Pipeline Politics Hits Multipolar Realities: Nord Stream 2 and the Ukraine Crisis

John Foster

Photograph Source: Vuo – CC BY-SA 4.0

Amid escalating tensions between US/NATO and Russia, all eyes are on Ukraine, but Nord Stream 2, a pipeline built to bring Russian gas under the Baltic Sea directly to Germany, is an integral part of the story.

US Under Secretary for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, asserted (Jan 27), “If Russia invades Ukraine one way or another, … we will work with Germany to ensure it (the pipeline) does not move forward.” Delayed by US threats and sanctions, Nord Stream 2 highlights why countries are challenging US leadership.

Since the 1960s when Europe first began importing Russian gas, Washington perceived Russian energy as a threat to US leadership and Europe’s energy security. More recently, with fracking, the US has become the world’s largest gas producer and a major exporter of LNG (liquefied natural gas). It wants to muscle in on Europe’s huge market, displacing Russian gas. With Nord Stream 2 completed and filled while it awaits German regulatory approval, the stakes are high.

Soon after pipeline construction began in 2018, the US passed a law threatening sanctions on the Swiss ship laying the pipe. The Swiss pulled out and two Russian vessels completed the line despite sanctions. The US threatened German contractors too, but Germany stood firm.

In 2021, with construction almost complete, German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited the White House, insisting on Nord Stream 2. President Biden gave way. He wanted to mend relations with Germany – the European Union’s most powerful country.

Nord Stream 2, like its predecessor Nord Stream 1, began as a joint venture (51% Russia’s Gazprom, 49% Royal Dutch Shell as well as Austrian, French and German companies). Then Poland’s government agency responsible for monopoly regulation forced European partners to relinquish their share, creating another delay. The European companies gave up their shareholding but remained as equivalent financial investors in the pipeline.

Upon the Europeans relinquishing their shareholding, Gazprom became the sole pipeline owner. It is also the world’s largest gas supplier, with a gas pipeline monopoly in Russia. Gazprom wants to deliver its own gas via its pipeline to Europe. The EU, on the other hand, has maintained since 2009 that pipeline operators, in order to encourage market competition, cannot own the gas they carry. After construction of Nord Stream 2 began, the EU extended its rules to new marine pipelines originating abroad.

Nord Stream 2 was the only pipeline affected. While those pipelines completed prior to May 2019 were exempt, its completion was delayed by US sanctions on pipelaying. Gazprom claimed discrimination and appealed. In August 2021, a German court rejected the appeal. Gazprom then appealed to Germany’s Supreme Court.

German industrialists are desperate for Russian gas. Germany has only 17 days of gas supply in storage. Volatile short-term spot prices have compounded their woes. EU gas imports have increasingly shifted from long-term contracts with prices indexed to crude oil toward short-term deals by multiple traders in spot markets.

In 2020, spot prices were roughly half those of Gazprom’s long-term contracts. They surged as much as sevenfold in 2021, reflecting a mix of factors. On the demand side, economic revival from the pandemic boosted demand for gas in Asia as well as Europe. On the supply side, green sources of energy diminished in central Europe because of cloudy windless days. With the decommissioning of coal and nuclear power stations, utilities turned to natural gas.

European politicians blamed Russia for high gas prices, but Gazprom affirmed it was supplying the amounts stipulated in its long-term contracts. Gazprom wants long-term contracts to underpin the huge capital costs of gas-field and pipeline investments.

Russia is a petro-state. It’s the world’s single largest exporter of natural gas, and the second largest oil exporter – just behind Saudi Arabia. Pipelines and sea routes to market are vital to its economy. Russia wants to sell oil and gas in Asia and Europe, and they want to buy it. Nord Stream 2 makes commercial sense. It incurs no transit fees. The route to market is much shorter than aging pipelines via Ukraine. For its part, Ukraine depends on transit fees from gas shipped through these pipelines.

Nord Stream 2 remains controversial, bitterly opposed by Poland and Ukraine who presume it will reduce volumes and transit fees on pipelines through their countries. Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and others want it. Germany, which carries huge weight in the EU, sees gas as a transition fuel after phasing out nuclear and coal.

Numerous hurdles during and since construction have delayed Nord Stream 2’s certification. The most recent forced its Swiss operating company to form a German subsidiary for the pipeline section in German waters. Upon eventual certification, Germany will become Europe’s main entry point for Russian gas.

The current crisis between Russia and US/NATO has been brewing for many years. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, NATO expanded membership to Eastern Europe. NATO facilitates US leadership, keeping European countries on its side against Russia. From a Russian viewpoint, NATO is provocative and threatening.

Part of the agreement underpinning the USSR’s dissolution was Western assurance that it would not expand into Russia’s sphere of influence, a pledge NATO most recently violated by stationing troops, ships and planes along Russia’s borders. The West accuses Russia of interference in Ukraine. Russia points to a 2014 Western-inspired coup in Ukraine and legitimate grievances of Russian-speakers in the breakaway Donbass republics. I document the two narratives in my book Oil and World Politics.

In December 2021, Russia presented draft treaties to the US and NATO, demanding a complete overhaul of Europe’s security architecture. Russia stressed the principle of indivisible and equal security for all countries, as agreed by all 56 members of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) at Istanbul (1999) and reaffirmed at Astana (2010). Members expressly agreed not to strengthen their security at the expense of other members’ security. The US is a signatory.

President Putin warned that if the West continued its aggressive policies (NATO’s expansion and missile deployment in eastern Europe), Russia would take ‘military-technical’ reciprocal measures. He said, “they have pushed us to a line that we can’t cross.”

Russia’s initiative put the cat among the pigeons. A succession of high-level meetings occurred between Russia and the US, NATO and OSCE. Washington presented written responses (Jan 26), seeking to narrow the debate to Ukraine and alleging the Russians were poised to invade it.  Russia insisted repeatedly it would not initiate an invasion but would support Donbass if the latter were attacked.

The US escalated tensions by repeating claims of an upcoming Russian invasion, even as Ukraine’s leaders expressed doubts. Washington threatened sanctions of unprecedented severity, including major Russian banks, high-tech goods, the SWIFT financial messaging system, and Nord Stream 2.

France and Germany balked because the sanctions would backfire on their economies. They appeared unconvinced Russia intended to attack unless provoked. A flurry of high-level bilateral discussions with Russia followed.

Significantly, representatives of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine (Jan 26) confirmed support for the 2015 Minsk II agreement and an unconditional ceasefire. Minsk-II requires Ukraine to negotiate with the two Donbass republics on autonomy within a federalized Ukraine but, thus far, no negotiations have been held.

The EU imports 40 percent of its gas from Russia. For Russia, the routes through Ukraine and Poland are unreliable, because of hostility in both countries. Ukraine has a long-term deal with Gazprom for gas transit until 2024. Ukraine earns big transit fees, roughly US$2 billion per year, and desperately wants to keep them. For its internal market, Ukraine buys Russian gas indirectly from Poland, Romania and Slovakia.

Whatever happens with Western sanctions, Russia has a strategic new market in China. Russia’s Power of Siberia pipeline began exporting gas from east Siberia to northeast China two years ago. The two countries have agreed to build a second line, Power of Siberia 2. It will bring gas from the Yamal peninsula in the Russian Arctic to China’s northeast. That means Yamal gas will be able to flow to China as easily as to Europe.

The current situation is dangerous and could easily escalate. Nord Stream 2 is critically important but national security trumps all. Security can only be achieved if it is universal. US efforts to contain Russia and maintain leadership over Europe are not working. The world has become multi-polar and Nord Stream 2 is a fulcrum at the centre of the current crisis.

Hindutva and the Crisis of Public Institutions in India

Bhabani Shankar Nayak

hindutva

Public institutions have evolved in post-colonial India in response to crisis created by colonial plunders. Public institutions led by the state and government were shaped by anticolonial struggles in India. In spite of all its limitations, these institutions were designed to ensure and expand democratic and citizenship rights of all Indians irrespective of their caste, class, gender, religion and region. From planning commission to local development and revenue administration, health to education, food security to non-allied foreign policy, public institutions have played a major role in shaping the development trajectory of independent India. These institutions were mandated to develop and implement progressive ideals of public policies to face challenges and address the needs and desires of Indian citizens in the path of peace, progress and prosperity.

Essence and emancipation were twin objectives assigned to the public institutions to govern Indian citizens under a democratic and secular constitution. The essence of human life in terms of quality education, health, housing and food security for a dignified human life was the immediate goal. The emancipation from the conditions of poverty, hunger, inequalities, discrimination and blind beliefs were long term objectives. The idea of essence and emancipation are interrelated. These ideals are central anchoring point for the vitality and integrity of these public institutions working in the national, regional and local level. The practice of neoliberal economic policies started by the Congress Party have weakened the public institutions whereas the Hindutva forces have expanded and consolidated the neoliberal order by destroying the public institutions in India. The neoliberal Hindutva and its exclusionary and ubiquitous governing principles are not only destroying the public institutions but also federal, democratic and constitutional values in India. The erosion of democratic and public institutions help in the growth of authoritarian governance without accountability. It helps both Hindutva and capitalism to growth together as twins.

The Hindutva forces led by the BJP and shaped by the RSS and its affiliated organisations are restructuring India and Indian society to re-establish privileges and interests of higher castes and capitalist classes. Such a catastrophic reorganisation is based on dominance of Brahminical social order to facilitate capitalist market into every sphere of Indian society, where citizens are going to be converted into customers. This transformation is central to establish the dominance of capitalism in India by removing all institutional regulatory mechanisms and social constraints to this unethical alliance between Hindutva politics and capitalism. Both Vajpayee government then and Modi government now are twin pillars in consolidating capitalism and Brahminical Hindu social order in India.

During the Hindutva rule, it is corporate and crony capitalists who have gained super profit in a massive scale whereas the poor masses, rural workers, farmers, and small businesses have lost income in India. The decline in real income led to the fall of purchasing power of people across the country. The social and economic conditions have deteriorated in a massive scale. Hunger, homelessness, poverty, unemployment and insecurities have accelerated in an unprecedented scale. The poorest of the poor are the biggest loser and gained nothing during the Modi led Hindutva rule in India.

The timely political reversal of such a scenario is not only necessary but also imperative to the idea of India. It is time to reclaim the public institutions that works for people and not for the capitalist classes. Liberally speaking, empower of public institutions and increasing public spending on education, health, agriculture and food security is important to restore the Indian confidence on their state. Hindutva mode of governance is no alternative. It has failed to deliver its promises to people but ensure the growth and consolidation of capitalism in India. It is time to reclaim the republic from Hindutva luteras and their cronies.

Beijing Olympics mired in geopolitical tension

Peter Symonds

The 2022 Winter Olympics open in Beijing tomorrow amid acute geopolitical tensions, most sharply expressed in Washington’s aggressive threats against Moscow over Ukraine, and surging cases of COVID-19 and deaths around the world.

The Biden administration sought to transform the Olympics into a vehicle for its cynical “human rights” campaign against China. On December 6, it declared a diplomatic boycott of the Games—that is, by top US officials and political representatives, not American competitors—and called on its allies to follow suit.

Beijing Winter Olympics stadium 2022 [Source: International Olympic Committee]

White House press secretary Jen Psaki cited the “ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang” as the reason for the boycott. The allegation that the Chinese government is engaged in “genocide” in Xinjiang is a patent lie that underscores the utterly hypocritical character of Washington’s selective use of “human rights,” not just in relation to China but other countries targeted by the US.

The “human rights” campaign against China and also Russia is just part of the US propaganda offensive as it aggressively prepares for war against what it regards as the two chief threats to its economic and strategic interests. The Biden administration has no more concern for the democratic rights of the Chinese and Russian workers than it does for those of the working class anywhere else in the world, including in the United States where police violence and openly fascistic tendencies are on the rise.

Washington’s naked aggression has only served to drive Russia and China closer together, despite previous differences and disputes. Beijing has publicly signaled its support for Moscow in its confrontation with the US, declaring that Russia has legitimate security concerns over the eastward extension of the NATO military alliance.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is demonstrating Moscow’s support for the Beijing Olympics by attending the event and holding in-person talks tomorrow with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Speaking to Russian Olympians last month, Putin declared that Russia and its “Chinese friends” shared a common approach to international sport. “Together we oppose the politicisation of sport and demonstrative boycotts,” he said.

Washington’s diplomatic boycott appears to have largely fallen flat. A small number of close US allies are taking the same stance, including Australia, Canada, Denmark, Japan, Lithuania and the UK. Others have attempted to dodge the issue by avoiding announcing a boycott, but either sending lower-level dignitaries or declaring, like New Zealand, the Netherlands and Sweden, that no official party will attend for unstated reasons related to the COVID pandemic.

The pandemic itself has been profoundly politicised, with mounting demands emanating from Washington in particular that China abandon its zero COVID policy—a combination of public health measures that has successfully suppressed virus outbreaks and kept deaths to a minimum. Not only does China’s policy expose the murderous “let it rip” policy of herd immunity adopted by most governments around the world, including the US, but it has led to fears in corporate circles that China’s public health restrictions will exacerbate global supply chain breakdowns.

The Western media has treated in a hostile manner the lengths to which the Chinese government has gone to protect Olympic teams of athletes and officials, as well as the Chinese population from infection. Article after article either openly or by implication maligns the testing regime and isolation restrictions associated with the “Olympic bubble” as bureaucratic and officious, suggesting they are unnecessary.

A lengthy article published yesterday in Japan’s Nikkei Asia was entitled: “On thin ice: Winter Olympics reveal cracks in China’s zero-COVID policy—with Omicron’s arrival, costs of zero-tolerance measures may outweigh benefits.” The vast bulk is not about the Olympics and what it reveals, but rather reiterates the impact of the zero COVID policy on the Chinese population in the most recent outbreaks in cities such as Xi’an and Tianjin.

Such articles reveal staggering indifference to the lives and health of populations around the world, where hundreds of millions have been infected and millions have died. Japan, for instance, has had over 2.8 million infections and nearly 19,000 deaths. In China, the infections and deaths have been a fraction of other countries. Most took place in the first months of the outbreak, and the restrictions and lockdowns have overwhelming public support. Moreover, the continuing outbreaks have all resulted from foreign sources—that is, the failure of governments globally to adopt a coordinated strategy of elimination.

The Nikkei Asia article is compelled to acknowledge that “unlike the Tokyo Summer Olympics—which in March 2020, four months before the scheduled opening ceremony—were postponed for a year, there has been little doubt that Beijing 2022 will take place on schedule.”

It did not explain that the inadequate measures put in place by the Japanese government to suppress the virus resulted in widespread public opposition to the Games as a result of the crisis in the country’s health system.

The supposed “crack” in the system is the emergence of Omicron cases in Beijing. After elaborating the extensive testing and other public health measures in the affected districts, the article concludes by referring to a Chinese financial expert who thinks that “Omicron will be no match for the central government” and suggests it will not lock down Beijing in the midst of the Olympics. There is more than a hint that the writer is hoping that Omicron will run out of control in Beijing and China.

A particularly vile speech by multi-billionaire entrepreneur George Soros, delivered to the right-wing Hoover Institute in the United States on January 31, goes one step further. In a foul reactionary rant, he expresses the hope that the highly-infectious Omicron strain will overwhelm the zero COVID policy and “be Xi Jinping’s undoing.”

Soros claims, without a shred of evidence, that Omicron has already spread “to an increasing number of cities” and “is no longer under control,” blaming this on what he calls “Xi Jinping’s guilty secret”—the fact that Chinese vaccines are likely to be ineffective against Omicron. China is developing its own mRNA vaccine akin to Pfizer and Moderna.

The real “guilty secret” of governments around the world is that vaccines by themselves will not halt the spread of COVID-19. That requires the type of elimination measures in place in China to be extended internationally. Moreover, Soros makes no reference to the deadly consequences of the spread of COVID in China with its population 1.4 billion.

Significantly, the attitude of Olympic athletes and sports officials to China’s zero COVID policy is starkly at odds to that of Soros and others. Despite the fact that every athlete and official has to undergo rigorous testing, which has already identified more than 200 positive cases, they are widely supportive of the measures designed to protect their health.

Buried in the Nikkei Asia article are the comments of Kenichi Sugio, head coach of Japanese speedskater Shogo Miyata, who thinks that the Olympic “bubble” is a good idea. “The restrictions are unavoidable,” he said. “If they enable the Olympics to be held, we can’t be too stressed about them… it’s about protecting yourself.”

A string of similar comments was reported in an Australian Broadcasting Corporation article entitled “Life inside Beijing’s Winter Olympics bubble.” Olympian Brit Cox, for example, said: “I actually think the bubble is really excellent. I feel really safe… the fact that every single person inside the bubble is doing a PCR test every day gives me a lot of peace of mind…

“I think the Chinese and the Olympic Committee have done an incredible job at making sure that we’re all safe and healthy both for the local community here and China and for the athletes and everybody here for the Games.”

For decades, the Olympics Games have increasingly become the occasion for an outpouring of nationalism and the making of corporate profit. Under the current circumstances, including the heightened danger of war, that is taking on an ever-more reactionary character.

Wildcat strikes against high prices spread across Turkey amid pandemic

Ulaş Ateşçi

As President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government lifts remaining measures against COVID-19 and adopts a “herd immunity” policy, wildcat strikes against skyrocketing living costs are spreading across Turkey.

These strikes are part of a developing global movement in the working class against the deadly pandemic policies of the ruling class and its economic and social consequences. This movement could impose a change of pandemic policy, as the World Socialist Web Site recently explained in its New Year statement: “The implementation of a scientifically guided and progressive response to the pandemic is possible only to the extent that these policies find the necessary social foundation in a mass movement of the working class on a global scale.”

While the number of daily cases in Turkey exceeded 100,000 for the first time on Tuesday and the test positivity rate approached 25 percent, the Erdoğan government, especially Health Minister Fahrettin Koca, has repeatedly declared there is “nothing to worry about.”

Alongside attempts to “normalize” an official daily death toll of about 200 from a preventable disease, the ever increasing cost of living is fueling anger and opposition among millions of workers.

Official annual inflation rose to 36 percent in December, but real inflation exceeded 82 percent, according to a study by the independent Inflation Research Group (ENAGroup). Moreover, January inflation is expected to be much higher. Prices for electricity, rent and staple foods have risen by more than 100 percent, and millions of working class families cannot make ends meet.

Inflation will massively depreciated the 50 percent increase in the minimum wage for 2022. While the government boasts of this raise, which was below even the real annual inflation rate, the pro-government Türk-İş confederation announced that in January 2022, the “hunger limit” (“monthly food expenditures required for a family of four to have a healthy, balanced and adequate diet”) rose to 4,249 Turkish lira ($315). This is precisely the new minimum wage. According to the report, the poverty line rose to 13,843 TL ($1,025).

Striking Farplas auto workers in Gebze, Kocaeli. [Credit: @ersoyirsi Twitter]

Under these conditions, ever growing sections of workers are going on wildcat strikes against insufficient wage raises and the ongoing fall in living standards. Only one month into 2022, Turkey has seen a wave of wildcat strikes surpassing recent strike activity in an entire year. The common feature of these strikes is that they are emerging largely as rank-and-file movements of nonunion workers, independent of the unions.

Among the dozens of wildcat strikes erupting in Turkey this year, there are:

• In the first week of the new year, approximately 200 women workers at the Fruit and Vegetable Market in the Tarsus district of the southern city of Mersin stopped work, demanding a wage increase.
• On January 12, metal workers at the Çimsataş factory in Mersin rejected a sellout contract between the Turkish Employers Association of Metal Industries (MESS) and three unions representing around 150,000 workers and stopped working. The wildcat strike by over 700 workers was ended with collaboration between the management and Birleşik Metal-İş union affiliated to DİSK, and 13 workers were dismissed.
• On January 17, about 700 workers at the iron ore mines at Divriği in Turkey’s central Sivas province stopped work after the company rejected demands for increases in wages and benefits. The nearly three-day walkout ended when management made some concessions while continuing to reject certain demands.
• On January 19, over 2,300 workers at the Farplas Otomotiv auto factory in Gebze, Kocaeli stopped production, protesting low raises. Farplas management, which has factories in seven countries and supplies parts to companies such as Ford, Mercedes, Renault, Volvo and Tesla, pledged in a meeting with workers’ representatives that wages would be increased and no workers would be laid off. However, nearly 150 workers who became members of Birleşik Metal-İş union in this process were sacked. In response, workers occupied the factory at the end of January. More than 100 workers and several union officials were beaten and detained in a massive morning police raid. Workers from nearby factories came to show solidarity.
• At the end of January, 40 miners working in the southeastern city of Şırnak stopped work, demanding a wage increase. According to the Mezopotamya Agency, “Workers stopped working on the grounds that their salaries were not raised, and they work for low wages.”
• Wildcat strikes are spreading especially among cargo delivery couriers. On January 25, thousands of car couriers working as independent delivery contractors at Trendyol, Turkey’s largest e-commerce platform, rejected an 11 percent wage increase offered by the company and stopped work nationwide. Trendyol couriers, who demanded a 50 percent raise, received a 38 percent increase after the strike. This also inspired workers in other cargo companies to strike.
• On the same day, nearly 60 independent couriers at Aras Kargo in the western city of Denizli protested a 10 percent salary increase.
• Thousands of couriers at Yemek Sepeti have continued a wildcat strike for days, demanding a 5,500 TL salary, benefits and the recognition of a union. Couriers held a mass protest before the company’s headquarters in Istanbul yesterday.
• Couriers at Hepsijet also refused a 28 percent salary increase and stopped working in cities such as Istanbul and Ankara. They are demanding the same salary as Trendyol couriers.
• Couriers at Scotty also rejected a 22 percent raise offer and closed their contacts. They organized a protest in front of company headquarters in Istanbul and demanded a 40 percent salary increase.
• Couriers working at Yurtiçi Kargo, one of Turkey’s largest cargo companies, also closed their contacts on Tuesday, demanding a wage increase. Workers rejected a 17 percent raise offer and demanded a 40 percent raise, as well as the return of the dismissed strikers.
• Workers at the Alpin Socks factory in Istanbul’s Beylikdüzü district, which produces for Adidas, Decathlon, Carrefour and H&M, stopped working after an insufficient wage raise was announced on Tuesday. After a meeting between workers’ representatives and the company boss on Wednesday morning, the company accepted demands for a raise of 2,500 TL and a no-layoff pledge. This triggered wildcat strikes at several other socks factories in Istanbul.
• On Tuesday, workers at Kızılay’s beverage products factory in the eastern city of Erzincan refused a 22 percent raise and stopped production. Another 150 workers at the Kızılay Mineral Water Factory in the western city of Afyonkarahisar went on a wildcat strike demanding a decent raise, the return of benefits that had been cut, and the recognition of their union. Management reportedly called in gendarmerie (militarized police) units to the factory.
• Eighty workers working in the packaging department of Polibak, which is located in the Çiğli district of İzmir and one of Turkey’s 500 largest industrial enterprises, stopped production on Tuesday, demanding a wage increase. According to the weekly Kızıl Bayrak, after a two-hour protest, workers returned to work and gave the management a week to meet their demands.
• After working without pay for two months, 250 construction workers at the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, built by Russian state company Rosatom, stopped work. Gendarmerie units were reportedly dispatched to the construction site. A worker told the daily Sözcü yesterday: “We haven’t received our salaries for two months, and we have been in action for four days. There will be a mass layoff tomorrow because we took action. They will dismiss us unconditionally.” While thousands of workers have been divided because of the company’s use of many subcontractors, they all have held previous protests over unpaid wages, horrible working and accommodation conditions.
• Opposition to the increased living costs and the deadly pandemic policy is also growing among doctors and other health care workers. On January 21, several thousand doctors went on a one-day strike, and on February 8, health care workers are preparing for a nationwide strike. Family physicians also announced that there will be a two-day work stoppage on February 17-18.

This working class movement, which developed largely independently of the unions, will only suffocate under the control of the pro-capitalist trade unions.

Tory government launches right-wing attack on BBC

Paul Bond

Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries’ recent announcement of a two-year freeze on the BBC’s licence fee marks a significant escalation of the right-wing attack on the state broadcaster. The fee is the BBC’s main source of funding, constituting around three quarters of its income.

Dorries’ tweet announcing the move was bullish: “This licence fee announcement will be the last. The days of the elderly being threatened with prison sentences and bailiffs knocking on doors, are over. Time now to discuss and debate new ways of funding, supporting and selling great British content.”

She declared that the immediate two-year freeze would be followed by scrapping the licence fee altogether in 2027. Speaking in Parliament, the culture secretary stated, “I cannot see a world in 2028 where individual households are paying an outdated fee established in 1922 to fund an organisation.”

No one need be under any illusions about the alleged impartiality of the BBC to recognise this for a determined campaign to force the UK media landscape further to the right.

The BBC has, since its inception a century ago, been the official voice of the British bourgeoisie at home and abroad. Under a carefully constructed fiction of neutrality and impartiality, the broadcaster loyally advances the views and interests of British imperialism.

Camera crews outside the BBC HQ at New Broadcasting House (Credit: Ben Sutherland, Flickr)

But the Johnson government is seeking its replacement with a more aggressive right-wing outlet from which even the most house-trained dissent is excluded.

These latest moves against the public broadcaster were spurred by the “Partygate” scandal gripping Downing Street, revealing the scale of media compliance being demanded by the government. Before Christmas, Prime Minister Boris Johnson accused the BBC of being “shamefully frivolous, vengeful and partisan” for having reported his flouting of public health measures during the pandemic. It had “wasted … public time and attention” in reporting the scandal rather than the government’s COVID booster jab campaign.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, the house paper of the Tory right, Charles Moore declared, “The state broadcaster appears to be on a mission to prove that Boris Johnson is finished.” He concluded, “The BBC has been acting like the Fox News of the Left.”

This is obviously absurd but gives an insight into the minds of the ferocious reactionaries driving the campaign against the BBC. They want Fox News pure and simple, a more effective version of the floundering GB News launched in 2021. Moore’s chief criticism is that the BBC was slow in taking up NATO’s campaign over “the possibility of Russia invading Ukraine” and stories of alleged Chinese influence in Westminster.

Dorries has already indicated the government will intensify its demands that the BBC drop any veneer of impartiality, calling for investigations into the BBC’s “impartiality and groupthink.”

In their discussion about alternative funding to the license fee, the BBC’s opponents point towards privatisation of all but the most minimal public service broadcasting requirement. There have been demands to abolish the BBC completely. Other suggestions include a universal broadband tax, a direct government grant paid through taxes, making the BBC carry advertising, and adopting a subscription model like that used for streaming services.

To maintain its current services, the BBC would need around 24 million subscribers paying £13 a month. It is also unclear how its flagship channels BBC One and BBC Two, much less its radio output, could be put behind a paywall. Praising private sector broadcasters, one of Dorries’ supporters gloated to the Mail on Sunday that “the days of state-run TV are over,” saying “It’s over for the BBC as they know it.”

The broadcaster has already been placed under sustained financial pressure. Before Christmas, the National Audit Office (NAO) reported the BBC had already reduced staff and improved productivity to such an extent that there was little left to be cut. Its income for UK services is 30 percent lower now than a decade ago.

In 2020 alone, the BBC announced the axing of 600 jobs in news and current affairs across the UK, mainly falling on regional programming. The broadcaster said it had to save £125 million in 2020 because of financial pressures resulting from the coronavirus pandemic.

There have been other, indirect attacks on funding. In 2000, the government took responsibility for funding free licences for over-75s. Under the Tories’ 2015 licence fee review, this financial burden was passed directly to the BBC in an effective budget cut.

Facing a massive financial crisis, in July 2020 the BBC announced it would be reintroducing the license fee for over-75s apart from those receiving pension credit benefits. This allowed the government responsible for the BBC’s crisis to strike a pose of outraged concern. In 2019, Johnson had said the BBC should “cough up” for licence fees for all over-75, prompting a warning that this would force “unprecedented closures” of services.

Increasingly, the BBC is being turned into a legacy broadcaster. The proportion of repeats shown on BBC One has risen 22 percent in the last four years, to 31 percent. The overall figure for BBC television is 56 percent, rising to 64 percent for BBC Two and 87 percent for BBC Four.

This can only get worse, as production costs have risen rapidly with competition from streaming services like Netflix and Amazon. The BBC estimates that the cost of making one hour of drama increased by around 20 percent between 2015-16 and 2019-20. Pandemic conditions have driven a further rise in production costs of 10-30 percent.

The bleeding of the BBC has taken place under the direction of government-installed Tory loyalists, brought in as part of a government programme of appointing reliable cronies to monitor the broadcaster.

Director-General Tim Davie, appointed in September, is a former Conservative council candidate and deputy chairman of his local Conservative Party. Taking up the post he suggested axing output by up to one-fifth, cutting channels and slashing the BBC’s budget.

Chairman Richard Sharp, appointed last year, is a former Goldman Sachs banker and advisor to Johnson, closely linked to Chancellor Rishi Sunak and a generous Tory donor.

Under the new license fee settlement announced by Dorries, the BBC will receive around £3.7 billion in licence fee funding this year, and around £23 billion over the rest of the period covered. Accounting for inflation, the BBC is confronting an effective loss of around £300 million. Dorries insisted that the BBC “must… make savings and efficiencies.”

Davie and Sharp are preparing to carry this out. Their statement in response spoke of “an ambitious programme of reform,” while Davie told staff that jobs will “probably” be lost. He is refusing to rule out cutting channels in the process of diverting budgets to bigger productions on the main channels.

This would simply exacerbate the crisis further, as Meg Hillier of the public accounts select committee noted after the NAO report. She said the BBC “must be wary of the risk that reducing content may lead to yet more people jumping ship.”

Public trust in the BBC, as with all the corporate media, has been falling for years—in recent times for its despicable coverage of the Iraq war, its blackout of the persecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and its participation in the propaganda campaign against former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters.

Now that the knives are out, the government and political right is seeking to manipulate this sentiment for its own ends. The Daily Mail, for example, reported that two-thirds of poll respondents wanted a referendum on scrapping the BBC. The poll was organised by right-wing pressure group Defund the BBC. Its “Campaign Champion,”, Darren Grimes, was the founder of BeLeave and BrexitCentral and subsequently a player in the far right Turning Point UK campaign against left-wing students.

At the hands of these forces, the destruction of the BBC will mean a boost to the most right-wing, militarist, anti-democratic voices in the UK.

Spanish government bails out “bad bank” Sareb as workers’ living conditions plummet

Santiago Guillen & Alice Summers

Podemos party leader Pablo Iglesias speaks as Spain's caretaker Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez looks on after signing an agreement at the parliament in Madrid, Spain, Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Paul White)

On Tuesday January 18, Spain’s Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government approved a new law enabling it to take on a majority stake in the country’s “bad bank,” Sareb (Company for the Management of Assets Proceeding from the Restructuring of the Banking System). The move comes after the European Union (EU) ruled last year that Sareb’s €35 billion liabilities must be assumed by the state and considered “public debt.”

This is around 3 percent of Spain’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and almost double the roughly €1.9 billion Spain spent on unemployment assistance in 2019. As a result of the reclassification of Sareb’s debt, the country’s overall deficit increased to 10.97 percent of GDP in 2020.

Currently, the Spanish government’s bank restructuring fund FROB (Fondo de Reestructuración Ordenada Bancaria) holds a 45.9 percent stake in the bank, with the rest of the financial institution’s shares owned primarily by other banks, including CaixaBank (12.2 percent), Sabadell (6.6 percent) and Kutxabank (2.53 percent). Santander is the largest private shareholder, with a 22.2 percent stake.

Sareb was launched by the right-wing People’s Party (PP) government of Mariano Rajoy in 2012, in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. This was part of a broader financial restructuring plan imposed by the troika (European Union, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank), in return for a €100 billion bailout.

Around €50 billion in risky loans and “toxic” real estate assets—about 100,000 residential and holiday complexes, individual homes and plots of lands—were transferred to Sareb from Spain’s other banks after the 2008 crisis. Alongside Spanish financial institutions, German, British and French investors also purchased 55 percent of Sareb’s capital, supposedly to prevent the crisis in Spain bringing down other European banks.

This financial sleight of hand enabled Spain’s government to hand billions of Euros to the banks, all while maintaining Sareb as a private entity without direct administrative control by or accountability to the state. The €50 billion of loans would be underwritten by the Spanish government, leaving the taxpayer responsible for paying off the debt if Sareb defaulted. However, the government could keep its debts off its books and whitewash the budget deficit.

After the creation of Sareb, then-Spanish Economy Minister and current Vice President of the European Central Bank Luis de Guindos deceitfully declared that “this operation will never have any cost for citizens.” This lie has been thoroughly exposed by the recent socialisation of the bankrupt financial institution’s debts.

The nationalisation of the “bad bank,” which had a negative net worth of €10.5 billion by the end of 2020, is the culmination of the disastrous policies pursued since the 2008 crash. While the banks were protected from the fallout of their catastrophic speculative bonanza by the state, the working class has been forced to bear the cost of the crisis, with multi-billion euro state bailouts paid for out of a massive programme of austerity.

Despite demands from the “left populist” Podemos party that the government turn Sareb into a “public utility” focused on promoting social housing, not a single one of the “bad bank’s” assets has been used to alleviate the serious housing problem facing Spanish workers and youth. From 2007 to 2020, a staggering 1 million people were evicted in Spain, though there are more than 3.4 million empty homes across the country.

Workers’ conditions have steadily declined since 2008, with the rising cost of living significantly outpacing income gains. Between October 2007 and October 2021, inflation went up by 21.7 percent, according to Spain’s National Statistics Institute (INE). Meanwhile, the Spanish Tax Agency indicates that average salaries in the private sector rose by only 5.1 percent between 2007 and 2020, leading to a significant decline in purchasing power.

This has been exacerbated by increasing rental costs, which went up by approximately 20 percent between 2007 and 2020, according to Eurostat. In Spain’s major cities, the situation has been even worse, with rents rising 51 percent in Barcelona since 2014 and 45 percent in Madrid.

Young people have been hit particularly hard by the housing crisis. A young person in Spain would have to use 60 percent of their income to rent a property or 90 percent to pay a mortgage. These percentages are double and triple the recommended maximum of 30 percent of income on housing. Many young people have therefore been unable to leave home, with only 14.9 percent of 16- to 29-year old living independently of their parents in the first quarter of 2021, according to the Spanish Youth Council (CJE).

The average pre-tax monthly salary for a young person in Spain is a measly €1,207, while rental costs regularly exceed €900 a month in many of Spain’s major cities. Young people are among the most precarious of all workers in Spain, most often being on temporary contracts and suffering the highest rate of unemployment—currently around 31.1 percent, one of the highest in the Eurozone.

While the PSOE-Podemos government rhetorically pledged to tackle the housing crisis in their much-touted “housing bill” in last-year’s budget, the measures they propose will do next to nothing to help young people and workers more broadly secure a decent standard of living.

A key measure in the housing bill is a proposal to give monthly grants or “youth vouchers” of €250 to young people ages 18-34 who earn less than €23,725 per year, to help them move out of parental homes and cover rental costs. According to data from the CJE, among those under 35, only 1.7 percent of the 2.8 million young people living independently and 0.7 percent of the 6.8 million who still live with their parents will be able to receive this aid, due to the numerous conditions that must be met in order to qualify for it.

The scope of the rental aid will be even more limited in large cities such as Madrid and Barcelona, with the highest rental prices, which far exceed the maximum rental costs of €900 a month which make a young person eligible for this grant. In Madrid, 71 percent of rents are above this figure and in Barcelona it is up to 82 percent. The CJE estimates that only about 70,000 young people will actually benefit from the “youth voucher” scheme.

Many of those who are eligible to receive the €250 payment will also likely see the benefit largely cancelled out, as landlords take advantage of the subsidy to increase rents. A similar measure applied in France meant that for every euro of grant money received, 78 cents went to the owner of the property while only 22 cents went to the tenant, largely due to rises in rental costs.

Deepening crisis of American capitalism as national debt hits $30 trillion

Nick Beams

The announcement by the U.S. Treasury that the national government debt has topped $30 trillion is a milestone in the deepening historic crisis of American capitalism.

Over the past several decades, and particularly since the financial meltdown of 2008, the ruling class and the institutions of its state have attempted to cover this crisis over by flooding the financial system with money created with the press of a computer button. But it continues to manifest itself, assuming ever more malignant forms.

The U.S. Capitol building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 2, 2020. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

In its report on the debt level, the New York Times described it as an “ominous fiscal milestone that underscores the fragile nature of the country’s long-term economic health as it grapples with soaring prices and the prospect of higher interest rates.”

The sheer scale of the debt is almost impossible for ordinary imagination to grasp. But to put it in perspective, at $30 trillion it is now $7 trillion more than the entire gross domestic product of the United States—the total value of goods and services produced in a year—which stands at around $23 trillion.

And the pace of the debt rise is accelerating. At the start of 2020, it was forecast that it would reach $30 trillion by around the end of 2025. The acceleration is being put down to increased spending as a result of the pandemic. But such an analysis ignores two vital facts.

First, the shock to the American economy delivered by the coronavirus has been magnified many-fold by the criminal refusal of the government—under Trump and Biden alike—to take meaningful public health safety measures, especially at the outset, which could have contained the outbreak at the beginning, motivated by fear this would adversely impact the stock market. Further, much of the pandemic spending was devoted to billions of dollars of handouts to major corporations while at the same time providing them with further tax breaks.

Second, the rise of the debt, going back decades, is the result not of increased spending on social services and facilities. These have been continuously cut back. Rather, it is the product of increased spending on the military—the current military budget hit a new record of $770 billion—as well as continuous tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy and the major corporations with the result, as numerous studies have shown, that they pay little or no tax at all.

These policies have remained consistent through the administrations of Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden.

Furthermore, the rise of the national debt is the outcome of deeper processes rooted in a transformation in the mode of profit accumulation in the US economy.

The past four decades and more have seen the rise of financialization—the process by which profits are increasingly accumulated by financial operations via the stock market. This has accelerated over the past two years, with Wall Street reaching new records, resulting in the transfer of trillions of dollars into the coffers of the pandemic billionaires. The same processes are at work in every capitalist economy around the world, assuming their most extreme form in the US.

The immediate questions that arise are how will this debt be paid for and what are its implications for the working class.

Speaking to the virtual meeting of the World Economic Forum last month, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said it was “important to evaluate debt sustainability in the context of the interest-rate environment” and the burden of US debt was “very manageable” because of low interest rates.

The so-called “management” of national debt takes place through the market for U.S. Treasury bonds issued by the US government that are bought up by financial investors. However, in March 2020, as Wall Street plunged, this process completely broke down when there was a rush out of government debt. At the height of the crisis, no buyers could be found for Treasury bonds, supposedly the most secure and stable financial asset in the world.

The crisis, which threatened to bring down US and global financial markets, was only averted through a massive intervention by the Federal Reserve central bank, which backed all areas of the financial system, spending at one point 1 million dollars a second. The result is that, whereas in 2008 the Fed held $800 billion of assets on its books, it now has just under $9 trillion.

In the past decade, the national debt has been increasingly financed by a round-robin operation in which one arm of the state, the government, issues debt in the form of Treasury bonds, while another arm, the central bank buys it up.

It has been calculated that since the Fed began its second quantitative easing program in 2010, its purchases of Treasury debt have funded between 60 and 80 percent of the entire government borrowing requirements.

The result has been the maintenance of interest rates at historic lows, fueling the rise of stock prices to their record highs.

But there is an old economic saying: If a process is inherently unsustainable, then it must stop. How then is this financial orgy to end?

The answer is to be found in the nature of finance capital itself. It is essentially predatory in character. All financial assets in and of themselves do not embody value; they are a claim on value, in particular, the surplus value extracted from the working class in the process of production.

The essence of finance capital, as Karl Marx noted, is its drive to “get rich not by production but by pocketing the available wealth of others.”

This drive, now deeply embedded in all the structures of American capitalism, assumes two forms: war abroad and social counter-revolution against the working class at home.

The escalating provocations of the Biden administration against Russia over Ukraine are being driven in large part by the attempt to project the rising social and political tensions in the US outwards. In addition, there are longer term economic factors at work.

Since the liquidation of the Soviet Union by the Stalinist bureaucracy in 1991, key sections of the US ruling class and its representatives—the late Democrat National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski was one of these—have seen the plunder of the vast resources of Russia as a means of overcoming the economic decline of American capitalism.

The crisis of the financial system exemplified in the escalation of the national debt to previously unimaginable dimensions is in essence a crisis of value. And the sole source of value in the capitalist economy is the working class. Value can only be put back into the mountain of fictitious capital, of which the national debt is a component, by intensifying the exploitation of the working class to new levels.

Small incidents sometimes provide an insight into broader developments. That is the significance of a recent Wall Street Journal article which chose to feature a comment by a company general manager, forced to lift the entry level wage for workers from $15 per hour to between $16 and $18, who expressed concern that “we don’t know when this hyperinflation for labour costs will end.”

Meanwhile, according to a report in Bloomberg, the pandemic billionaires, such as Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, are seeking to outdo each other in their purchases of superyachts worth millions of dollars, orders for which have risen by 77 percent from a year earlier.

The class battle lines are being laid down. The ruling class has a clear agenda: wars for plunder and a massive assault wages and social conditions of the population in order to enrich itself still further.

Warmongering against Russia in the name of Auschwitz

Johannes Stern

German troops in Lithuania (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)

The more the USA and NATO intensify their war drive against Russia, the more aggressively the ruling class in Germany behaves. The media are gripped by a veritable war frenzy and are demanding the German government finally supply weapons to the extreme right-wing anti-Russian regime in Kiev.

No lie or distortion is too big for them and no propaganda too dirty. Numerous newspapers have used the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp on January 27, 1945, of all things, to use the historical crimes of the Nazi regime in order to justify new imperialist crimes and a more aggressive German war policy.

“In the event of a Russian invasion, NATO must also support Ukraine with military materiel,” demands the former editor-in-chief of the Süddeutsche Zeitung Kurt Kister in an article. At the same time, “the aggressor must suffer serious political and economic disadvantages—even if this would result in supply bottlenecks, price increases or a recession in the West.” This, too, was “one of the lessons of the past.”

Berthold Kohler, editor of the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), argues similarly. In a commentary headlined “The lessons of Germany’s past,” he refers to the Social Democratic Party-Green Party federal government, which in 1999 justified Germany’s first war mission since the end of World War II against Yugoslavia with the cynical argument that Germany was obliged, because of Auschwitz, “to use military force if necessary to oppose ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the Balkans.” Now, on the grounds that the Ukrainians had suffered “most under Hitler’s war of extermination,” he is demanding German arms deliveries to Kiev.

This perfidious argument is repeated non-stop by the media in their calls to arm the Ukrainian government for war against Russia. In a slavering guest article for the FAZ, the ex-Maoist and anti-communist Gerd Koenen declares that the Germans “indeed have a historical debt to repay, but certainly not primarily to ‘Russia,’ but first to the Jews and Poles, Belarusians and Ukrainians, and finally also to the Russians.”

The foreign policy coordinator of Die Zeit, Jörg Lau, criticises the Green Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock for “dismissing Ukrainian wishes for defensive weapons with a sweeping reference to ‘German history.’ Indeed, from the history of tens of thousands of Ukrainian villages devastated by the Wehrmacht [Hitler’s army], the opposite could also be deduced.” Lau reminds the Green Minister of Economics, Robert Habeck, of his election campaign statement that it would be “difficult to deny Ukraine weapons for defence.”

The professional liars in the bourgeois editorial offices falsify several things at once. Firstly, German crimes in Ukraine—including the Babi Yar massacre, which claimed the lives of more than 33,000 Jewish men, women and children—were an integral part of the war of extermination against the Soviet Union, which cost the lives of 27 million people. At the time Nazi Germany invaded Ukraine and established a murderous occupation regime, it was part of the Soviet Union.

It is the height of criminality to counterpose German crimes against Ukrainian Jews and workers to the crimes against Russian Soviet citizens in order to drum up support once again for an aggressive build-up of German imperialism in Eastern Europe and for war against Russia.

In fact, the new German war policy, for which Kohler, Kister and Co. are foaming at the mouth, stands in the Nazi tradition. Today, too, it is not Russia that is the aggressor, as the official propaganda would have us believe, but the imperialist powers. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union 30 years ago, NATO has been systematically encircling Russia. In early 2014, Washington and Berlin orchestrated a right-wing coup in Ukraine to bring an anti-Russian regime to power in Kiev.

In doing so, they relied on fascist forces such as the Svoboda party and the Right Sector. All the references to the crimes of the Wehrmacht in Ukraine cannot hide the fact that the NATO powers in Kiev are supporting and arming a government that worships Nazi collaborators like Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych and mobilises army units and militias that openly express their fascist and anti-Semitic sentiments.

This reactionary offensive against Russia, which invokes the danger of a third world war, is also supported by the current German government.

In her speech in the Bundestag (federal parliament) last Thursday, Baerbock made it clear that Germany flatly rejects Russian demands for security guarantees, saying these were “not compatible with the European security order.” She then threatened Moscow, saying it had been made “crystal clear that renewed military action against Ukraine would have massive consequences for Russia.”

Government representatives from the Liberal Democrats (FDP) and Social Democrats (SPD) expressed themselves in similarly martial terms. Germany must “leave no doubt that we defend international law,” said Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) on the Welt television channel. “If the Kremlin violates borders—and by that I mean territorial as well as legal and political ones—then Moscow must be clear that we are ready for ironclad consequences.”

On Monday evening, the SPD leadership joined the propaganda chorus. Saying that he spoke for “the entire SPD,” party leader Lars Klingbeil declared, following a meeting of the party leadership, that “the escalation we are currently experiencing on the Russian-Ukrainian border is coming from Russia.” The moment Russia attacked “the territorial integrity of Ukraine” and “crosses the border politically and geographically,” there would be “a clear, tough and consistent response from Germany, from Europe, from the transatlantic partners.” All options were “on the table.”

If the German government has so far hesitated to deliver offensive weapons to Kiev, it has nothing to do with pacifism. For one thing, it fears having to bear the main economic burden of the conflict with Russia, with which Germany maintains close economic and energy relations. Of the 90 billion cubic metres of gas that German factories and private households consume each year, almost 60 billion currently come from Russia. That is why representatives of the energy industry, led by former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD), are warning against an escalation of the conflict.

On the other hand, some representatives of the ruling class plead for a certain balance with Russia in order not to become even more dependent on the USA, the militarily dominant NATO member. They fear that an armed conflict over Ukraine would further strengthen the role of the USA and thwart the plans pursued by Germany and France for an independent European army and foreign policy.

Last weekend, the head of the German navy, Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schönbach, had to resign after arguing for an alliance with Russia against China at a panel discussion in India. Schönbach apparently voiced what many German military leaders are thinking. He explained that this would also be in the interest of the USA, but that country was obviously preparing a war against Russia.

Despite the differences with the USA and its closest allies in Britain and Eastern Europe, the majority of the ruling class in Germany is also committed to a confrontation. It does not want to stand aside when it comes to the crushing and subjugation of Russia. In doing so, it pursues its own economic and geostrategic interests.

“At the moment, we are leaving the price tags for war in Europe to the Americans. I find that shameful,” complains former Social Democratic Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel in an interview with Bild am Sonntag. “We disagree on the assessment of the situation in Ukraine, fear for our economic interests and are glad that others are pulling the hot potatoes out of the fire for us. We Europeans must learn to take our interests into our own hands.” Europe must finally become “sovereign” and a “geopolitical actor,” he said.

A military confrontation with the nuclear powers Russia and China would mean a third world war and the destruction of the entire planet. Nevertheless, the imperialist powers are marching towards exactly that. The reason for this is not only megalomaniac geopolitical goals, but also the deep internal crisis of capitalist society.

“The enormous disruption of social life caused by the global pandemic has fundamentally destabilised all bourgeois regimes,” says the statement “ Are You Ready for World War III? ” by the WSWS editorial board. “It is the explosive social crisis of the pandemic and the emergence of open class struggle that is driving the ruling class to war.”

The German media are raging even more because, despite permanent warmongering, they are failing to win support for a war against Russia. At the end of January, a poll by broadcaster ZDF’s Politbarometer showed that 73 percent of respondents opposed arms deliveries to Ukraine, with only 20 percent in favour. With concerns about the threat of war, opposition to the government is also growing. According to a Forsa survey on February 1, 86 percent are worried about current developments, and 63 percent are dissatisfied with the government’s policies.