Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche was guest speaker at a July 27 panel on “The Ghost of Sovereignism Is Once Again Haunting Europe,” as part of the three-day “Forum of Italian Independence” that took place in Orvieto, Italy, July 26-28.
On the panel with Zepp-LaRouche were Francesco Toscano, president of Democrazia Sovrana e Popolare, German MP Mathias Moosdorf (AfD), Derzsi Akos, Vice President of the Hungarian Christian Democratic Movement in Romania, and moderator Giuseppe Lauria, from the “Indipendenza!” movement.
In particular, Zepp-LaRouche’s second intervention was very well received, judged by many as the best speech of the panel. Answering a question from the moderator, she described the political and economic crisis in Germany as a consequence of the incompetence of the “Traffic Light” government and their total submission to Anglo-American policies. She described the “lifeboat,” represented by the collaboration with the Global South, and she called for a new classical Renaissance.
The previous day, the conference had opened with a panel featuring Russian Ambassador to Italy Alexey Paramonov and American economist Jeffery Sachs, in a dialogue moderated by economist Michele Geraci, the foreign policy speaker for the Indipendenza! movement.
Summarizing the “mission” of the Forum, Indipendenza! Leader Gianni Alemanno called on sovereignist movements in Europe to unite—not to repeat the mistakes of the past: embracing free-market policies and anti-Islam ideologies.
Italian mainstream media, including RAI News, Il Fatto and Quotidiano Nazionale covered the first day of the conference, focusing on the participation of the Russian ambassador. The next day, Agenparl covered the panel with Zepp-LaRouche.
She explained: “Germany is headed towards an existential collapse, but in that also lies the chance that people wake up. It is not just Germany that is collapsing: You have the transatlantic financial system that is bankrupt, sitting on $2.1 quadrillion unpayable derivative debt, and that is a bubble that can detonate at any moment. However, there is already a lifeboat, and that is the new economic system emerging in the global majority—BRICS, the SCO, the Eurasian Economic Union, ASEAN—all these countries are building an economic bloc.
“The danger is that if NATO puts pressure on countries to decouple, derisk, not only are we headed towards thermonuclear war—because any one of the crises: Ukraine, Israel-Gaza ... China-Taiwan, could go into nuclear war in a short period of time.
“So, what is the way out? If we stick to normal party politics, to business as usual, I do not think there is a way out. If we think in terms of a paradigm shift, we are experiencing right now a historic transformation, 500 years of colonialism is ending because of the strength of China, countries of the Global South are now forming a new economic system; this is where economic growth is, countries working with the Belt and Road are growing while Europe is collapsing.
“So, I think that the task before us is that we must make clear and convince the people of Europe that they have to ally with the Global South. Germany is collapsing, but Germany is an exporting nation, and if we said: let us work with the BRICS, let us work with Asia, with the Global South, we could participate in the prosperity which is developing there and create 2, 3 million productive jobs in the Global South…. We could solve the migration issue in the only possible human way, by creating productive jobs there, because the young people of Asia, Africa and Latin America want to stay home, build their country (applause).
“So, I think the biggest challenge is how do we get to the mainstream-influenced people? In East Germany, for instance, they do not believe in the NATO narrative, because they had a different socialization than West Germany. There are very important people all over Germany who are already thinking the way I am thinking now. But we must make clear to the people who read Bild, FAZ every day, that there is a hope.
