Gee, I guess that’s what happens when the other traditional superpower destroys the relationship. This is only the beginning of the global shift away from the USA.
Didn’t Spain a really hard financial time in the 2010s and the rest of the UE laugh at them ?
Yes. As Portugal and Greece. The default reply was “clean your house”. Spain took it to heart and is now in the “We don’t care about your thoughts on house management” category.
Got anything I can read about that? A cursory glance at Wikipedia says Spain got (and is still getting) EU aid.
The article also discusses Greek and Finnish rapprochement with Apartheid Israel. This really is a story about European disunity, but the BBC editors chose a headline that makes it about China.
For the EU to have a common foreign policy, it has to take into account all states’ needs. Greece a d Cyprus cannot be asked to sacrifice their national security any less than Finland or Poland. And the Germans, French and Dutch don’t get to finger wag and lecture and fuck over the PIIGS when it suits them and then bitch about bespoke economic solutions afterwards.
So pick: do Northerners feel like they have a patriotic stake in the Aegean or Nicosia? Do Southerners feel like they have a stake in German auto factories? Do Westerners feel like they have a stake in keeping chinese drones away from Polish towns? Do Easterners feel like they have a stake in social safety nets in Portuguese villages? If so, European solutions become possible. If not, let’s just go back to the EEC and stop pretending this Europe thing ever actually meant anything.
That’s just sound policy; the US-China rivalry never had much of anything to do with Europe.
This is strange, previously the far right countries like Hungary ally with China, whereas Spain has been a bit left leaning
That’s not quite true. Russia is an ally with the European far right while everyone else (except tankies) steers clear of them. The beef with China meanwhile is very much a centrist establishment position (because it’s relevant to American interests and European auto manufacturers), while everyone else couldn’t care less. What Spain is doing is only ideologically coded in the sense that the center won’t do it.
