The EU thread

[Jacob]

Mostly multiculturalism. Even Jupin does not go that far, at least openly.

Ah yeah, that makes sense given what I know of your perspective. I'm not sure how much of it is fairly attributed to Trudeau on a personal level versus how much it is down to the cultural and political differences between Canada and France (and indeed, the rest of Europe). But I can see how Trudeau would compare as more committed to multiculturalism than most mainstream European politicians for sure.

[The Larch]

Not strictly EU related, but tangential to the crisis at hand between the EU and Poland.

Poland to create War Losses Institute to push for German WWII reparations.

Poland's government is to form an Institute of War Losses (Instytut Strat Wojennych) that will focus on the damage caused to the country by German and Soviet occupation in the Second World War.

The ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), has long argued that Poland is still owed huge amounts in reparations, from Germany in particular. The Nazi-German occupation resulted in millions of deaths, the almost complete destruction of many cities, as well as large-scale looting of art and other cultural heritage.

But Berlin has rejected such claims, arguing that Poland renounced its right to reparations in the 1950s. Russia last year said "it should be Poland paying us for liberating them", referring to the Soviet Union's defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 (six years after Stalin and Hitler had divided Poland between them).

Over two years ago, PiS claimed that a parliamentary committee it had established to calculate how much Germany still owes Poland had completed its report. Its chairman, Arkadiusz Mularczyk, a PiS MP, suggested that the bill could amount to $850 billion. Yet since then, the report has remained unpublished.

Nevertheless, the government now plans to set up an institute dedicated to the issue. "Thanks to [Prime Minister] Morawiecki, an Institute of War Losses will be established," tweeted Mularczyk on Saturday, saying that it would "carry out further work on the [financial] balance of the German and Soviet occupation during WWII."

Speaking to Polska Times, the MP said that the institute would bring together experts to research, document, analyse and present information relating to war losses. He likened it to Israel's Yad Vashem, which commemorates and researches the Holocaust.

Critics, however, have suggested that the plans are simply an effort to further draw out what they see as a political exercise rather than a genuine attempt to seek reparations from Germany.

"So PiS is withdrawing from the idea of reparations (doomed from the beginning) but, to cover that up, it is creating an institution that will employ a few greedy people," tweeted legal scholar Wojciech Sadurski. "The taxpayer pays for their stupidity."

Even a fellow MP from Poland's ruling national-conservative coalition responded to Mularczyk's announcement with surprise. "It has been six years since Poles were promised a legal battle for reparations from Germany," tweeted Janusz Kowalski. "When will Poland officially submit a diplomatic note to Germany?"

Mularczyk himself admitted last month that the decision on publishing the final report on estimated German war damages "will be related to the political decisions of the party leadership and the government", notes wPolityce.

Mularczyk's Parliamentary Group for the Estimation of Compensation Due to Poland from Germany for Damages Caused During World War II was established in 2017, two years after PiS returned to power.

The next year, Mularczyk announced that estimated losses to the Polish state caused by Nazi Germany's invasion and occupation in 1939-45 stood at $850 billion. In May 2019, Mularczyk announced that the committee's "report is ready" and that he wanted it to be made public on 1 September that year – the 80th anniversary of the German invasion.

However, after that did not happen, Mularczyk said on 2 September 2019 that work was still underway on "proofreading and translating" the report. Two years later, on the same date last month, government spokesman Piotr Müller announced that "work relating to the details of the report is just being completed".

Also speaking last month, Mularczyk told the Wprost weekly that the formation of a new ruling coalition in Germany makes this a good time to raise the issue of reparations. He noted that "both the Greens and the Free Democratic Party are groups with which there is a possibility of dialogue on this matter".

[Syt]

Country of origin for people in Austria not born here:

[Grey Fox]

Oh a to live in a place with no Americans, Brits or French.

[Syt]

Oh a to live in a place with no Americans, Brits or French.

According to Austrian statistics there were 9,313 French, 11,529 Brits and 8,542 USians in Austria at the start of 2021.

[crazy canuck]

Oh a to live in a place with no Americans, Brits or French.

The three main imperial powers over the last couple hundred years - good luck. 

[Josquius]

Nordmazedonian, though obvious when you read the whole thing, at first reads like a really badass fantasy people.

[Duque de Bragança]

(Nord)Mazedonien seems more common than (Nord)Makedonien these days in German. Makedonien being closer to the original pronunciation.

[Sheilbh]

As German politics becomes more European, so the rest of Europe's politics becomes more German

'Only two pages' of Luxembourg PM's university thesis were not plagiarised
Xavier Bettel admits dissertation 'should have been done differently' after investigation uncovers plagiarism
Jon Henley
@jonhenley
Wed 27 Oct 2021 17.01 BST

First published on Wed 27 Oct 2021 16.08 BST

Luxembourg's prime minister, Xavier Bettel, has admitted his university thesis "should have been done differently" after a media investigation concluded that only two of the work's 56 pages had not been plagiarised.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/oct/27/luxembourg-xavier-bettel-university-thesis-was-mostly-plagiarised

[Syt]

[Sheilbh]

This seems to be getting worse and worse:

Polish PM blames Vladimir Putin for Belarus border crisis
Mateusz Morawiecki says Russian president is mastermind behind flow of migrants towards EU borders

People at the Belarusian-Polish border in the Grodno region on Monday. Photograph: Leonid Shcheglov/Belta/AFP/Getty Images
Andrew Roth in Moscow
Wed 10 Nov 2021 10.23 GMT

Poland's prime minister has accused Vladimir Putin of "masterminding" the migrant crisis on Belarus's border with the EU, while Minsk's key ally in the Kremlin pointed the blame at Europe.

The escalating rhetoric, including claims from the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, that Russia could join a potential conflict at the border, has underlined the role that regional alliances are playing in the standoff and ensuing humanitarian crisis.

Poland and Lithuania have declared a state of emergency on their borders with Belarus, where Lukashenko has been accused of ferrying asylum-seekers from the Middle East to the EU's borders as revenge for the bloc's criticism of his crackdown on opposition.

The arrival of more than 1,000 migrants and refugees, many from Iraqi Kurdistan, at the Polish border on Monday brought the crisis to a head. Polish border guards said on Wednesday that two groups of several dozen people had breached the borders overnight. They were arrested and expelled, they said. Lithuanian border guards said they had prevented 281 attempts to cross the border illegally on Tuesday.

At an extraordinary session of parliament on Tuesday evening, the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, squarely pointed the blame for the crisis at Moscow and Putin, calling the Russian leader an "enabler" of Lukashenko.

"This attack which Lukashenko is conducting has its mastermind in Moscow, the mastermind is President Putin," Morawiecki said in the Sejm, Poland's lower house of parliament, which is dominated by the rightwing Law and Justice party.

Morawiecki said Putin was determined to "rebuild the Russian empire" and called the crisis at the border "a new kind of war, in which people are used as living shields".

The remarks are the most direct accusations against Russia yet in a crisis where the Kremlin has not played an overt role. Belarusian travel agencies have issued visas and brought hundreds of people from Iraq, Syria and other countries to Minsk, from where they then travel west to try to cross the border and from Poland pass on to Germany. Many of the airlines carrying the migrants and refugees are Belarusian or based in the Middle East.

Moscow has been an increasingly crucial ally for Belarus in the past year, backing Lukashenko after his brutal crackdown on protests and after his grounding of a Ryanair flight in May that set off a fresh round of sanctions and pushed Minsk further into isolation.

EU countries have threatened new sanctions and accused Lukashenko of "human trafficking" and "gangster-style" tactics.

On Tuesday, Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said western countries including EU member states, and Nato, were the "root" of the migrant crisis.

"They were pushing for a western-style better life and democracy the way it is interpreted by the west," he said, referring to US-led interventions and alleged western backing for the Arab spring.

Lukashenko and Putin held a phone call to discuss the border crisis on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, a military alliance of ex-Soviet states, said it was following the crisis "very closely and with concern".

"The migrant crisis may evolve into a great disaster for thousands of civilians, including numerous women and children," the CSTO secretariat said in a statement. Dominated by Moscow, the group is seen as the Kremlin's answer to Nato.

Earlier, western media reported remarks from a Nato spokesperson that the military alliance "stands ready" to provide help to end the crisis.

Reuters reported on Wednesday that the EU was close to imposing more sanctions on Belarus, targeting 30 individuals and entities including the foreign minister and the Belarusian airline Belavia, with approval likely as early as next week.

From what I've read there are direct flights from Turkish Airlines and AeroFlot from Syria, Iraq and Lebanon for people with visas being issued by Belarus. They are then ending up between borders as Poland and Lithuania try to push them back - and there are now tens of thousands of troops and police on Poland's border - while the Belarussian guards push them forward.

My suspicion is that Morawiecki's right - though he's rejected offers of help from Frontex - about this from Russia's angle. I could be wrong but my guess is that this may link into Russia absorbing Belarus and getting European acqueisance of chaos on the borders with Lukashenko v peaceful borders with Putin/Russia.

More generally I think with gas supplies and with migration, especially with the Turkish angle, Russia is really pushing and probing at Europe's ability to respond over the places it has leverage. In retrospect I think the sanctions in response to the Ryanair flight incident was probably not enough. There should have been a stronger response. But again I'm not sure there is a strong enough response from Europe to stop Russia probing further - while there is an offer of support from the EU/Frontex there's also the standard  calls for dialogue and for Putin to use his influence in Belarus to calm things down which I think is counter-productive and he will interpret as weakness.

It'd be nice if the UK other non-EU/NATO partners and the EU could work with Poland to help them deal with this because I think it's more than just migration/Schengen.

[The Larch]

I believe that Iraq has already closed down the Belarussian embassy in their country because of all the visas they were issuing. A plane leasing company has been already warned by the EU about this, as the Belarussian state airline was using leased Irish planes to bring people from Iraq into Belarus.

Apparently Russian and Belarussian aircraft have been deployed to the border area to "patrol and inspect it".

In the videos I've seen the attitude of the Belarussian border guards is deplorable, they're basically herding the inmigrants in such a way, including intimidating "warning" shots, so they'll assault the border and enter Poland.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah - I think Poland is right. This is not part of the "migration crisis" this is weaponising migrants as part of multiple attacks/challenges on Europe - including gas as well.

[The Larch]

Yeah - I think Poland is right. This is not part of the "migration crisis" this is weaponising migrants as part of multiple attacks/challenges on Europe - including gas as well.

Absolutely, it is pretty clear that this is a planned and orchestrated operation, either by Belarus with Russian tacit approval/help/supervision, or directly by Russia employing Belarus as a pawn.

[Tamas]

Yeah - I think Poland is right. This is not part of the "migration crisis" this is weaponising migrants as part of multiple attacks/challenges on Europe - including gas as well.

Absolutely, it is pretty clear that this is a planned and orchestrated operation, either by Belarus with Russian tacit approval/help/supervision, or directly by Russia employing Belarus as a pawn.

I am slightly puzzled by the end game though. Are they trying to orchestrate an "attack on radio towers" moment to fabricate a CB? Surely they would not pull that against Poland, not before doing it to the Baltic States.

Are they hoping to destabilise Poland? Judging by 2015, this should be a godsend to the Polish government. Back in 2015, Orban's regime was creaking under increased internal and external pressure much like the Polish one now, then the mass of migrants appeared and provided a handy enemy to keep Orban in power stably since.

I guess the most probable reason is that Lukasenko are trying to pull an Erdogan and extort tribute from the EU in exchange of holding these migrants prisoner and away from the border.