As China is increasing its influence mostly economically it would have more of an interest in EU security, to secure its economic activities.
I think the EU should not be opposed to good economic ties with China, but has to be careful with not getting economically too dependent on China and needs to reduce already existing dependencies.
I’d only call it a given, once the soldiers are actually in Ukraine.
France has been talking about it a lot, but their government is weak and they struggle to pass a budget, whit the last government already having fallen apart over passing a budget.
Pensions are a huge issue as well as France struggling with its archaic energy grid based on expensive nuclear power, with new stations being far more expensive than scheduled.
While Macron loves to talk about boots on the ground i don’t see France actually having the means to do so in relevant numbers.
Your source probably only refers to electricity. You also have to factor in heating and mobility.
Ketamine should not make your eyes red though.
Merz also said that he would never accept any working together with the AfD, not in public not in private. Anyone in the CDU that would do so, would be kicked out of the party immediately.
Now whjat we have seen instead on the past year is the CDU working together with the AfD often on the local and state level. on the federal level they finally worked together about three weeks back, when they first passed a resolution against Migration and then barely failed to pass a law together. Merz said, it isn’t his fault if the AfD was voting together with them and if the other parties weren’t willing to pass the [far right anti human rights anti constitutional rights] laws together with them.
https://www.dw.com/en/german-lawmakers-reject-contentious-immigration-law/live-71465034
https://jacobin.com/2025/01/germany-afd-cdu-far-right/
Merz is a far right populist and habitual liar. If he will not rule together with the pro Putin Nazis he will use it as a maximum threat for making a potential SPD coalition partner fall in line with him on all possible topics. If you follow more actively the next months, you will hear Merz lying day in day out.
Question is how much they actually do what they said before, when they are in power.
Merz has been talking heavily about more support for Ukraine, when it served to drive a wedge between the previous government, as the former coalition partner FDP wanted to use Ukraine support spending to cut social spending and climate investments.
The whole reason that is possible is a “debt limit” article in the constitution, that prohibits the country from taking on new debt, even if that debt is used for investments that will pay back much more money. This article was put in place mainly by the CDU but tolerated by the SPD a few years back. The CDU also sued against using leftover money from the emergency Covid fund to finance green investment. Green investment would have reduced the need for energy imports, including direct and indirect imports from Russia, which would have helped Ukraine. Also it put much more pressure onto the public budget, which reduced the legroom for Ukraine support.
The goal of the CDU was solely to use this to blow up the previous government, which eventually succeeded. Meanwhile the CDU worked hard to establish the radical pro Putin AfD Nazis further and it is possible that they will form the next government together.
As McDonalds is supporting the IDF doing worse than that, i doubt it.
Also i find “you come home from work. Where your house was there is a smoldering ruin. You dont know whether your eldery parents and small kids lie dead in the rubble or managed to escape.” A lot more horrifying. But these are only the testimonies of millions of refugees from Syria, Ukraine, Gaza and other ongoing or recent onslaughts against Civillians. The US made sure to only take in token numbers of refugees, if at all.
For instance rare earths, battery technology, solar cells, microchips.