Britannia Radio

Joschka Fischer  delivered a thoughtful speech this week at  the  
London School of Economics.  It may be too apocalyptic but there’s  
certainly a great deal to ponder on

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TELEGRAPH          26.2.09
Future is 'bleak' warns Joschka Fischer
Joschka Fischer, the former German vice-chancellor, has issued a  
bleak assessment of Europe's prospects for surviving the financial  
crisis, warning that leaders of a "self-weakening" continent are  
failing to come to grips with its decline.

By Michael Levitin in Berlin

"Modern capitalism is based on a global ponzi scheme," he said.  
"There is no quick fix to this very severe crisis. It will transform  
global reality in a similar way as the collapse of the Soviet Union  
transformed the global system 20 years ago."

Global power was shifting from West to East, "and it's completely  
short-sighted to believe that other powers will look after our  
interests", Mr Fischer said in a speech to the London School of  
Economics.

"We are ignoring the basic facts – we're discussing whether we are  
creating super-states or not, whether to help Berlusconi or not – but  
we don't discuss our relative decline."

The result, he predicted, would be an acceleration of the transfer of  
power from West to East – something that did not bode well for an  
inward-looking Europe.
"If you walk through the corridors of Washington these days,  
everyone's talking about China. Add India, Indonesia and Southeast  
Asia," he said. "It was not by chance that Hillary Clinton made her  
first foreign trip to Asia."

As Eastern EU economies crumbled, "there is a serious question mark:  
whether richer European economies understand that they must  
contribute to the refinancing of those economies. Otherwise,  
enlargement is in danger... [and] we will invite other powers to play  
games in a very unstable and insecure situation. I'm not talking just  
about the economy, but about peace and insecurity on the European  
continent."

Mr Fischer, 60, who was foreign minister and vice-chancellor under  
Gerhard Schröder, the former chancellor, from 1998 to 2005, added:  
"Europe is in a very precarious situation because we are strongly  
integrated with the common market and the euro zone. On the other  
hand, Europe is not integrated enough to act decisively. We don't  
have streamlined institutions. We don't have a strong common foreign  
policy or security policy."

He said Europe was weak in dealing with Russia, Afghanistan, Iran,  
Pakistan and crises in the Middle East.

Europe would become irrelevant – and vulnerable – if it kept failing  
to speak with a united voice, beginning with the creation of "a  
strong European pillar for Nato".
"America will follow its interests and the question will be simple:  
can you deliver? [If yes], then trans-atlanticism will have a future.  
If Europe cannot deliver in time, and deliver enough, then I predict  
huge problems."