A vendor holding bell peppers from Crimea at the city market in St Petersburg. Moscow imposed a total ban on imports of many Western foods last week in retaliation against sanctions over Ukraine. Photo: Alexander Demianchuk/Reuters

Those who believe in conspiracy theories must surely be speculating as to what else could happen to blast EU economies further out of course. With sluggish economic growth and record unemployment, the last thing that Europe needs is yet more geopolitical conflicts that sap the morale of political leaders struggling to talk up their economies.

The growing hostility between the EU and Russia is bad news both at the political and economic level. One of the effects of globalisation has been the increasing interdependence of countries in different corners of the world.

However unacceptable the behaviour of Russia has been in the developments following the downed Malaysian airline incident, the EU leaders could not get the kind of agreement that is needed to check this political threat because their economies are significantly dependent on Russian gas.

France and the UK sell military hardware to Russia, while German multinationals like Siemens and BASF have major investments in Russia. Russia in turn is heavily dependent on EU and US technology, but it seems its geopolitical interests are presently more important than economic ones. The result is that until the present turbulence hovering over Europe and Russia persists, the region will suffer from further economic distress. This is hardly good news for millions of young people struggling to find their first job.

The tensions between Israel and Hamas are similarly causing great concern in the Middle East. While this conflict has a less detrimental effect on world trade, it confirms once again that at present the world lacks the kind of leadership that can keep regional conflicts largely under control. Both the EU and the US seem impotent in brokering a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. They keep selling arms to Israel while the Palestinians procure their weapons from Middle East nations who sympathise with their cause.

One big disappointment in these troubled times is the ineffectiveness of the US President in forcing a deal that will at least stop the bloodshed in this Middle East conflict. No wonder that serious media outlets like the New York Times are detailing how “Obama has increasingly been spending his time at trendy restaurants and fancy late-night dinner parties with celebrities and various intellectuals”.

The US President may be feeling frustrated by the constant opposition he is facing from the Republican Party, but it seems that he has lost the sense of purpose that he articulated so clearly in his pre-election campaign. His magical rhetoric is no longer matched by his leadership qualities in the turbulent times that the world is facing.

Growing hostility between the EU and Russia is bad news

Europe similarly lacks strong leadership in these troubled times. Not only are EU leaders incapable of agreeing on a set of measures that will put some life back in their sluggish economies, but they continue to squabble over the measures that need to be taken to avert further political threats from Russia. The result is that Europe today faces bigger political and economic threats than was the case up to a decade ago.

For us in Malta the civil war in Libya is the most significant geopolitical threat that is likely to affect our economy and our political relations with Libya. The economic ties between Malta and Libya have always been strong, even if there were times when political relations were strained. Several hundred Maltese workers travel regularly to Libya for work purposes. Maltese businesses export several million euros worth of goods and services to Libya which for decades has been trying to build its infrastructure with the massive revenues it has from the export of oil.

All this common economic activity is now at risk of being stopped not just by the current civil war but by the prospect of having an unstable or hostile political leadership in Libya in the near future.

The end of the Gaddafi regime was heralded as a new beginning for more stable and long lasting relations between Libya and the EU. But it seems that this was just a pious wish.

EU business leaders understandably fret about how this geopolitical turbulence will affect their lives and that of their employees. They can only wait and see hoping that their political leaders will come up with pragmatic solutions that will encourage political peace and a healthier economic climate.

Woody Allen famously said: “80 per cent of life is just showing up”. EU citizens expect that their political leaders will do more than just showing up for TV cameras in meetings in Brussels.

johncassarwhite@yahoo.com