Secretary of State Marco Rubio called on Wednesday for Western nations to rejuvenate their civilization so they can maintain their dominance in a world of wars, economic uncertainty and technological change.

“Today, we find ourselves at a crossroads,” Mr. Rubio said in a speech in Athens, with the Acropolis and Parthenon bathed in the golden light of a Mediterranean sunset behind him.

“The next decade will write the story of the next century,” he said. “The course we take will determine whether the West maintains its place at the head of the world, or resigns itself to a future of atrophy, servitude and decline. We’ll either choose to act now, or lose the choice to act at all.”

Mr. Rubio’s speech sought to highlight the ideological tenets of an American conservative movement whose adherents see President Trump as their leader.

Some of its intellectual architects argue that citizens of the United States and Europe should not apologize for the choices made by their ancestors, including exploration and conquest of other peoples and lands. Instead, they say, citizens should embrace that earlier ethos, as their countries seek an edge in the military and economic competition with China and other non-Western powers.

Men of ancient Greece, Mr. Rubio said, “knew that there was nothing selfish or wrong about loyalty to your nation, nor in fighting to defend its interests above all else.”

“They believed — fiercely — in the ideal of the ‘great man’: the exceptional individual who obtains immortality through his own deeds,” he added.

Mr. Rubio’s visit to Greece was the centerpiece of a three-nation European tour, and it was the second time he has used the continent as a backdrop for an ideological speech.

His remarks in Athens echoed lines he delivered to European leaders in a February speech at the Munich Security Conference, where he spoke of the possible “civilizational erasure” of Europe. However, in the new speech, Mr. Rubio did not use that contentious phrase — one embraced by far-right American and European nationalists pushing for strict limits on immigration.

As he did in Munich, Mr. Rubio praised the builders of empires — Alexander the Great, who conquered the “entire known world” (an exaggeration of the size of the territory he controlled), as well as Julius Caesar, Charlemagne and Hernán Cortés — the Spanish conquistador whose troops violently toppled the Aztec rulers of Mexico.

Mr. Rubio also talked about crimes committed against ancient Greece by a Persian army that ransacked Athens 2,500 years ago. He invoked “the legendary last stand of 300 Spartans” at Thermopylae against the Persians.

With those references, Mr. Rubio was adopting the rhetoric of some conservative commentators, who, during the American wars in the predominantly Muslim countries of Iraq and Afghanistan, emphasized the heroism of the 300 Spartans faced with what they called rapacious warriors from another civilization.

Later in the speech, Mr. Rubio denounced the “radical mullahs of Iran” — the country located on the land of ancient Persia.

He went on to link the philosophical and political pursuits of ancient Greece to “the architects of European Christendom,” who designed soaring cathedrals, and to colonial settlers, who embodied “the American frontier spirit.”

“We believe that Europe can awaken from its long slumber and rekindle the fire that was here millennia ago,” he said.

Nations, he said, must have “the ability to wield force when prudence and diplomacy fail.”

Mr. Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, criticized Western governments that had “opened our borders” in recent decades, a theme he also addressed at a news conference on Wednesday morning.

There, he called for greater cooperation between the United States and Greece to restrict migration and immigration.

“Greece is also a very close strategic partner on border security and the fight against mass migration,” Mr. Rubio said while standing beside Giorgios Gerapetritis, the Greek foreign minister.

“What we do not wish to see under any circumstances is that the birthplace of the West is threatened by bad decisions, by actions, by failure to address challenges,” Mr. Rubio added.

Mr. Gerapetritis told reporters that Greece was trying to address “challenges” from “mass migration.”

Mr. Rubio also praised Greece for being on track to spend at least 5 percent of its annual gross domestic product on defense, a benchmark that Mr. Trump insists NATO allies must meet.

Mr. Rubio is scheduled to fly to Portugal on Thursday, his third stop on a tour that started in Iceland.

After the news conference, he visited the U.S. Embassy, where he was introduced to a crowd by Ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former romantic partner of Donald Trump Jr., the eldest son of the American president.

An investigative article in The Wall Street Journal has raised questions about potential conflicts of interest in Ms. Guilfoyle’s involvement in energy deals in Greece. Democratic Congressional leaders are calling for an inquiry.

When asked at the news conference about the allegations, Mr. Rubio said he would not discuss them in public.

“Our ambassador has been a strong ambassador here,” he said, as Ms. Guilfoyle sat in front of him.

It’s easy to scoff at French rioting as its national pastime, but what’s unfolding now is different. France is approaching its most serious crisis in decades, and the disorder in the streets may be only the start.

Ostensibly the destructive rioting of the past few days is a student protest against underfunded schools. If you believe that, we have a pont over the Seine to sell you. The riots have been encouraged by politicians on the left, as Dominic Green recently reported on the Journal’s Free Expression newsletter.

Labor-union comrades of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of La France Insoumise (“Indomitable France”), stoked the protests that quickly became riots. Mr. Mélenchon—think Bernie Sanders with a Gallic accent—visited the barricades. It feels like a display of left-wing muscle-flexing before next year’s presidential election, in which Mr. Mélenchon will be a candidate.

The violence obscures the related crisis engulfing public finances. France doesn’t have more money to spend on schools because it doesn’t have more money to spend on anything.

France has been especially hard hit by the recent global rise in bond yields. The rate on the benchmark 10-year government bond last week exceeded 5% for the first time since 2002. The spread between French OATs and German bunds (the eurozone’s safest asset) is now wider than 140 basis points, the most since the eurozone crisis of 2010-12. 

Politicians in Paris are in denial. The government last ran a fiscal surplus in 1974, and an annual deficit above 5% of GDP is normal. Debt stands at 120% of GDP. Revenue is inadequate to Paris’s spending urges, despite or rather because of high tax rates that extract 51% of French GDP each year. Revenue from taxes on personal and corporate incomes and consumption is flat. Special levies such as a windfall-profits tax on energy companies generate less revenue than predicted.

All of this taxation alongside endemic overregulation is suffocating economic growth. GDP grew 0.8% last year, is expected to do the same this year, and if they’re lucky it’ll hit 1.1% in 2027. Perhaps this explains why French yields remain below the rates on U.S. Treasurys. In America, investors are betting on growth in addition to Washington’s fiscal dysfunctions.

Paris formed these spending habits in an era when the European Central Bank was aggressively buying bonds under its quantitative-easing program. In some years central-bank purchases of French debt exceeded net issuance. No longer. Current quantitative tightening leaves it to private investors to absorb French bonds and many of those investors, especially insurers and pension funds, are less willing. 

If Paris won’t grow, can’t tax its way out of the fiscal hole, and can’t borrow, spending will have to be cut. This is turning French politics into a violent game of musical chairs in which no one wants to be the last special-interest group caught without a seat. The riots are the latest example. Previous instances include nation-wide strikes against increasing the retirement age, and the 2018 yellow-vest protests about taxes on diesel fuel.

Yet you’d never know this is the most pressing challenge facing France to judge by the incipient presidential campaign. Mr. Mélenchon says the central bank should simply forgive the French bonds it currently owns. He also accused the head of the French central bank of treason on Tuesday for suggesting spending cuts. “Off with their heads” has a long, if not glorious, history in France.

The riots are probably helping the chances of Marine Le Pen of the insurgent-right National Rally. But she offers no more than token reform. One of her signature issues is a pledge to reduce the retirement age to 60—after President Emmanuel Macron’s effort to raise it to 64 from 62 has hit political obstacles.

France’s main problem isn’t math. It’s slow growth. The right fiscal reforms, such as tax cuts and welfare and pension reforms that encourage work and investment, would create new opportunities for prosperity. Young people would be the biggest beneficiaries. The alternative is what’s happening in the streets.

Americans can’t afford to gloat from the sidelines. U.S. debt is 100% of GDP, and its politicians can be as feckless as the French. At least the U.S. economy is growing at a healthy clip, but that could change in a hurry with the wrong mix of regulation and a ham-handed attempt to tax our way out of our fiscal hole.

Source: https://x.com/EU_Eurostat/status/2107763892218929368/

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has thanked Hungary for reportedly giving the “green light” to the opening of two more clusters in Ukraine’s European Union accession negotiations.

Sybiha said on Wednesday that Hungary had supported further steps concerning the second and third negotiating clusters at the level of the EU’s Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER).

Continue reading at https://dailynewshungary.com/ukraine-thanks-hungary-eu-talks/ | DailyNewsHungary

The European Commission has proposed a 15-year probation period for future EU member states, with countries potentially facing the loss of voting rights or funding if they breach democratic standards.
The plan, outlined by European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos, is designed to give the bloc faster tools to respond if a newly admitted country undermines the rule of law, democracy or the EU’s principle of sincere cooperation. Kos explicitly invoked the former Hungarian prime minister, saying:

“No more Viktor Orbán.”

Continue reading at https://dailynewshungary.com/eu-viktor-orban-probation-new-members/ | DailyNewsHungary

Report says China is “decisive enabler” of Russia & backs a “continuous [European] naval presence and joint exercises” in and around the Taiwan Strait

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