I will be leaving shortly for a week in Europe, visiting Slovakia, Romania, and the Czech Republic. After 1989, these former Soviet satellites sought integration with Europe – and, in a sense, salvation – by becoming members of the two major transnational organizations: the European Union and NATO. The former was strictly European, while the latter bound Europe and the United States together.
Recent chaos in the EU and the return of Russian assertiveness has placed these three countries in difficult positions. The Czech Republic is deeply bound economically with Germany. Prague is comfortable with that relationship and shares Berlin’s fate in many ways. When I visit the Czech Republic, I am going to be talking about what I see as Germany’s weakness.
Romania has opted to draw closer to the United States. It’s a difficult relationship, but even under communism, the Romanians distrusted the Russians. I have long argued that a close collaboration with the United States is essential to Romania. I will get a chance to hear from Romanians about the progress of our collaboration. The next critical step in the relationship is arranging significant investment from the United States for much-needed development of the Romanian energy sector – in spite of the fact that investing in energy right now is a tough proposition.
This post was published at Mauldin Economics on APRIL 11, 2016.
Follow on Twitter
Recent Comments