{"id":415393,"date":"2024-12-30T09:52:27","date_gmt":"2024-12-30T08:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/12\/30\/musk-interferenze-usa-in-ue-limiti-europa\/"},"modified":"2024-12-30T13:11:27","modified_gmt":"2024-12-30T12:11:27","slug":"musk-us-interference-in-the-eu-and-the-limits-of-a-struggling-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/12\/30\/musk-us-interference-in-the-eu-and-the-limits-of-a-struggling-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"Musk: US interference in the EU and the limits of a struggling Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – No foreign interference, no manipulation of democratic activity and life: so far, the European Union has declared war on\u00a0any interference that might influence elections that, in the end, might not be truly\u00a0free. In this sense, the threat is Russia, against which\u00a0Europe\u00a0is working hard to strip\u00a0the Kremlin’s propaganda power and influence. But what if the US steps into European affairs? Elon Musk<\/strong>, head of Tesla and next in charge of spending reductions in the incoming Trump administration<\/a>, lays bare the limits of the EU.<\/p>\n

The world’s richest man openly sides with Germany’s far-right. With Germany going to early elections on Feb. 23<\/a>, from across the Atlantic comes the endorsement for the Afd, depicted\u00a0as the country’s last hope.\u00a0It is a voting indication with significant repercussions for the EU\u2014opposing European integration, immigration, and even the euro. It represents an alliance prepared to collaborate with the right, serving as the cornerstone for a return to nation-states.<\/p>\n

Elon Musk seeks to undermine Europe<\/strong>. An eventual alliance of nationalist forces creates prospects\u00a0of a disintegration of the EU, paving the way for\u00a0a return to many little states that, in a globalized world, would struggle to remain competitive. This\u00a0risks\u00a0triggering disputes\u00a0between entities\u00a0overly focused on the ‘me first’ creed. The US has an interest in\u00a0further weakening a European Union that is not thriving. In all this, the EU must ask itself:\u00a0Can Washington still be trusted?\u00a0<\/strong>Is it\u00a0truly the ally we think it is?<\/p>\n

\n

.@elonmusk<\/a>: “The #AfD<\/a> has understood that economic freedom is not only desirable, but necessary. Their approach to reducing government overregulation, lowering taxes and deregulating the market mirrors the principles that Tesla and SpaceX… pic.twitter.com\/Xp8nmbGwaK<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Alice Weidel (@Alice_Weidel) December 28, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So far, Musk has been asked to work against the spread of the pro-Russian narrative on X, the instant messaging service accused of being an overly fertile ground for fake news. Now, the richest man in the world becomes the real problem, and the EU will have to do something about it. Assuming it is able or willing.<\/p>\n

Of course, Musk spoke\u00a0because Die Welt asked him:\u00a0the newspaper decides the editorial policy, certainly not the European Commission. Yet, the EU and its member states did not hesitate to shut down those newspapers in Europe that gave space to Russian propaganda harmful to European interests<\/a>. Why are they not now calling for action against the German newspaper? Sure,\u00a0it would mean that the EU, despite its much-hyped values, is resorting\u00a0to censorship in a way that does no honor\u00a0to democracy. But because it would mean sending a political message to the next tenant of the White House.<\/p>\n

Ursula von der Leyen, president\u00a0of the European Commission, \u00a0hyper-active on social media and ready to comment in real-time whatever happens, found nothing to say on Musk’s interference in the internal affairs of an independent and sovereign EU State, moreover the very one of von der Leyen:\u00a0no comment, not a word. The same goes for European and non-European politicians. They let it slide, effectively implementing a\u00a0double standard whereby foreign interference is not all the same:\u00a0<\/strong>Russian interference is unacceptable, and US interference is tolerable.<\/p>\n

A sandcastle\u00a0emerges from the Fortress Europe affair:\u00a0fragile, with many limits, and at the mercy of external actors and factors. Musk merely reminds the EU of its own political and economic inadequacy. In a Europe where France and Germany seem to have lost and exhausted their leadership role, it will have to be up to the Commission to try to set the course. In any case, someone else is already dictating the von der Leyen agenda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The incoming head of US government spending cuts forcefully enters German affairs and tells voters how to vote. Silence from a Europe that is otherwise ready to block Russian interference<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":415391,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25727,25711],"tags":[28858,26088,27047,26413,27441,25803,30103],"class_list":["post-415393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-spotlight","category-opinions","tag-elections-germany-en","tag-elon-musk-en","tag-eu-en","tag-ue-stati-uniti-en","tag-interference-strange-and","tag-russia-in-2","tag-trump-administration"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415393"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":415409,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415393\/revisions\/415409"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}