The murderer lives in the Kremlin, but it is Green Europe that finances him
For twenty years, Belgian ecologists have been demanding, often with great fury and as a matter of course, the complete destruction of civil nuclear power. The reason? Nuclear power produces waste — albeit on a derisory scale and without any accident, death or even illness ever having been attributed to nuclear waste in the history of humanity.
For years, environmentalists have adopted a posture of ‘moral high ground’, as the Americans say, of moral overhang, a pleasant promontory from the top of which they judge ordinary humans — starting with the wretched who have the nerve to question the economic, rational and geostrategic validity of their ‘vision’.
For the past twenty years, attempts have been made to suggest to environmentalists that the destruction of Belgian civil nuclear power will condemn this country to lose its energy independence to foreign suppliers. Fifty percent of Belgium’s electricity comes from nuclear power; it is quite obvious that intermittent wind turbines, which most of the time (in load factor) produce nothing — except subsidies and taxes — will not be substituted for nuclear power.
One European avenue was the exploitation of bedrock gas, also known as shale gas. Totally unthinkable for environmentalists, who consider it an evil source of energy. Too bad: there is plenty of bedrock gas in Europe, for example in France and the UK.
The ecologists prefer Russian gas to European gas. Russian gas! The fact that Russia has always been NATO’s adversary, its raison d’être, and sometimes its enemy, has never been of any relevance to environmentalists. When US President Trump — Trump, I ask you! — repeatedly tried to draw the attention of Europeans to the fact that it might not be so wise to massively enrich the Russian government, he was rebuffed with a pout of disgust by the very ober Angela Merkel, like a child who should pull his fingers out of his nose.
It is indeed possible that Trump has never been a keen reader of Hans Jonas, founder of contemporary environmentalism and proponent of the ‘lovable dictatorship’ (environmentalist dictatorship, of course). That is conceivable. But there is one area in which the American president is no match for his stellar European colleagues: understanding power relations. When you structurally condemn yourself to enrich your strategic opponent, sinking into an increasingly slavish dependence on him — without Russian gas and oil, hic et nunc in Europe the lights are turned off and BMW, Daimler, the German chemical industry and the ports of Antwerp & Rotterdam, in short, the European economy, are shut down — well, there may be a problem.
This problem was brought home to us with the invasion of Ukraine. Six hundred million euros a day: that’s what Europe is paying Russia, while the war in Ukraine is in full swing (the amount decreases with the drop in prices, but is still pharaonic). Six hundred million, or the equivalent of two hundred (200) new tanks per day (Damien Ernest). Per day! It is economically and arithmetically certain that Russia would not have been able to amass the means to invade Ukraine, nor to pursue it, without the permanent overabundant infusion of European money. This direct and massive financing of Russian imperialism by European money is in fact the only real concrete result of twenty years of European environmentalism.
The combination of Russian governmental and European environmentalist interests is so perfect that the Secretary General of NATO, and very recently the Director of the Foundation for Policy Innovation, have gone so far as to assert the existence of financial links between the Russian Federation and Western environmentalist movements. We are still waiting for the full media and judicial light to be shed on this interesting case — which will happen.
Faced with their overwhelming responsibilities, Europe’s environmentalists are immediately burning everything they have loved. Thus the German ecologists are in favour of continuing, reopening and opening coal-fired power stations — coal! By far the most polluting of all energy sources.
As for the Belgian ecologists, they are converting with the fervour of a relapsed apostate to this nuclear energy that they have been condemning for forty years. Indeed, they explain, ‘we cannot continue to enrich Russia! Oh, really? Wouldn’t it have been better to think about it a little earlier? I don’t know, for example in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea?
In the midst of their economic, moral, geostrategic and ultimately humanitarian bereavement, the ecologists would not be ecologists if they did not cling to their ideological fetishes and their childish irrational hatreds. Thus, the Belgian ecologists allow the extension of two nuclear reactors — but only two! But that is grossly insufficient. So how can the Belgian energy mix be completed? With gas-fired power stations, of course! And who will supply these gas-fired power stations? Of necessity, at least in part — the lion’s share for the time being — by Gazprom, i.e. the Russian government. But didn’t you just say, ‘We can’t keep fattening the Russian government’? Yes. Well, no. Because.
It is urgent to rush the European ecologists into the corridors of time. These sandbox ideologues, for peacetime and well-fed bourgeoises, self-serving for some, have devastated European energy and thrown Europe at the feet of the Russian Bear. The assassin lives in the Kremlin. But it is the environmentalist Europe that finances him.
Drieu Godefridi is a jurist (Saint-Louis University, University of Louvain), a philosopher (Saint-Louis University, University of Louvain) and a doctor in legal theory (Paris IV-Sorbonne).
