At a time when we are celebrating May Day – Labour Day – dedicated to the rights we have won and enshrined in our Constitution, as well as those yet to be won,a crisis is growing and spreading that threatens to sweep all this away. This is not just an economic crisis. It is the dismantling of the pillars of international law through war, waged with military, economic, political and media means.

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The socio-economic consequences are already affecting billions of people worldwide. The shockwave of the crisis is driven by a sharp rise in energy prices: the World Bank forecasts that they will rise by 24% this year and that the surge in energy and fertiliser prices will trigger a generalised increase in commodity prices. This, in turn, will lead to a wave of redundancies and a deterioration in living standards for the majority of the population.

The epicentre of the crisis is the war unleashed by the United States and Israel against Iran and the resulting blockade of Iranian ports and the Strait of Hormuz.As the bulk of shipping traffic passing through the Strait of Hormuz is bound for Asia and Europe, the blockade has caused growing difficulties in energy supply and rises in fuel and gas prices, particularly in these two regions. Europe has so far had to pay an additional €27 billion for oil and gas imports. This increase comes on top of that caused by the reduction and interruption of European imports of low-cost Russian natural gas, resulting from the war against Russia waged by NATO via Ukraine.

A. The big oil companies, particularly those from the US and the UK, are profiting from the crisis. The profits of ExxonMobil (US) and British Petroleum have doubled. US companies are exporting increasing quantities of oil and natural gas to Asia and Europe, and also have access to Venezuelan oil, which the US seized during the military operation in which they kidnapped President Maduro. It is therefore understandable why President Trump rejected the Iranian proposal to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz and to negotiate other issues subsequently. The longer the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, the more the US power brokers stand to gain: the major multinationals, particularly in the energy sector, the large financial groups, and the giants of the military-industrial complex, whose interests are represented and safeguarded by the Trump Administration.

What is the European Union doing in this situation?Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, is calling for greater “investment in defence” in Europe. The military budgets of EU countries are set to double over the five-year period from 2025 to 2030, exceeding €1 trillion per year in total. This aligns with the demands of the US and NATO. Italy’s military spending, which currently averages over €120 million a day, will need to increase to an average of over €280 million a day. This is leading to the increasing militarisation of European industry. A prime example is Germany: whilst the once-dominant automotive sector is in deep crisis, resulting in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs, companies such as Schaeffler – one of the world’s leading automotive suppliers, producing everything from propulsion systems to bearings – is shifting its production from civilian to military applications, manufacturing engines for attack drones, equipment for tanks and components for fighter-bombers.

This implies that the war against Russia will continue indefinitely. To this end, the image of a ferocious enemy threatening Europe is being perpetuated, with imagery reminiscent of Nazi-Fascist propaganda against Russia during the Second World War. The Sunday Times, an “authoritative” British newspaper, reports, citing “information” from Ukrainian intelligence, that “starving Russian troops are resorting to cannibalism”.

This article was originally published in Italian on Grandangolo, Byoblu TV.

Manlio Dinucci,award-winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Source: Global Research