E The Magazine For Today's Female Executive August 2018 issue

Marine Le Pen, who
is expected to run
against French President
François Hollande
in May 2017,
made the aberrant
comment that ‘there
was no reason for
Europe to be scared
of Russian President
Vladimir Putin’, when
experts, such as
Anne Applebaum,
have repeated stated
that Mr. Putin is working
to destabilize Europe
which is facilitated
when there is a
lack of unity. Ms. Le
Pen called the U.S.
election a victory
against the elite. She
supports Brexit, believing
that all EU
members should be
allowed the choice to
exit or reconfirm their EU commitment.
France’s far-right is known to have ties to
the Kremlin.
Significantly, in Germany, one, if not the
strongest, EU leader, Chancellor Angela
Merkel’s re-election in 2017 has already
been threatened by pro-Putin fringe
group the Alternative for Deutschland
(AfD). Presently, the AfD had gained
representation in ten of the 16 German
state parliaments winning several elections
this fall against Ms. Merkel’s Christian
Democratic Union party. Germany is
especially important to Mr. Putin both
historically and based on its location.
Germany is a neighbor to countries between
its borders and Russia that are largely sympathetic
to Mr. Putin.
In Turkey, a key regional nation and a NATO
member, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is
disenfranchised once again by the EU, and by
exclusion from ongoing American supported
military action to retake Mosul, Iraq from ISIS
and the similar plans to liberate Raqqa, Syria.
Given the atrocities, including human rights violations
and suppression of a free press, following
the failed coup against Mr. Erdoğan,
Turkey will be unable for many years, if at all,
to show adherence to Rule of Law; a precursoro
acceding to the EU. Mr. Erdoğan has
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