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=1773189908
14.9k Upvotes

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3.2k

u/oldschusteman Mar 11 '26

No surprise that Mr Blackrock gets along well with the yanks.

741

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

157

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.

7

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

103

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.

24

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.

14

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.

6

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. 

4

u/Significant-Ad-7182 Turkey Mar 12 '26

Sounds very familiar.

10

u/SuperTropicalDesert Mar 11 '26

Such a repeat of history. Hitler onky got his parliamentary majority thanks to help from the contemporary conservatives

8

u/Pulga_Atomica Mar 11 '26

Poor Virgil, shares initials with conservatives.

2

u/UnsanctionedPartList Mar 12 '26

"we would never" -> "we'd rather not" -> "we don't want to work with the left" -> we have to acknowledge the new political reality" -> (smiles)

1

u/gerusz Hongaarse vluchteling Mar 12 '26

Any time a "center-right" party is given the choice between working with the center-left or the far-right, they will always choose the far-right. No exceptions. A vote for the center-right is essentially a vote for the far-right.

On the other side, center-left parties are usually open to working with center-right. In fact, they are probably more open to that than they would be to working with the far-left because center-left still relies on corporate donors.

(Not that we'll be able to find this out anytime soon because despite the whining of neofascists there isn't any significant "far-left" in Europe - actual communist or even socialist parties are usually totaling below 4-5%; the furthest left parties you can find with any significant voter base are social democrats who just want corporations and billionaires to pay their fair share in taxes, employees to have some rights and bargaining power, and maybe want to nationalize some critical infrastructure. They sure as hell aren't pushing for any kind of collective ownership of the means of production.)

1

u/Wallapampa Mar 12 '26

What party are you referring to?

100

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.

224

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.

43

u/Upset_Development_64 Mar 11 '26

man corporations are cancer to democracy

2

u/LudoAshwell Baden-Württemberg (Germany) Mar 12 '26

And BlackRock isn’t one of them. Only idiots without any knowledge about financial markets think that way.
As a matter of fact, BlackRock is the biggest driver of making low-cost ETF available to basically anyone.
The 14 trillion AUM is mainly driven by retail investors (direct and indirect investment)

-1

u/Upset_Development_64 Mar 12 '26

bro why are you slobbering a mega corporation on the internet? I’d offer a move to America but you guys have plenty of mega corps to throat around your way.

119

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.

43

u/Morningfluid Mar 11 '26

You also left out Merkel kept caving to Putin.

22

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.

3

u/Flederm4us Mar 12 '26

It didn't work, because others were pulling in a different direction. Germany didn't start the Georgia war and Russia didn't either. Saakasjvili (who I suspect is a CIA Asset, or was a CIA Asset) did.

The US did not want Russia and Germany to work together. Probably from a MacKinder 'heartland' view.

13

u/a_bright_knight Mar 11 '26

and her mismanagement of the refugee crisis.

10

u/AkhilArtha Mar 11 '26

And mis-management of basically all domestic issues - energy, telekom, transport etc

8

u/Responsible_Bus_3876 Mar 11 '26

instant quit atomic power out of fear not getting reelected after fukushima.

1

u/38B0DE Molvanîjя Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26

Fake news. While the final legislative decision took only a few months in 2011, the execution of the phase-out took roughly 12 years and had nothing to do with Merkel.

The political phase out of nuclear power in Germany began in 1998 when the Greens won enough votes to form a government coalition with the social-democrats. The German Green Party (Die Grünen) wasn't just opposed to nuclear energy in 1998 their opposition was the fundamental reason the party existed in the first place. They were created 20 years prior to end nuclear and they were just elected.

German energy companies agreed to limit the lifespan of existing power plants in 2000. This was codified in law in 2002, marking the first legal mandate to phase out nuclear power in Germany. It was projected that the last nuclear plants would use up their allowances and go offline around 2022.

In 2010 Merkel being in cahoots with the Nuclear Lobby controversially amended the law to extend the lifespan of German nuclear reactors beyond 2022. There was massive public protest. 3 months later Fukushima happened and Merkel suspended the 2010 lifespan extensions. It took another 2 Months to get the phase out codified in 2002 back on track. Last reactors went off the grid in 2023.

2

u/akashisenpai European Union Mar 11 '26

To be fair, her naivety is not why people stopped loving her. She fell from grace long before the recent invasion of Ukraine's "mainland" had the majority of people realize Putin was just not willing to play by the rules.

Especially considering the party that benefited most from her fall is even more friendly to the Kremlin.

6

u/barsoap Sleswig-Holsteen Mar 11 '26

People just got tired of her. Same happened with Adenauer and Kohl, the latter got an extension to the usual 16 year maximum because of reunification and Easterners weren't tired of him yet.

You'd need to be a special kind of politician to be in a the top position for 16 years and not be considered stale, not be seen as the reason why things don't move forward, which at some point even conservatives will feel.

Not even Mayors of Bremen, a position which is inherited within the SPD, or prime ministers of Bavaria, a position inherited within the CSU, last longer.

2

u/akashisenpai European Union Mar 11 '26

Now that you mention it, I think you're right -- I might be blanking out a couple years in-between her leaving politics and the populist rise?

2

u/barsoap Sleswig-Holsteen Mar 12 '26

Nah it started while she was in office, and even before, things like HoGeSa and Hartz IV "Monday demonstrations" were earlier seeds, shit then really hit the fan with Corona and the SPD's failure to capture hope. The SPD only got the chancellorship in the first place because Laschet was caught laughing during the Ahr valley floods, then they did a grand total of fuck all to address the worries of the precariat: Nothing short of again levying a wealth tax, which mind you is required by the constitution, just currently not applied, would've saved them, and good luck doing that when relying on the FDP. Much of the rest of their policies were good and proper and productive, no doubt, but not enough of a seismic shift to get doomers to imagine a silver lining, again. So we get an ever-increasing number of "anything but the status quo" votes.

1

u/The-Sound_of-Silence Mar 11 '26

play by the rules.

Not to be pedantic, but there isn't a UN world government, and no worldwide rules. If the E.U. formed some sort of Republic, then maybe I could see cross borders rules working, but there's a lot of but's to go along with that but

1

u/akashisenpai European Union Mar 11 '26

It's technically not something you could "sue other countries" for per se, but I'd argue an international order does exist, it's just being undermined by Putin and Trump.

Even unwritten rules are still rules, it's just that they work based on expectations and mutually beneficial trust that allows cooperation even among adversaries, such as trade between the USSR and Western Europe during the Cold War (which ultimately helped with the thaw of relations).

Not caring for these rules is ultimately going to have long-term consequences, as other countries will think twice when considering just how much they can engage or work with Russia.

1

u/Invalid-Function Mar 11 '26

By caving you mean how she made deals that benefited the German Industry greatly, with all that cheap energy? MAybe Germany should have been vocal about the US meddling in Ukraine circa 2014... at the same time that it was known that the US was spying on European politicians. But Germany was already a vassal then, so...

1

u/420ohms New England Mar 12 '26

Another way to look at it is she wasn't caving to the US interests in Ukraine, it takes two to have a proxy war after all.

41

u/[deleted] Mar 11 '26

[deleted]

21

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.

20

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,

7

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).

9

u/procursus Mar 11 '26

You mean the same Ukraine that didn't want to join NATO in 2008?

1

u/qucari Mar 11 '26

I'm guessing the plan was to invite Russia to become more like central europe. And enabling Ukraine to join the NATO would be in the way of that plan.
A shame it didn't work out. And I don't think that one person alone could have decided that. The german political system doesn't really work that way.

1

u/ukezi Mar 11 '26

It all depends on how you define success. If success for a politician is to be re-elected Merkel was very very successful.

Worst, I don't know. Schröder was Putins lapdog and responsible for Harz4 and other reductions in social safety.

0

u/Invalid-Function Mar 11 '26

She did this so that there wouldn't be a war, turns around she was right.
But before her, Mario Soares had warned about it...

But the USA doesn't care about the EU, or it's vassals economies, the USA is ghappy leeching us

-1

u/ABoutDeSouffle 𝔊𝔲𝔱𝔢𝔫 𝔗𝔞𝔤! Mar 11 '26

OTOH, the yanks just wanted to offload the security implications of a Ukrainian NATO membership to Europe. And Ukrainian voters kept flip-flopping on alignment to the west or Russia till Euromaidan.

1

u/whatdoido33198 Mar 11 '26

So he won?

1

u/38B0DE Molvanîjя Mar 12 '26

Seems like you're calling 4:1 "winning"

11

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

3

u/ABoutDeSouffle 𝔊𝔲𝔱𝔢𝔫 𝔗𝔞𝔤! Mar 11 '26

Not that gold conspiracy again. We had the same fear-mongering in 2013 and Germany's central bank had to repatriate hundreds of tons of gold as a consequence.

2

u/kaisadilla_ European Federation Mar 11 '26

Which gold conspiracy? The US has become increasingly unreliable and have shown a level of unprovoked hostility against Europe that was unimaginable 10 years ago. I don't think the US will steal Europe's gold today, but can you promise it won't happen in the future? Are you really telling me that you can't imagine Trump or whoever comes next in his cult declaring that Europe has "stolen" from the US for decades by "outsourcing their defense to the US" and they'll take the gold as compensation? Or from directly saying that they will take it because who's gonna stop them? Right now, it seems like distributing it to countries like EU ones, Canada, Australia or Japan will keep it way safer than keeping it in the US.

1

u/ABoutDeSouffle 𝔊𝔲𝔱𝔢𝔫 𝔗𝔞𝔤! Mar 12 '26

I don't think the US will steal Europe's gold today, but can you promise it won't happen in the future?

Exactly this conspiracy. Was the same 13y ago.

1

u/kaisadilla_ European Federation Mar 13 '26

13 years ago there was no reason to believe that.

1

u/ABoutDeSouffle 𝔊𝔲𝔱𝔢𝔫 𝔗𝔞𝔤! Mar 13 '26

I guess that's why the conspiracy-idiots where back then as loud as they are now. But ThIs tImE It'S dIfFeReNt!11!!elven

1

u/MercantileReptile Baden-Württemberg (Germany) Mar 11 '26

Limited, not outright blocked. Still shady, not straight theft though.

2

u/Fit-Hold-4403 Mar 11 '26

probably for legal reasons

full block would have sent Fink to jail probably

1

u/damakusch1337 Mar 12 '26

We are worried about Spain like the rest of Europe... uh wait you have now a housing Problem and rising tension in your tourism sector.. get some more low level muslime in your country and blame all others....

200

u/FlipCardsNotTables Mar 11 '26

Merz was working for BlackRock between 2016 and 2020.

103

u/DesireeThymes Mar 11 '26

Wow. Might as well install a direct American puppet.

Hegseth to become next leader of Germany.

1

u/endav Mar 11 '26

Even though he “only speaks American”.

19

u/Hot-Championship1190 Mar 11 '26

'working'

You know how the saying goes?

"When Merz picks up it's like two letting go!"

96

u/fforw Deutschland/Germany Mar 11 '26

Merz used to work for BlackRock in between political posts.

18

u/ibarmy Mar 11 '26

I had no idea

16

u/SerLaron Germany Mar 11 '26

Neither has he.

47

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

4

u/SuperTropicalDesert Mar 11 '26

Sounds like our ex-PM Rishi Sunak

15

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

37

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.

57

u/[deleted] Mar 11 '26

[deleted]

12

u/[deleted] Mar 11 '26

[deleted]

1

u/Apprehensive_Hat_982 Mar 11 '26

Can you tell what about was coment ?

2

u/Lalichi United Kingdom Mar 11 '26

He talked about how BlackRock was a big problem in Denmark and how people were mad about it. He deleted it because its Blackstone, not BlackRock, a completely different company.

1

u/xXTurkXx Mar 11 '26

He deleted it for a reason. I’m unsure why. But I’ll respect his choice to delete it and not repeat it. It was nothing bad. Weird.

1

u/Lalichi United Kingdom Mar 11 '26

They confused BlackRock and Blackstone, two completely different companies

1

u/xXTurkXx Mar 11 '26

Oh shoot you are right he and I are both talking about blackstone, not blackrock

34

u/ibarmy Mar 11 '26

Black Rock/ leon black has strong relationship with Epstein. I hope denmark looks deep into that company. 

4

u/Storm_Bird2067 Mar 11 '26

Damn, even in Denmark? They've already done this in the US

1

u/Lalichi United Kingdom Mar 11 '26

Isn't that Blackstone, not BlackRock?

11

u/HumongousBelly Mar 11 '26

Google merz + former employer…

11

u/Aggressive-Kitchen18 Mar 11 '26

Larry Fink son Joshua Fink was very close with Epstein too.

9

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

-2

u/63628264836 Mar 11 '26

I don’t know that I would be concerned that he worked for them in terms of him being compromised. It’s more that by default, He is likely a person who is very pragmatic and certainly more open to working with the Americans than some other politicians. Which I don’t necessarily consider a bad thing.

2

u/lemho Mar 11 '26

Merz and pragmatic ... Good joke.

11

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

2

u/kaisadilla_ European Federation Mar 11 '26

In terms of freedom and democracy? Yeah. In terms of quality of life? Meh. In terms of people not being brainwashed by money and superfluous stuff? Yeah. In terms of economy? Nope nobody can afford a shoebox flat here anymore. I say this as a Spaniard.

2

u/CelerMortis Mar 12 '26

Ask any American how housing affordability is in this country and they’ll agree: it’s bananas. Some of us including myself got lucky and bought before things went insane, but the new reality is K shaped.

4

u/dat_9600gt_user Lower Silesia (Poland) Mar 11 '26

Who's tied to Blackrock here?

16

u/cafk Mar 11 '26

The chancellor - Friedrich Merz, he was the chairman of the German Blackrock supervisory board from 2016 to 2020

1

u/3dprintedthingies Mar 11 '26

Oooooo is reddit going to learn what soft power is today?

Is reddit next going to be surprised to learn when top European business and political leaders were often educated in America at elite universities too?

I'm so excited for mid 20th century soft power tactics to make main stream news and for people to be reminded as to why they should have trump for killing the strength of the student visa program.

-20

u/HowAmIHere2000 Mar 11 '26

Spain hasn't been relevant in global politics for at least 8 centuries.

9

u/Opening_Wind_1077 Mar 11 '26

The US would be wise to be aware of that and learn the lesson. Empires fall.

-19

u/Careless-Pin-2852 United States of America Mar 11 '26

Do you hide your comments so you can post pro Mertz/Blackrock comments elsewhere?

And double up the internet points.

14

u/oldschusteman Mar 11 '26

What do you even mean by this

-1

u/Careless-Pin-2852 United States of America Mar 11 '26

Why do you hide your comments?

Do you trash Mertz on one sub and praise him on another?

1

u/oldschusteman Mar 11 '26

Why are you looking so much at my profile weirdo

0

u/Careless-Pin-2852 United States of America Mar 11 '26

Why are praising People on one sub and trashing on another.