of the bloc – POLITICO
https://www.wsj.com/world/ukraine-president-zelensky-says-time-not-right-for-elections-f5690724
Let’s talk about this EU report card for candidates or wannabe candidates for membership in the bloc. The most discussed of course will be Ukraine, but the bloc has issued recommendations on Moldova, Georgia, Albania and a bunch of other candidates - oh, and of course, Turkey.
Let’s talk about Ukraine first. According to the EU - well, according to Politico’s explanation of the report card - Ukraine’s doing great, it just needs to do a little bit more on corruption, lobbying and protecting minorities. But the suggestion is to open formal accession negotiations - a proposal the EU will vote on next month. What do you make of this assessment and what do you expect EU leaders to decide?
Here’s a question - the EU has recommended opening formal accession talks with Moldova and Ukraine. Turkey, on the other hand, has been languishing since 1999. Now, I understand that the issue of Cyprus is a hurdle to Turkey’s membership, but I’m curious whether you think Turkey is really a less functional, less equal, more corrupt country than Ukraine or some of these other candidates. Is that what the EU wants us to think, and are they right?
The EU, I guess, is not concerned about Volodymyr Zelensky saying earlier this week that now is not the time for elections in the country, even though his term should be up early next year. Zelensky has Ukrainian law on his side - elections are suspended under martial law - but his American partners have been publicly and privately pushing for elections for a while now. Zelensky previously had said, sure, if you’ll pay for it, we can try. Now he is just saying, nah. Honestly, does no one have to listen to Washington anymore, Mark?
How much does this have to do with Israel? We’re watching Israel do exactly what it wants in Gaza, with full funding from the US, even as hundreds of thousands of Americans march in the streets to protest it. We’ve seen Israel ignore Washington’s meek calls for “humanitarian pauses.” And Israel has sucked a lot of attention away from Ukraine. This obviously doesn’t help Zelensky with “Ukraine fatigue,” but is it also emboldening him to do what he wants, because clearly other US clients can, too.
Let’s also talk about how some EU countries are doing, namely Germany. The biggest economy in the EU shrank in the third quarter, and is once again described as “flirting with a technical recession,” as it has been for a year now. Industrial production has fallen, consumer spending has fallen, and the entire eurozone is looking pretty stagnant. And people on social media last night were having some fun yesterday with this tweet by the chief economist at the Institute of International Finance saying, look, all Germany needs is a little regime change in Russia, and then we’ll turn Nord Stream back on and all will be well. It’s that easy, Mark!
OK, we just saw this headline toward the end of the show yesterday, but members of Polish industry are again at odds with Ukraine? At first when I saw this story, I thought truckers were blocking Ukraine’s commercial routes into Poland over the longstanding grain imports issue - but actually, this is over trucking itself, as I understand it. What’s going on - and how is this going to affect Poland’s efforts to form a new government after elections just a couple of weeks back?
OK, let’s talk about Israel and Gaza. Today, Secretary of State Antony Blinken clenched his little fists and said that Gaza should be unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority once the war ends, the strongest signal yet from the Biden Administration about what it would like to see at the end of Israel’s fight against Hamas in the enclave. Yesterday, the White House just said, uh, yeah, we don’t think reoccupying Gaza is the right thing to do. But it seems like the US has shown itself to be entirely ineffective in this conflict, so … does anyone care what Joe Biden or Antony Blinken says?
What does this war on Gaza say about US influence in the Middle East? I mean, it feels not quite accurate to say the US has no influence over Israel, because we’ve really chosen not to use any of the levers we have. We’re not making aid conditional, we’re not suspending it, we’re not, say, suspending sanctions on Iran. Would any of this make a difference? I don’t know. Israel is not Ukraine. And with Arab nations as well - I mean, I don’t think Antony Blinken was talking anyone out of joining the fray on the Palestinian side. Do we have any idea what he wanted in these recent meetings, and whether he got it? Ukraine has been presented to us as a great victory for US global influence - we reunified NATO, etc, etc. That, of course, was only a victory if you ignored the global south. But this feels like absolute failure. What does this say about American influence?
Ukraine Jumps to Head of EU Line Because Geopolitics, Germany the Sick Man of Europe, US & Israel Good Cop/Bad Cop Routine on Gaza, and more...