I appreciate your reply, and the thought and experience that have gone into it.
My thoughts on Fratelli, I certainly agree that Meloni and the party have turned out to be much more of a pussy cat than the tiger she at first seemed. I think this change in her reflects her political pragmatism and desire to get access to the adults table in the EU, which she suredly would have been kept from should she have maintained the stridency in her positions that she had early on. I don't see this change as something she ideologically agrees with deep down. Meloni and Fratelli as a leading indicator of greater political change on the continent. Kind of like Brexit before Trump.
With regard to the AfD, I'm not really even thinking about their impact on the EU parliament yet. I'm more concerned with their growing sway within the bundestag. Their polling is quite strong especially in East Germany. Even nationally they are beginning to crowd out the other parties, only the union between the CSU and CDU outpolls them. AfD's rise especially since may seems to have come at the expense of the CDU/CSU.
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With regards to the EPP, they seemed to have made a tactical decision to try and head populism off at the pass by adopting just enough of its tenants to avoid immediate electoral consequences. I don't expect meaningful change at the EU level for years. I'm thinking generally about the next two decades. I see the national parliaments moving rightward more quickly than the EU parliament, and slowly exerting force on the EU as they gain strength. I don't expect the EPP moving rightward on green policy to be the last move they have to make. The rightward drift of the national parliaments should serve to move the overton window (what's allowed to be seriously politically discussed) rightward as well.
I don't really see a complete collapse in the cards for Europe. I certainly see a significantly diminished international position for it though. With Germany serving as the economic heart of the union, its recent economic troubles will have many second and third order effects. With the long term outlook for German manufacturing not being great, I see partial German deindustrialization as a real possibility.
Europe has generally filled their tanks for the winter, but with the loss of gas from russia, they've had to fill the void with short term LNG contracts, as opposed to the more long term contracts seen in Asia. These short term contracts are much more exposed to rapid swings in the markets than the longer term contracts.
Regarding Russia, I don't know if you noticed all the moves the BRICS have been making lately.
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That's a lot of new Oil producing countries in the BRICS, not to mention that they are toying with the idea of creating a gold backed currency to rival the petrodollar. We are looking at the beginnings of the creation of an Eastern sphere of influence to rival the west as we've understood it for the last century. Now this won't happen tomorrow, and even if it did it still doesn't have the juice the rival the dollar, but its the beginning of the end of the Unipolar world we've seen since the Berlin wall fell. Francis Fukuyama famously predicted the end of history in the 90's and he couldn't have been more wrong. We are re-entering the age of great power conflict the likes of which we haven't seen since the lead up to WWI.
Regarding the war to begin with Ukr is now drafting women and negating previously allowed medical exemptions. Equally worrying though more illegal, they are rounding up refugees from Ukr in Europe and getting them sent back to fight.
The US has stopped including amounts of weapons in their procurement lists for Ukr because they are our pantry is running dry of things to send them.
Regarding the counter offensive from Ukr.
Regarding Russia's military force buildup through 2023.
Sorry for quoting all that, but the time it would take me to internalize it and paraphrase it here would be enormous and I've already spent long enough on this.
Lastly to underscore my thoughts on the global situation generally. The biggest problem are the draw downs in capacity of our oil and gas fields everywhere.
We have too many people industrialized or industrializing too fast for the energy needs of the globe to met in the future. The only thing I can see that could possibly alleviate this lack of energy going forward in the future is nuclear, but the regulatory environment in the west is much too constrictive to enable the production of plants fast enough to counterbalance the loss of fossil fuels. The world isn't going to end, but it is certainly going to change.
To end, if you've read this far (and I truly appreciate it if you have), thanks for you're considered response to my post, seeing someone respond in good faith always warms the cockles of my heart. I think, you imagine that the changes I see now at the National level in Euro parliaments are something I was seeing also at the level of the EU parliament. That isn't the case and like I said I don't expect change there for a while. I agree with you that the EPP is taking its first steps to forestall the rise of populism at the EU level. Where we disagree I imagine is that this will be the last move the EPP has to make. I suspect the winds will either continue to push it to the right after these steps are taken (and this may happen over the course of years, this isn't a tomorrow prediction), or being unable or unwilling to make those further steps (possibly regarding immigration) another force in the EU parliament may supplant it.
Some may think I'm a doomer or stuck in a "black movie" as you say, but I just think things are going to change. I would enjoy your considered response to this, but completely understand if you dont.
Cheers
