From Jeffrey Sachs’s Speech at the European Parliament on October 14, 2026
Author: Jeffrey Sachs, Prominent American Economist and Expert in Sustainable Development and Global Poverty Alleviation
WAR WITH IRAN
There is no reason for any of these wars. And by the way, I didn't hear Europe speak a murmur about America's attack on Iran other than Pedro Sanchez.
Now I may miss some leaders, but I don't think I miss too many. That is a brazen, murderous violation of every single international standard we have. And Trump brags, oh, the others, my six predecessors wouldn't do it. Yeah, you're the only one stupid enough to do this. But where's Europe?
Let me tell you and then I'll stop. Where is Europe on Iran? I'll tell you a little story and then I'll stop. The day of the attack, I was asked by the Chinese mission at the UN and by the Russian mission and by the Iranian mission, would I say something in the UN Security Council? Because I believe in peace and I don't believe in murdering another country's leadership. I think it's a bad idea, especially when you're in the middle of negotiations, which is why they were all assembled at the supreme leader's residence to discuss what their negotiating position would be in Vienna early in the following week.
And Mossad, which is so “clever”, said, oh, they're all going to be meeting. Why don't we kill them all? Very intelligent Israeli policy, I may add. And Trump, being the fool that he is, said, yeah, that's a great idea. I kidnapped the president of Venezuela. Now I have all their oil revenues. Let's do the same with Iran. I'll, I'll choose the next leader the next day. He literally thought.
Well, in any event, they attacked and the Security Council met that afternoon. And I was asked to testify. So I went to the Security Council chamber and the Brits were in the seat and they ruled me out of order, that no, there wouldn't be any witnesses and Mr. Sachs has no role in this discussion. OK, that's Britain. I've come to understand Britain well over the last 50 years. They still believe they're the British Empire, by the way, just to let you know if there's any doubt. But I sat there and I sat there in growing absolute shock. Because every European ambassador started with the criticism of Iran for attacking its neighbors.
You can't make this up. It happened that Bahrain was the first to speak. You know that Bahrain hosts the American fleet in the Persian Gulf. And so when Iran was attacked that day, they attacked the British fleet. And literally, and I'm quoting now, I may get a word wrong, but the Bahraini ambassador was the first to open the meeting and said, we are meeting here today to condemn the unprovoked attack by Iran on Bahrain. OK, I thought that's a little weird, unprovoked, but it went on the whole session this way. The French ambassador, the British ambassador, the Greek ambassador, some a little bit with glimpses of humanity, most not. It was all Iran. Iran, a criminal state. Nobody in Europe said the United States should not have started a war against Iran.
EUROPE MUST HAVE AN INDEPENDENT FOREIGN POLICY
So honestly, I love Europe, but not this political leadership right now. I don't understand it. Europe had a voice, even with the U.S. dependency. Europe used to have a voice. There were leaders here that made a difference. Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl and Schroeder and I would say Angela Merkel to the first day of the Bucharest NATO summit. These were real people. They thought, they discussed, they debated.
They stood up for Europe's post-World War II values, which have not always been Europe's values, but were the values that were learned and raised after World War II and drawing on the best of Western civilization, I might add. So they were Western values, just not the ones that were always deployed. And Mitterrand, and you can go on and on on the list of people who were impressive people who spoke and opposed the Iraq war or stood up for Auspolitik or advised that we shouldn't do this or shouldn't do that or wanted the Helsinki Final Act and the OSCE and indivisible security.
So that's the Europe I really want. I know it's there. I think it's the overwhelming wish of the European public because it doesn't surprise me that Macron's, I think his approval rating next time around will be, maybe you'll need a microscope to find the positive value. I don't think it can reach negative technically, but it will reach near zero. And hundreds of thousands of young people on the streets of France are signifying that. And Merz has to be the least successful politician in chancellor in modern German history, the least approved, and because he's a warmonger.
And why he's a warmonger, I can't understand, because he should pick up the phone and call his counterpart in Moscow and say, President Putin, it's time that we talked. That should have been the first thing he did the first day of office. Maybe it would have been disappointing, but he would have tried. But he never tried.
So that's the Europe we need. I'm an outsider, but I love Europe. So I don't want you to give up on doing that. I don't think it takes years of change. It takes a change of understanding and heart. I would recommend doing it tomorrow before Ukraine freezes this winter. So the suffering stops.
Europe is not standing up for Ukraine. Europe is killing Ukraine, by the way. People are going to die in mass numbers. There won't be safe water. Russia's fighting a war to win right now, because Europe every day says we're fighting a war to win, too. This kind of rhetoric is madness in the nuclear age to begin with, complete madness. It's also madness, given what the stakes are.
And maybe just to really finish, this is not about a ceasefire. This is about a European politician standing up and saying, Mr. Putin, NATO will not enlarge to Ukraine or to Georgia. Now let's stop the war. That's what this is about. And the war will stop on that basis. And you know what? There will be disagreements about the borders because we will not have a juridical settlement about borders. We'll have an armistice line. And we'll have a line of administrative control. And that's like a lot of places in this world.
And that could stretch for years or decades, actually. But the fighting will stop. The madness will stop.
The march to nuclear war will stop. And that requires not every day saying we must have a ceasefire, but rather we must have peace and inclusive security. And that's easy to accomplish. Because the reason for this war is absolutely clear. Thanks a lot.
