The EU thread

[Sheilbh]

The sooner the EU stops relying on gas piped in from the East, the better.

I'm not sure on the latest but there's a big fight over the EU Taxonomy (basically a list of environmentally sustainable economic activities - so investing in them meets ESG requirements for private sector investors and supports net zero).

On the one hand you have a push by countries like France and the Czechs to get nuclear classified as sustainable - which is being very strongly opposed by Germany, Austria, Portugal, Denmark and Luxembourg.

On the other hand you have a push by other countries like Poland, Hungary and some Southern European countries to get gas classified as sustainable - which is being very opposed by the pro-nuclear countries ).

Last I read the Commission's plan was to include both gas and nuclear as sustainable - the calculation is that collectively there's enough pro-nuclear and pro-gas states to get it passed while picking one or the other is more likely to fail (and the Council have been sitting on the draft since April because they can't agree).

Separately apparently VDL very reluctant to send rule of law mechanism letters to Hungary or Poland right now because of the situation on the border where Poland is at the frontline of the EU border. I'm not sure what I think - but I can sympathise that at this point Poland is the EU border and it is being challenged by Belarus and Russia so it's more a time for solidarity. I think you can probably walk and chew gum at the same time but I'm not sure if that would work in this scenario - very difficult and very political decision

[Duque de Bragança]

The sooner the EU stops relying on gas piped in from the East, the better.

Norway can't supply everybody in the EU unfortunately.
Nigeria, another solution is way worse, being unstable. Some countries are trying to switch to LPG (liquefied petroleum gas a bit cleaner), with a much secure supply, Nigeria still a provider among others, however.
Nuclear is taboo for some countries for political reasons.

[DGuller]

Past experience shows Lushenko does hold his own with Putin.
Unless he has recently seen the writing on the wall and this is his retirement plan.

It's hard to hold your own when someone holds your balls.  These days Lukashenka is as independent as Putin allows him to be.

[Solmyr]

The sooner the EU stops relying on gas piped in from the East, the better.

FYP.

[Sheilbh]

Apparently the UK has sent a small group of Royal Engineers to support the Poles - from the UK and Polish announcements. It's not fully clear what they'll be doing - at least to me.

Obviously this goes to the strategic autonomy point. But I very much doubt this will go unnoticed in Poland and the Baltic countries and perhaps explains why they're reluctant to move away from relying on NATO and NATO partners when it comes to security. France has issued very strong statements on this which have been very good - if they want to build support for the idea of European strategic autonomy they should be speaking to all those governments (as I assume the MoD did) to work out how they can help.

Hopefully it will also - as well as the simultaneous Royal Navy exercises in the Baltic and the Black Sea earlier this year - put an end to stuff about whether Brexit means the UK is no longer interested in European defence or that its entire focus is on Asia. There's never been any reason to think that and it contradicts the defence review but it seems to have been a bit of a trope.

Edit: Apparently they're engineers being sent to support the Polish Army in strengthening their border fences.

[HVC]

They need help building wall? i hear trumps available.

[Sheilbh]

They need help building wall? i hear trumps available.

I'm sure when it gets to decor decisions they'll consider him.

[The Larch]

Apparently Germany has temporarely suspended the approval for Nordstream 2 due to some kind of lack of compliance with German law from the operating company.

[Zanza]

Apparently Germany has temporarely suspended the approval for Nordstream 2 due to some kind of lack of compliance with German law from the operating company.

The current (and probably the future) government will not openly oppose Nodstream 2, but of course you can always make every bureaucratic process very slow with legal means. That buys the government time.

[Sheilbh]

BBC interview with Lukashenko is quite something - in the full version at one point Lukashenko just gets up to start shouting at Steve Rosenberg the BBC's Moscow correspondent:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59343815

It really is just thuggishness that comes across.

Edit: Another slightly longer clip - it is interesting:
https://twitter.com/BBCSteveR/status/1462685931798945800?s=20

[Zanza]

https://www.tagblatt.ch/international/schweiz-eu-bruessel-beendet-den-sonderfall-schweiz-kommt-mit-grossbritannien-und-den-ewr-staaten-in-denselben-topf-ld.2224883

@Sheilbh: German article, but interesting development.  The EU creates a new organizational unit to handle the "West European partners" to have a more consistent policy towards UK, EFTA states (Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein), Switzerland, as well as the micro states Andorra, Monaco, and San Marino. Maybe they even develop a consistent engagement model and strategy. The unit will be led by a Briton, no less. OK, double national, but still.

[The Larch]

Poland, racking up even more reasons for the EU to come cracking down hard on it.

Poland plans to set up register of pregnancies to report miscarriages
Proposed register would come into effect in January, a year after near-total ban on abortion

Poland is planning to introduce a centralised register of pregnancies that would oblige doctors to report all pregnancies and miscarriages to the government.

The proposed register would come into effect in January 2022, a year after Poland introduced a near-total ban on abortion.

This has raised serious concerns among women's rights activists, who believe that in light of the abortion ban, the register could be used to cause legal difficulties for women who have self-administered abortions.

The draft legislation is part of a wide-ranging project to update the medical information system in Poland.

"It's about control, it's about making sure that pregnancies end with birth," Natalia Broniarczyk, an activist from Aborcyjny Dream Team told the Polish weekly Gazeta Wyborcza.

The plan prompted online protests. A social media initiative titled "I'd like to politely report that I am not pregnant" encouraged Polish women to email photos of their used sanitary pads, tampons and underwear to the Polish ministry of health.

The ministry has strongly denied the project amounts to a centralised pregnancy register, with a spokesperson saying the changes are simply part of wide-ranging digitalisation project that will update the way data about a multitude of conditions, including allergies, is stored.

The spokesperson said doctors always had information on pregnancies, but before it was stored on paper by hospitals, rather than centrally by the government.

The concerns of activists about the register grew considerably after a bill proposed by the government that would establish an "institute of family and demographics" passed first reading in the Polish parliament by one vote on Thursday.

The institute would aim to monitor family policy, pass opinion on legislation and educate citizens on the "vital role of family to the social order" and the importance of "cultural-social reproduction" in the context of marriage. The institute would have access to citizens' personal data and prosecutorial powers in the realm of family law, prompting worries it could be used to enforce the country's strict abortion law.

The project has drawn widespread criticism from Polish academics and civil rights advocates.

"Maybe just call it the 'Red Center of Rachel and Leah'," a feminist organisation from Łódź said in an Instagram post, referencing Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale. In the novel the Rachel and Leah Center is a training facility for women designated to be "breeders" by the authoritarian regime.

The committee of demographic researchers at the Polish Academy of Sciences has issued a statement expressing concerns that the "pro-natalist propaganda" would take precedent over scientific research at the institute.

"The project aims exclusively to promote traditional model of family," Adam Bodnar, Poland's former ombudsman for citizen rights, told the Polish news website Oko.press. "It could also become a tool against those who fall outside this model, for example those who do not conform to heteronormative norms."

[Tamas]

Not that it makes a practical difference in terms of crap like this having to be opposed, but I do wonder if this is ideological from the governing party, or serves the same purpose as the hate poured on Muslims and homosexuals/transgender people in Hungary i.e. a destructive, reckless and evil smokescreen to hide / distract from their bid to move to an authoritarian system.

[The Larch]

Not that it makes a practical difference in terms of crap like this having to be opposed, but I do wonder if this is ideological from the governing party, or serves the same purpose as the hate poured on Muslims and homosexuals/transgender people in Hungary i.e. a destructive, reckless and evil smokescreen to hide / distract from their bid to move to an authoritarian system.

That's always something that you have to keep in the back of your mind about all these kind of nasty measures, to question if they're true ideological nastiness or strategic nastiness to hide something less strident but more nefarious.

[Syt]

There recently was a case in Poland where a pregnant woman died. Her fetus would not have been able to survive, but the doctors were afraid to terminate the pregnancy because of the strict abortion laws. They waited for the dfetus to die; the mother died of sepsis.