Europe's decline is more evident than ever. Is the US to blame?

Europe's decline is more evident than ever. Is the US to blame?

In just two weeks, the governments of Germany’s Olaf Scholz and France’s Michel Jean Barnier have fallen. These are just the latest signs of a political crisis in Europe that has escalated drastically since the start of the Ukraine War, which has brought inflation, deindustrialization, and instability throughout the continent. Peter Mertens, General Secretary of the Belgian Workers’ Party (PTB-PVDA) and a member of his country’s parliament, sees Europe’s crisis as a consequence of US attempts to forestall its decline through economic and military confrontation with a rising Global South. While loyalty to the US is taken for granted by most of Europe’s leaders, Mertens argues the future of the continent requires a break with the Atlanticist system. In this exclusive interview, The Real News speaks with Mertens on Europe’s future and the release of his new book, Mutiny: How the World Is Tilting. 

Welcome to The Real News. This is Ju-Hyun Park engagement editor at your favorite independent media outlet. I’m thrilled today to be joined by Peter Mertons, who is among many things, the General Secretary of the Belgian Workers Party, and the author of a new book published by 1804 books mutiny How our World is Tilting. Now, before we begin, I want to urge you listeners to head over to the real news.com/donate and become a sustainer of our work today. Because believe it or not, we are one of the only news outlets left that is entirely advertisement free. And it’s not because we take money from corporations on the side. We depend on you to keep our microphones on and our cameras rolling. So if you love what we do, please take a second to support us today. By now, just about everyone on this planet is used to waking up to a world turned upside down.

In the past couple of decades, working people around the world have weathered financial crisis, the COVID-19 Pandemic Wars and Climate Disaster After Climate disaster. Each catastrophe that befalls us seems even more unthinkable than the last and rightfully people are looking for answers. That’s what Peter Merton’s new book, mutiny seeks to do. It’s a wild ride through the ups and downs of global politics in the 21st century, going over everything from the cost of living crisis to the war in Ukraine and the rise of US China confrontation. It’s a short but vivid read and I basically devoured it over the last couple of days and I really cannot wait to get this discussion started. So Peter, welcome to The Real News. Thanks for joining us.

Peter Mertens:

Thanks for inviting me. I’m proud to be here.

Ju-Hyun Park:

I want to actually start off by asking you to introduce yourself to our audience because it’s not every day that we get to speak with the leader of a socialist party in Europe. So who is Peter Mertons and what inspired you to write this book?

Peter Mertens:

So I’m the General Secretary of the Workers Party of Belgium. Belgium being a small country in the midst of Europe, one 11 million people in Belgium, and we are now the fourth largest party in our country. I’m general secretary and I wrote this book a little bit for the audience in Europe and the working class in Europe because in my feeling what’s changing in the world, the upcoming breaks, the situation with China, the trade war, the US is waging against China, et cetera, the war, the real war against Russia. You cannot understand European politics. You cannot understand your situation as working class in Europe if you don’t have a worldview. And so I try to write an accessible book for the working class to open the windows of everyone and to see what’s happening in the world. That was a goal.

Ju-Hyun Park:

That’s absolutely excellent. I think you’ve given us a really good entry point into understanding the foundation of this. Now in your book you talk about several tipping points that are taking place around us today. Could you explain what these tipping points are and why it’s so important to center our understanding of the world in these events?

Peter Mertens:

Join thousands of others who rely on our journalism to navigate complex issues, uncover hidden truths, and challenge the status quo with our free newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox three times a week:

Yeah, I grew up in the end of the eighties and beginning of the nineties, and obviously when the Soviet Union was stopped to exist in the Velvet Counter Revolution against existing socialism, you had all this talk, fukuyama talk about the end of history, which obviously is nonsense and total victory of capitalism and no one could even be allowed to think outside the box of capitalism that was being said in the nineties. And then you had all this spirit of neoliberalism and the United States was going to be the world’s leader on every topic. It should provide safety for everyone. And then that was in nineties and then beginning of the 21st century, more and more people were seeing that all these promises of this big world power, they were not delivering. And there was a Iraq war in 2003, which was a first game changer. And then you had the financial crush in 2007, eight, it became clear that even the money system, or mainly the money system, the financial system worldwide, it was not a safe place.

They said, okay, capitalism is good in doing the financial thing and socialism is bankruptcy. They always said that. And then in 2007, eight, it became clear, no, no capitalism is bankruptcy and we needed everyone’s money to save the banks and all this talk about there is no money anymore austerity of the austerity of the austerity. Then they needed all our money to save the banks and the private banks. It was 2007 eight, and it was logic that some countries in the global south, they put themselves together and say, okay, can we cooperate to try to find another financial system? Was the financial crisis on Wall Street was the beginning of the birth of the bricks. It’s interesting to see that dynamics. And then you had the Copenhagen Summit in 2010, nine where they promised the 100 billion aid to global south countries. And today with the summit, the climate summit that we had this year, they were not delivering all these promises.

And then you had obviously the Covid crisis in 2020 where the Western worlds, they kept the vaccines for themselves and all these tipping points made clear that, okay, at the end of the day it is called imperialism. At the end of the day it is called financial capitalist system ruling out the world like always. And then there came the Ukraine War in 2022. And at that point there was someone in the National Security Council of the United States, Fiona Hill, and she saw that most of the countries were against the sanctions towards Russia when there was proposals to get sanctions, financial sanctions towards Russia in this war, most of the countries were against it. And then she said, oh, that’s mutiny. And I thought, okay, that’s an interesting phrase because if you don’t follow the orders of Wall Street anymore, if you don’t follow the orders of the United States anymore, you’re in some kind of mutan.

I thought, okay, let’s embrace this kind of mutiny of raising voice of some countries in the global south saying no towards this world order. And then after I finished, the book came I think the sixth tipping point, and that is the genocide against the Palestinians. And I think everywhere in the world people can see we have a genocide and it’s fueled by the Israeli apartheid state, but it’s mainly fueled by the economic and military support from the US and by the military and economic support of the European Union. Also, for example, Germany, 20% of the arms towards Israels comes from Germany. And I think all these tipping points made clear that there is some shift going on in the world. Europe was in decline after world wari after 45, Europe was already beginning to come in decline, the US took over as a big power, imperial power.

But nowadays we are on a tectonic plate where the shift is going to Asia, to South Asia, to China, to India and there the rising powers, economically economic powers. We are in my opinion, at the beginning of the decline of the us I mean the beginning because obviously it’s still a big economic power, obviously it’s a big financial power, the dollar is still controlling the world and obviously it’s mainly a big military power with 800 base. But when these tectonic plates on earth are shifting, there’s a lot of things possible and there is a lot of rage among working class people everywhere. And this race can be directed in different direction, maybe also in a rightwing direction. Maybe also one cause of some people voting for Trump is based on this race and a race against this political system that cannot cope with basic things like healthcare, like housing, like security, et cetera. And we are in a turmoil, and I think for Democrats, for socialists, for Marxists, we have to keep our head clear and search an orientation, midst this term model.

Ju-Hyun Park:

Yeah, that’s absolutely fascinating. I think what you’re describing is that we have been under a world system that was a few decades ago just taken for granted to be dominated by a single power, by a single kind of economic system that we call capitalism. And these tipping points that you’re describing, these crises that are roiling through the world are really changing not just the balance of power between states, but they’re also opening up questions about what sort of future is really possible and who is going to be in command of that future, not just at the level of nations, but also at the level of classes. Is it going to be the billionaires on Wall Street who decide what the future of the world is going to look like or is it going to be the majority of people who actually produce the wealth of our planet through the work that we do right through our labor?

I want to kind of zero in on something that you started to discuss in your answer that you just gave regarding the kind of boiling anger that we’re seeing around the world, right? Because look, times are incredibly hard. We’ve been hit with wave after wave of these crises, these tipping points you’re describing, and one of the biggest manifestations of that is the cost of living crisis, which is global. It’s affecting food, it’s affecting energy, it’s affecting all kinds of basic commodities and necessities that people live to. People need to have just a dignified life. And here in the US I mean it was certainly a major factor in the outcome of the last election. Now, I want to ask you about this in particular because there’s a lot of shorthand explanations that are out there as to why the cost of living crisis or why runaway inflation has occurred.

And we tend to peg it to particular events. We just sort of say like, oh, it’s because of Covid, because the Ukraine war. And then you get even kookier answer like, oh, the migrants are doing it. And there’s even worse explanations than that, which I’m not going to repeat on this interview, but I want to kind of give you the floor and give you the opportunity to give an explanation for where the cost of living crisis actually comes from. What are the real economic forces that are driving this burning hole in our wallets that everyone is feeling right now?

Peter Mertens:

First of all, I think there’s two main factors. The first factor is that the production change globally are interconnected, and that means that if you buy a cell phone, the different parts with the cell phone are produced worldwide. And it’s also a vulnerable point of capitalism today, this just in time production, the fact that it is global, the production chains are global, and when there is an event like the Swiss canal being blocked by one ship, there is a big problem, supply problem in this chain. And when this ship was blocking the service canal in Europe, several factories, automotive factories where on technical layoff during this period because there were no parts, they were blocked in the containers in the Sue Canal. And nowadays, I think every single event like a war or a block blockade of the

Ju-Hyun Park:

Sue canal or the war around the service channel or a storm

Peter Mertens:

Can hit this global production chain. So that’s one objective factor. The objective factor is also that in the food systems, the climate change is really influencing the food production worldwide. And all these events tend to push up the price. That’s an objective factor. But on the other hand, we see, and that is really the big thing they’ve been hiding like after the war in Ukraine and amidst the mist around this war, amidst the fuck around all this war, the big corporations, the big multinationals use the fuck to lift up their prices.

And so they’re misusing the situation from Covid. They’re misusing the situation from the war in Russia. They’re misusing the situation of possible floods or events of Swiss canal location to even lift up the prices and making super profits. And if you see the prices in the food sector during the first year in 2022 of the Ukraine war, it was crazy. It was not the war causing this mega food prices, it was the food multinationals themselves, like Cargill, they misused their monopolic situation on the food market. And the same happened in the oil sector and in the gas sector. They used the situation of the war to get up higher and higher prices and sur profit, extra profit windfall profits, working class people everywhere paid. And I’m in the Belgium parliament and the traditional political clause, they’re saying everywhere. Also in the parliament in Belgium, they came to the parliament with a scarf and they said to the people, look, you have to turn down your heating system in your houses due in winter and get a scarf.