INTERVIEW

Ruuben Kaalep: “The Intermarium has to be a voluntary alliance, not like the EU”

Visigrad Post, NOVEMBER 16, 2020

Reading Time: 11 minutes

Interview with Ruuben Kaalep, member of the Estonian Parliament and member of EKRE, the Conservative People’s Party of Estonia: “We need to be able to play on the global stage, and for that we need to put our forces together and support each other. But the Intermarium has to be a voluntary alliance, not like the EU.”

At the end of summer, Ruuben Kaalep came to Hungary at the invitation of the Hungarian nationalist party Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland). Ruuben Kaalep is one of the main advocates for the Intermarium project, a political and geostrategic plan aiming to regroup the Baltic countries, the Visegrád 4, Ukraine, Croatia, Slovenia, Belarus, Moldova, and Romania, forming a kind of a triangle between the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, and the Adriatic Sea.

Although this list changes from time to time, sometimes including other Balkan countries, the Scandinavian countries, or even Austria, the Intermarium’s aim stays the same: to coordinate cooperation among the countries of Central and Eastern Europe — with the notable exception of Russia — in order to protect the interests of the region.

For its supporters, the project is the best way to preserve the way of life, security, and independence of the CEE countries, by “freeing them from Western domination and protecting them from Russian imperialism.”

The Intermarium project is not a new idea, although its revival gained visibility after the Maïdan revolution and the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, which the advocates of the Intermarium perceived as new Russian aggression necessitating regional cooperation to avoid such a thing in the future.

One hundred years ago, the post-WW1 reborn Polish state was dreaming of rebuilding the great Polish empire connecting the Baltic and the Black Seas, known as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, able to contain Russia. This Międzymorze — “between-seas” — project of the Polish elites also included countries such as Hungary, Yugoslavia, Finland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania, making it the first modern project to bring together the CEE countries. Placed between Russia and the West, cutting off the Balkans from the rest of Europe, this geopolitical project always had many critics in both Russia and the West. Nowadays, if the Intermarium is mostly a little-known, pan-nationalist project, advocated mainly by Ukrainian, Balt, Croatian, and Polish political groups, the Three Seas Initiative can be seen as an implementation of Intermarium’s basic idea.

Intermarium has bigger ambitions than the announced goals of the Three Seas Initiative (gathering Baltic countries, the V4, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, and Bulgaria) which is built on an energy and transportation cooperation scheme aiming to guarantee energy independence of the CEE countries from Russia while being financed by the USA. For the advocates of the Intermarium project, the future of the region should lie on the rejection of three main enemies: Russia, NATO, and communism.

Ferenc Almássy met with Ruuben Kaalep while he was in Hungary in order to discuss his advocacy of the Intermarium project.

In red, a version of the Intermarium, gathering Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belorussia, Ukraine, Moldova, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia.

Ferenc Almássy: You are member of the Estonian Parliament, but you are, can we say, a nationalist? Can you accept this epithet?

Ruuben Kaalep: Absolutely. A nationalist is what I am. It’s the main thing for me.

Ferenc Almássy: So how is it possible that in Estonia, nationalists are part of a governmental coalition?

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The government imposed freeze on economic activity, otherwise known as lockdown, is shrinking the employment market to the extent that ...

Plunge in foreign-born workers as Covid destroys jobs
Unemployment surges to 4.8pc while redundancies soar by 181,000 in the three months to September

The number of foreign-born workers employed in the UK fell by almost 600,000 in the past year as Covid laid waste to the jobs market and sparked an exodus of migrants.

There are now 765,000 fewer people of working age born abroad in Britain than there were a year ago, with a bigger fall in those from the EU than those from the rest of the world.

... The fall in workers from the EU14 - nations such as France and Germany - in the UK is similar to the drop seen during the financial crisis.

However, a far greater share of those from the EU8, which covers more workers from Eastern European nations including Poland, have been affected.

... The UK’s reliance on foreign employees acts as a “safety valve”, said Martin Beck at Oxford Economics, sucking in workers when the economy is doing well, and shedding them again in downturns.

“It keeps the unemployment rate down - people are losing their jobs but are not adding to the unemployment rolls. It is a stabilising force for the jobs market. It is bad to lose those jobs, but the fiscal cost is not being borne by the UK taxpayer,” he said.

It means unemployment is unlikely to rise as high as 7pc by the end of the year, or to meet the gloomier predictions of 10pc or more in 2021, he said, because the fall in foreign-born workers over the past year has already reduced the workforce by as much as 2pc.

“I would expect those people to come back if things do recover quickly and get back to normal, Brexit permitting,” said Mr Beck.

Overall, firms laid off 181,000 people between July and September, pushing the total to 314,000.  Experimental figures also suggested an extra 33,000 employees shed from company payrolls in October, signalling 782,000 fewer people in work compared to pre-pandemic March.

European leaders to call for greater emphasis on far right terror groups.

New hate laws promised.

So no sooner does the British political scene gain a new party in Laurence Fox’s Reclaim, not Nigel Farage has relaunched The Brexit Party as an opponent of Covid-19 lock-down strategy.  Doesn’t sound like he has thought this out to me.  What, after all, happens if by December 1st the r-rate is down below 1 and the economy is opened up again?  Or has been Farage been reading Delingpole at Breitbart yesterday and concluded that the Great Reset is upon us?

Here is Farage’s stated reasoning:

The institutions and policies that require change are formidable ... The House of Lords, the BBC, the way we vote, law and order, immigration. Badly run, wasteful quangos are in abundance. The Home Office is not fit for purpose. This Government has taken cronyism to a whole new level. Waste of taxpayers’ hard-earned cash is off the scale.

But the single most pressing issue is the Government’s woeful response to coronavirus. The “strategy” has been to terrify the nation into submission, coupled with a barrage of lockdowns, rules, regulations and threats. It is all about playing for time, in the hope that a vaccine miraculously comes along.

...

The Government has dug itself into a hole and, rather than admit its mistakes, it continues to excavate. Ministers have lost touch with a nation divided between the terrified and the furious. The debate over how to respond to Covid is becoming even more toxic than that over Brexit.

Lockdowns don’t work: in fact, they cause more harm than good ...

Here is Delingpole taking a tilt at Carl Schwab’s WEC machinations:

Build Back Better. This is the slogan of the New World Order – aka the Great Reset.

You hear it often these days intoned — in the manner of dutiful Stepford Wives — by everyone from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Prince of Wales to Canadian blackface artiste Justin Trudeau and, inevitably, Joe Biden who has adopted it as his campaign slogan.

About the only leader you won’t hear using it is Donald Trump because he recognises its true significance. Build Back Better is the code phrase for one of the most terrifying and dangerous, globally co-ordinated assaults on liberty and prosperity in the history of mankind. If the plan succeeds, the world you inhabit will be unrecognisable, your children will have no prospects and your life will barely be worth living. Build Back Better means totalitarian rule by a global, technocratic elite – as constrictive and immiserating as life under fascism or communism. This hideous New World Order is the Great Reset.

... Big Government takes care of everything, only not on a national scale this time, but a global one. It will be managed by a technocratic elite over whom you will have no democratic control.

Jobs and high minimum wages will be guaranteed; shale gas will be replaced by solar; businesses — in return for massive bailouts from the government — will agree to be run more like communist worker co-operatives; car lanes on freeways will be replaced by cycle lanes; companies are no longer driven by profit by ‘public interest’ and goals like sustainability. Oh — and you needn’t worry about your mortgage repayments any more — because private property will be abolished.

(And yes, they’re serious about abolishing ownership. Here’s their website boasting about their plans back in 2016.)

“Welcome to the year 2030. Welcome to my city – or should I say, “our city”. I don’t own anything. I don’t own a car. I don’t own a house. I don’t own any appliances or any clothes.

“It might seem odd to you, but it makes perfect sense for us in this city. Everything you considered a product, has now become a service. We have access to transportation, accommodation, food and all the things we need in our daily lives. One by one all these things became free, so it ended up not making sense for us to own much.”

Farage has spent the last few days reporting on the Trump campaign, but is he preparing his political party for a Biden victory?  Or does he really think that opposing a 30-day partial lock-down is a cause for with political legs?

... living in the home of the British people.

In his announcement of the new national lock-down this evening, which comes into force this Thursday, Boris Johnson informed us that there is a reasonable chance of a Covid-19 vaccine for a UK-wide inoculation programme during the first quarter of next year.  Never let it be said, however, that black lives do not matter.

People could be prioritised for a coronavirus vaccine depending on their sex, ethnicity and wealth under proposals being discussed by the government.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), the body charged with devising the UK’s vaccine strategy, is considering the best way to decide who is most at risk from becoming seriously ill from COVID-19.neptune

It may even use an algorithm developed by academics at Oxford University which factors in a wide range of variables including “age, sex, ethnicity, deprivation, smoking status, body mass index, pre-existing medical conditions and current medications”.

...

According to Public Health England (PHE), twice as many working age men diagnosed with Covid have died compared to women; mortality rates in the poorest areas are double those in the wealthiest; and BAME communities have between a 10 and 50 per cent higher risk of death even once age, sex and social deprivation are taken into account.

Low skilled workers have a death rate almost four times that of professionals. For security guards - the hardest hit of all in the first wave - recorded deaths were almost twice that of men working in social care.

I do not care what happens to other peoples in places that are not my own people’s place.  I do not care what sadness or joy they find in life, for that life is their life, and my care is for the life of my people.

There are, however, educated, white, middle-class people who are paid to care and demand that we care too.

Ellen Ackroyd, a field manager for the aid organisation Help Refugees/Choose Love, based in Calais, said: “In Calais, these people face daily violent evictions from their makeshift shelters and there is a total lack of information about their legal rights.

“At the same time, people seeking protection in the UK can only do so once on UK soil yet no safe and legal routes are made available for this purpose.

“So long as the hostile and exclusionary treatment of people seeking protection continues, people will continue to attempt these dangerous journeys, which no one should ever have to undertake.”

Beth Gardiner-Smith, the chief executive of Safe Passage, one of a number of humanitarian groups that have long called for safe and legal routes for asylum seekers, said: “Nobody should have to risk their life to reach safety and today’s tragic news is the direct consequence of a lack of safe alternatives for those seeking sanctuary.

“Just this year, the government closed the Dubs route designed to give children safe passage to the UK. And now the only legal route left available to children – family reunion – will end in less than 10 weeks’ time unless the government acts now.

“Rather than speculating about ever more inhumane ways to push back and prevent refugees seeking asylum, the government should act now to protect family reunion and expand safe and legal routes for refugees.”

Mariam Kemple Hardy, the head of campaigns at Refugee Action, said: “No one wants to see people make dangerous crossings but the government’s hostile rhetoric does nothing to help. It must stop trying to look tough and urgently create more safe and legal routes for people to seek sanctuary in the UK.”

It goes without saying, of course, that these educated, white, middle-class people are not paid to care about us; and they don’t.

It was back in late May that little Lewis Hamilton, supported by the global corporations whose sport Formula 1 motor racing is, began virtue-shaming his fellow drivers into taking the knee.  The industry stampeded itself into a virtue-programme mis-named “We Race As One”, which is, of course, the complete opposite of the truth; and the whole shabang disappeared up its own intellectually pathetic fundament.  Enter sturdy Vitaly Petrov, the ex-FI driver and the first Russian to race in the formula.  At the Sochi GP in September he let it be known that, among other things:

“For me, a Black Lives Matter t-shirt is superfluous, as is calling on everyone to kneel,” Petrov said. “That is a personal matter for every adult.”

“I don’t understand the kneeling because, according to our traditions, a man kneels only in two cases – in a place of worship before God and when you propose to your future wife.”

“You can speak out on your social networks, you can give interviews, you can create some kind of social movement, you can contact the government. But for Formula 1 itself to call on everyone… I think half of the fans didn’t understand.”

Petrov then attacked Hamilton’s Breonna Taylor T-shirt, which he wore at Mugello.  Apparently, that was a political statement, and drivers were promptly banned from such stunts at subsequent races.  Petrov 1 Hamilton 0.

Somehow, Petrov then got himself chosen to serve as a steward for the Portuguese GP running on Sunday.  So, of course, Hamilton, the oppressed Monaco resident and half-billionaire, rushed to let his intolerance of different opinions be known.  He said:

“I would say it’s a surprise to see they would be hiring someone that has those beliefs, and is so vocal about things that we’re trying to fight against,” said Hamilton.

“So you should take it up with them really, there’s nothing I can particularly do about it.

“But we should definitely be including people here who are with the times, who are understanding of the times that we are living in, and sensitive to the matters that are surrounding us.

“I don’t really understand what their goal is or why particularly he’s here. It’s not like they don’t have any other good options.”

Today Hamilton has been joined by a bunch of rainbow letter people, who no one has ever heard of, but who are obviously considered important by the very woke motor racing media, who report that:

“Racing Pride wishes to express its concern at the appointment of Vitaly Petrov as an FIA Driver Steward for this weekend’s Portuguese Grand Prix in light of his recent, widely reported public comments relating to the #WeRaceAsOne initiative, which were both racist and homophobic in nature.”

On can only assume that the industry doesn’t give a damn about its fan base who, by definition, are not a bunch of weedy, pencil-neck sociology students or blokes in dresses who expect to use the ladies loo.  They’re petrol heads.  They’re not equality fanatics.  F1 is not about equality.  When Hamilton began whining about BLM the consensus of opinion among fans was “Stick to the racing, mate”.  Sadly, the FI media responded with lock-step wokery.  Not much dissent was visible.  On the Autosport readers forum one forum member well-known to the author of this post did manage to opine as follows:

I am an avid reader of Autosport.  I do not participate in the forum, after a brief flurry of doing so some years ago.  But today, with Luke Smith’s opinion piece titled “Why Lewis Hamilton’s “stick to racing” critics are missing the point” Autosport ventured into racial politics, and that I cannot allow to pass without the following mild protest.

Luke’s presumption is that F1 and, in particular, the media personnel covering F1, must have fewer white people.  By extension, white people everywhere, and most especially white men, may not exercise hegemony in any sphere of the life we have, by the genius and adventure of our forebears, created ex nihilo.  Apparently, our moral obligation is to get out of the way for the sake of “diversity” - something imposed upon us, as upon all Europeans, by the violence of the state and the deceit of politicians   It is an imposition to which we are, as much as is possible in Western society, denied dissent.  Apparently, speaking freely and dissenting on the matter ... arguing for the interests of our own people in our own home ... is so immoral for white people, it can only be met with a ritual public dehumanisation.  In our schools and universities the lock-step lesson our children have to learn is that because they are white they have “privilege”.  They are lesser beings than the oppressed innocents of the immigrant populations.  Yet the diversity-mongers like Luke meekly and mechanically presume that justice and fairness is a one-way, anti-white street.  It really isn’t.

In America half a century of vastly expensive efforts to lift African-Americans out of their lowly estate have not produced the perfect human equality which the liberal mind requires.  Puzzlingly, Chinese-Americans and Indian-Americans require no such aid.  The great bugbear “white racism” does not seem to hold them back at all.  It is an inconvenient fact which few black commentators besides Michelle Malkin or the brave social theorist Thomas Sowell will discuss.  It is something that Lewis could profitably think about.  Perhaps he might then attend not to his fellow racers, seeking to enlist them in the equality delusion, but to Africa’s children everywhere, urging them to examine themselves for the causes of their discontents.

But, please Autosport, don’t report it.  Stick to the racing.

The comment lasted 15 minutes.  The forum member was banned.  The F1 wokery don’t just fail to understand the soul of motor racing.  They have no souls.  They also have a sporting spectacle which has become painfully boring to watch and is haemorrhaging fans.  You would think they have better things to worry about than Hamilton’s tedious whining.  But at least we have to thank the little coloured boy for bringing a bit of excitement to this race weekend.  Never mind the even greater tedium on track.  Will Petrov remain in situ in Portugal until the race on Sunday afternoon?

Greece’s Golden Dawn leaders sentenced to 13 years in jail

Financial Times, 14 Oct

Neo-Nazi party heads ran criminal organisation responsible for murder and attacks on migrants on trade unionists.

The leaders of Greece’s neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn received 13-year jail sentences on Wednesday for running a criminal organisation responsible for the stabbing to death of a Greek rap artist and violent attacks against migrant workers and leftwing trade unionists.

       
        Nikos Michaloliakos

A special appeals court on Wednesday sentenced Nikos Michaloliakos, the party’s founder, and six other ex-lawmakers who formed its core leadership following a five-and-a half year trial. None of the seven was present in court as all had boycotted the proceeding in protest except when they were called to testify. 

Giorgos Roupakias, a Golden Dawn supporter found guilty of stabbing Pavlos Fyssas, a popular leftwing rapper, in a street brawl in 2013 in a low-income Athens suburb, received a life sentence for murder.

Ioannis Lagos, a member of the core group who was elected to the European parliament last year after founding his own political party, dismissed his conviction in a series of tweets, saying he intended to “continue on the same [political] path”.

The group’s requests for leniency on grounds that none had a previous criminal record were rejected by the three judges who presided over the marathon criminal trial which included the examination of some 250 witnesses and frequent delays caused by procedural objections from the defendants’ lawyers. 

“This was a political trial . . . the leadership of Golden Dawn received heavy sentences while not being accused of specific crimes. The party is not a criminal organisation, it is a one of national resistance,” Mr Michaloliakos said after the sentences were handed down.

Another 49 Golden Dawn members and supporters were sentenced to between five and 10 years for belonging to a criminal organisation. It was not immediately clear how many of those sentenced would remain free pending appeal.

“Golden Dawn is finished but what they represented continues, whenever attacks occur against refugees or there is discrimination or bullying in neighbourhoods and schools,” said former prime minister Alexis Tsipras, leader of the leftwing party Syriza. 

Mr Michaloliakos started his political career as the leader of a pro-junta youth group during Greece’s military dictatorship in the 1970s. After years on the fringes of Greek politics he led Golden Dawn into parliament at the height of the country’s economic crisis in 2012, winning almost 7 per cent of the vote in two successive elections that year.

He rapidly became the country’s most controversial politician because of Golden Dawn’s extremist rhetoric, fascist-style rallies and tolerance of violence by its members.

Yet the governing right-of-centre New Democracy party considered co-operation with Golden Dawn as it struggled to counter a surge in support for Syriza.

The New Democracy government arrested Golden Dawn’s leaders and party bosses in Athens immediately after Mr Fyssas was killed. Mr Michaloliakos spent 18 months in pre-trial detention before being allowed to resume his role in parliament — until the party lost all its seats at a general election last year.

Despite its neo-Nazi ideology, Golden Dawn has not been banned. An opinion poll published after the convictions were announced last week showed that 20 per cent of respondents believed there was a place in Greek politics for a “sober and serious” far-right party.