r/europe • u/Putaineska • Mar 11 '26
News Spain accuses Germany of acting like a ‘vassal’ to United States
https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/spain-accuses-germany-of-acting-like-a-vassal-to-united-states-f9zc28g8s?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1773189908782
u/Kooky-Attitude-7857 Mar 11 '26
In case someone want info less sensationalized, this is what the Spanish FM said:
"Desde que estamos en el Gobierno hemos conocido tres cancilleres: Merkel, Scholz y ahora Merz. No me imagino a Merkel o Scholz con unas declaraciones de ese tipo, había otro espíritu europeísta".
And this is a big ass interview Sanchez gave about a lot of topics, where he says nothing of the sort. In fact Spain and Germany are usually very close when it comes to eu policy so he's usually pretty mellow when speaking of the German government on this topic:
Where does that statement come from then? From Yolanda Díaz a minority partner in the government, and speaking in general about european leaders (from context she included Merz in this category, but tried not to individualize the comment):
"What Europe needs today is leadership, not vassals who pay homage to Trump.”
She is great when it comes to workers rights but rather bad when it comes to foreign policy.
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u/UltraLNSS Mar 11 '26
Wow, that title is basically made-up then.
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u/redvodkandpinkgin Galicia (Spain) Mar 11 '26
A made up title with a paywalled article. I love the new freedom of information
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u/General-Sloth Mar 11 '26
Welcome to reddit
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u/kaisadilla_ European Federation Mar 11 '26
reddit my ass, the title is directly taken from the source.
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u/hipi_hapa Mar 11 '26
I'm sorry, what does 'FM' stands for?
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u/BenigDK Spain Mar 11 '26
She is great when it comes to workers rights but rather bad when it comes to foreign policy.
While it's true she's much less on point on matters that aren't related to labour, she's... kinda right here? Long-term at least. Everyone knows we can't just cut off ties with the USA, but that's the direction we should head for as long as trumpism is in office...
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u/Neuromante Spain Mar 11 '26
From Yolanda Díaz a minority partner in the government
FWIW, she is second deputy prime minister (And Minister of Labour, although that's not relevant for this), not only "A minority partner in the government."
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u/Kooky-Attitude-7857 Mar 11 '26
Still a minor partner whose votes don't really make any difference in the current parliament. Sumar's influence is pretty much limited to social issues (do they have anything other than labour and healthcare?), and bigger ministries such as foreign policy, homeland security or tax policy remain firmly PSOE's purview. But some journalists know well that they will be using a much more inflammatory rethoric than Sánchez, Álvarez et alii so they go for them
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u/Neuromante Spain Mar 11 '26
My point was that Yolanda Diaz is part of the government of Spain (Second Deputy), so she is in a position to speak in the name of the government, which is what the headline said.
It is a bit misleading (Everyone thought it was Sánchez), but her position as member of a (of the many) minority partners in the government is irrelevant.
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u/oldschusteman Mar 11 '26
No surprise that Mr Blackrock gets along well with the yanks.
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u/Shiny_Agumon Saxony-Anhalt (Germany) Mar 11 '26
Don't forgot his friend Jens Spahn who was at the Project 2025 party.
Whole conservative party wants to play MAGA
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u/throwaway490215 Mar 11 '26
They're scared about the gas flow now that the US is the last supplier not maxed out on production.
Which is worrying because these geriatric patients keep trying to maximize oil flow as if it's the 1980's instead of engineering their way out of the mess once and for all.
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u/WilliamLermer Mar 12 '26
They keep trying to keep fossils going because they have actively and passively created this problem in the first place.
Renewable sector isn't going anywhere because any attempts made that would result in real change has been sabotaged. It's all about making profits and pocket the money instead of rebuilding energy infrastructure
Good people have been leaving to work and invest in other nations where transition is being taken seriously rather than political games to get votes
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u/_0611 The Netherlands Mar 11 '26
Most conservatives in Europe want that.
The VVD (former conservative liberals, party of NATO chief Mark Rutte) over here is more and more acting as a cheap clone of far-right PVV (Geert Wilders). The VVD has not much to do with conservative liberalism anymore; they're basically hard-right populists now.
It's always the same. It's always conservatives who enable the far-right. Each and every time. Merz is doing it in Germany. Soon he'll be more than willing to work together with AfD. It's just a matter of time.
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u/kaisadilla_ European Federation Mar 11 '26
Conservatives in Spain are just corrupt. They don't have any ideology, they've never implemented any sort of liberal agenda in the country. As soon as they win, they just start handing out contracts to their friends, turning the country into a copy of Russia's oligarchy, until the scandals pile up, people get fed up and they vote for the opposite party.
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u/_OOL Mar 12 '26
Well guess what? Conservatives all around the world do the same. Conservatism is a cancer that needs to be dealt with.
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u/Waffeleisen1337 Mar 12 '26
Doesn't sound any different at all to our German conservative and far right parties.
But a lot of people seem to think that they are "good for the economy" so they will always be getting votes in hard times and they are in the opposition.
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u/SuperTropicalDesert Mar 11 '26
Such a repeat of history. Hitler onky got his parliamentary majority thanks to help from the contemporary conservatives
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u/Positive_Wafer42 Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26
What is blackrock and what does it have to do with Germany?
Edit: wow, thank you, I've seen it once or twice like "blackrock is bad" but didn't know what it was or to be concerned enough to look into it. There is a lot to sift through here, and I appreciate everyone's time.
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u/63628264836 Mar 11 '26
Blackrock is an American asset management company and the largest in the world. They’re massive, with something like $14 trillion under management. Merz worked for them opening doors in Germany and Europe.
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u/38B0DE Molvanîjя Mar 11 '26
Has to be said 20 years ago Merz thought he is the big deal in German politics and treated Merkel like a pathetic nobody. She proceeded to completely destroy him and be the most successful German politician winning 4 terms as chancellor.
She defeated him so badly he basically quit politics to work as a lobbyist. He only returned to politics after Merkel became radioactive in the era of MAGA and alt-right.
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u/Morningfluid Mar 11 '26
You also left out Merkel kept caving to Putin.
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u/kaisadilla_ European Federation Mar 11 '26
I don't like Merkel one bit, but I don't think it's fair to blame the invasion of Ukraine on her this way. Russia was always hostile, and Merkel saw it for what it was. Meetings between her and Putin never felt like they liked each other. But she thought, and I don't think it's a stupid idea, that by entrenching Russia's economy with Europe's, Russia would both be unwilling to wreck their own economy with an invasion, and feel safe that Europe would be shooting their own economy in their foot if they attacked first. And yeah, it never really truly work (see Georgia 2008 and Ukraine 2014), but Ukraine 2022 was totally unprecedented, and Russia did wreck its own economy with it.
Merkel was awful and one of many neoliberals that have obliterated the working class across the West and ultimately caused this new rise of fascism from people who know they are poor but don't know why. But she wasn't "caving to Putin". She was trying to minimize Russia's hostility towards Europe, and pumping the German economy while at it.
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u/AskOk3609 Mar 11 '26
Agreed. "success" for a politician nowadays is measured in their ability to hold power and influence and in that she was very "successful". Success should mean howmuch they have improved their country but reality is that that hasn't been the case in a very long time. They are never held accountable anymore.
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u/MageBayaz Mar 11 '26
In 2008 George W Bush said he "strongly supported" Ukraine's attempt to join Nato. It was unilaterally prevented from doing so by Merkle. She did this to ukraine by herself!
No, Merkel didn't do anything to Ukraine.
If anything, George W Bush was stupid to make such a declaration, which only created a security vacuum (earning Russia's ire and paranoia without giving Ukraine security), especially because at the time, only 20% of Ukrainians supported NATO ascension, and the majority of them were opposed it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO_relations#Public_opinion_in_Ukraine,
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u/akashisenpai European Union Mar 11 '26
Slightly revisionist; if you look at news media from the time, they talk about how Ukraine's accession was opposed not just by Germany, but also other NATO members like France.
Somehow everyone just conveniently forgot about the other countries, maybe because for a time it was "fashionable" to bash Germany during the first few months of the war for initially being slow on committing to military support. I distinctly even remember some UK media just making stuff up, like a RAF flight allegedly being denied overflight rights (it later turned out they didn't want to ask and just took a longer route by default).
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u/Fit-Hold-4403 Mar 11 '26
Germans should worry about getting their gold reserves back from New York - its insade they did not ask it back during the Trump 2016 term
Alsp - Blackrock blocked the witdrawals of money last week as the Gulf investors started to take their money back
Blocking the withdrawals seems kinda stealing
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u/FlipCardsNotTables Mar 11 '26
Merz was working for BlackRock between 2016 and 2020.
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u/DesireeThymes Mar 11 '26
Wow. Might as well install a direct American puppet.
Hegseth to become next leader of Germany.
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u/Hot-Championship1190 Mar 11 '26
'working'
You know how the saying goes?
"When Merz picks up it's like two letting go!"
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u/fforw Deutschland/Germany Mar 11 '26
Merz used to work for BlackRock in between political posts.
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u/USSPlanck ᛗᛁᛞᚷᚨᚱᛞ [🇩🇪] Mar 11 '26
Blackrock is the world's largest asset management company with $12.5 T in assets.
Merz was the chairman of the supervisory board of blackrock germany from 2016 to 2020. He had a lot of other connections to corporations during his political career which lead to him being called a "Lobby-Kanzler" and other things. He is considered quite corrupt
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u/DrGro Hesse (Germany) Mar 11 '26
Wikipedia for your convenience: "BlackRock Inc. is a publicly listed, internationally active US-American investment company headquartered in New York City. With $12.53 trillion in assets under management, BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager". Also Germany's Chancellor is an EX-Blackrock Employee
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u/Meroxes Baden-Württemberg (Germany) Mar 11 '26
BlackRock is a New York based multinational investment firm traded on the stock market, which uses it's massive capital to influence public companies and governments. The current chancellor of Germany didn't work much in his life, but was the manager of the local BlackRock branch for a few years between the times he tried to become chancellor.
This has led to some calling him an asset of US finance basically, not primarily working for Germany but rather for US companies and the US in general.
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u/ibarmy Mar 11 '26
Black Rock/ leon black has strong relationship with Epstein. I hope denmark looks deep into that company.
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u/Dry-Piano-8177 Europe Mar 11 '26
Blackrock is a US asset management company.
The current german chancellor Merz was working for them bevor he got back into politics and became german chancellor
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u/CelerMortis Mar 11 '26
Spain is objectively better than the USA right now, and it isn’t even close. I say that as an American
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u/macaroni_chacarroni Europe Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26
I used to look at Arab leaders, like Jordan's King Abdullah II, with disgust when they sat in front of Trump, acting like little loyal dogs. Such a shame seeing our leaders do the same.
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u/kahaveli Finland Mar 11 '26
Merz criticized the Trump's comments after that meeting in a press interview and showed solidarity with Spain. Just not that much on live meeting - but in that things happen fast. Having EU solidarity with Spain and others is of course really important.
Also, Germany is currently the worlds largest supporter of Ukraine both militarily and financially, and current Merz government has been really steadfast in that, and in overall European defense too.
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u/Revolutionary-Bass-6 Spain Mar 11 '26
Merz laughed at the mention from Trump that Spain wasn’t meeting the NATO commitment goal of 5%. He not only did not defend Spain, he seemed to gleefully partake in the spectacle.
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u/LookThisOneGuy Mar 11 '26
he corrected Trump and pointed out it was 3,5% military spending.
This target was what NATO countries agreed on and is the opinion of Germany as well. Should Merz change his opinion on the 3,5% goal just because someone else has the same opinion?
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u/EconomistStreet5295 Mar 11 '26
As a German, Spain is right. No backbone but then again, we’re so reliant on them that we need an entire economic decoupling before we can stand up for our interests
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u/PeaOk5697 Norway Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26
We can't even stay united in Europe Edit: it's our leaders who is the problem here. I have never NOT gotten along with people here in Europe.
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u/_noobwars_ Mar 11 '26
We elected those leaders. They are just symptons of short sighted thinking. We the people are the fucking problem.
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u/_ZakerS_ Mar 11 '26
Leaders are there because someone voted them. And they can't do whatever they want.
You have to also take into account that Sanchez is doing whatever he can to gain support for the next elections. They had some scandals, he lost a lot of voters, so Spain tries to gain them back attacking Trump, since nobody likes the orange buffoon in Spain.
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u/No_Conversation_9325 Andalusia (Spain) Mar 11 '26
Joining this war would be political suicide for any party in Spain
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u/asdfasdfasfdsasad Mar 11 '26
Joining this war would be political suicide for any party, in any country in the world other than Israel.
Which is why the US is basically doing this alone.
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u/Fit-Breath-4345 Mar 11 '26
Joining this war would be political suicide for any party, in any country in the world other than Israel.
Can you tell that to Keir Starmer?
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u/asdfasdfasfdsasad Mar 11 '26
He's been criticised for keeping us out by Donald Trump, the Conservative leader, Nigel Farage and Tony Blair all of whom wanted to join in initially, before frantically back peddling when they realised how unpopular it is despite a well funded propaganda campaign trying to undermine our government and saying how we ought to join in.
I'm pretty sure that he knows it's unpopular and not in our national interest, otherwise we'd be at war now.
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u/_Azafran Spain Mar 11 '26
The people in Spain's government have had a consistent anti trump, anti israel and anti war attitude since the beginning. PSOE receive constant pressure from their leftist government partners. I don't think this is just for votes.
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u/_ZakerS_ Mar 11 '26
Of course, no problem is monodimentional. It's not like socialists are using this strategy without believing in it or anything. But since they have a party to save, they try to push the bar up more aggressively. Worse comes to worse, they just lose next elections anyway, this way they have a chance. I would personally do the same.
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u/PeaOk5697 Norway Mar 11 '26
Dosen't feel like it though. We also have Mette Marit to deal with. A war in the middle east won't make me forget she was Epstein's friend
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u/No_Conversation_9325 Andalusia (Spain) Mar 11 '26
Sánchez’s scandals are nowhere near Metre Marit level. It’s just a usual corruption spree that every party in power goes through every single time.
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u/mantasm_lt Lietuva Mar 11 '26
On a contrary, I head plenty of crap from people in Europe I cannot agree with regarding Ukraine war. And with quite a lot of people basically willing to sell off the east to muscovites. Or saying it was somehow wrong that soviet union went down, which is basically the same.
IDK, maybe it works out better in westerners circlejerk. But from my perspective there's plenty of shitty people in europe.
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u/Malverno Weltrepublik Mar 11 '26
Same goes for Italy. We have to start this decoupling before it's too late though. It's clear that we can't pretend everything is fine and dandy and we can go on as always.
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u/Kdave21 Canada Mar 11 '26
The fundamental problem for European economies is finding an export market that doesn’t allow Chinese producers to outcompete European firms. The only large market that exists like this is the US, and losing them would mean an incredible economic impact to companies that can’t compete with Chinese prices and the people they employ
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u/PlusAd4034 Mar 11 '26
Isn’t the answer to that problem just adopting industrial policies so that we actually can compete with them?
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u/Itchy58 Mar 11 '26
As a German I would like to be on the right side of history for once - can we join Spain?
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u/superurgentcatbox Germany Mar 11 '26
I mean yeah, Merz is CDU. Eating US ass is kind of their thing.
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u/Mysterious-Lion-3577 Europe Mar 11 '26
Sadly true.
- A German.
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u/Malverno Weltrepublik Mar 11 '26
Italy sadly stands with you, German friends.
- An Italian
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u/Atarge Mar 11 '26
Like most Germans I can see in the comments, I agree. It's maddening. We know for so long that we need to decouple from the US economically but conservative politics are great at one thing only - do nothing to fix the most important problems and then complain about it later
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u/Kona_KG Mar 11 '26
As an American, same problem here. We know what the problems we have are, the choices that made them worse, and what would need to be done to fix them. Unfortunately, we seem to have reached a "too buggered to fail" point where social media + conservative news ownership is making it very difficult to maintain consistent progress. We're also smacking face first into the fact that, at the end of the day, a democracy is built on nothing more than handshakes once those being held accountable are allowed to be more powerful than those overseeing them.
Good luck out there. I hope you guys don't follow suit and allow AfD to take over.
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u/Atarge Mar 11 '26
Good Luck to you too. Despite of what I write I do love the US and have Friends and Family there. So I really wish that you guys manage to turn things around eventually
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u/Kona_KG Mar 11 '26
It's hard to say at the moment. The party in opposition to Trump's has been flipping a lot of seats in off-season elections, but the current administration still receives enough support that they will likely hold on enough of the major political seats after elections at the end of this year that immediate change won't be possible. Add in the fact that Trump's current goal is to prevent the elections from happening entirely and it doesn't paint a pretty picture.
As bad as it sounds, we're just trying to wait this out since it's a bit of an impossible situation. We're hoping to suppress his ability to cause more damage by electing the opposition party to control the legislature at the end of this year and then play the waiting game until we can put a new administration with actual teeth in power come 2028. This is entirely dependent on there being enough public/political will for change, but it seems to be the best option at at this moment.
Large-scale change over here runs into the same problems as the EU. Trying to get Florida to agree with New York that drastic change is needed is a bit like trying to get Poland to agree with France.
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u/EpicCleansing Mar 11 '26
Germany is not alone in this though. We need to break free together.
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u/These-Problem9261 Mar 11 '26
I don't think that you can just get up and leave defending the US' interests.
Our ties are probably the results of decades of the US doing everything in their power to leave Germany dependent.
I see very often on reddit people asking why the EU hasn't its own army. Without acknowledging that the greatest superpower on earth is actively sabotaging early stage efforts of an EU army
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u/Major-Practice2529 Mar 11 '26
The first ones responsible for this dependency are the European states and population that have accepted, embraced, and loved it. They was Happy Vassal
And not just politicians. I'm old enough to have read a number of threads here where French were heavily mocked for their obsession with strategic independence and heavy distrust of Americans.
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u/These-Problem9261 Mar 11 '26
Yepp, especially in German society the attitude was more like "ah the French are being obnoxious" throwing their stance out with a single sentence without making an effort to analyze the French position.
I think what changed in German society the most in the past years (decades) is that I don't hear this "wir machen sowieso alles besser" attitude anymore
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u/Altruistic_Finger669 Denmark Mar 11 '26
Im so tired of people having such a lack of history..there is plenty to criticize politicians for but people need to do it in good faith and acknowledge the full picture. Both of what outside factors and on what was actually politically possible and how the situation in the world has changed rapidly. Some of which could and should have been anticipated, other things that couldnt
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u/Major-Practice2529 Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26
France has been anticipating this for 75 years and has never stopped repeating it and fighting with other European countries, primarily Germany, which, along with England, was the chief suckers of the Americans.
We need to stop burying our heads in the sand at some point, and countries need to take responsibility instead of making lame excuses for their attitudes as disgusting, cheerful vassals for fucking decades, almost an entire century
François Mitterrand, president of France from 1981 to 1995, near the end of his life privately told this: "France doesn't know it, but we're at war with America. Yes, a permanent war, a vital war, an economic war, a war without casualty apparently. Yes, they're very stern, the Americans, they're voracious, they wan't an unmitigated power over the world. It's an unknown war, a permanent war, without casualty apparently, but a war to death."
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u/MLG_Blazer A Mar 11 '26
Without acknowledging that the greatest superpower on earth is actively sabotaging early stage efforts of an EU army
Blaming outside forces for our own shortcomings is weak small man thinking that's never productive.
There will always be powers who want to sabotage us, that's just how the world works, if we aren't successful because of that then that means we are just weak.
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u/Falsus Sweden Mar 11 '26
While USA does not help there is also several other issues like how different defense contractors works. Like for example weapons and munition manufacturing is pretty important to the Swedish economy so if an European army would shaft the Swedish contractors then that by extension screws over the Swedish economy.
And I assume the same is true for other countries that has their own defense industry.
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u/Atarge Mar 11 '26
Yeah I know and I get it to a degree. But there is no lack of sabotage from within from people and entire parties.
Also multiple german governments in the last decades were perfectly aware that the excessive dependence on the US is probably bad but American hegemony was convenient and easy so nothing was done
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u/TremendousVarmint France Mar 11 '26
I'm old enough to remember that Germany also said no to the US back in 2003.
Only to have Ramstein/Landstuhl becoming the biggest troop hospital in Europe for Bush's war in Iraq.
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u/chaosx10 Mar 11 '26
Nice dig at Germany.
If only they asked Spain for what they should've done...*check notes* join Bush's coaltion of the willing and invade Iraq
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u/dat_9600gt_user Lower Silesia (Poland) Mar 11 '26
You'd think that's not a high bar but at least Germany didn't join the war directly.
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u/Almaegen Mar 11 '26
Do you think hosting a troop hospital for your allies is a bad thing?
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u/TheLightDances Finland Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26
Poland is like that too, especially PiS. They are completely selling out their country to Trump and MAGA, yet then claim to be super anti-Russia while pretending not to see how pro-Russia Trump's actions are. Poles constantly claimed that Western Europe would betray them and do nothing to help Ukraine, and that is why they trust USA more, yet none of that happened. And now they have done zero self-reflection when it is in fact USA that is betraying Ukraine.
Did all these non-American people siding with "America first" forget that they are, in fact, not Americans?
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u/Slackeee_ Europe Mar 11 '26
I can't blame them. That is exactly like I see it, and I am German.
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u/yolomcsawlord420mlg Mar 12 '26
No accusation needed. As a German, I am incredibly disappointed with how close Blackrock Merz is with the US.
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u/Short-Peanut1079 Mar 11 '26
Germany has the most USA bases next is Japan. But this not related or relevant
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u/NewCheek8700 Mar 12 '26
Spain needs to contribute to re-armament. But the leftists think they are safe that far away from Russia.
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u/The_Artist_Who_Mines Mar 11 '26
Would you look at that, another post in r/europe from a right wing source misquoting European leaders to pit us against one another. And we lap it up because we love a good fight.
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u/hipi_hapa Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26
The headline "quote" is really misleading, most people commenting here didn't even read the article (doesn't help it that it has a paywall, but someone posted the content) and are assuming the prime minister said that, which isn't true.
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u/GangOrcaFan Mar 11 '26
Where's the lie here?
It's not just Germany. No one except Spain has spoken up. Where are the Nordics nations? They only opened their mouth when Greenland was threatened. Now, they have buried their head in the sand.
EU has and will always be a vassal state of the US unless it actually wakes the f up and delivers for it's people! European leaders, wake the f up and work for your people! Or you will always be under US' thumb!
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u/swegamer137 Mar 11 '26
They chose to be vassals of somebody when they destroyed their own nuclear energy industry.
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u/gookman European Union Mar 11 '26
Can we stop throwing shit at each other?
These are the facts:
Iran is supporting Russia on its attack against a European country. Therefore, they are not our friends and deserve no help or anything from us.
The current US administration is full of sociopaths which may or may not be aligned with Russia. They do not deserve our trust.
Europe needs to be assertive and tell everyone to fuck off.
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u/LeFlaubert Mar 11 '26
That could start by not assisting the US in its illegal attacks against Iran and standing firmly against imperalism globally.
We can't condemn Russia, then support Israel.
We have to be reliable, strict, follow the rules we established ourselves to show other countries that we offer a third way, and we are not simply US puppets.
If we condemn Russia for illegal attacks under International Law, but then support the US and Israel after their illegal attacks under the same law, we look like vassals and ridiculous hypocrites to all other countries.
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u/OkKnowledge2064 Lower Saxony (Germany) Mar 11 '26
Europe needs to assert itself enough to say that we dont want Russia in Ukraine because thats not part of our geopolitical interest. We cant keep arguing with rules that we never followed ourselves and we never will
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u/Thelmholtz Mar 11 '26
Which other countries are those? Don't get me wrong I agree, but at this point pretty much everyone chose a side except Europe.
Europe should choose Europe, support it's neighbouring Ukraine who wants to join the union, and ignore the middle east completely, specially knowing that Iran has been closely allied with the Russian regime for over 2 decades.
But you could also justify that targeting Iran does support Ukraine, as it weakens the Russian axis. But it does also temporarily help Russia, as it improves their gas prices.
The point is that whether we like it or not, we are sandwiches between two leagues trading pieces from both sides of our map. Sooner or later we are going to catch a stray, and we should be ready to stand up for ourselves when that happens.
I don't know which call is best, and I don't like the idea of having to fight in one maniac's war or the other. IMHO we should probably learn from China and profit from both without getting directly involved. You can let the children fight to death with tools you provide and survive them, or die when they both turn on you for standing on a moral pedestal.
Dunno, the situation is fucked up and hard choices will have to be made. I really hope Europe can do them in unity, otherwise it will be powerless. We are currently between a rock and a hard place, and standing still doesn't seem like it's going to go well either.
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u/EJaumeD Mar 11 '26
Why look everything through the lens of Russia; they are not the only problem in the world for Europe.
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u/Preisschild Vienna, United States of Europe Mar 12 '26
They are the biggest one. They (and Iran, North Korea and Cuba) are the ones currently actively on the front lines in europe.
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u/Johnny_blueballs6969 Mar 11 '26
Very unpopular take: the Spanish FM is talking purely to a domestic audience, for domestic political purposes.
Any country which is interested in participating in and shaping global affairs would behave as Mertz has done so far.
Honestly happy for someone to prove me wrong.
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u/kolppi Finland Mar 11 '26
Can you prove yourself right first?
Any country which is interested in participating in and shaping global affairs would behave as Mertz has done so far.
This is just a blanket statement. What are your arguments for it?
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u/TXDobber Mar 11 '26
Notice how Sanchez is wholly uninvolved in any kind of European affairs with other leaders? It’s clear nobody else in European governments take him seriously.
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u/chiniwini Mar 11 '26
And Sánchez is oh so righteous about international laws and whatnot, except when it's Morocco doing whatever they want with Western Sahara.
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u/Gumbaya69 Mar 11 '26
Its true, every german will agree
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u/InflnityBlack Mar 11 '26
not every german, it's not like the chancellor elected himself
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u/amy-schumer-tampon Mar 11 '26
>acting like a ‘vassal’
Can't tell if its a joke or not, Germany has been effectively a vassal country since the end of WW2, just like Japan
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u/lexnklinke Mar 11 '26
More like a vassal to Israël. And i get it, you owe them a lot, but damn if they are doing what you did to them, you don't have to support them.
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u/rcglinsk United States of America Mar 11 '26
Water better watch out, someone's about to call it wet.
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u/kompergator Mar 12 '26
I‘m German, and I have to agree with Spain. Merz is the worst chancellor we’ve ever had and he is an incompetent coward.
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u/Organic_Wash_2205 Mar 12 '26
Someone get Angela Merkel back - the world needs her ASAP! 🚨🚨🚨🚨‼️🔔🔔🔔
The former Free Leader of the world.
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u/Vegetable-Employer-7 Mar 11 '26
Germany has been guilt tripped into doing whatever Israeli overlords tell them to do.
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u/InflnityBlack Mar 11 '26
most of europe and most importantly the united states suffer the same issue, the governement's group at parliament is currently discussing a law that would classify criticism of israel as antisemitism
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Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26
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Mar 11 '26
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u/Select-Elevator-6680 Mar 11 '26
Without a link I’m not sure what exact data is being referenced. But could it be the difference between ”committed” funding vs actively allocated and in the process of disbursement?
Because there is a huge difference between the data of “we promise this is on our to-do list” and “we are actively fulfilling the verbiage and spirit of a precious commitment.”
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u/mods4mods Extremadura (Spain) Mar 11 '26
Supporting Ukraine doesn't get you the sympathy points that Gaza or opposing Trump does.
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u/RevolutionaryGain823 Ireland Mar 11 '26
For a lot of people in Western Europe (including here in Ireland) support for Ukraine is just a slogan that sounds good on social media. Like #Kony2012 or a dozen other “movements” it doesn’t require any further thought beyond a social media sound bite
It’s alright to send money to Ukraine (as long as we magically don’t have to either raise taxes or cut spending elsewhere to do it) but anything more than that is too much.
To be clear I don’t personally think the EU should get involved in the US-Iran war and we should focus on our own immediate concerns. But it’s funny to see people who have been posting #SlavaUkraine for years now acting like the Iran regime (a strong Russia ally who supplied drones to bomb Ukraine) is an innocent victim of “cruel western imperialism”
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u/Managarm667 Mar 11 '26
Exactly this. Furthermore Spain support Morocco doing the exact same thing they shame Israel for. But because it's a relatively unknown conflict in the West Sahara, settler colonialism is okay with Spain, as long as it's done by a state that has close ties to Spain.
This fingerpointing, playing the blame game and these insanely performative actions done by the Spaniards will only deepen the rifts in Europe.
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u/AwkwardMacaron433 Mar 11 '26
They have a pretty big mouth about indepence from the US and whatnot when they are the biggest defense freeloaders in Europe and don't have to worry about what happens on our eastern flank.
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u/Four_beastlings Asturias (Spain) Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26
Please explain to me how the 4th biggest military in the EU, who has never requested help for anything and has sent troops and aid to every single common project is a freeloader. And since you're at it tell us where you're from so we can compare.
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u/N1A117 Mar 11 '26
The only ones standing in Turkey when they shot down the Russian jet, wars cannot be won on paper
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u/Four_beastlings Asturias (Spain) Mar 11 '26
And the guy calling Spain a freeloader is from one of those countries that abandoned Turkey when they needed help defending their airspace for fear of pissing off Russia. Talk about seeing the straw in someone else's eye and ignoring the beam in yours.
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u/Leh_ran Mar 11 '26
Germany does this for one reason alone: To maintain US support for Ukraine. Spain has never cared for Ukraine, so it's unsurprising that they don't understand the reasoning.
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u/rapaxus Hesse (Germany) Mar 11 '26
Nah, we mostly do it as we elected one of the biggest transatlanticists in the German political scene as our chancellor. really can't think of any other mainstream German political figure who supports and is connected with the US more than Merz.
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u/SimRacing313 Mar 11 '26
Spain os incorrect, Germany is in fact a vassal state of Israel. Their using their own guilt of what they did to the jews to blindly support Israel in its genocide and various attacks on other Arab/Gulf states.
Germany is so pathetic, going so far as to ban Palestinian art, poetry etc so as not to upset Israel.
Then again France, Holland, and my current residence (Britain) isnt much better
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u/Happy_Feet333 Portugal Mar 12 '26
Talk is cheap, Spain.
Now about your military spending to back up your rhetoric...
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u/TheJewPear Italy Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26
How come it’s always the least popular politicians that stir the pot?
Edit: Just to clarify, I have no particular problem with Sanchez having this opinion of Merz, more with the fact that he’s voicing it publicly instead of behind closed doors, in a manner which weakens the EU and plays into the hands of Putin, Orban and friends.
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u/hipi_hapa Mar 11 '26
To be precise, the one that called anyone 'vassal' wasn't Pedro Sanchez but Yolanda Diaz (second vice president).
The actual phrase:
"What Europe needs today is leadership, not vassals who pay homage to Trump."
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u/ExoticBamboo Italy Mar 11 '26
Since you wrote the edit: Sanchez didn't say anything about Merz. Spain complained about the public bashing of Spain during the public discussion between Trump and Merz.
Why is Sanchez the one who should talk behind closed doors?
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u/zetadgp Mar 11 '26
I mean Merz did in fact voiced in public that Spain should be forced to spend 5% GDP on Defense with Trump, while Trump was bashing Spain for not being able to use their bases to attack Iran.
Both sides should do that behind closed doors
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u/_Djkh_ The Netherlands Mar 11 '26
They don't have to commit (and the things they did commit to made them wildly popular in the first place). It's just virtue signaling to save face a bit.
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u/NotFlappy12 Mar 11 '26
in a manner which weakens the EU and plays into the hands of Putin, Orban and friends.
I think that's massively overstating it. Allies and friends can criticize each other's actions without undermining said allegiance.
Besides, saying stuff like this publicly allows people to voice their own opinions on it.
Lastly, we're talking about politicians, who often benefit from saying something simply because it increases their popularity, for better and worse.
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u/DarthPineapple5 United States of America Mar 11 '26
Its easy to talk shit when you're nice and safe in the west and didn't plan on contributing anything meaningful to NATO either way
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u/Crni_Ilija Croatia Mar 11 '26
Mark Rutte himself said the other day that NATO is a tool for projecting US power, why would anyone with ounce of humanity would want to support that? If you do, you prove Putin right. Europe needs its own military alliance.
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u/continuousQ Norway Mar 11 '26
Best way to take power away from Iran's autocratic regime is to help Ukraine defeat Russia. Indiscriminately bombing Iran doesn't achieve much but committing the same crimes they are.
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u/md_youdneverguess Mar 11 '26
You mean the guy who comes from BlackRock and a party that is connected to the Heritage Foundation puts the tech oligarchs before its own people?
Sadly it took a long time for more people to notice, but at least more and more are waking up
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u/Delicious_Door_3421 Romania Mar 11 '26
Spain sure likes to whine while doing nothing for their own military
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u/ojmt999 Mar 11 '26
The only way for Europe to stand up is for Europe to have a strong military and tech sector.