What do Donald trump (USA), marine Le Pen (France), Alexis Tsipras (Greece), Geert Wilders (Netherlands), Heinz-Christian strache (Austria) and Viktor Orban (Hungary)? They all go hand in hand with Vladimir Putin. No, it’s not a conspiracy theory. The special relationship that the new us President has established with the Russian autocrat, a well-known and alarming. As recently as last Sunday, trump once again expressed his admiration for his Russian counterpart. But Putin has a trump is not limited. We should not forget that millions of funding for his presidential campaign, marine Le Pen receives from the Kremlin. Tsipras tried to find in the face of Putin’s new sponsor to remove the dependence of the country from European money. Last week in Budapest, Orban hosted Putin and lavished him with compliments. Or that Putin in the Netherlands and Wilders continues to enjoy a strong relationship despite an election year.
Europeans today are so busy with Donald trump, forget about Vladimir Putin. It can be a fatal mistake. For 2017 elections are scheduled in France, Germany and the Netherlands. And all these political chess boards, the Kremlin has set out his pieces. On the one hand, he supports marine Le Pen and Wilders, populist candidates that are leaders in their countries, according to polls. And on the other hand, is doing everything possible to weaken the position of Angela Merkel, spreading in social networks of false information about what is happening in Germany, like the fake news that a group of local residents Muslims burned the oldest Church of the country. We must have no illusions: the election victory of Le Pen or the defeat of Merkel for the European Union fatal. And after the Kremlin’s influence on the outcome of the U.S. presidential campaign in favor of trump confirmed, to underestimate the danger of Putin’s intervention in the European elections this year it would be too rash.
In addition, the rule States that “gratuitous snacks’t happen”, applies to international politics. Millions of euros that Putin transfers to the Bank account of the “National front”, is not justified only by common ideology. The ideological logic of funding, followed by the former Soviet Union, fuelling hotbeds of communism throughout the world, is no longer valid. Putin wants to undermine faith in Western powers, to weaken their power and moral authority. What is the purpose? To re-establish in their geographical area of influence. To keep their neighbors from the zone of NATO. And also to weaken the political and economic cooperation in Europe, to increase the dependence of their neighbors from Russia. It is no coincidence here and the statement of marine Le Pen that, as President of France, she recognizes Crimea in Russia. Before us is the fragmentation of the European power and consistent recognition of the Russian authorities. That’s what Putin is directing its funds.
And therefore not so important that he shared Putin, Le Pen and Tsipras. What unites them is much stronger. They prefer economic protectionism, globalization, point to the political defeat of liberalism in the West, calling for the strengthening of the sovereignty and deny the benefits of political integration in the European Union, are questioning NATO and other international organizations, providing the world order since the Second world war. No matter how different their political projects (and in fact differences are not so much), the weakening of the European institutions is the first condition for their implementation. Having greater financial, technological and political resources, Putin is at the head of this group of enemies of freedom declared war on the European Union and the values it represents. Moreover, now they can count on the respect of Donald trump, the most powerful man in the world. The picture looks quite frightening, or add anything else?
Trump is the main cause of the present concerns of Europeans. Meanwhile, Putin gets the advantage in this game, on which depends the future of Europe. If at the end he blew his trumpet the victory, the Europe that we pass on to our children, will be quite different from the present: to be more closed and homogeneous, less prosperous and free. There were times when it was like delusional dreams of Kremlin strategists, who still can not get rid of complexes of the cold war. But in 2017, it would be madness not to admit that we are closer than ever to becoming all that witnessed.
