The EU thread

[Sheilbh]

Incredible and quite moving footage of a woman in the protests in Tbilisi waving the EU flag while being hit with the water cannon, as a crowd rally around her to keep her going:
https://twitter.com/ThomasVLinge/status/1633161943929221122

Georgia's position on Ukraine is possibly the most extraordinary of probably one of the most pro-Ukrainian population around (including Georgian Legion fighters in Ukraine) but a government that is terrified of and supine towards Russia. Which leads to constant protests like this from the Shame Movement (which does what it says on the tin) that the government is always trying to suppress.

Separately - as with Ukraine (and I'm reminded of the very moving footage of the EU flag moving into the Rada) - I really hope the EU is able to live up to these people's aspirations.

[The Larch]

Yes, it's very moving to see and realize how the EU flag, something that at this point we take for granted in the West and even see with some resentment sometimes, has come to symbolize the yearning for freedom of the still opressed and/or threatened populations of the East.

(including Georgian Legion fighters in Ukraine)

I believe the current Georgian government has threatened them with forfeiting their Georgian nationality if they continue to fight in Ukraine.

[Tamas]

Separately - as with Ukraine (and I'm reminded of the very moving footage of the EU flag moving into the Rada) - I really hope the EU is able to live up to these people's aspirations.

It's not going to though is it, not in any timescale that'd really benefit the life of those people. Which doesn't make their stand any less heroic, it's just sad to think about.

[Zanza]

The German transport minister has blocked the EU decision to ban sales of ICE cars starting in 2035. Which is both terrible diplomacy as the objections came too late in the process and silly because not even the German car industry wants the e-fuels he propagates.

[Josquius]

Aren't the greens in the government in Germany?
That.. Is not good

[Sheilbh]

It's not going to though is it, not in any timescale that'd really benefit the life of those people. Which doesn't make their stand any less heroic, it's just sad to think about.

I think it's a huge challenge for the EU to acknowledge and embrace these people in Ukraine and Georgia in a way that acknowledges and shares their aspirations but doesn't lead to curdled hopes as we see in the Balkans.

Weirdly - especially given the veto of North Macedonia - I think Macron is maybe the closest to getting the balance.

[The Larch]

The German transport minister has blocked the EU decision to ban sales of ICE cars starting in 2035. Which is both terrible diplomacy as the objections came too late in the process and silly because not even the German car industry wants the e-fuels he propagates.

Zanza, can you expand on this?

German government in crisis over EU ban on car combustion engines
Green party accuses FDP of gambling away country's reputation after last-minute blocking of phase-out from 2035

A clash over climate protection measures is threatening to unravel Germany's three-party governing alliance, after the Green party accused its liberal coalition partners of gambling away the country's reputation by blocking a EU-wide phase-out of internal combustion engines in cars.

"You can't have a coalition of progress where only one party is in charge of progress and the others try to stop the progress," the country's vice-chancellor and economy minister, Robert Habeck, said at a meeting of the Green party's parliamentary group in Weimar on Tuesday.

The pro-business Free Democratic party's (FDP) last-minute opposition to EU plans to ban sales of new cars with internal combustion engines from 2035, which European leaders are hoping to resolve at a summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday, had damaged Germany's standing in the bloc, Habeck said. "We are losing debates, we are getting too little support for our projects."

The German liberals' sudden rethink has caused frustration not just in the ranks of its coalition partners but in other European capitals, where there are fears that the continent's largest economy reneging on previously struck agreements will embolden other states to act in a similarly erratic fashion.

FDP politicians argue that the phase-out in its current form risks destroying a German manufacturing industry that could in the future offer viable climate-neutral fuels as an alternative to purely battery-powered electric vehicles.

"We in Germany master the technology of the combustion engine better than anyone else in the world," the FDP transport minister, Volker Wissing, said on German television on Wednesday night. "And it makes sense to keep this technology in our hands while some of the questions around climate-neutral mobility remain unanswered."

In a proposed compromise, the European Commission has reportedly suggested criteria for a new category of CO2-neutral fuel-powered vehicles that could remain on European roads after 2035. Wissing's transport ministry has not yet officially replied to the proposal.

To the surprise of its own members, the German Green party had remained relatively reserved in the debate over the combustion engine – until this week, when Habeck's intervention raised the temperature in Berlin's seats of power.

In a television interview on Tuesday night, the minister for economic affairs and climate action also accused the FDP and his senior coalition partner, the Social Democratic party (SPD) of chancellor Olaf Scholz, of deliberately leaking an early draft of a law banning new fossil fuel heaters in Germany from 2025.

In the coalition agreement in December 2021, the three parties had agreed to a ban on installing of new fossil fuel heaters from 2024, with only devices running on 65% renewable energy allowed going forward. With the war in Ukraine bringing a collapse in gas deliveries, that target was supposed to be moved forward, to the start of 2024.

Since Habeck's ministry tried to turn that policy into law, however, there has been a ferocious backlash over its cost to ordinary households, led by the mass tabloid Bild.

Habeck said the draft law had been leaked "in order to damage the trust within the government", which had made him question the other parties' will to reach a compromise at their scheduled meeting this Sunday.

The FDP and the Greens are both struggling in the polls, with the ecological party currently close to the worse-than-anticipated 15% it achieved at federal elections in September 2021. The liberals, meanwhile, are hovering just above the 5% threshold for entering parliament and have lost votes in a string of regional and state elections.

[Zanza]

What more can I say on this? FDP lost the last few state elections and poll poorly on federal level. So they want to show their distinctiveness in the coalition. And in general, the transport minister in Germany seems to always be clowns.

The German carmakers are actually publicly opposed to this (except Porsche), but the SMEs that make much of the German car industry have a bleeak future without ICE.

The FDP also has some good politicians, like the justice minister, who has changed some old, outdated laws the conservatives never wanted to touch.

Currently, the conservatives with Merz are leading in polls again.

[Barrister]

WHile I am a big supported of electric vehicles, the idea that we are in a position to ban ICE vehicles is insane.  There are use cases for ICE vehicles that simply can't be met by electric vehicles.  And the idea you can wave a magic wand and make that distinctin disappear by 2035 is, well, magical thinking.

[Josquius]

WHile I am a big supported of electric vehicles, the idea that we are in a position to ban ICE vehicles is insane.  There are use cases for ICE vehicles that simply can't be met by electric vehicles.  And the idea you can wave a magic wand and make that distinctin disappear by 2035 is, well, magical thinking.

Like what?

I'm skeptical many countries will manage to meet it but to see it under siege so early with so little progress depressing.

[Barrister]

WHile I am a big supported of electric vehicles, the idea that we are in a position to ban ICE vehicles is insane.  There are use cases for ICE vehicles that simply can't be met by electric vehicles.  And the idea you can wave a magic wand and make that distinctin disappear by 2035 is, well, magical thinking.

Like what?

The energy density of gasoline is magnitudes greater than batteries.  So, any time you need to drive an extended distance without the ability to refuel.

[Josquius]

WHile I am a big supported of electric vehicles, the idea that we are in a position to ban ICE vehicles is insane.  There are use cases for ICE vehicles that simply can't be met by electric vehicles.  And the idea you can wave a magic wand and make that distinctin disappear by 2035 is, well, magical thinking.

Like what?

The energy density of gasoline is magnitudes greater than batteries.  So, any time you need to drive an extended distance without the ability to refuel.

Germany isn't Canada. There aren't really any vast rural areas only reachable by spending days on end driving.
Discouraging cross country drives is a design feature, not a flaw.

[Barrister]

WHile I am a big supported of electric vehicles, the idea that we are in a position to ban ICE vehicles is insane.  There are use cases for ICE vehicles that simply can't be met by electric vehicles.  And the idea you can wave a magic wand and make that distinctin disappear by 2035 is, well, magical thinking.

Like what?

The energy density of gasoline is magnitudes greater than batteries.  So, any time you need to drive an extended distance without the ability to refuel.

Germany isn't Canada. There aren't really any vast rural areas only reachable by spending days on end driving.
Discouraging cross country drives is a design feature, not a flaw.

It's not only driving "days on end".  Think commercial trucks.  Or God forbid a vehicle sold in Germany has to travel outside of that country.

[Josquius]

]

It's not only driving "days on end".  Think commercial trucks.  Or God forbid a vehicle sold in Germany has to travel outside of that country.

The ban doesn't cover lorries until 2050. Things are advancing fast so that seems really conservative if anything.

And projects are underway to make cross border rail functional.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

WHile I am a big supported of electric vehicles, the idea that we are in a position to ban ICE vehicles is insane.  There are use cases for ICE vehicles that simply can't be met by electric vehicles.  And the idea you can wave a magic wand and make that distinctin disappear by 2035 is, well, magical thinking.

Like what?

The energy density of gasoline is magnitudes greater than batteries.  So, any time you need to drive an extended distance without the ability to refuel.

they're also much cheaper than EVs, which are out of wallet range for most of the populace. Not that EU nomenklatura are bother by that given their fat wages.

It's the EU boobs trying to be holier than the pope, while running the risk of giving a big part of the EUs industry the neckshot.
9%, that's the EU share of CO2 emissions. Shutting down all activity and killing everyone alive on the continent is not going to have a significant effect.