Eu countries ranked by their level of assertiveness to Russia in Parliament

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Most assertive

Poland 94,87

Lithuania 88,81

Romania 87,82

Hungary 86,92

Luxembourg 85,98

 

Most appeasing

France 55,99

Greece 56,10

Cyprus 58,77

Ireland 65,71

Portugal 71,60

 

The eastern you get, the higher the anti-Russian appeasement sentiment is, because historically the eastern countries are the ones that suffered under the Russians. Apart from Greece who doesn't trust NATO because of Turkey's invasion of Cyprus, for the more western countries it's basically ''Russia is far from my borders so I am not really bothered''.

Source

[TheSlash 14,539]

Germany kinda being in the middle is descriptive of our current indecisive politics  .

Spoiler

For real tho, the sentiment is literally "We wanna help Ukraine, but we don't wanna upset Russia either"  

 

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2 hours ago, TheSlash said:

Germany kinda being in the middle is descriptive of our current indecisive politics  .

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For real tho, the sentiment is literally "We wanna help Ukraine, but we don't wanna upset Russia either"  

 

My theory is that Russia is reducing gas flow to Germany so they can push public opinion there to be even more favorable to appeasing Russia. Literal blackmail, and I believe it will work.. We are 4 months into the war and most countries imposing sanctions are starting to want to focus more on their internal issues and economy rather than Ukraine. The war lost its Social Media virality and the initial unanimous wave of solidarity is no longer here... (Sidenote: given how we people have such a short attention span nowadays I 100% knew this was going to happen )

[AbhainnTirim 368]

I think Ireland, France and Greece can be explained as those countries have the greatest numbers of MEPs elected The Left European Parliamentary group (Sinn Féin, Independents 4 Change, LFI, PCF, SYRIZA), a socialist, left wing populist group  which has often voted against sanctions and condemnation on Russia on the grounds of opposing “Western Military involvement “ or something like that.

[TheSlash 14,539]

12 minutes ago, FfFfFfFF said:

My theory is that Russia is reducing gas flow to Germany so they can push public opinion there to be even more favorable to appeasing Russia. Literal blackmail, and I believe it will work.. We are 4 months into the war and most countries imposing sanctions are starting to want to focus more on their internal issues and economy rather than Ukraine. The war lost its Social Media virality and the initial unanimous wave of solidarity is no longer here... (Sidenote: given how we people have such a short attention span nowadays I 100% knew this was going to happen )

True. Even tho our politicians - especially chancelor Scholz - always emphasize the wrongdoings of Russia and that Germany supports the Ukraine 100%, they all (have to) do things to not provoke Russia in any way. I believe I know why they do it (way too many depent from Russia), but that doesn't make it any better  .

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9 minutes ago, TheSlash said:

True. Even tho our politicians - especially chancelor Scholz - always emphasize the wrongdoings of Russia and that Germany supports the Ukraine 100%, they all (have to) do things to not provoke Russia in any way. I believe I know why they do it, but that doesn't make it any better  .

I also think the wrongdoings of NAZI Germany during the invasion of Soviet Russia and the gratitude for allowing West and East Germany to merge are still ingrained in Germany's mentality. Germany still feels indebted to Russia in some capacity because of WW2. The status-quo was also favorable to Germany so all decisions to sanction Russia harshly will disrupt Germany's established place in Europe and bring instability, you can see this in the way Germany was at first reluctant to cancel NordStream 2.. Since then it became infinitely more favorable to sanctions (in part also due to international pressure), but I believe these are all factors that play a part. You would expect the countries directly bordering Russia to be the ones concerned to not provoke Russia the most, but it's the reverse.. 

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30 minutes ago, AbhainnTirim said:

I think Ireland, France and Greece can be explained as those countries have the greatest numbers of MEPs elected The Left European Parliamentary group (Sinn Féin, Independents 4 Change, LFI, PCF, SYRIZA), a socialist, left wing populist group  which has often voted against sanctions and condemnation on Russia on the grounds of opposing “Western Military involvement “ or something like that.

I believe you're right... Radical lefitsts are all about opposing imperialism, but will easily close their eyes when the country doing it is not the US. Logical fracture and hypocrisy at its finest... My blood boils whenever I hear people like Noam Chomsky open their mouth.  

Greece precisely has a strong leftist bloc since the start of the 20th century when they communists wanted to change the regime and launched a civil war. Historically, Greece always looked to Russia for protection in its battles with the Ottomans, then of course, the invasion of Cyprus by NATO member Turkey made Greece even more distrustful of the West and more warm to the alternative to the West, which is Russia. 

[TheSlash 14,539]

43 minutes ago, FfFfFfFF said:

I also think the wrongdoings of NAZI Germany during the invasion of Soviet Russia and the gratitude for allowing West and East Germany to merge are still ingrained in Germany's mentality. Germany still feels indebted to Russia in some capacity because of WW2.

I can't comment on the feeling of being indebted to Russia, but I can confirm the first part. Germany's history is deeply ingrained in all of our minds as it was intensly tought in school.

[AbhainnTirim 368]

55 minutes ago, FfFfFfFF said:

I believe you're right... Radical lefitsts are all about opposing imperialism, but will easily close their eyes when the country doing it is not the US. Logical fracture and hypocrisy at its finest... My blood boils whenever I hear people like Noam Chomsky open their mouth.  

Greece precisely has a strong leftist bloc since the start of the 20th century when they communists wanted to change the regime and launched a civil war. Historically, Greece always looked to Russia for protection in its battles with the Ottomans, then of course, the invasion of Cyprus by NATO member Turkey made Greece even more distrustful of the West and more warm to the alternative to the West, which is Russia. 

It’s ridiculous. As a democratic socialist and a supporter of Sinn Féin, a party in The Left bloc, I don’t understand this rationale. We the Irish people suffered and to a degree still do at the hands of British imperialism, we should understand how the Ukrainians suffer at the hands of Russian imperialism. You don’t even have to be pro-NATO or pro-European army to know that economic sanctions and holding a country to account is simply justice and standing against imperialism. 
 

On the note of Greece, I didn’t realise Greek left-wing history dated back that far. I know a left-wing coalition went into government in 2015, though supposedly they weren’t very left-wing at all…

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1 hour ago, TheSlash said:

I can't comment on the feeling of being indebted to Russia, but I can confirm the first part. Germany's history is deeply ingrained in all of our minds as it was intensly tought in school.

Yeah, WW2 completely reshaped Germany. Now imagine travelling back to the 50s and telling people in 2022 Germany will be re-arming itself and will become the third country in the world in terms of military budget.

[Economy 52,842]

2 hours ago, FfFfFfFF said:

Yeah, WW2 completely reshaped Germany. Now imagine travelling back to the 50s and telling people in 2022 Germany will be re-arming itself and will become the third country in the world in terms of military budget.

I didn't know that 😳

 

So who is it passing China or Russia? I don't know which is #2 and #3 currently 

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43 minutes ago, Economy said:

I didn't know that 😳

 

So who is it passing China or Russia? I don't know which is #2 and #3 currently 

If I recall corectly #1 and #2 are the US and China. After Germany decided to invest 2% of its GDP into the military, Germany's military budget surpassed that of Russia, who invests a bigger percentage but has a smaller GDP. 

[Economy 52,842]

10 minutes ago, FfFfFfFF said:

If I recall corectly #1 and #2 are the US and China. After Germany decided to invest 2% of its GDP into the military, Germany's military budget surpassed that of Russia, who invests a bigger percentage but has a smaller GDP. 

Yeah I just searched it up. Their budget for military (at least in 2021) was $65 Billion. I honestly expected it would be higher from Russia

 

But I see what U mean as a percentage. My Country (Canada) has a larger economy than Russia but spends only half that amount or so in military 

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