Languish.org

QuoteHungary has blocked a European Union statement criticising China's new security law in Hong Kong, two diplomats said, in a move likely to undermine efforts to confront Beijing's curbing of freedoms in the former British colony.

The EU, which aims to support Britain and the United States in upholding human rights in Hong Kong, was due to make its statement on Monday at a meeting of EU foreign ministers, but failed to win the necessary agreement from all 27 EU states.

"Hungary's argument was that the EU already has too many issues with China," a senior EU diplomat told Reuters. A second senior diplomat confirmed the blockage and Hungary's position. An EU official said the statement had been withdrawn from the EU's approval process.

Quote from: Tyr on April 16, 2021, 08:37:44 AM
As corona fades the EU really needs to get cracking with post brexit reforms for kicking out those nations that drop below the standards.

Quote from: Tamas on April 16, 2021, 08:42:14 AM

Quote from: Tyr on April 16, 2021, 08:37:44 AM
As corona fades the EU really needs to get cracking with post brexit reforms for kicking out those nations that drop below the standards.

You guy keep mentioning Brexit in relation to the EU as if anyone there (apart from Ireland) give a damn. They don't.

Quote from: Tamas on April 16, 2021, 08:42:14 AM
You guy keep mentioning Brexit in relation to the EU as if anyone there (apart from Ireland) give a damn. They don't.

Quote from: DGuller on April 16, 2021, 08:57:06 AM
How do you reform an organization with Liberum Veto rules?  Do all the big countries gang up together and threaten to leave EU and form EU2 if reforms are not accepted?

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 16, 2021, 09:11:10 AM

Quote from: Tamas on April 16, 2021, 08:42:14 AM
You guy keep mentioning Brexit in relation to the EU as if anyone there (apart from Ireland) give a damn. They don't.

Maybe not to ordinary people - but they definitely do. But within the EU they definitely still give a damn and will forever - it's an alternative.

Quote from: Tamas on April 16, 2021, 10:51:56 AM
Yes but since we are talking about democracies, ordinary people's priorities matter. Just look at the jittery decision making around the AZ vaccine's blood clots, or Merkel making nuclear power verboten because of a Japanese earthquake, or the Dutch insistence on not supporting "leeching" southern Europeans - what the public does and doesn't care about do influence what happens in EU countries and as a consequence in the EU.

Quote from: Zanza on April 16, 2021, 11:03:55 AM
One failure of the EU that Brexit shows glaringly is that the EU has no good strategy for its near neighbourhood. The relations with Britain are frosty, Switzerland poor, Turkey terrible, Ukraine and Northern Africa complicated, Russia hostile but interdependent, Western Balkans no clear accession perspective...

There is hardly a neighbour that the EU has good relations with. Brexit made that more visible with a new great power neighbour.

Quote from: Zanza on April 16, 2021, 10:53:16 AM
Hungary blocking a sternly worded message to China is not such a big problem.

Quote from: garbon on April 16, 2021, 01:53:47 PM

Quote from: Zanza on April 16, 2021, 10:53:16 AM
Hungary blocking a sternly worded message to China is not such a big problem.

I don't know, I mean if the EU can't even write a sternly worded letter...

Quote from: Zanza on April 16, 2021, 10:49:09 AM

Quote from: DGuller on April 16, 2021, 08:57:06 AM
How do you reform an organization with Liberum Veto rules?  Do all the big countries gang up together and threaten to leave EU and form EU2 if reforms are not accepted?

Yes. Whenever something is desirable, but cannot be implemented due to internal resistance, it is done outside the EU structures as a international treaty between the willing countries. These countries then later vote to include this treaty into the EU mechanisms. Examples would be Schengen or the European Stability Mechanism.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 17, 2021, 12:51:13 PM
If member states start eroding that, then I think there's a real fundamental problem.

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on April 17, 2021, 03:35:28 PM
alternatively the fundamental problem could be that especially at the EU level it's almost dogma that the EU needs to change into a federal state.
I'd rather not end up in a one size fits none situation, we've got enough of that in Belgium as it is. And since the EU is far too often compared to a Belgium writ large...
well, I guess you can see why that'd be a problem

QuoteAnger as ex-generals warn of 'deadly civil war' in France
    1 day ago

The French government has condemned an open letter signed by active soldiers that said the country was heading for "civil war" due to religious extremism.

About 1,000 servicemen and women, including some 20 retired generals, put their names to the letter.

It blamed "fanatic partisans" for creating divisions between communities, and said Islamists were taking over whole parts of the nation's territory.

Ministers have condemned the message published in a right-wing magazine.

The letter was first published on 21 April - the 60th anniversary of a failed coup d'état.

"The hour is grave, France is in peril," the signatories said.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, a candidate in next year's presidential election, has spoken out in support of the former generals.

But the minister in charge of the armed forces, Florence Parly, tweeted: "Two immutable principles guide the action of members of the military with regard to politics: neutrality and loyalty."

She earlier warned that any signatories still serving in the military would be punished for defying a law that requires them to remain politically neutral.

What does the letter say?

It warns French President Emmanuel Macron, his government, and MPs of "several deadly dangers" threatening France, including "Islamism and the hordes of the banlieue" - the impoverished immigrant suburbs that surround French cities.

The signatories go on to blame "a certain anti-racism" for splitting up communities, and seeking to create "racial war" by attacking statues and other aspects of French history.

They also accuse the government of seeking to use the police "as proxy agents and scapegoats" by brutally repressing the popular "gilets jaunes", or yellow vest protests of recent years.

"It is no longer the time to procrastinate, otherwise tomorrow civil war will put an end to this growing chaos and deaths - for which you will be responsible - with numbers in the thousands," the letter concludes.

In a country which pays for several thousand former generals on the retired and reserve lists, the support of just 20 of them to such explosive language does call for a sense of perspective, the BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris says.

Nonetheless, that the letter was written at all is a sign of dangerous times, and the backing of Marine Le Pen means the themes will continue to resonate in the year of campaigning that lies ahead, our correspondent says.

What has the reaction been?

Members of the French military, whether actively serving or reservists, are forbidden from expressing public opinions on religion and politics, and Ms Parly has called for those who signed the letter to be punished.

"For who have violated the duty of reserve, sanctions are planned, and if there are active soldiers among the signatories, I asked the chief of staff of the armed forces to apply the rules... that is to say, sanctions," the minister told radio network France Info on Monday.

Ms Parly cited the case of a former general in the Foreign Legion who was expelled from the military for taking part in a protest against migrants in Calais.

Why is the timing significant?

Minister of Industry Agnès Pannier-Runacher told France Info she "unreservedly condemned" the generals "calling for an uprising... 60 years to the day after the generals' putsch against General de Gaulle".

The failed coup d'état involved generals seeking to prevent Algeria - then a French colony - from gaining independence.

But French nationalist politician Marine Le Pen welcomed the letter, calling on the generals to join her in "the battle of France".

Her response came on the same day as a fatal knife attack at a police station south-west of Paris, which is being treated as a possible terrorist attack.

France has proposed a controversial bill to tackle what President Emmanuel Macron has described as "Islamist separatism".

However, some critics in both France and abroad have accused the government of targeting Islam.

QuoteWhy Marine Le Pen backed the letter
Analysis box by Hugh Schofield, Paris correspondent

Many in the French media are expressing surprise that Marine Le Pen came out in support of the generals.

Cosying up to would-be putschists is what her father was supposed to specialise in. He was the one who was close to the anti-Gaullist hardliners of 60 years ago. He was the one who loved to flirt with illegality. Not Marine and her new-look National Rally.

So has she miscalculated? Some think so.

Coming out for a group of ex-generals - even of the armchair variety - who are so obviously overstepping the bounds and dabbling in politics - this makes it much easier for President Macron to paint her as a traditional French reactionary, heir to her father, Vichy and the rest.

Voters from the mainstream right, who might have been tempted by her apparent recent conversion to the EU and sound money, will perhaps be thinking twice.

But looked at another way, maybe Marine Le Pen felt she had no choice but to back the letter. After all, no-one thinks there is any serious chance of a military coup, so she didn't think she could be accused of encouraging insurrection.

And the analysis of France's travails was identical to her own. If - in her view - the analysis is also one shared by a silent majority of the French, then she could hardly disown it.

QuoteFrench soldiers accuse government of trying to 'silence' warnings of civil war
Second letter from military staff says threat of punishment 'quite perverse' and repeats: 'Civil war is brewing in France'
Kim Willsher in Paris
Mon 10 May 2021 11.04 BST
Last modified on Tue 11 May 2021 05.10 BST

Serving members of the French military have fired a second salvo at Emmanuel Macron's government in an open letter accusing it of "cowardice, deceit, perversion", just weeks after a first letter said the country was heading for "civil war".

Like the first letter, it appears in the rightwing magazine Valeurs Actuelles. It was reportedly signed anonymously "by active military personnel" and is appended with a petition on the magazine's website for others to sign.

The letter's signatories refer to the seventh verse of La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, that refers to the "avenging" slain elders or following them to "their coffins".

It was published in support of the first letter, published on 21 April, the 60th anniversary of a failed coup d'état against General Charles de Gaulle over his support for Algerian independence.

Signed by a number of retired generals as well as at least 18 serving soldiers, including four officers, the initial letter warned of the "disintegration" of France evoking what it called the "perils" of Islamic extremist and "the hordes from the banlieue".

It also accused anti-racism groups of creating "hatred between communities" and cautioned that "lax" government policies could spark chaos requiring military action to "protect our civilisational values".

Afterwards, furious ministers accused the signatories, who were supported by the far-right Rassemblement National party leader, Marine Le Pen, of breaking military rules and threatened legal action against them. The armed forces minister, Florence Parly, said: "The armies are not there to campaign but to defend France", while the interior minister, Gérard Darmanin, accused Le Pen of having her father Jean-Marie Le Pen's "taste" for the sound of marching boots.

The second letter, published late on Sunday evening, batted off threats of punishment and launched an all-out attack on the government, accusing it of "trampling" on veterans' honour and "sullying" their reputation "when their only fault is to love their country and mourn its visible decline".

"To quibble about the form of our elders' tribune instead of recognising the evidence of their findings, you have to be cowardly. To invoke a misinterpreted duty of reserve in order to silence French citizens, one must be very deceitful. To encourage the army's senior officers to take a stand and expose themselves, before angrily sanctioning them as soon as they write anything other than battle reports, one must be quite perverse.

"Cowardice, deceit, perversion: this is not our vision of the hierarchy. On the contrary, the army is, par excellence, the place where we speak the truth because we commit our lives."

It concluded: "Once again, civil war is brewing in France and you know it perfectly well." By 10am Monday morning, Valeurs Actuelles claimed 76,461 people had signed the petition.

It brought a swift and damning response from the French government and politicians across the spectrum. Darmanin said it was a crude manoeuvre in the run-up to regional elections next month and denounced the lack of courage of its unnamed authors.

"These are anonymous people. Is that courage? To be anonymous?" Darmanin said on BFMTV. "What a strange and courageous society that gives such a voice to anonymous people. It's like being on social networks. I think I know that when you're in the military, you don't do this kind of thing on the sly."

Former president François Hollande told France Inter: "Where is the professional code ... how can we let people think that today the army would be driven by such feelings and by such a desire to challenge the very principles of the Republic?"

Jean-Luc Mélenchon of La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) said: "They are seditious and cowardly. I'm not afraid to say my name and what I will do if I'm elected and that's to purge the army of its dissident members."

Olivier Faure of the Socialist party said the letters were worrying and that the left should "reflect on all these threats".

QuoteIt was reportedly signed anonymously

Quote from: Sheilbh on May 11, 2021, 01:50:07 PM
And again - meanwhile Barnier (who's definitely running) suggested a 3-5 year pause of all non-EU immigration to France while discussing solutions to Schengen (by which I mean Romanians and Bulgarians) with other European leaders. I've said before but I think there is a real risk of Europe taking a civilisational turn

Quote from: Jacob on May 11, 2021, 01:54:30 PM
What sort of civilizational turn are you thinking?

QuoteWhat does it mean to be "pro-European" today?
As champions of the EU see a growing threat to the continent's culture and civilisation, whiteness may become even more central to European identity.
BY HANS KUNDNANI

In continental Europe and especially in Germany, people will often proudly say: "I'm European". I frequently heard this from my former colleagues at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), which has offices around Europe. I could never identify with what sounded to me like a somewhat aggressive assertion of European identity. In fact, it made me uncomfortable. Since I could not see how one could identify with, let alone love, the European Union itself as an institution or set of institutions, it seemed the idea of being European expressed identification with a culture or civilisation – or even an ethnicity.

My view of European identity is undoubtedly to a large extent a function of my Britishness. British people tend to think of themselves primarily either as British (or as English, Scottish, Welsh, etc), or perhaps as part of the English-speaking world, or alternatively, as "citizens of the world". But few think of themselves primarily as "European" as many in continental Europe do – in other words, as having something in common with other Europeans that sets them apart from the rest of the world. Few Brits see Europe as a Schicksalsgemeinschaft, or "community of fate", in the way Germans do.

In my case, though, my inability to think of myself as "European" also has to do with my ethnicity. I was born and grew up in Britain, but my father is Indian and my mother is Dutch. "European" therefore never fully captured my identity, as it excluded the Asian part of it. I think this is true for many other non-white British people too – my sense is that if you are of African, Asian or Caribbean origin you are even less likely to identify as "European" than white Brits. (What I don't know is whether non-white people in continental European countries think of themselves as "European".)

At ECFR, when I heard people call themselves European, I immediately thought of what that meant in a colonial context or, for example, in apartheid South Africa. In those contexts, "European" meant white. Whiteness seemed to me more central to European identity than it was to the identity of any individual European nation state, whose identities were defined in opposition to each other (British identity, for example, as the historian Linda Colley has shown, emerged in opposition to, and was defined against, France). So when people expressed pride in being "European", I heard an echo of a white identity.

***

Most "pro-Europeans" are baffled or outraged when I say any of this. They think of the European project – that is, European integration leading to "ever closer union" – as the opposite of a white or racist endeavour. They see the EU – and by extension European identity – as an expression of cosmopolitanism. But this is in a basic sense wrong. The EU is, of course, not a global project but a regional project. What the EU stands for is neither nationalism or cosmopolitanism but something in between: regionalism. Thus to say "I'm European" is to express a regional identity.

The misleading characterisation of the EU as a cosmopolitan project is itself an expression of a Eurocentric tendency to mistake Europe for the world. The European project has integrated and to some extent overcome differences between the countries of Europe (though in the last decade it has sometimes seemed as if European integration, in particular the single currency, was increasing conflict between EU member states). But regional integration is quite different from global integration. Although internal barriers to the movement of capital, goods and people were removed, external barriers remained – particularly to immigration from outside the EU.

The emergence of the myth of EU cosmopolitanism may lie partly in the way that, from its beginnings as the European Coal and Steel Community in the 1950s, the EU has been based on the lessons Europeans learned from the history of relations between European countries – the centuries of conflict culminating in the Second World War – rather than from Europe's relations with the rest of the world. European integration began in the 1950s – at the exact moment of decolonisation – yet the narrative of the European project is silent about the history of European colonialism and its implications.

The myth creates a blind spot in pro-European thinking, which views the European project as a way to overcome the nationalisms that had caused conflict in Europe. For Germans in particular, it is a way to overcome the nation state, with which they have had a particularly disastrous experience.

Because of this rejection of nationalism, however, pro-Europeans tend to assume that almost anything the EU does at a regional level is separate from the problematic currents in European history before 1945 – after all, it is through the EU that Europe has navigated these currents. Thus concepts considered problematic at the national level – such as the "community of fate" – magically become unproblematic at the European level. When EU member states sought to restrict exports of PPE at the beginning of the pandemic last year, it was criticised as nationalism. But when the EU itself restricted the export of PPE beyond Europe, it was viewed as a triumph of European unity.

In reality, however, regionalism can be as bad as the worst nationalism. The centrality of the nation state in the past two centuries means the world has had less experience of regionalism as a powerful force, and it does not therefore have the same negative connotations as nationalism. But a regional identity can define itself against an Other, too, and be just as exclusionary as national identities historically have been. In fact, regionalism may have the potential to be even worse because regional blocs tend to be bigger and more powerful than single countries, and so capable of doing more harm to the rest of the world.

The tendency to elide Europe with the world is also concerned with the evolution of pro-European thinking. European integration was initially driven by an internal European logic in the context of the Cold War and decolonisation. But its apparent success and the enlargement of the EU after the end of the Cold War led many pro-Europeans to see the EU as a model for the world.

Implicit in this idea was a kind of "civilising mission" – though few pro-Europeans would think of it in those terms. In other words, there was a continuity of sorts between European colonialism and the "European project". But the EU was considered a relatively benign civilising mission, seen as a "civilian power" that would elevate international politics and export its depoliticised model of regional governance along with the "European social model", which included a generous welfare state.

A good example of this in policy terms is freedom of movement. In the 1990s and 2000s, many pro-Europeans could still see the evolution of freedom of movement within the EU as a precursor to global freedom of movement – the removal of borders within Europe as a first step towards a borderless world. Even then, things looked a little different in practice – in the UK, for example, membership of the EU led to a relative decline in immigration from the former colonies and a relative increase in immigration from Europe.

However, after a decade of crises, and in a changing world which many Europeans see as increasingly hostile, the idea of the EU as a model is now giving way in pro-European thinking to the idea of the EU as a competitor, as the EU has struggled to figure out how to resolve its own deep internal problems and to respond to what appear a growing number of external threats. It is not just that as the EU has become more embattled, pro-Europeans have become more defensive. The way they think about the European project has also changed – in worrying ways.

The idea that the EU would transform international politics now looks less plausible than it did a decade or two ago. Rather, the debate among pro-Europeans now focuses on how the EU can adapt to a world in which great power politics seems to have returned. Ursula von der Leyen promised a "geopolitical [European] Commission" when she became its president in 2019. Pro-Europeans have now embraced the idea of "European sovereignty", a concept they had historically opposed. Thus the EU, which was once seen as a "normative power", in other words a model, is now aspiring to become a much more traditional power – and so pro-Europeans urge it to develop a "defence union" or even "strategic autonomy".

The idea that the EU could export its technocratic model of governance has also become less plausible during the last decade, especially since there has been a backlash within Europe against this depoliticised model. In fact, scholars such as Chris Bickerton have shown how populism is to a large extent a reaction to technocracy. The idea of a "European social model" also looks less credible; since the euro crisis began the EU, driven by Germany, has done much to dismantle the welfare state in the so-called periphery of the eurozone in the name of ensuring a "competitive" Europe.

***

Many pro-Europeans believe this rethink of the European project reflects a new realism. But against this background, the relatively benign civilising mission in earlier pro-European thinking, based on its political-economic model, appears to be giving way to a more civilisational discourse based on the uniqueness of its culture. The cultural or civilisational element of European identity has become more dominant – and is often expressed in terms of "European values". To put it another way, the EU's earlier civic regionalism is evolving into a more problematic cultural or even ethnic regionalism. Pro-Europeans increasingly think in terms of protecting the continent from threats that they view in increasingly cultural terms. Thus what has emerged is a kind of defensive civilisationalism.

The refugee crisis of 2015 may have been the critical juncture in this civilisational turn in the European project. It made it clear to Europeans, if it wasn't already, that the absence of internal borders required hard external borders. In the past five years, the EU has taken a number of measures to increase external border security, including an expansion of Frontex, the EU border agency, that many see as a militarisation of the EU's borders. Far from ushering in a borderless world, it is now clear that freedom of movement within the EU has simply meant that borders have been moved from one place to another – and further away from Germany.

The most striking expression of this pro-European civilisationalism is that, as part of Von der Leyen's "geopolitical Commission", the EU now has a Commissioner for Promoting our European Way of Life (it was originally "for Protecting our European Way of Life"), Margaritis Schinas. His main responsibility is to coordinate the Commission's approach to asylum and migration, which is largely about keeping migrants out, often using brutal methods that violate human rights. This makes the EU's civilisational turn explicit: migration is now seen not just as a difficult issue to be managed but as a threat to the "European Way of Life".

These developments reflect a growing tendency to think about international politics in civilisational terms. Europe increasingly defines its "values" against a rising China as a geopolitical threat, and against Islam, Europe's historic Other, in the form of migrants and terrorism. In his 1996 book The Clash of Civilisations, the American political scientist Samuel Huntington predicted conflict between the West and China and Islam. But even though the initial impetus for European integration came from the United States through the Marshall Plan, the EU has also long sought to define itself against the US – and as the US becomes a minority-white country in the coming decades, whiteness may become even more central to European identity.

The figure who, more than anyone, embodies this synthesis of "pro-Europeanism" and civilisationalism is the French president Emmanuel Macron. His vision of a "Europe qui protège", or "Europe that protects", initially sounded like a progressive vision – offering people protection from the market – but this has increasingly given way to a focus on cultural, rather than economic, protection. In particular, since the murder of the teacher Samuel Paty by an Islamist terrorist in October 2020, and under pressure from Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National, Macron has taken steps to stop what he calls "Islamist separatism". Last October, he introduced measures to increase state control over mosques and imams in France to "defend the republic and its values".

Macron also sees European foreign policy in explicitly civilisational terms. In a speech to a gathering of French ambassadors in Paris in August 2019, he spoke about the need for the EU, led by France, to pursue what he called a "project of European civilisation". It should "rebuild sovereignty" and become a "balancing power", particularly between China and the US. If the EU did not take bold action, he said, "Europe will disappear".

The current debate among European foreign policy analysts almost sounds like an international political equivalent of immigration debates based on the fear of the "great replacement". In his 2011 book Le Grand Remplacement, which has influenced the far right in Europe and the US, the French writer Renaud Camus argued that the presence of Muslims threatened to destroy French culture and civilisation. When my former colleagues at ECFR say the EU must become more strategic or "sovereign" or talk about "European power", I hear the analogous idea that, unless Europeans unite and assert themselves, they will be replaced by other (non-white) powers.

Hans Kundnani is a senior research fellow at Chatham House and the author of "The Paradox of German Power"

Quote from: celedhring on May 12, 2021, 03:43:24 AM
Heh, can't say I agree with the ramifications of saying "I'm European". The affirmation was born as a way to trascend local nationalism given that one of the main things that people nagged about the EU was, precisely, that "the EU will fail because there isn't an European identity"  :huh:

I think the author tries too hard to push the theory that the EU taking an identitarian turn was somehow inevitable.

QuoteThe meaning of pro-Europeanism – a response to Hans Kundnani
Civic principles – from liberal democracy to international law – are the cornerstones of the EU, not a particular ethnicity, religion or culture.

One of the unexpected by-products of the 2016 Brexit referendum was the birth of an enthusiastic pro-Europeanism, which all of a sudden went from being an abstract, intellectual project to one that captured people's hearts as well as their heads. Millions took to the streets waving European flags in the UK while opinion polls showed record support for the EU across the Continent. People only understood how much their European identity meant to them when they realised it could be taken away.

Hans Kundnani, in his recent essay on pro-Europeanism, does not share this sense of loss. As a British citizen of Dutch and Indian parentage he was never able to think of himself as "European" because, to him, it is a (white) civilisational project. "When my former colleagues at [the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)] say the EU must become more strategic or 'sovereign' or talk about 'European power'," he concludes in the essay, "I hear the analogous idea that, unless Europeans unite and assert themselves, they will be replaced by other (non-white) powers."

As the director of ECFR, and so one of Kundnani's former colleagues, I read his essay with a mixture of sadness and confusion since my experience – and the accounts of non-white colleagues and friends – are so different. As the child of a British father and a German-Jewish mother who was born in hiding in France, I did not need Brexit to feel European – it is my European identity that gives shape and meaning to my fragmented family history.

National identity is difficult to disentangle from blood and soil. A multinational identity, by contrast, is much less tightly bound to ethnicity because it is by definition multi-ethnic. Kundnani argues that the EU is a "regional project", and that although "regionalism" does not "have the same negative connotations as nationalism", a "regional identity can define itself against an Other, too, and be just as exclusionary as national identities have historically been". Kundnani implies that Europe's "Other" is the non-white population.

But to the founders of the EU – and people like myself – Europe's primary "Other" is its own past. The entire European project is an elaborate attempt to transcend a history of nationalism in Europe and imperialism in the wider world. Thus the EU has in its DNA a rejection of the violent ethno-nationalism that led to the death camps. Like many across the Continent, I am a member of the first generation in my family not to face war and exile, let alone extermination. The EU deserves at least some of the credit for this.

As Kundnani points out, the EU was also founded "at the exact moment" European empires were unwinding. Just as it was a way of dealing with competitive nationalisms among its members, it also provided its constituent nations with a new focus after decolonisation, helping European governments to move on from their rapacious colonial pasts. In his history of decolonisation, the German historian Jürgen Osterhammel makes the point that the bureaucrats who might otherwise have been administering European colonies ended up building the European bureaucracy in Brussels. In that sense, the EU also has in its genetic make-up a rejection of colonialism.

It's true that the EU has done a much better job of facing up to the extermination of people within its continent than to its colonial history. Countries such as Belgium and France have struggled to come to terms with their dark imperial pasts, while institutions in Brussels rarely acknowledge them. Some central and Eastern European member states see themselves as victims of Soviet and Ottoman colonialism rather than perpetrators. Many are blighted by racism, as we have seen in the abuse hurled at footballers in recent matches. The 2015 migration crisis has also sometimes brought out the tendencies of a "Fortress Europe".

Yet while there has been a frightening upsurge of ethnic politics in Europe – as well as around the world – there is nothing intrinsic about European identity that makes it antithetical to diversity. In fact there are many reasons why it should be easier for European identity to acquire a post-colonial sensibility than the national identities within Europe.

First, every nationality is in a minority at a European level, and so a core part of the project is about protecting the rights of minorities and finding ways for them to live together in peace. Why is Viktor Orbán so critical of the EU? Precisely because it provides a platform for protecting the rights of minorities such as Roma, and the religious freedom of Muslims. To frame European-ness in ethnic terms is to ignore what Europe is today: a continent that relies on diversity and immigration.

Secondly, because European identity is not rooted in a single ethnicity, it can only be defined in terms of laws and values. ECFR has been at the forefront of defining an agenda on European sovereignty based on civic principles rather than ethnicity, religion or culture. The goal is to defend international law against power, liberal democracy against populist majoritarianism, privacy against surveillance capitalism, and human rights against surveillance states.

Kundnani characterises the EU as a regionalist, rather than cosmopolitan, project. I do not see these two categories as incompatible. It is perfectly possible to have cosmopolitan projects at a global, regional, national or local level. The EU – in keeping with its Enlightenment roots – has always been a universalist project. It is because of the pushback abroad from Putin, Trump and Xi Jinping against Enlightenment values that the EU has become more "regionalist", preoccupied with at the very least defending these values at home.

Lastly, Kundnani's critique implies the existence of a single European project, but there have always been competing conceptions of what Europe stands for. He takes the ideas of the proto-fascist Renaud Camus about whiteness as the dominant version of European identity, and then implies that this is the concept of Europeanism supported by Emmanuel Macron, Ursula von Der Leyen and even think tanks such as ECFR. Such an elision makes as much sense as allowing Nigel Farage to define what it means to be British and then accusing Sadiq Khan, Nicola Sturgeon and Caroline Lucas of supporting his Little-Englander ideology.

What it means to be "pro-European" today is not fixed but is perpetually being shaped and challenged. Identities are necessarily sites of conflict and the European story is still being written. Rather than repressing its history of colonialism, the EU needs to do more to help its member states find ways of confronting their pasts. Just as Europe has had to face and transcend the 20th-century nationalisms that destroyed the European continent, it needs to do the same with the challenges that imperialism has left in its wake in the rest of the world. A civic European identity provides a powerful framework for former imperial nations to face their own demons and instil pride in future generations.

QuoteI side more with Sheilbh in this, the EU will be what the governments want it to be, and we're in the middle of a resurgence of localism. I see Macron's efforts as born out of pragmatism rather than belief, a way to make a sense of identity compatible with the European project, but I think it's misguided. Not that I have great ideas about how to tackle the issue, mind.

Quote from: celedhring on May 12, 2021, 03:43:24 AM
Heh, can't say I agree with the ramifications of saying "I'm European". The affirmation was born as a way to trascend local nationalism given that one of the main things that people nagged about the EU was, precisely, that "the EU will fail because there isn't an European identity"  :huh:

QuoteI side more with Sheilbh in this, the EU will be what the governments want it to be, and we're in the middle of a resurgence of localism. I see Macron's efforts as born out of pragmatism rather than belief, a way to make a sense of identity compatible with the European project, but I think it's misguided. Not that I have great ideas about how to tackle the issue, mind.

QuoteAs Kundnani points out, the EU was also founded "at the exact moment" European empires were unwinding. Just as it was a way of dealing with competitive nationalisms among its members, it also provided its constituent nations with a new focus after decolonisation, helping European governments to move on from their rapacious colonial pasts. In his history of decolonisation, the German historian Jürgen Osterhammel makes the point that the bureaucrats who might otherwise have been administering European colonies ended up building the European bureaucracy in Brussels. In that sense, the EU also has in its genetic make-up a rejection of colonialism.

Quote from: The Larch on May 12, 2021, 05:14:55 AM
Don't know how to say this without perhaps sounding "wrong", so to speak, so I'll try to give a quick and rough answer and trust on our many years of virtual friendship so it's not wrongly interpreted. IMO, all those identity worries are wildly overplayed, and it's not something that most people look up at the EU for. Most EU countries don't share those worries about identity, colonialism, race, minorities, etc, (let's jokingly call them "sociological 1st world problems") those might be concerns for the UK and France (and for them they can be big issues), and to lesser degrees other EU countries with that kind of profile, but for most EU countries they're completely alien topics and stressing them can make them feel alienated from what the EU represents to most of them, that is, peace, stability and material well-being, and that's what the EU should focus on.

Quote from: The Larch on May 12, 2021, 05:14:55 AM
Don't know how to say this without perhaps sounding "wrong", so to speak, so I'll try to give a quick and rough answer and trust on our many years of virtual friendship so it's not wrongly interpreted. IMO, all those identity worries are wildly overplayed, and it's not something that most people look up at the EU for. Most EU countries don't share those worries about identity, colonialism, race, minorities, etc, (let's jokingly call them "sociological 1st world problems") those might be concerns for the UK and France (and for them they can be big issues), and to lesser degrees other EU countries with that kind of profile, but for most EU countries they're completely alien topics and stressing them can make them feel alienated from what the EU represents to most of them, that is, peace, stability and material well-being, and that's what the EU should focus on.

Quote from: The Brain on May 12, 2021, 06:54:03 AM
FWIW I don't think I've ever come across anyone in Sweden who thinks at all about a European identity, or thinks of the EU at all when discussing immigration and integration (beyond the EU making immigration from other EU countries easier). The EU is viewed as a utilitarian tool for practical matters, anything about identity is thought of at the national level.

Quote from: Zanza on May 18, 2021, 01:03:42 AM
What material change do you expect to immigration policy? It is still mainly a domestic issue as each country has its own policies on who is accepted.

QuoteOn the European level, there are no real distribution mechanisms anyway and I feel that topic is pretty dead. Beyond that, we already pay dictators and warlords money to keep refugees in camps, we have high tech borders guarded by the EU's Frontex with questionable means, we let hundreds or thousands of people drown in the Mediterranean Sea every year, there are mechanisms like Dublin II where e.g. Salvini has a very different position than Orban or Kurz.

QuoteI don't see what Merkel has as a moderating influence here. Beyond her unilateral action in 2015, she has been supportive of these policies or at least not fought them.

Quote from: Zanza on May 18, 2021, 06:49:25 AM
Strengthening Fortress Europe is easily a majority opinion in every member state, so it is just a question of the details, not enough to create a major rift. That's also why Frontex is allowed to grow when otherwise member states are not very willing to pool sovereignty on security measures. As Frontex is miniscule compared to national security organizations, I doubt that it's cultural impact will matter.

QuoteMerkel has no domestic capital left, she is a lame duck and treated so by other German politicians. That's pretty obvious in our Covid response. I doubt that she still has much international weight as she has no means to deliver beyond the next few months. General German interests will be shared by whoever is her successor though.

QuoteEurope has cut itself off from its history
Luuk van Medelaar

In their cowardly meaninglessness, the euro notes are eloquent. A design competition was held for the new coin in 1996. Participants had to depict specific bridges and buildings - in a series running from the Pont du Gard in Nîmes (five euros) to the modernist Rietveld-Schröder house (the five hundred). Thus, the new currency would be anchored in European architectural history.

Designer Robert Kalina made an intervention that won him the prize: he made the bridges and buildings anonymous. As a result, the notes in our wallets show architectural styles but no individual buildings. The jury of bank governors must have feared public disapproval: "No, that's not our European bridge in Nîmes, but their French bridge!" Fear of national reflexes trumped the desire to give the euro cultural soil. A missed opportunity.

That was then. But the world is changing. China, Russia and India are also mobilizing civilization and culture under Xi, Putin and Modi for their raw power politics. The idea of ​​'the West', geographic umbrella and cultural hyphen for North America and Europe, is losing meaning. This is another reason why the desire for a place of its own in the world has grown in recent years - Europe not only as a beacon of universal values, but as a continent with a culture, history and story.

From Amsterdam wants The European Review of Books , a recentannounced upstart in crowd-funding phase, to initiate a European conversation between writers and intellectuals, as a successor to enlightenment philosopher Pierre Bayle 's Nouvelles de la République des Lettres . The high-quality website Le Grand Continent has been operating from Paris since 2019 , driven by people in their twenties and thirties, to keep the conversation about politics, geography, law and art "on the right scale": the continental one.

Multilingualism is the first obstacle to a European-wide public debate. Both initiatives make it a strength. The young Parisians started out in French, but are increasingly publishing in Italian and Spanish; German and Polish are on the way. The European Review - which for the time being has attracted more authors from the UK and the US than from continental Europe - wants to publish essays in English and (if different) the author's language. This doubling fits well with Europe's relationship to our national political-cultural spaces: the shelter of a common roof, not the threat of expulsion.

Naturally, the 'Europe' of culture and civilization does not coincide with that of Brussels. Britain's departure (2020) alone cuts across the EU's dream of one day spanning the continent geographically. That, too, makes Brexit so painful, even more so than cod disputes or vaccine disputes: 'Europe' as a space of imagination is losing Shakespeare, Newton and The Beatles.

Nevertheless, bridges must be built between the political-legal sphere and Europe's culture and history. The problem is not so much that the EU is blind to culture, as Review founder Sander Pleij suggested . The economic, social and cultural importance of the film industry or museums is also recognized in Brussels; billions are going there.

The real problem is that the EU has cut itself off from history. In the Brussels discourse, it sometimes seems as if Europe was 'born' on 9 May 1950 - the day on which the French minister Schuman made the proposal for its founding. After two world wars, the strong line under the past was palpable. But the states and peoples of Europe cannot build a common future on such a short, thin past.

Time to give the story a different 'main character'. Not post-war integration, with its heroes and setbacks, treaties and expansions, but rather the European Union as a follower of the State Concert between 1648 and 1914 and as a political expression of a civilization space that goes back to Athens and Rome, to Socrates, Cicero and Paul.

Of course, that would be criticized. Some accuse Europe of being a 'white' project. But a tradition of reason and doubt, of plurality and freedom, does not necessarily have to sink into guilt and shame. Let the debate begin.

The only European leader who recognizes the importance of a non-universal historical narrative is Emmanuel Macron. Just as he did not want to leave the thorny term 'sovereignty' to Europe's opponents, but has been claiming for the Union since 2017, he wants to be able to rely on civilization and history on behalf of Europe - no longer to shrink from fear of the unexploded mines in the bottom of our imagination. He is right: anyone who cuts himself off from history cannot imagine a future either.

Luuk van Middelaar is a political philosopher, historian and professor of EU law (Leiden).

Quote from: Sheilbh on May 20, 2021, 03:04:38 AM

QuoteMerkel has no domestic capital left, she is a lame duck and treated so by other German politicians. That's pretty obvious in our Covid response. I doubt that she still has much international weight as she has no means to deliver beyond the next few months. General German interests will be shared by whoever is her successor though.

Interesting - it feels like she's leaving office with political capital. She could run again and easily win.

QuoteOn a possible civilisational turn - an argument for it by Luuk van Middelaar who is, I think, one of the best writers on the EU. And of course he makes explicit the link between a European identity based on history and culture with European sovereignty in an age of civilisation states (Russia, India, China etc). Google translated:

QuoteEurope has cut itself off from its history
Luuk van Medelaar

Quote from: celedhring on May 20, 2021, 07:20:43 AM
And what shared political past are we supposed to draw upon, the Continental System?  :lol:

More seriously, all possible examples are rather horrible for different reasons. And again, I feel the whole thing's unnecessary. I'm pretty happy with building an "identity" around post-WWII ideas of liberal democracy.

Quote from: celedhring on May 20, 2021, 07:20:43 AM
And what shared political past are we supposed to draw upon, the Continental System?  :lol:

More seriously, all possible examples are rather horrible for different reasons. And again, I feel the whole thing's unnecessary. I'm pretty happy with building an "identity" around post-WWII ideas of liberal democracy.

QuoteAnd of course for EU purposes a post WWII context is a break from the past and is kind of a "new beginning", what the EU tries to achieve is overcoming all the situations that led to inter-European conflict, so it's only natural that their frame of reference is that, rather than the entire European history.

QuoteHans Kundnani
@hanskundnani
I don't think the problem is that the EU has cut itself off from European history, as @LuukvMiddelaar writes, but that it remembers it selectively. "Pro-Europeans" constantly bang on about the Enlightenment, but have nothing to say about colonialism.

QuoteLuuk van Middelaar
@LuukvMiddelaar
Thanks, Hans. I see 2 different issues. You talk about worldview of "pro-Europeans". I agree with that. I talk about  EU's self-image, built on caesura of 1945 and  dream of New Beginning - the end to power, to borders, identities. In sum: after Shoah, Habermas. That's over.

QuoteRumours abound over Swiss government's EU 'framework deal'

The Swiss government is apparently set to abandon negotiations with the European Union about an umbrella accord regulating bilateral relations.

Several Sunday newspapers quoted unnamed sources saying that none of the seven ministers saw any chance of winning over parliament or voters for the so-called framework agreement.

Negotiations on such a deal formally ended in 2018 but the Swiss government demanded 'clarifications' on three points, including the protection of salary levels, access to the Swiss social security system as well as state subsidies.

Following talks with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels last month, the Swiss president, Guy Parmelin, said fundamental differences remained with the 27-nation bloc about the future of bilateral relations.

Both sides insist on concessions to break an impasse and reach an acceptable solution after more seven years of talks.

The SonntagsBlick newspaper also reports that the EU is apparently willing to make some compromise offers.

It is widely expected that the Swiss government will decide next Wednesday about its position amid concerns about possible retaliatory measures by Brussels over access to the European electricity market and research projects.

Efforts to appease Brussels apparently include the payment of CHF1 billion ($1.1 billion) to an EU fund to ensure Switzerland's participation in the Erasmus student exchange and research programmes, says the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper.

Switzerland has concluded more than 120 bilateral agreements with its main trading partner, but the EU wants an overarching institutional agreement to simplify relations.

Switzerland is not a member of the EU and voters in 1992 rejected a proposal to join the European Economic Area Treaty.

Quote
No 'status quo' without Swiss-EU framework deal, EU envoy warns

Without a framework agreement there is no possible status quo in relations between Switzerland and the European Union, according to the bloc's envoy in Bern.

EU Ambassador Petros Mavromichalis warns there will be no new deals on access to the EU single market and that expiring agreements will not be renewed.

"It is the chronicle of a death foretold," he told French-language newspaper Le Temps in an interview published Saturday.

Switzerland can certainly reject the institutional agreement, the ambassador points out, "but we are also sovereign and can say 'no' to the continuation of the current bilateral path".

[...]

QuoteThe EU's Next Big Problem Is Switzerland

One Sunday, not long after he moved to Bern, Switzerland, Michael Flügger, the German ambassador to Switzerland, walked from his residence to a bakery. On the street, he saw a far-right campaign poster showing a man wearing a European Union flag as a belt sitting on a tiny depiction of Switzerland, crushing it under his weight.

"I was shocked," Flügger recently told a Swiss newspaper. During a previous posting in Geneva, he had never encountered such animosity toward the EU, Switzerland's main trading—and often like-minded—partner. But now, "the atmosphere about the EU has become so negative," he said. "In some media and social networks, it is depicted as a monster."

This growing animosity serves as the backdrop for Swiss President Guy Parmelin's first official visit to Brussels on Friday for an important meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. With Switzerland unable to implement a new institutional agreement with the EU, relations between the two have reached a dead end.

This will be the ultimate stress test for the bilateral relationship between these two neighbors—and, after Brexit, an indication of how tough the EU wants to be with nearby countries. At least Parmelin assured his fellow countrymen he "was not going to do a Boris Johnson" and slam doors behind him.

The comparison with Brexit looms over the fraught relationship, but it isn't entirely apt: While the United Kingdom is distancing itself from the EU, Switzerland is getting closer to it. Switzerland, not a member of the EU, is eager to expand its extensive relations with the 27 member countries. The problem is, like the U.K., it wants to keep sovereignty at the same time. This circle is difficult to square. Brussels does not tolerate what it calls "cherry-picking" rights claims without the acceptance of obligations: It cannot give nonmembers privileges that even members do not have. With the world in turmoil, however, the EU does have a great interest in maintaining a good relationship with like-minded countries like Switzerland for a variety of reasons.

In a 1992 referendum, the Swiss rejected EU membership. They negotiated a trade agreement with Brussels soon afterward and built on this ever since, with gusto: They currently have at least 120 bilateral agreements that function well. These secure market access for Swiss pharmaceuticals, metals, and chemicals in exchange for Swiss adherence to internal market rules and a modest financial contribution to poor EU regions. Switzerland is a member of the Schengen Area in which there are no border controls. It participates in Erasmus student exchanges, in EU scientific research, and in police cooperation. Access to the EU health system and electricity market are high on the Swiss wish list.

Some say Switzerland has the best of two worlds: access to the largest single market in the world and freedom to play the sovereignty card whenever it wants.

According to a 2019 study, no country profits more from the EU single market than Switzerland: Although its added value to the average EU citizen is $1,008 extra per year, the average Swiss gets $3,499. In Swiss border regions close to Basel or Geneva, tens of thousands of citizens commute to work on the other side of the border. Hospitals, restaurants and other businesses rely on this. Switzerland, some argue, has a kind of "passive EU membership."

In Brussels, however, the Swiss are known as difficult customers. While Norway, another nonmember with extensive market access, never questions its financial contribution to the EU, Switzerland regularly withholds it to get its way on some issue. Swiss referendums are also a source of friction. The popular vote for an immigration quota in 2014, for example, violated bilateral agreements with the EU to safeguard the free movement of people.

The 2014 referendum was the last straw for the EU. It realized how difficult it was to manage the bilateral agreements. They constantly need to be renewed or updated like an iPhone that otherwise can't handle new apps. This means permanent negotiations between the two sides. Moreover, if one of the parties cancels or violates one bilateral agreement, others automatically collapse too. That is why, after the 2014 immigration quota referendum, Bern and Brussels began negotiating a new institutional framework to encapsulate and stabilize all existing agreements and reduce political tensions while providing room for future agreements. In 2018, they agreed on a text.

Today, the 27 EU member states still support this text—but on the Swiss side, there is trouble. In 2018, the Swiss government asked for some time to consult political parties, social partners, and its citizens. These groups started criticizing the draft and demanding changes. This went on for more than two years. Remarkably, the Swiss government never defended the text.

It formulated three additional demands instead, which the EU finds impossible to satisfy. Bern wants exceptions on EU state aid rules, exceptions on social benefits for EU citizens (which Swiss in the EU will also get), and special labor law restrictions that would make EU companies operating in Switzerland less competitive against Swiss companies. All three demands involve exceptions for Switzerland that EU countries themselves would never be granted.

This is where the Brexit parallel comes in. Last year, when London also tried to secure maximum EU market access against minimum adherence to the rules, the 27 member states refused. They wanted to preserve the single market. They also wanted to set an example for other nonmember countries who would otherwise demand the same thing. Because of Brexit, the EU has become less flexible. This now deprives Switzerland to get the tailor-made arrangement it feels entitled to.

As soon as the withdrawal agreement between the EU and the U.K. was concluded in December 2020, the Swiss combed the text. They found two things that made them jealous. The first is the European Court of Justice—or "foreign judges"—gets no direct role in disputes between London and Brussels. The second is the British don't have to "dynamically" follow European rules like Switzerland does. Within days, Swiss politicians and citizens were urging their government to go to Brussels, Brexit deal in hand, and get those two things too. Some even thanked the U.K. for "helping the dwarf beyond the seven mountains."

The EU has tried to explain that Switzerland can't have them because its relationship with the EU is much closer than the British one. Disputes with Switzerland, for instance, almost always involve market issues. The only court capable of dealing with EU market issues is the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. But many Swiss are not convinced. In this sense, Brexit has definitely made the EU-Swiss relationship more difficult to manage. The Swiss even have a word for it: "Brexit-envy."

For many months, Swiss talk shows have mostly been about two things: COVID-19 measures and its framework agreement with the EU. For many Swiss, the government's reticence about the agreement means it is probably not worth defending. The Swiss government is divided. According to media reports, ministers can't even agree on the message Parmelin should take to Brussels: whether Switzerland should ditch the new agreement or try renegotiation. There is no plan B. Former Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey recently said: "The Brexit deal shows politicians need to know what they want. Switzerland doesn't know it. In that respect, we could learn something from Boris Johnson."

Meanwhile, political entrepreneurs are having a field day. Billionaire Alfred Gantner started a movement against the framework agreement: Allianz Kompass/Europa, backed by companies, farmers, and even trade unions. He wants a "Brexit deal plus"—trade, and nothing else. The radical right Swiss People's Party, of which Parmelin is a member, and entrepreneurs platform Autonomiesuisse are also against the agreement. The social democrats and liberals are split. Pro-EU groups have also sprung up. Suddenly, there is new political momentum in Switzerland. Party discipline evaporates, and debates become more interesting.

But although the dispute may reinvigorate national politics, some captains of industry finally started to sound the alarm this week. In several newspapers, they reminded their fellow citizens that substantial portions of Swiss wealth are earned in the European single market—and that Switzerland, almost a semi-member state, is obliged to follow more European rules than the United Kingdom. Philip Mosimann, CEO of Bucher Industries, accused the government of being "orientierungslos" or disoriented.

Meanwhile, a leaked report of a meeting between the European Commission and member state representatives in Brussels accused the Swiss government of sitting idly by while the debate goes off the rails. "There is no commitment from Switzerland. The commission cannot negotiate on its own," Swiss television quoted from the report.

This is a deep crisis. Without the new framework agreement, existing bilateral agreements remain in force. But Brussels refuses to update them if Switzerland keeps stalling the new agreement. If the EU stands firm, Switzerland could already lose access for new medical devices to the EU in May. More sectors would get locked out progressively. Brussels has ruled out Swiss access to the EU's electricity and health market as well.

Benjamin Franklin once warned against throwing "stones at your neighbors if your own windows are glass." Both Parmelin and von der Leyen have nothing to gain from further escalation. But finding a way out will not be easy.

Quote from: Tyr on May 24, 2021, 01:52:58 AM
So it's the ongoing saga started with that stupid referendum in 2015.
I thought they'd sorted that with making legal the already standard hiring practice of prioritising locals.
Really cant see it totally falling apart. As much as the UK is damaged by brexit chexit would crush Switzerland.

Quote from: Valmy on May 24, 2021, 10:56:06 AM

Quote from: Tyr on May 24, 2021, 01:52:58 AM
So it's the ongoing saga started with that stupid referendum in 2015.
I thought they'd sorted that with making legal the already standard hiring practice of prioritising locals.
Really cant see it totally falling apart. As much as the UK is damaged by brexit chexit would crush Switzerland.

It is part of general retreat and discrediting of liberalism. But this is not unusual. Every once in a while we revolt against international cooperation and then remember why we keep going back to it over and over again.

Quote from: Sheilbh on May 25, 2021, 03:51:09 AM
Don't have a French thread - maybe we should in the run-up to the election? :hmm:

But Macron as a liberal continues to disappoint. After proposing a law that would criminalise filming the police, the interior minister is now suing the head of the PS list in Ile de France for "defaming the police" after she made comments about her concerns that police unions were organising a protest that was backed by far-right groups.

It feels like Macron gets a bit of a free pass on this because he's a liberal/anti-populist/on the side of the angels - but this is judicial harassment of an opposition politician and part of a trend about protecting/limiting criticism of the police. It's clearly dodgy and hopefully the courts just dismiss it but I also hope their liberal allies in other countries or the European institutions notice.

Quote from: Tamas on May 25, 2021, 05:09:40 AM
Yeah but ín a European context do liberals have a better realistic French option than Macron?

QuoteThe government wants this new chapter to be based on "cultivating and developing" relations on the basis of the existing bilateral agreements, and it has proposed to launch a political dialogue with Brussels to pursue common priorities for the future.

QuoteA review of Swiss legislation will also be done, to examine the current discrepancies between EU and Swiss law and to see if alignment is possible. This review will be done "autonomously", with changes only made "where it makes sense", Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter clarified.

QuoteThe government has also pledged to press the parliament to give the ok for the release of Switzerland's CHF1 billion ($1.1 billion) contribution to the EU cohesion fund – a key demand of Brussels – "as soon as possible".

Quote from: Zanza on May 26, 2021, 11:08:52 AMOh well, the EU is not an imperial power, so if they don't want deeper cooperation, that's of course their sovereign decision.

It's an ambivalent thing for the EU. On the one hand, it needs to stay true to its own principles and implement the level playing field in the Single Market as well as possible. On the other, most of its neighbours are currently increasing distance to the EU - be it UK, Switzerland, most of the Western Balkans, Morocco, Turkey. They need to review their approach towards neighbouring countries. Does not seem particularly successful.

QuoteMaybe it is time to just do the most basic administrative alignments on these foreign relations and concentrate on freezing out Hungarian, Polish (and Slovak/Czech?) authoritarian tendencies, Bulgarian corruption, generate some will to reform in Germany and Italy and support deeper European integration a la Macron first. This outreach to partners seems a waste of time and effort. Make a clear offer and then they can decide to take it or leave it.

Quote from: Sheilbh on May 26, 2021, 12:51:15 PM
I think that's right. The EU is between basically intergovernmental and acting like a quasi-state.

Quote from: Sheilbh on May 26, 2021, 11:35:53 AM
I think this is right but I also think part of it is because of a sort of imperial approach (a bit Middle Kingdom) of only really being able to set up a good structural relationship with neighbours in the context of some form of accession.

Quote from: Iormlund on May 26, 2021, 01:36:17 PM

Quote from: Sheilbh on May 26, 2021, 11:35:53 AM
I think this is right but I also think part of it is because of a sort of imperial approach (a bit Middle Kingdom) of only really being able to set up a good structural relationship with neighbours in the context of some form of accession.

The EU is a trade bloc. Of course it sees relationships as matters of trade and accession. It's the only way it can do so by design.

Real foreign policy is a national matter and I can't see that changing anytime soon.

QuoteUS sanctions top Bulgarians for graft. EU does zilch.
Washington's move is the biggest one-day action under the Magnitsky Act.
By Boryana Dzhambazova and Lili Bayer   
June 2, 2021 10:50 pm

The United States on Wednesday rolled out sweeping anti-graft sanctions against high-profile Bulgarian power brokers and more than 60 entities, while the EU fails to confront the Balkan country's spiraling rule of law crisis.

America's unusually wide-reaching step is an embarrassment for the EU as it exposes the bloc's inability to police its own backyard over a welter of corruption scandals often tied to EU funds that end up in the hands of Bulgaria's mafia and powerful oligarchs. The move constitutes America's biggest-ever action in one day under the country's Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which targets perpetrators of corruption and human rights abuses around the globe.

"The United States stands with all Bulgarians who strive to root out corruption by promoting accountability for corrupt officials who undermine the economic functions and democratic institutions of Bulgaria," Office of Foreign Assets Control Director Andrea M. Gacki said.

By contrast, the EU has conspicuously chosen not to stand with Bulgarians fighting corruption.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have turned a blind eye to a rule-of-law meltdown in the EU's poorest state in recent years. Former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, who dominated the country's politics for the best part of a decade, was their close ally on the EU political stage in the center-right European People's Party and was never challenged over his country's judicial failings. Although the former firefighter and karate champion lost power in an indecisive election in April, his GERB party is still ahead in polls ahead of another election on July 11.

While corruption has long been identified as a problem in Bulgaria, the scale of unfolding graft scandals over the past year has laid bare how an oligarchic mafia has effectively captured the state by exercising control through institutions such as the judiciary, security services and media.

The most high-profile tycoon to be sanctioned is Delyan Peevski, a controversial media mogul and former member of parliament.

Peevski "regularly engaged in corruption, using influence peddling and bribes to protect himself from public scrutiny and exert control over key institutions and sectors in Bulgarian society," the U.S. Department of the Treasury wrote in its sanctions decision.

Peevski, who is affiliated with the Movement for Rights and Freedom, a member of the liberal Renew Europe grouping, has emerged as one of the symbols of the country's corruption woes. The U.S. said he "worked to negatively influence the Bulgarian political process" in elections in 2019.

The department has also sanctioned fugitive casino baron Vasil "the skull" Bozhkov, one of Bulgaria's wealthiest citizens, and Ilko Zhelyazkov, who currently serves on the National Bureau for Control on Special Intelligence-Gathering Devices— as well as 64 entities connected to the men, cutting off their access to the American financial system.

In parallel, the U.S. Department of State announced entry bans on an even broader list of Bulgarian public figures and their families, including a former deputy minister. 

"The big question is, who did they corrupt?" said Elena Yoncheva, a member of the European Parliament, who is a leading critic of Borissov and a member of the Bulgarian Socialist Party.

Tip of the iceberg

In explaining its decision, the Treasury said that Bozhkov — who is currently a fugitive in Dubai but nonetheless registered a political party that won almost 3 percent of the votes in the April election — had "bribed government officials on several occasions," including  "a current political leader."

It also said that the businessman "planned to provide a sum of money to a former Bulgarian official and a Bulgarian politician earlier this year" in order to help him "create a channel for Russian political leaders to influence Bulgarian government officials."

The Treasury Department also accused Zhelyazkov of acting as a frontman for Peevski in corrupt dealings.

"Peevski used Zhelyazkov to conduct a bribery scheme involving Bulgarian residency documents for foreign persons, as well as to bribe government officials through various means in exchange for their information and loyalty," according to the U.S. government.

Hristo Ivanov, head of the anti-corruption Yes Bulgaria party, welcomed the sanctions.

"Peevski and Bozhkov are participants in a grand corruption scheme which needs to come undone, while Borissov needs to leave the political scene," he told reporters in Sofia.

Maya Manolova, a former ombudswoman and one of the leaders of Rise Up! Out With the Crooks!, an opposition party inspired by a wave of anti-corruption protests last year, said the sanctions highlighted a dire need for reforms. 

"Bulgarians would like to see their institutions finally stepping up their fight against corruption," she told online news platform Dnevnik.bg. The "Bulgarian state is the only one which has not realized the need for decisive anti-graft measures. "

In a statement late Wednesday, the Bulgarian foreign ministry did not address any specific cases but said the country is committed to the fight against corruption and that it remained ready for dialogue with Washington. Bozhkov's party declined to comment at the time of publication.

Peevski, meanwhile, rejected the U.S. move and vowed to challenge it.

In an open letter sent to Bulgarian media, he slammed the sanctions as "absolutely unacceptable, biased and violating the letter and the spirit" of the Magnitsky Act.

"I haven't done anything to violate internationally recognized human rights, I'm not a state official, and I haven't participated in acts of corruption," he said. 

Washington's reasoning for imposing the sanctions "does not include a single true fact," he added.

QuoteEuropean Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have turned a blind eye to a rule-of-law meltdown in the EU's poorest state in recent years. Former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, who dominated the country's politics for the best part of a decade, was their close ally on the EU political stage in the center-right European People's Party and was never challenged over his country's judicial failings.

Quote from: The Larch on June 03, 2021, 05:34:14 AM

QuoteEuropean Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have turned a blind eye to a rule-of-law meltdown in the EU's poorest state in recent years. Former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, who dominated the country's politics for the best part of a decade, was their close ally on the EU political stage in the center-right European People's Party and was never challenged over his country's judicial failings.

So, Orban 2.0. It seems that the best recipe for entrenching your corrupt network in your often overlooked country is to be part of the EPP.

QuoteU.S. and EU resolve 17-year Boeing-Airbus dispute

The two sides agreed to suspend for five years tariffs that stem from the dispute.
CNBC reported last week that the EU was pressing the White House to reach a deal to end trade tariffs imposed during the Trump administration.
Boeing and Airbus shares rose on the news.

LONDON — The United States and European Union said Tuesday they have resolved a 17-year-long fight over aircraft subsidies, agreeing to suspend tariffs for five years stemming from the Boeing-Airbus dispute.

"This meeting has started with a breakthrough on aircraft," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who met with President Joe Biden at a U.S.-EU summit in Brussels. "This really opens a new chapter in our relationship because we move from litigation to cooperation on aircraft — after 17 years of dispute."

U.S. trade representative Katherine Tai said during a videocall Tuesday that: "Today's announcement resolves a longstanding trade irritant in the U.S.-Europe relationship."

"Instead of fighting with one of our closest allies, we are finally coming together against a common threat," she added, mentioning China.

She added in a joint statement with the EU that both sides "now have time and space to find a lasting solution through our new Working Group on Aircraft, while saving billions of euros in duties for importers on both sides of the Atlantic."

CNBC reported last week that the EU was pressing the White House to reach a deal to end trade tariffs imposed during the Trump administration, in relation to the Airbus and Boeing dispute that emerged in 2004.

As part of the deal, the EU and the U.S. agreed to provide research and development funding through an open and transparent process as well as to not give specific support, such as tax breaks, to their own producers that would harm the other side.

The idea is also to collaborate in addressing non-market practices conducted by other countries, including China.

Tuesday's big announcement marked Biden's first trip to the EU's headquarters and the first EU-U.S. summit since 2014.

"This shows the new spirit of cooperation between the EU and the U.S. and that we can solve the other issues to our mutual benefit. Together we can deliver for our citizens and businesses," Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU's trade chief, said in a statement Tuesday.

WTO rulings
The EU-U.S. relationship hit a low during the previous White House administration with then-President Donald Trump accusing the EU of being worse than China with its trade practices.

Trump imposed duties worth $7.5 billion on European products after the World Trade Organization ruled that the EU had given unfair subsidies to Airbus.

Shortly afterward the EU imposed tariffs worth $4 billion on U.S. products off the back of another WTO ruling that said the U.S. had granted illegal aid to Boeing.

Boeing shares were up 0.5% in the premarket on Tuesday morning, while Paris-listed Airbus shares were trading higher by 0.5%.

Separately, the United Kingdom also said Tuesday it was hoping for a similar deal with the United States within coming days.

The U.K. was a member of the EU when the dispute emerged and was hit by the trade tensions that developed during the Trump presidency.

Quote from: The Larch on June 15, 2021, 07:45:45 AM
Hope this is the right place for this piece of news:

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on June 15, 2021, 11:08:53 AM

Quote from: The Larch on June 15, 2021, 07:45:45 AM
Hope this is the right place for this piece of news:

Makes sense - when a heavyweight fight is interrupted by a drive by shooting that takes down both boxers, it's best to call time.

QuoteMichael Peel
@Mikepeeljourno
A surprise Franco German push for the first EU summit with Russia since Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014 has laid bare internal divisions in the bloc. Two opponents of the move towards detente branded the idea "appalling" and "crazy".  https://ft.com/content/03528026-8fa1-4910-ab26-41cd26404439
It's not even five months since the Kremlin sought to humiliate EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell during a Moscow visit. But both Germany and France have long sought outreach to Russia. And Joe Biden's summit with Putin last week normalised the idea.

QuoteHenry Foy
@HenryJFoy
BIG scoop from FT's Brussels team - Merkel and Macron want to restart EU-Russia summits with Putin and the 27 leaders, as part of a surprise proposal for a new EU strategy of closer engagement with the Kremlin https://ft.com/content/03528026-8fa1-4910-ab26-41cd26404439
Surprise proposal sprung on the rest of the EU a day before talks on how to deal with Moscow is going down down like a cup of cold sick with eastern members and others arguing against rapprochement with the Kremlin. Also comes a day after Merkel and Putin held a phone call

QuoteMehreen
@MehreenKhn
EU ambassadors tonight spent 90 mins (aptly) on draft #euco conclusions on Russia. Will be changes made before start of summit but will be up to leaders to decide how to tackle main sticking points on whether to retain list of areas for cooperation and possible Putin summitry Down pointing backhand index
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E4mMNeCWUAIvb_g?format=jpg&name=small)
After initial fury at timing of the Franco German ambush on Putin, more countries now willing to accept much beefier language on Russia than was planned only 24 hours ago. Leaders will thrash out specifics of paragraph 6 over dinner on Thursday.

QuoteScott Beasley
@SkyScottBeasley
Real leadership in Europe: Netherlands Prime Minister says Hungary should no longer be in the EU following its anti-LGBT law

Mark Rutte: "For me, Hungary has no place in the EU anymore"
Rutte if they refuse to withdraw the legislation: "then as far as I am concerned, then there is nothing left for them in the EU"

"This is such a fundamental point, that if we let that go, we are nothing more than a trading block and a currency"
The EU is split on the issue- along broadly east/west and social conservative/liberal lines

As Rutte says: "But I'm not the only one to decide this: there are 26 other (EU countries). This has to be done step by step"
16 EU member states have today declared their support for defending LGBT rights. Though the letter below does not mention Hungary by name.
Rutte: "the long-term aim is to bring Hungary to its knees on this...They must realise they are part of the EU & this community of values, which means in Hungary...no one can be discriminated against & can feel free on grounds of sexuality, skin color, gender whatever"
Luxembourg's gay PM Bettel on the law: "I didn't get up one morning after having seen an advert on the TV of some brand... and say 'I'm gay'. That's not how life works. It's in me, I didn't chose it. And to accept oneself is hard enough. To be stigmatised too-that's too much."

Quote from: Tyr on June 24, 2021, 11:09:13 AM
I dunno, maybe it could be read that way for Hungarians? Better not vote for the current nutters if they wish to remain in Europe.

QuoteYeah I don't know, I worry that type of messaging works - too easy for Orban to generate an us v them view and it may be that a majority supports these measures in Hungary and a reasonably big minority in the rest of Europe that support them.

Quote from: The Larch on June 24, 2021, 11:26:44 AM
Aaah, Rutte once again showing the refinement of Dutch diplomacy...  :P

Quote
EU leaders take hard line on Russia, rebuking Merkel and Macron
Poland and the Baltics lead effort to thwart German-French initiative.
By David M. Herszenhorn and Jacopo Barigazzi   
June 24, 2021 10:52 pm

EU leaders early Friday adopted a hardline stance toward Russia — but only after Poland and the Baltic countries took their own hardline stance toward Germany and France and torpedoed a proposal by the bloc's biggest powers to seek a summit with President Vladimir Putin.

The 27 heads of state and government adopted their tough conclusions on Russia at around 2 a.m. following a protracted and, at times, heated debate. The final result was remarkably humbling, if not utterly humiliating, for German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, who normally exert the greatest sway in discussions around the European Council table.

Rather than endorsing the language proposed by Germany and France that would have floated the idea of "meetings at leaders level," akin to the one held by U.S. President Joe Biden with Putin in Geneva last week, the Council approved a statement focused on setting expectations and demands for the Kremlin, which would be a prerequisite for new diplomatic engagement. The Council also threatened new economic sanctions should Moscow persist in "malign, illegal and disruptive activity."

"The European Council expects the Russian leadership to demonstrate a more constructive engagement and political commitment and stop actions against the EU and its Member States, as well as against third countries," the leaders wrote in their conclusions.

The Council demanded that Russia "fully assume its responsibility" in ensuring the implementation of the Minsk 2 peace agreement to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine, and the leaders reiterated their support for pursuing "accountability" in the destruction of a Malaysian passenger jet that was shot down in 2014 with a Russian missile.

Rather than floating the idea of a high-level summit meeting, the leaders called on the European Commission and the EU's foreign policy chief to develop "concrete options including conditionalities and leverages" for further cooperation with Russia in various policy areas. "The European Council will explore formats and conditionalities of dialogue with Russia," they wrote.

Merkel, speaking to reporters at the end of the long night, bluntly conceded defeat, though she also made an implicit accusation that other leaders were not brave enough to back the summit proposal. "I personally would have wished for a more courageous step but this is also OK and we'll keep working," she said.

While the result marked a stunning victory over Germany and France by countries along the Russian border, the whole situation was a rather embarrassing episode for the EU, as deep divisions over relations with Russia burst into public view.

The summit, unexpectedly, turned out to be one of the most divisive gatherings of EU leaders in recent memory, as the Russia debate and another heated discussion, over Hungary's controversial anti-gay legislation, exposed deep rifts, roughly drawn between eastern and western countries.

Speaking to journalists after the meeting, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo denied the discussion was West vs. East, noting that some Baltics and Eastern European countries supported the criticism of Budapest. And he added that now, "it's the first time there was really such an open almost confrontation between the large majority of the room with one member state."

However, in a sign of how fractious the debate over Russia had been, Council President Charles Michel canceled a planned late-night news conference with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Merkel-Macron mystery

Merkel and Macron offered little explanation or justification for pushing the softer approach toward Putin just a day before the Council meeting, and their surprise effort clearly infuriated other leaders, who said there was no reason to ease any diplomatic pressure on Moscow.

A sense of competition with Biden seemed to be one factor, with Merkel insisting in a speech to the Bundestag on Thursday morning that if the U.S. president could hold a meeting with Putin, there was no reason EU leaders shouldn't do the same.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda described the leaders' discussion as "tough" and said he was not persuaded that the EU should change its tough stance toward Moscow.

"It's too early because we so far don't see any radical changes of behavior," Nausėda said, adding that meeting Putin without preconditions "would be a very wrong signal."

Several critics of the German-French plan said they did not understand why Merkel and Macron had rushed ahead rather than waiting to see if Putin responds positively to Biden's suggestions of cooperation in some policy areas.

The reference in the leaders' conclusions to "third countries" and another reference to "ensuring coordination with partners" seemed to be nods to the U.S. and Biden's efforts to shift the dynamic between Russia and the West.

In response to a query from POLITICO, a U.S. State Department spokesperson on Thursday night suggested it would make sense to give Putin some time to respond to areas of potential cooperation that Biden identified during their conversation in Geneva.

"The United States has been clear that we and our partners must be prepared to continue to impose costs when Russia's behavior crosses boundaries that are respected by responsible nations. Our goal is to have a relationship with Russia that is predictable and stable," the spokesperson said. "There was a lot of ground covered at the June 16 Summit with Putin, but it is going to take some time to see if the areas of potential cooperation actually produce results."

The debate among EU leaders was difficult and at time impassioned.

But the EU countries located closest to Russia — such as Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — ultimately succeeded not just in resisting heavy pressure from the EU's biggest and wealthiest powers but also in pushing their own stronger language setting demands for Moscow.

In a sign of the depth of their anger, they publicly lambasted the German-French plan on their way into the summit.

"Starting any direct dialogue on the highest political level is only possible in a situation where there's an actual de-escalation and actual withdrawal from the aggressive politics," Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said.

"It's an unequivocal situation for us. When we see hybrid attacks on our neighbors, on us," he continued, "it's difficult to start a dialogue on the highest level."

However, the disagreements were far deeper than a simple yes-no debate. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte took a middle tack, saying it was fine for the EU institutions to pursue a meeting with Putin but he himself wanted nothing to do with it.

"I don't mind a meeting with Vladimir Putin by the two presidents," Rutte said, referring to Council chief Michel and Commission President von der Leyen. But Rutte added, "I will not participate in a meeting with Vladimir Putin myself."

Meanwhile, countries that have long favored a conciliatory approach toward the Kremlin, including some with historic economic ties and a soft spot for Russian oligarchs and their money, cheered the German-French proposal.

"I'm very happy that there's finally movement in the direction of a dialogue with Russia," Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz told reporters.

This article has been updated.

Hans von der Burchard, Rym Momtaz, Marina Adami, Lili Bayer, Zosia Wanat and Andrew Gray contributed reporting.

Quote"The aberration is that we are today the power that is the harshest with Russia, but they are our neighbors," Macron said. "We saw it a few weeks ago, President Biden met with President Putin, I said it to my friends around the table 'he didn't ask you for your opinion, and you, you watch him have a summit and it doesn't shock you?'"

Quote from: Sheilbh on May 25, 2021, 03:51:09 AM
Don't have a French thread - maybe we should in the run-up to the election? :hmm:

Quote from: alfred russel on June 25, 2021, 04:18:19 PM

Quote from: Sheilbh on May 25, 2021, 03:51:09 AM
Don't have a French thread - maybe we should in the run-up to the election? :hmm:

No one can stop the macrononi.

Quote from: alfred russel on June 25, 2021, 06:37:32 PM
The French voting system is tragically flawed for this precise moment. Le Pen is leading in a bunch of polls and seems destined to be first or second with her consistent 25-30% of voters, while Macron may be unpopular overall but has a base level of support. In an open field the power of the incumbency should go far. Of course anyone who is up against Le Pen in Round 2 will be a prohibitive favorite.

A ton can happen in the next year and I certainly wouldn't say that is a lock to happen, but it seems the most likely way for things to play out.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 26, 2021, 01:10:23 AM

Quote from: alfred russel on June 25, 2021, 06:37:32 PM
The French voting system is tragically flawed for this precise moment. Le Pen is leading in a bunch of polls and seems destined to be first or second with her consistent 25-30% of voters, while Macron may be unpopular overall but has a base level of support. In an open field the power of the incumbency should go far. Of course anyone who is up against Le Pen in Round 2 will be a prohibitive favorite.

A ton can happen in the next year and I certainly wouldn't say that is a lock to happen, but it seems the most likely way for things to play out.

Not sure I follow.

The tragic flaw in the French system is that a neo-Nazi with 25% support can't win the presidency?

Quote from: alfred russel on June 26, 2021, 07:24:10 AM
The problem is that in a diverse political environment like France the other candidate (the non-Nazi) that can approach 25% is going to be elected president. Macron has an approval rating in the upper 30s and a disapproval around 60. He is unpopular. But he has the power of the incumbency, and is just popular enough he will probably get that spot in the second round. He beat Le Pen by ~30% last time and probably will again. But he'd probably lose to a number of other figures in the second round if they are his opponent other than Le Pen.

Quote from: alfred russel on June 26, 2021, 07:24:10 AM
No--the tragic flaw is that a neo-Nazi with 25% support kind of makes the election of limited value. The neo nazi can't win because a core 25% support can't get a majority when the other 75% hates neo-Naziism--and apart from neo Naziism being bad it is a terrible outcome for democracy for a president to be elected that 75% of the electorate hates. That is good.

The problem is that in a diverse political environment like France the other candidate (the non-Nazi) that can approach 25% is going to be elected president. Macron has an approval rating in the upper 30s and a disapproval around 60. He is unpopular. But he has the power of the incumbency, and is just popular enough he will probably get that spot in the second round. He beat Le Pen by ~30% last time and probably will again. But he'd probably lose to a number of other figures in the second round if they are his opponent other than Le Pen.

Quote from: Sheilbh on June 26, 2021, 07:50:51 AM

But even then I'd be astonished if Macron won by 30% again. For the last year basically the polls have floated around 55%/45%.

In part that's because of the mainstreaming of Le Pen (helped by Macron who almost appears to be trying to outflank her on "Islamic separatism", support for the police etc).

Quote from: Sheilbh on June 26, 2021, 08:03:27 AM
He's got pretty decent approval ratings for a French President in 4 years of their term :lol:

Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 26, 2021, 08:01:54 AM
OK, I get you.

But so what if Macron wins big with crummy approval ratings.  If someone else had higher ratings they would face Frau Le Pen in the second round, not Macron.

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on June 26, 2021, 08:09:50 AM
As for Marine as neo-nazi, that's ridiculous.

Quote from: alfred russel on June 26, 2021, 08:12:41 AM
It is a flaw in the system that super polarizing figures have an advantage in round 1. If you end up with a landslide because you have two candidates:

#1: 35% loves, 65% hates,
#2: 25% loves, 75% despises,

The system doesn't seem to be great.

If candidate #1 was more like 50-50 on the love hate spectrum that would be a better outcome, but the system is unchanged. This isn't just a problem with France: look at the recent elections in Peru, with a similar system. You ended up with basically a fascist versus a marxist in round 2.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 26, 2021, 08:16:35 AM

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on June 26, 2021, 08:09:50 AM
As for Marine as neo-nazi, that's ridiculous.

Neo Nazi is a lot easier to type than anti-immigrant anti-EU populist authoritarian right winger

Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 26, 2021, 08:21:03 AM
My takeaway from this is France is an ungovernable country because it's full of haters.  As I said before, if there was someone with higher approval than Macron he or she would get into the second round.

Also don't see how Peru works in support of your argument because you switched from unpopularity to polarization.  Macron still inhabits the broadly defined center.

Quote from: alfred russel on June 26, 2021, 08:06:29 AMI agree on this...I was skipping past it because it opens up a lot of other questions, and the exact amount of the landslide is kind of irrelevant.

Other questions:
-can Le Pen hold her support as she mainstreams? Or will it fracture to alternatives on the far right? (which could knock her out of round 1)

Quote-would her platform be viable if it didn't have the Le Pen brand associated to it?

QuoteDecent? He beat Hollande's impopularity records.   :lol: Yellow vests, remember? Getting slapped?  :D

Quote from: alfred russel on June 26, 2021, 08:28:26 AM
I didn't switch from unpopularity to polarization. Macron is polarizing not because he is an extremist but because he is an incumbent.

QuoteIt is really hard to speak with certainty on what will happen in an election a year away. I'm talking like it is certain that Macron and Le Pen will face off in round 2 but obviously that may not happen. That said, if the election was in the coming months, I would guess that both Macron and Le Pen would get through despite both having net approval ratings lower than at least one candidate that didn't.

Quote from: Sheilbh on June 26, 2021, 08:32:08 AM

Macron's approval rating is floating around 40-50%. In year 4 Hollande's was at 15%, Sarko was at around 30%. Chirac was more popular at this point in his first term (obviously the change in term length will make comparisons tougher if Macron wins a second terms because he'll be almost unprecedented) - but Macron's approval is around the level of Mitterand.

If, after four years, your numbers are closer to Mitterand or Chirac's than Hollande or Sarko's, then I think it's fair to say that's pretty decent.

Quote from: alfred russel on June 26, 2021, 08:48:59 AM
You can see his polls here. I think the Macrononi is a bit lower than that--especially if you consider the Harris polls to be outliers.

That said...Hollandaise and Sarko were notably unpopular in my opinion, but I will concede that if i'm saying the last 3 dudes were exceptional that becomes very tough to distinguish from a national characteristic. :P

Quote from: alfred russel on June 26, 2021, 08:48:59 AM

Quote from: Sheilbh on June 26, 2021, 08:32:08 AM

Macron's approval rating is floating around 40-50%. In year 4 Hollande's was at 15%, Sarko was at around 30%. Chirac was more popular at this point in his first term (obviously the change in term length will make comparisons tougher if Macron wins a second terms because he'll be almost unprecedented) - but Macron's approval is around the level of Mitterand.

If, after four years, your numbers are closer to Mitterand or Chirac's than Hollande or Sarko's, then I think it's fair to say that's pretty decent.

You can see his polls here. I think the Macrononi is a bit lower than that--especially if you consider the Harris polls to be outliers.

That said...Hollandaise and Sarko were notably unpopular in my opinion, but I will concede that if i'm saying the last 3 dudes were exceptional that becomes very tough to distinguish from a national characteristic. :P

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on June 26, 2021, 08:55:50 AMSarkozy was not more unpopular than Chirac.

Chirac only became popular after 2007, when he quit the French presidency.

Quote from: Sheilbh on June 26, 2021, 09:42:56 AM

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on June 26, 2021, 08:55:50 AMSarkozy was not more unpopular than Chirac.

Chirac only became popular after 2007, when he quit the French presidency.

Chirac consistently had approval ratings somewhere in the range of 40-60% after 97 through to 2002. I don't think Sarko got to those levels after the first year or two.

Quote from: alfred russel on June 26, 2021, 08:12:41 AM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 26, 2021, 08:01:54 AM
OK, I get you.

But so what if Macron wins big with crummy approval ratings.  If someone else had higher ratings they would face Frau Le Pen in the second round, not Macron.

It is a flaw in the system that super polarizing figures have an advantage in round 1. If you end up with a landslide because you have two candidates:

#1: 35% loves, 65% hates,
#2: 25% loves, 75% despises,

The system doesn't seem to be great.

If candidate #1 was more like 50-50 on the love hate spectrum that would be a better outcome, but the system is unchanged. This isn't just a problem with France: look at the recent elections in Peru, with a similar system. You ended up with basically a fascist versus a marxist in round 2.

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on June 26, 2021, 08:23:53 AM
Marine's program in 2017 read like a '70s left-wing party back to the future trip.

QuoteThe world according to Wolfgang Schäuble
President of German parliament says his country shouldn't lecture its eastern neighbors.
By Matthew Karnitschnig
June 24, 2021 10:26 pm

BERLIN — Germany needs to start showing Central and Eastern Europe more respect, and stop all the lecturing and acting as if it were the Continent's know-it-all.

The view from Budapest? Warsaw? Guess again.

"Why do Germans think they can teach Poles what democracy is?" Wolfgang Schäuble, the president of the German parliament, asks in his office overlooking the Bundestag's giant lawn, before extolling the "courage and tenacity" of Central Europe's people. "Think of Vaclav Havel!"

If it weren't for the Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, etc. "none of it would have been possible," he added, jabbing his index finger into the air.

By "it," Schäuble means not just the end of communism in Europe but also German reunification and the decades of peace and prosperity the region has enjoyed (notwithstanding a few bumps in the road) ever since.

So what about the rule of law being under threat in the here and now?

"It's completely legitimate to have differences of opinion," he said. "When I meet [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orbán, I tell him exactly what I think he's doing wrong."

In the end, it's up to the European courts to decide where the boundaries are, even when it comes to Germany, he added.

At a time when much of Central Europe is on Europe's naughty step for flouting democratic norms, attacking the LGBTQ+ community and generally undermining the progressive image the EU tries to project to the rest of the world, Schäuble's agree-to-disagree vibe towards the East might strike some as a bit out of touch. Yet in his world, the growing East-West divide represents a greater danger to Europe's future than anything happening in an individual member state.

"We need to change the attitude in Europe that everyone thinks he's is something better and the others are not so great," he said.

Anyone who remembers Schäuble as the bête noir of Greece and the eurozone's other fiscal delinquents during the debt crisis that nearly sank the common currency a decade ago might ask if he is now playing the pot or the kettle. Back then, as German finance minister, he was vilified across southern Europe as the quintessential tight-fisted, arrogant kraut. He even served as the Greek far left's poster boy in its successful 2015 referendum campaign to reject the terms of Greece's bailout.

But then, as now, Schäuble's actions were born of a noble impulse (at least in his own mind) — to protect and preserve Europe.

A deep sense of purpose

Whatever one thinks of Schäuble — and he has many critics both inside and outside Germany — few would dispute that the best way to describe him is duty-bound. 

He has served uninterrupted as an MP since 1972, making him by far the longest-serving member of the Bundestag. Not even an assassin's bullet — fired by a mentally ill man on the campaign trail in 1990 — managed to halt his career. Though he's been in a wheelchair ever since, the attempt on his life appeared to only deepen his sense of purpose. 

After the assassination attempt, Schäuble, who like many of his colleagues studied law, managed the reunification of West and East Germany, led various ministries and even served as leader of his party, the Christian Democrats (CDU). Many saw him as Helmut Kohl's crown prince. But whatever dreams Schäuble had of becoming chancellor were shattered by a party financing scandal that forced him to step down as CDU leader in 2000. He was succeeded by an ambitious up-and-comer named Angela Merkel.

Despite repeated clashes with Merkel over everything from whether to usher Greece out of the euro to refugee policy, Schäuble has remained loyal.

That devotion hasn't always been reciprocated. Merkel denied Schäuble his dream of becoming German president, repeatedly passing him over. Then, in 2017, she asked him to trade in his finance ministry job to become president of the Bundestag. Though the second-highest office in the land in terms of protocol (after the president), it's a largely administrative role that involves acting as parliament's chief referee.

Nonetheless, thanks to his stature, Schäuble has lent the office new prestige. He has also managed to curb the antics of the far-right Alternative for Germany, currently the largest opposition group in the Bundestag.

He has remained active in the CDU's internal politics too. After failing to install his one-time protégé, Friedrich Merz, as party leader this year, Schäuble went to battle for the man who won — Armin Laschet — helping him secure the conservative bloc's nomination for chancellor against a challenge from the leader of the CDU's Bavarian sister party.   

Even if Schäuble embodies the proverbial good soldier in deed, he doesn't shy from telling the world how he really feels.

During the interview in his vast receiving room, decorated with the replica of a large eagle sculpture that once adorned the German Kaiser's palace, he took aim at Europe's migration policy, saying both the European Commission and member states had fallen short. Europe needs to be more flexible in its approach to the realities in individual member states, he argued, especially when it comes to rejecting certain ethnic or religious groups.

"If someone says, 'in the tradition of our country it is difficult to explain to our population that we're going to take in large numbers of Muslims, or people from Muslim countries,' one should say, 'Ok, then let's talk about how else you can contribute,'" Schäuble said.

He also reiterated his concern over how member states planned to spend the money they receive from the EU's pandemic recovery fund.

"If we use these €750 billion to plug holes in budgets instead of for investments in the future, then it won't make any difference," he warned.

Though often caricatured as the eurozone's "Dr. No" during the debt crisis, Schäuble, unlike many in his party, never ruled out issuing common debt per se, but only for as long as there isn't a common economic and fiscal policy along with adequate enforcement to ensure that countries don't spend beyond their means.

"I support more Europe, but then we have to give Europe the necessary powers," he said.

But given that such a Europe would require member states to relinquish their most potent remaining influence — the power of the purse — Schäuble's dream scenario is unlikely to be realized anytime soon.

Even so, Schäuble expressed optimism about Europe's future and welcomed the normalization of relations with the United States under President Joe Biden. He signaled support for a harder line against China than that voiced by either Merkel or Laschet.

"No one should try to rule the world," he said, saying that China needed to stick to its international agreements. "America needs more European partnership and when the Americans are right, they're right."

Schäuble is bound to make his outspoken voice heard on China, Europe and a number of other issues in years to come. His name will once again top the ballot of his home constituency in southwest Germany in September's general election.

Though more popular than ever in Germany, Schäuble was coy about whether he intended to remain president of the Bundestag, saying only: "I enjoy the work."

Quote from: Sheilbh on June 29, 2021, 09:52:21 AM

The other point was I just don't think his comment on immigration works if we are accepting as an idea that Muslims are European and will become European citizens - they will be German and French and Belgian. If countries in Europe has an issue with immigration on that ground, I don't see how that can sit alongside the reality of modern Europe :hmm:

QuoteSurprise! The EU knows how to handle China

Brussels is ahead of Washington when it comes to dealing with Beijing.
CHINA-POLITICS-CONGRESS
China's President Xi Jinping, center, fought hard to take the EU deal over the line | Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images
By Bruno Maçães
June 22, 2021 4:03 am

"Do we need a new adversary?" With those words, Armin Laschet summed up the European response to Joe Biden's efforts to convince Europeans to get tougher on China.

As the politician best placed to become the next German chancellor, Laschet's open rebuke of the U.S. president was the latest example in a series of polite disagreements between the two pillars of the transatlantic alliance over how to deal with the rising Asian superpower.

What's usually overlooked, however, especially in Washington, is that the Europeans aren't reluctant to get on board with Biden's efforts because they don't want to confront China. They're cold on the idea because they have a plan of their own — and so far, it's working.

The plan was first devised a little over two years ago, at a time when Trump's America had turned its back on its European partners. As described by a senior official in Brussels, the decision to call China a "systemic rival" in March 2019 was everything that the EU's foreign policy strives to be, almost always unsuccessfully.

The European Council had given the European Commission and the European External Action Service a mandate to come up with a new China strategy. And the two institutions took full advantage of it, drafting a bold document that never traveled to national capitals for assent.

I was living in Beijing at the time and can attest to how much the term riled and confused Chinese officials. And that initial salvo was not an isolated move. One month later, the EU issued Beijing with an ultimatum, calling on it to conclude negotiations on the China-Europe investment agreement, known as CAI, by the end of 2020.

Those negotiations had been dragging on for five years. Brussels wanted results.

To this day, the logic behind these moves remains poorly understood. As one person closely involved in the 2019 deliberations explained this week, the words "systemic rival" were meant to denote something very different from the formulation used in Washington: "strategic rival."

With the notion of systemic rivalry, the European Union hoped to separate political differences and economic links. In strategic rivalry, conflict leads. In systemic rivalry, conflict is limited to the political sphere. It is part of the EU's political tradition to believe that politics and the economy can be insulated from each other. Even inside the bloc, political differences with Poland and Hungary are not allowed to interfere with the single market.

Performing the same trick with China is far more difficult, but the Commission has been busy putting the plan in practice. Over the past two years, it approved a barrage of new regulations limiting the Chinese state's ability to interfere with the framework of economic links between the two blocs. These include investment screening, trade defense instruments, a package against state subsidies and a public procurement tool.

At the same time, Brussels — with a push from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who renewed the ultimatum in June 2020 — moved forward with negotiations on the CAI, finally agreed on by both sides in December. The senior official in the Commission, who requested to remain anonymous in order to speak freely, described China's assent to the agreement as "a gift from Beijing."

The deal included significant concessions from Beijing, including a greater level of market access and disciplines on state-owned enterprises, transparency of subsidies and rules prohibiting forced technology transfer. "By giving us a big gift, they hoped to prevent a united front with the Biden administration," the official said.

Beijing's hope was not to be. What surprised China is that the EU never regarded the CAI as a political agreement. Having forced Beijing to concede on key points, the bloc did not hesitate to walk over China's most salient red lines. On March 22, the EU joined the U.K. and the U.S. in imposing sanctions aimed at Chinese officials believed to be involved in human rights violations in Xinjiang province.

The move threw Beijing off balance — as evidenced by its reaction. Many in Brussels believed China would be too concerned with preserving the CAI to react or would do so within strict limits. Instead, the Chinese Foreign Ministry reacted with blind brutality.

Chinese embassies in Europe had been asked in advance to collect a list of undesirables, which included members of the European Parliament belonging to almost every political group. That list seems to have been approved by the top leadership in Zhongnanhai with little or no scrutiny, and little concern for the agreement's fate.

That reaction reveals a lot about the relationship between the EU and China, and the fact that Beijing felt it had been outplayed. While a second official in the Commission told me that the top leadership in Beijing was poorly advised, none of the Chinese officials I talked to expressed any doubt that, on March 22, the Chinese leadership decided to kill the investment agreement with the European Union. The choice was conscious and deliberate.

Since taking over the brief in August 2020, Xi Jinping had fought hard to take the deal over the line. So why did he change his mind? The clue is in something the influential academic Cui Hongjian told me this week: "Strategic partners do not sanction each other." The Chinese side had seen the CAI as a political agreement.

Like good Marxists, Chinese officials do not believe in the separation between politics and the economy. But Brussels' decision to sanction four political officials showed that "systemic rivalry" was still valid and operational. According to an official in the Chinese State Council, Xi decided that the Europeans had betrayed the spirit of the agreement and that China should put its foot down.

Liu Zuokui of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences expanded on the feeling of frustration in a conversation this week: "In other words, on the one hand, the two sides should overcome their differences and negotiate. On the other hand, the EU can punish China at any time according to its own needs, and it is estimated that China may acquiesce to such punishment."

What this means is that Brussels — not Washington or Beijing — has a clear vision of what the terms of the relationship between the West and China should be: economic integration but on a European not a Chinese model.

Chinese officials may complain about the term "systemic rivalry," but they believe in it as much as Brussels. The difference is that for Beijing, there is no separation between market and state. Interestingly, this is also the view in Washington — but Europeans are convinced they have a better plan.

They will keep insisting that to do business in their territory, China will have to do it on European terms. And indeed, Chinese officials have sent some messages that they want to continue talking. "We are very calm," said the official in Brussels.

QuoteTusk returns to Polish politics denouncing 'evil' ruling party
The battered opposition Civic Platform party sees Tusk as a potential political savior.

(https://www.politico.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/03/GettyImages-1233780173-1320x853.jpg)
Donald Tusk speaks at a Civic Platform congress on July 3, 2021 | Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images
By Zosia Wanat
July 3, 2021 1:54 pm

After seven years in Brussels, Donald Tusk is back in Polish politics and he's got one goal — to defeat the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party.

"I'm back in 100 percent," the former Polish prime minister and ex-president of the European Council told a Saturday congress of Civic Platform (PO), the troubled liberal party he founded in 2001.

He's now the head of the European People's Party, the EU's largest grouping of center-right parties, but he made clear that he's diving back into national politics to lead the charge against PiS — which has seen relations with Brussels sour thanks to accusations that it is backsliding on democracy, undermining the rule of law, curbing media freedom and unleashing attacks on the LGBTQ+ community.

"The evil that PiS is performing is evident, shameless and permanent. It's happening every day, in almost every matter," Tusk, 64, said in an emotional speech that accused the government and its backers of corruption, clashes with the EU and Poland's European partners, restriction of women's rights, mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic and climate change denial.

The party's current chief Boris Budka stepped aside to let Tusk retake the top job. He's been accused of doing a lackluster job in leading a party that has failed to retake the political initiative since losing power to PiS in 2015.

"I put the future of the country and the future of PO above my own ambitions," Budka said. "Donald Tusk is returning to Polish politics at my invitation and at my request."

The party has long looked with longing at Tusk, who led Civic Platform to two electoral victories and ruled Poland from 2005 to 2014, seeing him as someone who could reenergize the party.

But it's not clear if the wider electorate shares the same hunger. One recent survey found that more than 60 percent of respondents said he shouldn't return to Polish politics.

Old enemies

PiS is also certain to rewarm accusations that dogged the final days of Tusk's government — that it was aloof, didn't understand the needs of ordinary Poles, had no ambitious programs and that several ministers left after being embroiled in a scandal after recordings of their conversations in a fancy restaurant were published.

His old enemy Jarosław Kaczyński, the 72-year-old leader of PiS and Poland's de facto ruler, unleashed that line of attack in an interview earlier this week. He accused Tusk of returning to Poland because he is lazy and loves Germany.

"That's the brutal truth," Kaczyński said. "All the rest with this asking and waiting is a bit of theater to sweeten this return."

PiS holds its own party congress this weekend, where Kaczyński will be reaffirmed as leader. However, he is politically vulnerable — the ruling United Right coalition led by PiS is consumed with internal battles and last week lost its formal majority in the Polish parliament.

"After almost six years can we talk about success? Yes, we can," Kaczyński told his party faithful, spelling out changes in social, international, cultural and educational policies. "We can say in every area."

Tusk denounced the PiS congress as "a grotesque group of people."

"It's quite a pitiful parody of dictatorship," he said. "This is not an overwhelming power. What's overwhelming is our lack of faith and our weakness"

That means Tusk is back at a time when the opposition sees a chance of the government imploding and being forced to hold elections earlier than the scheduled date in 2023.

Tusk will have his work cut out for him in uniting squabbling opposition parties and adding energy and optimism to a grouping that's lost faith in its ability to win. Civic Platform is trailing in opinion polls behind Poland 2050, a new grouping formed by Catholic journalist Szymon Hołownia that has succeeded in attracting some politicians from PO.

Tusk said he's back because he believes PO is still able to win. "What's the most important in politics, what's so important today, not only for PO, is to regain the faith in its own agency and the possibility to win. Those who don't believe in their own capabilities won't win; a party that doesn't believe in the meaning of its own existence won't win," he said.

The EPP did not issue a formal statement, but indicated there was no issue with Tusk staying on as the group's chief while returning to active politics in Poland.

QuoteStanley Bill
@StanleySBill
The PiS-controlled Polish public media's non-stop negative coverage of Donald Tusk's return is getting wilder and wilder. This article is entitled "Saruman pretending to be Gandalf", and warns of Tusk's plan to sell an "old evil" as "good".
https://www.tvp.info/54709244/powrot-tuska-saruman-zgrywa-gandalfa

Quote from: Tonitrus on July 14, 2021, 11:41:29 AM
Yeah, ugh. 

And we've a good shot to enter another nullification crisis ourselves, from GOP/Red states, over voting rights laws (if that federal bill somehow makes it through Congress). 

Quote from: Valmy on July 14, 2021, 01:09:30 PM

Quote from: Tonitrus on July 14, 2021, 11:41:29 AM
Yeah, ugh. 

And we've a good shot to enter another nullification crisis ourselves, from GOP/Red states, over voting rights laws (if that federal bill somehow makes it through Congress). 

Everybody is always so short sighted. If the GOP creates nullification as a principle it will destroy their ability to govern once they do get back in power in DC.

Quote from: Valmy on July 14, 2021, 01:09:30 PM

Quote from: Tonitrus on July 14, 2021, 11:41:29 AM
Yeah, ugh. 

And we've a good shot to enter another nullification crisis ourselves, from GOP/Red states, over voting rights laws (if that federal bill somehow makes it through Congress). 

Everybody is always so short sighted. If the GOP creates nullification as a principle it will destroy their ability to govern once they do get back in power in DC.

QuoteSerbian troops on heightened alert at Kosovo border
Government in Belgrade accuses neighbouring Kosovo of 'provocations' by sending special police units to border.
26 Sep 2021

Serbian troops have been on a heightened state of alert after the government in Belgrade accused neighbouring Kosovo of "provocations" by sending special police units to the border.

Already tense relations between Serbia and its former breakaway region have grown worse since the ethnic Albanian-led government there despatched the police units to an area mainly populated by minority ethnic Serbs, who reject the authority of the government in Kosovo's capital Pristina.

The deployment came as hundreds of ethnic Serbs have staged daily protests against a decision to require drivers with Serbian registration plates to put on temporary ones when entering Kosovo – a "reciprocal measure", according to Pristina.

"No one here wants a conflict and I hope there won't be one," said a 45-year-old protester who identified himself as Ljubo and was camped at the Jarinje border crossing.

"We want Pristina to withdraw its forces and cancel the decision on licence plates."

Hundreds of Serbs in Kosovo have been protesting and blocking traffic with trucks on the roads leading to two border crossings.

"After the provocations by the [special police] units ... Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic gave the order to heighten the alert for some Serbian army and police units," the defence ministry in Belgrade said in a statement.

Serbian fighter jets could again be seen flying over the border region on Sunday after several sorties on Saturday, AFP news agency reported.

Diplomatic pressure

The European Union's chief diplomat Josep Borrell urged Serbia and Kosovo to reduce tensions "by immediately withdrawing special police units and dismantling of roadblocks".

"Any further provocations or unilateral and uncoordinated actions are unacceptable," he said in a statement.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he had spoken by phone to the Serbian president and Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti.

"It's vital both Belgrade and Pristina show restraint and return to dialogue," he tweeted.

NATO troops have been deployed in Kosovo since the 1998-99 Serbian-Kosovar conflict.

Belgrade does not recognise Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence in 2008 and sees Pristina's decision on the licence plates as implying its status as a sovereign state.

Vucic deplored the lack of reaction from the international community to "the total occupation for more than a week of northern Kosovo by Pristina's armoured vehicles".

"And everyone is suddenly worried when Serbian helicopters and planes are seen over central Serbia," Vucic said in a statement, adding, however, that Serbia "will always behave responsibly and seriously".

Kurti on Saturday accused Serbia of wanting to "provoke a serious international conflict".

Early on Sunday, Serbian Defence Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic visited troops at two military bases where they are on alert, including one that is just a few kilometres from the border.

Belgrade designates border crossings between Serbia and Kosovo as "administrative".

Serbian ally Russia also does not recognise Kosovo's independence, but most Western countries do, including the United States.

For its part, NATO member Albania, "concerned by the escalation of the situation", has asked Belgrade "to withdraw the armed forces deployed on the border with Kosovo".

Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani cut short a visit to New York for the United Nations General Assembly "because of developments in the north of the country".

Kosovo's declaration of independence came a decade after a war between ethnic Albanian fighters and Serbian forces that killed 13,000 people, mostly ethnic Albanians.

The United States and the European Union have called for a de-escalation of tensions and for the two sides to return to normalisation talks, which the EU has mediated for about a decade.

The Serbian president said the normalisation process can resume only if Kosovo withdraws the special police forces from the north.

Quote from: Jacob on September 26, 2021, 08:01:55 PM
I absolutely expect Putin to pull more shit in the European periphery at some point, and Serbia seems like a perfectly viable vector for it. Not that Serbia isn't able to stir things up on its own.

In terms of grand strategy, I wonder how deep the trouble in Europe would have to be to impact the current strategic shift to Asia-Pacific by the US?

Quote from: Valmy on September 26, 2021, 08:09:07 PM
Can the Euros really not handle Putin and his nonsense on their own? The EU has more than twice as many people and tons more resources.

Quote from: HVC on September 26, 2021, 08:31:56 PM
So what are the odds the Serbia starts another world war?

Quote from: Valmy on September 26, 2021, 08:09:07 PM

Quote from: Jacob on September 26, 2021, 08:01:55 PM
I absolutely expect Putin to pull more shit in the European periphery at some point, and Serbia seems like a perfectly viable vector for it. Not that Serbia isn't able to stir things up on its own.

In terms of grand strategy, I wonder how deep the trouble in Europe would have to be to impact the current strategic shift to Asia-Pacific by the US?

Can the Euros really not handle Putin and his nonsense on their own? The EU has more than twice as many people and tons more resources. Pretty comical. It would be like Mexico pushing us around. Granted Mexico with nukes but the Euros have nukes as well.

Quote from: Syt on September 27, 2021, 02:30:31 AM
That said, I hope Serbia who are kind of trying to balance their sugar daddies EU, Russia, and China are careful about how far they let escalate things.

However, even if they decide to take Kosovo by force, and Russia supports them and draws a line for NATO/EU to not intervene or else, Serbia would stand to lose a lot through being immediately cut off from all things EU, most likely. I can't see even Orban and PiS going against that, not without serious consequences (wishful thinking, I know :P )

Quote from: Jacob on September 26, 2021, 08:01:55 PM
In terms of grand strategy, I wonder how deep the trouble in Europe would have to be to impact the current strategic shift to Asia-Pacific by the US?

QuoteVucic is not in it to recreate Greater Serbia but to become Serbia's autocrat. He will do knee jerk nationalistic displays like this from time to time to rile up his base or to distract from some other internal stuff but he's not crazy enough to actually start a war over anything like this.

Quote from: garbon on September 27, 2021, 05:12:44 AM
Why are we acting like the US has divested all interest in Europe? :huh:

Quote from: Tamas on September 27, 2021, 06:19:59 AM
Je suis France's diesel sub deal, apparently.

Quote from: The Larch on September 27, 2021, 04:26:29 AM
Vucic is not in it to recreate Greater Serbia but to become Serbia's autocrat. He will do knee jerk nationalistic displays like this from time to time to rile up his base or to distract from some other internal stuff but he's not crazy enough to actually start a war over anything like this.

Quote from: garbon on September 27, 2021, 05:12:44 AM
Why are we acting like the US has divested all interest in Europe? :huh:

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 27, 2021, 06:39:38 AM
But I think since the Afghan withdrawal it is likely that Putin will try to test the limits of US commitment to Europe and its neighbourhood and, as Jake says, Serbia's a possible vector for that.

Quote from: Jacob on September 27, 2021, 10:15:15 AM

Quote from: garbon on September 27, 2021, 05:12:44 AM
Why are we acting like the US has divested all interest in Europe? :huh:

I don't think we are, but the question was "can't Europe handle Russia by itself?" Personally I think the answer is "no".

Quote from: Valmy on September 26, 2021, 08:09:07 PM

Quote from: Jacob on September 26, 2021, 08:01:55 PM
I absolutely expect Putin to pull more shit in the European periphery at some point, and Serbia seems like a perfectly viable vector for it. Not that Serbia isn't able to stir things up on its own.

In terms of grand strategy, I wonder how deep the trouble in Europe would have to be to impact the current strategic shift to Asia-Pacific by the US?

Can the Euros really not handle Putin and his nonsense on their own?

Quote from: garbon on September 27, 2021, 05:12:44 AM
Why are we acting like the US has divested all interest in Europe? :huh:

Quote from: Valmy on September 26, 2021, 08:09:07 PM

Quote from: Jacob on September 26, 2021, 08:01:55 PM
I absolutely expect Putin to pull more shit in the European periphery at some point, and Serbia seems like a perfectly viable vector for it. Not that Serbia isn't able to stir things up on its own.

In terms of grand strategy, I wonder how deep the trouble in Europe would have to be to impact the current strategic shift to Asia-Pacific by the US?

Can the Euros really not handle Putin and his nonsense on their own?

Quote from: viper37 on September 27, 2021, 05:43:55 PM
They lack the will to unite, and the Brits made it clear multiple times they don't want anything to do with Europe, economically, monetarily or militarily.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 27, 2021, 04:40:13 AM

QuoteVucic is not in it to recreate Greater Serbia but to become Serbia's autocrat. He will do knee jerk nationalistic displays like this from time to time to rile up his base or to distract from some other internal stuff but he's not crazy enough to actually start a war over anything like this.

I agree in terms of not wanting to start a war directly by invading a country. I think what's more likely is they go in on more of this "Serb world" stuff - Serbian minorities in neighbouring countries (including Republika Srpska) get very into it, go to far and that causes a crackdown by the neighbouring government. If that sort of scenario (which is sort of what's going on in Kosovo but not quite) happens it may be very difficult pull back or de-escalate - so basically the traditional route to a Balkans war involving Serbia.

I'd guess the most likely would actually be if Republika Srpska held a referendum on seceding from BiH and joining Serbia.

Edit: I always think of the pessimism of international NGO/diplomatic etc workers in Sarajevo who I'd meet and hear about from a friend working there who all thought that BiH would collapse at some point (almost certainly due to Srpska trying to leave) and descend into another war - so I may be overly pessimistic about the West Balkans :(

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 27, 2021, 06:00:19 PM

Quote from: viper37 on September 27, 2021, 05:43:55 PM
They lack the will to unite, and the Brits made it clear multiple times they don't want anything to do with Europe, economically, monetarily or militarily.

It's really not true on the UK. For all the focus on the carrier group in the Pacific, at the same time the Royal Navy's participated in the NATO Baltic exercises, NATO-Ukraine exercises in the Black Sea (where there was also a freedom of navigation exercise near Crimea) and, separately, had RN-Baltic nation exercises too. And just this year the UK became lead of one of the NATO groups in the Baltic countries.

The UK government doesn't have any interest in engaging with the EU on foreign policy - but I'd slightly query the value of that anyway given the rest of this thread - but is still very committed to NATO and showing it by actually participating in the Baltics and with Ukraine.

Quote from: The Larch on September 27, 2021, 07:42:47 PM

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 27, 2021, 04:40:13 AM

QuoteVucic is not in it to recreate Greater Serbia but to become Serbia's autocrat. He will do knee jerk nationalistic displays like this from time to time to rile up his base or to distract from some other internal stuff but he's not crazy enough to actually start a war over anything like this.

I agree in terms of not wanting to start a war directly by invading a country. I think what's more likely is they go in on more of this "Serb world" stuff - Serbian minorities in neighbouring countries (including Republika Srpska) get very into it, go to far and that causes a crackdown by the neighbouring government. If that sort of scenario (which is sort of what's going on in Kosovo but not quite) happens it may be very difficult pull back or de-escalate - so basically the traditional route to a Balkans war involving Serbia.

I'd guess the most likely would actually be if Republika Srpska held a referendum on seceding from BiH and joining Serbia.

Edit: I always think of the pessimism of international NGO/diplomatic etc workers in Sarajevo who I'd meet and hear about from a friend working there who all thought that BiH would collapse at some point (almost certainly due to Srpska trying to leave) and descend into another war - so I may be overly pessimistic about the West Balkans :(

I agree that the most likely source of serious trouble in the area is bound to be Bosnia, as it's by far the country with the weakest state and the most fractured. Besides, the Bosnian Serbs are well organized through their own polity in the Srpska Republic, and tensions within Bosnia between the Serbs and other comunities are long standing and sometimes really close to getting messy.

In this sense for instance it'd be meaningful to point out that forces in the area are already considering behind closed doors ending the existance of Bosnia per se and dividing its territoriy between Serbia, Croatia and a rump Bosniak state, as proposed by the controversial "non-paper" by the Slovenian government earlier this year, which also proposed the unification of Albania and Kosovo, as well as other minor border adjustments to Montenegro and North Macedonia (removing Albanian majority areas, I assume).

For those interested in the "non-paper": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_non-paper (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_non-paper)

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 27, 2021, 06:00:19 PM
The UK government doesn't have any interest in engaging with the EU on foreign policy - but I'd slightly query the value of that anyway given the rest of this thread

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on September 27, 2021, 09:04:23 PM

Quote from: The Larch on September 27, 2021, 07:42:47 PM

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 27, 2021, 04:40:13 AM

QuoteVucic is not in it to recreate Greater Serbia but to become Serbia's autocrat. He will do knee jerk nationalistic displays like this from time to time to rile up his base or to distract from some other internal stuff but he's not crazy enough to actually start a war over anything like this.

I agree in terms of not wanting to start a war directly by invading a country. I think what's more likely is they go in on more of this "Serb world" stuff - Serbian minorities in neighbouring countries (including Republika Srpska) get very into it, go to far and that causes a crackdown by the neighbouring government. If that sort of scenario (which is sort of what's going on in Kosovo but not quite) happens it may be very difficult pull back or de-escalate - so basically the traditional route to a Balkans war involving Serbia.

I'd guess the most likely would actually be if Republika Srpska held a referendum on seceding from BiH and joining Serbia.

Edit: I always think of the pessimism of international NGO/diplomatic etc workers in Sarajevo who I'd meet and hear about from a friend working there who all thought that BiH would collapse at some point (almost certainly due to Srpska trying to leave) and descend into another war - so I may be overly pessimistic about the West Balkans :(

I agree that the most likely source of serious trouble in the area is bound to be Bosnia, as it's by far the country with the weakest state and the most fractured. Besides, the Bosnian Serbs are well organized through their own polity in the Srpska Republic, and tensions within Bosnia between the Serbs and other comunities are long standing and sometimes really close to getting messy.

In this sense for instance it'd be meaningful to point out that forces in the area are already considering behind closed doors ending the existance of Bosnia per se and dividing its territoriy between Serbia, Croatia and a rump Bosniak state, as proposed by the controversial "non-paper" by the Slovenian government earlier this year, which also proposed the unification of Albania and Kosovo, as well as other minor border adjustments to Montenegro and North Macedonia (removing Albanian majority areas, I assume).

For those interested in the "non-paper": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_non-paper (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_non-paper)

Obrigado for the link. Interesting, but not in a good way. I guess that the topic will come up sooner or later with the Albanians I know. Covid certainly played a part in the relative lack of publicity for that document.
Even so, this would still leave the Presevo Valley (Albanian majority area) in Serbia, once rumored to be included in a deal allowing the merger of Kosovo (bar the Serbian area i.e Mitrovica) and Albania.

Quote from: viper37 on September 27, 2021, 08:37:04 PM
NATO and Europe are different things.  I'm talking about an integrated European military, at the very least, much more cooperation, independant of NATO or not.  There is a certain need for all of Europe to step up its game, militarily speaking, rely much less on the US.  And have a decent, coherent and mostly united foreign policy amongst EU members.  Right now, half of them are looking warily at Russia while the others will bend over for Putin as soon as he asked them.

QuoteThe feeling is mutual - given the 1000+ pages Brexit thread.  :hug:

QuoteI agree that the most likely source of serious trouble in the area is bound to be Bosnia, as it's by far the country with the weakest state and the most fractured. Besides, the Bosnian Serbs are well organized through their own polity in the Srpska Republic, and tensions within Bosnia between the Serbs and other comunities are long standing and sometimes really close to getting messy.

Quote from: Valmy on September 28, 2021, 10:11:20 AM
It is just as de Gaulle predicted. The US will eventually go home or shift its attention elsewhere. Europe must look to itself.

Quote from: Berkut on September 28, 2021, 10:36:42 AM

Quote from: Valmy on September 28, 2021, 10:11:20 AM
It is just as de Gaulle predicted. The US will eventually go home or shift its attention elsewhere. Europe must look to itself.

...except he predicted that like 60 years ago.

All predictions will eventually come true, if the timeline is long enough, I suppose.

I predict France will eventually cease to exist, so Europe should look for security somewhere other then Paris.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 28, 2021, 04:39:50 AM

QuoteThe feeling is mutual - given the 1000+ pages Brexit thread.  :hug:

:lol: Fair. But people agree the EU doesn't have a significant foreign or defence policy outside of trade - so I just don't know why any country would. Maybe politeness, I suppose.

Quote from: Valmy on September 28, 2021, 10:44:21 AM

Quote from: Berkut on September 28, 2021, 10:36:42 AM

Quote from: Valmy on September 28, 2021, 10:11:20 AM
It is just as de Gaulle predicted. The US will eventually go home or shift its attention elsewhere. Europe must look to itself.

...except he predicted that like 60 years ago.

All predictions will eventually come true, if the timeline is long enough, I suppose.

I predict France will eventually cease to exist, so Europe should look for security somewhere other then Paris.

What? That's stupid as fuck. All predictions do not eventually come true and 60 years was exactly the kind of time frame he was talking about.

Quote from: Jacob on September 28, 2021, 11:25:54 AM

Quote from: Valmy on September 28, 2021, 10:44:21 AM

Quote from: Berkut on September 28, 2021, 10:36:42 AM

Quote from: Valmy on September 28, 2021, 10:11:20 AM
It is just as de Gaulle predicted. The US will eventually go home or shift its attention elsewhere. Europe must look to itself.

...except he predicted that like 60 years ago.

All predictions will eventually come true, if the timeline is long enough, I suppose.

I predict France will eventually cease to exist, so Europe should look for security somewhere other then Paris.

What? That's stupid as fuck. All predictions do not eventually come true and 60 years was exactly the kind of time frame he was talking about.

I predict Berkut will agree 100% with your last post Valmy.

Quote from: Tamas on September 28, 2021, 11:58:08 AM
How is Ukraine not Europe?

Quote from: Valmy on September 28, 2021, 10:44:21 AM

Quote from: Berkut on September 28, 2021, 10:36:42 AM

Quote from: Valmy on September 28, 2021, 10:11:20 AM
It is just as de Gaulle predicted. The US will eventually go home or shift its attention elsewhere. Europe must look to itself.

...except he predicted that like 60 years ago.

All predictions will eventually come true, if the timeline is long enough, I suppose.

I predict France will eventually cease to exist, so Europe should look for security somewhere other then Paris.

What? That's stupid as fuck. All predictions do not eventually come true and 60 years was exactly the kind of time frame he was talking about.

Quote from: Berkut on September 28, 2021, 12:28:42 PM

Quote from: Valmy on September 28, 2021, 10:44:21 AM

Quote from: Berkut on September 28, 2021, 10:36:42 AM

Quote from: Valmy on September 28, 2021, 10:11:20 AM
It is just as de Gaulle predicted. The US will eventually go home or shift its attention elsewhere. Europe must look to itself.

...except he predicted that like 60 years ago.

All predictions will eventually come true, if the timeline is long enough, I suppose.

I predict France will eventually cease to exist, so Europe should look for security somewhere other then Paris.

What? That's stupid as fuck. All predictions do not eventually come true and 60 years was exactly the kind of time frame he was talking about.

I totally agree 100%

Of course, just to help me out, could you actually provide me with the quote from DeGaulle where he says the US would invest trillions into European defense for 6 decades but THEN would "go home"?

Quote from: crazy canuck on September 28, 2021, 05:55:51 PM
Well, turns out all predictions come true after all

Quote from: Valmy on September 29, 2021, 11:05:57 AM

Quote from: Berkut on September 28, 2021, 12:28:42 PM

Quote from: Valmy on September 28, 2021, 10:44:21 AM

Quote from: Berkut on September 28, 2021, 10:36:42 AM

Quote from: Valmy on September 28, 2021, 10:11:20 AM
It is just as de Gaulle predicted. The US will eventually go home or shift its attention elsewhere. Europe must look to itself.

...except he predicted that like 60 years ago.

All predictions will eventually come true, if the timeline is long enough, I suppose.

I predict France will eventually cease to exist, so Europe should look for security somewhere other then Paris.

What? That's stupid as fuck. All predictions do not eventually come true and 60 years was exactly the kind of time frame he was talking about.

I totally agree 100%

Of course, just to help me out, could you actually provide me with the quote from DeGaulle where he says the US would invest trillions into European defense for 6 decades but THEN would "go home"?

I don't get you man, do you want Europe to be dependent on trillions of our tax dollars that could better be used for the benefit of our own people? Don't you want them to see to their own defenses and own problems?

And de Gaulle was saying is that Europe could not depend on outside forces forever and eventually would need to see to itself. And 60 years is plenty eventually. I don't think having that opinion is offensive or ungrateful to the United States and what we have done, rather I think it is our interest and reflects gratitude for our efforts. That 6 trillion should result in a Europe able to fend for itself not continuing to be a strategic and economic burden. So why would you be upset or at least very sarcastic about that? I don't get it.

Quote from: Valmy on September 29, 2021, 11:08:04 AM

Quote from: crazy canuck on September 28, 2021, 05:55:51 PM
Well, turns out all predictions come true after all

So if predict the device on which you typed this post will get shoved three feet up your ass, how long until that comes true? :P

Since just by me saying it, it now becomes an inevitability apparently. The Berkut principle.

QuoteGermany's election is revealingly European
A fractured vote, a big age divide and long coalition talks ahead
Oct 2nd 2021

GERMAN ELECTIONS are idiosyncratic affairs. Armin Laschet, the leader of the Christian Democrat Union, was grilled over his choice of bratwurst condiment (ketchup, not mustard). Annalena Baerbock, the Green candidate for chancellor, was skewered over plagiarism claims, a sin that bedevils only German politics. All politics is local, but in Germany it is parochial. The country may be Europe's hegemon, yet foreign affairs and the future of the EU were barely mentioned. An at times surreal campaign ended with Angela Merkel, the outgoing chancellor and most powerful person in Europe, being photographed with a parrot on her head.

If the campaign was unmistakably German, the result was European. A slim victory for the Social Democratic Party (SPD) over its centre-right rivals, the Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister the Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU), will kick off months of coalition negotiations. German politicians struggled with the same problems as their peers across the continent; German voters behaved the same way as their neighbours. Europe was invisible in the campaign. But it is visible in the outcome.

Politics in Germany has fragmented in the past decade or so, just as in every other western European country. Five parties got more than 10% of the vote each. When Angela Merkel came to power in 2005, only two did. In that same election, the CDU/CSU and SPD won 70% of the vote. On 26th September they managed barely half. It is a familiar story. In the Netherlands, 19 different parties now sit in parliament. In Italy, four parties ranging from centre-left to far-right hover around the 20% mark. Traditionally two-party systems, such as Spain, have become complex multi-party affairs. Germany is simply catching up.

After posting the worst result in their history, the CDU/CSU can take some consolation from the fact they are not alone. Their political siblings in other countries have also lost ground. At the start of the 2010s, practically every big EU country had a centre-right government. Now, barring extremely canny negotiations from the CDU, none will. Conservative politicians used to run a continent; now they control a rump. In Germany, a bad campaign by a gaffe-prone candidate is part of the explanation. But the causes of the CDU's malaise run deeper, and stretch beyond Germany's borders.

By contrast, after a decade of losing ground, the centre-left had something to cheer. Although not too loudly. Olaf Scholz, the SPD's prospective chancellor, ran a cautious campaign based on competence, with enough radicalism to stop his party's left from leaving for the Greens. It resulted in his party's third-lowest postwar vote share, but paved a likely path to power.

Now, Mr Scholz will endure the fate suffered by his fellow leftie leaders: staying in office via rickety coalitions. In Spain the Socialist Workers' Party, another grandee of the centre left, took power with a little over a quarter of the vote. Once-mighty Scandinavian social democrats are still in government, but weaker than before. In the late 1990s centre-left parties were dominant across Europe. Their pitch was usually some variant of: "Things can only get better." Now it is more like: "Things might not get worse."

Older voters keep the big-tent parties alive, both in Germany and across the EU. Call it the boomer bulwark. While four in ten under-30s backed the liberal Free Democrats or the Greens, 70% of over-60s voted for the SPD or the CDU/CSU. In Spain younger voters swoon for challenger parties, such as Podemos or Vox. But their parents and grandparents stick to traditional ones. In France, Marine Le Pen's base is the discontented young. In Italy the far-right Lega and Brothers of Italy also rely on youthful voters. Parties now stand for young or old as much as left or right.

Fractured politics mean complicated coalition talks. Germany is used to haggling between two parties. This time three will be necessary and negotiations could drag on. In a first for Germany, the Greens and the FDP (who came third and fourth) pledged to agree to terms with each other before negotiating with SPD or CDU/CSU. Again, Germany is joining a new European norm. Negotiations in Belgium are notorious for taking years and producing cumbersome coalitions. In the Netherlands, stuck in coalition talks since elections in March, the GreenLeft and Labour party discussed their own pact. In Nordic countries, four- or five-party coalitions are common. European politics is an increasingly complex (and increasingly Belgian) beast.

Stick a pin in almost any rich, western EU country and one will find a populist party polling between 10% and 20%, offering a cocktail of immigrant- and Brussels-bashing. Germany, again, fits the norm. Alternative for Germany (Af D) won about 10% of the vote on just such a platform. Only Italy, where such parties collectively attract 40% of the vote, and France, where Marine Le Pen is a possible (though unlikely) president, buck the trend. By contrast, the alternative on offer to German voters is standard European fare.

All European life is here

When asked why Germany does not take a bigger role in running the EU, Angela Merkel argued that it was impossible, since Germany was too much like the EU. Germany was already a delicate compromise between 16 different Länder (states), with a complicated relationship between its levels of government. German leadership was simply not feasible.

But if Germany resembled the EU constitutionally, it now matches the club politically. Germany is fragmented, like its neighbours; its main centre-left and centre-right parties share the same woes as their peers. The nightmare of forming coalitions will draw sympathetic noises from Dutch, Belgian and Nordic neighbours. Old voters behave in the same way in Germany as they do in France or Italy, as do their children; fringe parties are better at causing a racket than winning power. When it comes to elections in the EU, the votes may still be national. But the politics are distinctly European.

Quote from: Berkut on September 28, 2021, 10:36:42 AM
I predict France will eventually cease to exist, so Europe should look for security somewhere other then Paris.

Quote from: Berkut on October 06, 2021, 12:28:59 PM
She read my post, clearly.

Quote from: Jacob on October 06, 2021, 12:36:07 PM

Quote from: Berkut on October 06, 2021, 12:28:59 PM
She read my post, clearly.

She may have, but I think this has been Danish (and many other EU countries) policy for quite a while. I honestly don't think it's changed substantially since 1945, and I don't foresee it changing any time soon.

QuotePolish court rules that EU laws incompatible with its constitution

Serious challenge to integration comes against backdrop of rows between ruling nationalists and Brussels

Poland's constitutional court has ruled that some European Union laws are in conflict with the country's constitution, in a serious challenge to a key tenet of European integration.

The constitutional tribunal ruled that some provisions of the EU treaties and some EU court rulings go against Poland's highest law. Two judges dissented from the majority opinion.

The ruling will define the future of Poland's already troubled relationship with the 27-member bloc in the key area of law and justice.

Quote from: The Larch on October 07, 2021, 11:34:23 AM

QuotePolish court rules that EU laws incompatible with its constitution

Serious challenge to integration comes against backdrop of rows between ruling nationalists and Brussels

Poland's constitutional court has ruled that some European Union laws are in conflict with the country's constitution, in a serious challenge to a key tenet of European integration.

The constitutional tribunal ruled that some provisions of the EU treaties and some EU court rulings go against Poland's highest law. Two judges dissented from the majority opinion.

The ruling will define the future of Poland's already troubled relationship with the 27-member bloc in the key area of law and justice.

Quote from: Zanza on October 07, 2021, 11:45:16 AM
Polexit when?

Quote from: celedhring on October 07, 2021, 11:39:10 AM
So Martinus will exit the EU twice.

Quote from: Tamas on October 08, 2021, 03:47:40 AM
Didn't Germany had a similar ruling not too long ago? I mean the primacy of German law over EU law?

Quote from: Sheilbh on October 08, 2021, 04:50:20 AM

Quote from: Tamas on October 08, 2021, 03:47:40 AM
Didn't Germany had a similar ruling not too long ago? I mean the primacy of German law over EU law?

Yeah - not for the first time. Karlsruhe has form for this. I've always thought their position is basically contrary to EU law but it's only been in theory so far and from a position of the EU it's dangerous.

I liked John Cotter's analogy that the difference is the Polish Tribunal set out to try and burn the EU legal order down. The German Constitutional Court was playing around with matches, tried to set a controlled fire, which got out of hand. It was quickly put out quietly, some people (me) got very annoyed and most would like to pretend it never happened.

But - the German Constitutional Court still has the matches, and the Polish Tribunal looked at it and thought it was interesting.

Quote from: Tamas on October 08, 2021, 05:40:10 AM
In other words Germany is strong enough to be let to do whatever they want without triggering a backlash, but Poland is not.

Quote from: The Brain on October 07, 2021, 11:37:07 AM

Quote from: The Larch on October 07, 2021, 11:34:23 AM

QuotePolish court rules that EU laws incompatible with its constitution

Serious challenge to integration comes against backdrop of rows between ruling nationalists and Brussels

Poland's constitutional court has ruled that some European Union laws are in conflict with the country's constitution, in a serious challenge to a key tenet of European integration.

The constitutional tribunal ruled that some provisions of the EU treaties and some EU court rulings go against Poland's highest law. Two judges dissented from the majority opinion.

The ruling will define the future of Poland's already troubled relationship with the 27-member bloc in the key area of law and justice.

So Poland will leave the EU? God I hope the door doesn't hit it on the way out.

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on October 08, 2021, 09:46:41 AM

Quote from: The Brain on October 07, 2021, 11:37:07 AM

Quote from: The Larch on October 07, 2021, 11:34:23 AM

QuotePolish court rules that EU laws incompatible with its constitution

Serious challenge to integration comes against backdrop of rows between ruling nationalists and Brussels

Poland's constitutional court has ruled that some European Union laws are in conflict with the country's constitution, in a serious challenge to a key tenet of European integration.

The constitutional tribunal ruled that some provisions of the EU treaties and some EU court rulings go against Poland's highest law. Two judges dissented from the majority opinion.

The ruling will define the future of Poland's already troubled relationship with the 27-member bloc in the key area of law and justice.

So Poland will leave the EU? God I hope the door doesn't hit it on the way out.

they could also stay and try to change the rules. an equally valid option

Quote from: The Brain on October 08, 2021, 11:52:02 AM

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on October 08, 2021, 09:46:41 AM

Quote from: The Brain on October 07, 2021, 11:37:07 AM

Quote from: The Larch on October 07, 2021, 11:34:23 AM

QuotePolish court rules that EU laws incompatible with its constitution

Serious challenge to integration comes against backdrop of rows between ruling nationalists and Brussels

Poland's constitutional court has ruled that some European Union laws are in conflict with the country's constitution, in a serious challenge to a key tenet of European integration.

The constitutional tribunal ruled that some provisions of the EU treaties and some EU court rulings go against Poland's highest law. Two judges dissented from the majority opinion.

The ruling will define the future of Poland's already troubled relationship with the 27-member bloc in the key area of law and justice.

So Poland will leave the EU? God I hope the door doesn't hit it on the way out.

they could also stay and try to change the rules. an equally valid option

That leaves Poland still in the EU though.

Quote from: Sheilbh on October 08, 2021, 12:00:09 PM
The role of national courts if they disagree and believve the EU is now acting outside of its competence and in conflict with their constitutional provisions is to say that as a matter of domestic law: x government must either amend the constitution, seek an EU political solution (such as a treaty update) or leave the EU.

Quote from: Zanza on October 08, 2021, 12:53:12 PM
That's what the German Constitutional Court did. It stated that the German government and parliament violated their constitutional obligations towards German citizens. Their violation is that they did not act in what the court considers the ultra vires act by the ECB.

Quote from: Zanza on October 08, 2021, 01:20:13 PM
The solution is political, namely establishing a true federation. That's currently not feasible though.

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on October 09, 2021, 04:06:19 AM

Quote from: Zanza on October 08, 2021, 01:20:13 PM
The solution is political, namely establishing a true federation. That's currently not feasible though.

and may it long remain so

QuoteWhoever equates Karlsruhe to Warsaw is wildly mistaken
In the Polish, and to some extent also in the German public discourse, the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court of 5 May 2020 on the partial unconstitutionality of the ECB's PSP programme is considered to be qualitatively comparable to the ruling of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal of 7 October 2021. In this respect, the Polish judgement is merely seen as a continuation of the established case law of the Bundesverfassungsgericht. From a legal point of view, however, this is clearly false for several reasons, which will be briefly outlined here.

Effectively, the Polish ruling – unlike the German one – calls into question a cornerstone of European integration with its sweeping rejection of the primacy of European law, up to a point where there are serious doubts as to whether Poland can continue to remain part of the EU. In detail, the following differences exist:

1..In its tenor, the Polish court establishes the unconstitutionality of central primary law norms (Art. 1 and 19 TEU) and questions in principle the established primacy of European law with regard to the Polish constitution. The Federal Constitutional Court, on the other hand, in its case law consistently accepts the primacy also over the Constitution and in its ruling only classified an individual secondary legal act of an EU institution as ultra vires by way of exception.
2. By declaring primary legislation unconstitutional, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal is breaking new legal ground. This has never been done before in any Member State, especially since Article 1 TEU, a central article, is affected. Dogmatically, this is very doubtful in any case. In any case, the BVerfG's ruling was not about primary law, but about a secondary law purchase programme.
3. The Polish Constitutional Tribunal does not follow an established and limited doctrine of reservations and does not develop such a doctrine in this judgement. In any case, the judgement is notable for its lack of reasoning, especially in comparison to the BVerfG judgement. Unlike the latter, it is not about harmonising and reconciling European law in its claim to primacy with the requirements of the national constitution in a cooperative procedure. Rather, a blanket primacy of the Polish constitution is postulated (almost somewhat defiantly). There is not even an attempt to limit this constitutional primacy to certain constellations (such as national identity) and thus not to make it absolute.
4. The Polish Constitutional Tribunal's decision, unlike in the case of the Federal Constitutional Court, is not about a single act of a single EU institution. Rather, the primacy of European law is excluded comprehensively and for all areas with regard to the constitution. Contrary to public perception, this by no means only concerns the field of legal remedies. This was quite different at the BVerfG: Here it was only about the PSP programme; other, future purchase programmes were expressly not even covered.
5. Furthermore, the provisions of the Union Treaty are also classified as unconstitutional by the Polish Constitutional Tribunal to the extent that they jeopardize the Republic of Poland's functioning ,,as a sovereign and democratic state". What this is supposed to mean is completely unclear and ultimately open to the free interpretation of the Polish government. Taken literally, the Polish government can thus oppose any obligation that follows from European law. This would be nothing less than the end of the EU as a community of law. The supranational organisation would become a weak confederation of states. Once again, nothing comparable can be found in the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court.
6. The Polish Constitutional Tribunal's judgement has an effect primarily on the future and can and probably will be used against future judgements of the ECJ and other actions of the EU. This is probably also the reason why the Polish government itself applied for this ruling in the first place. The ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court, on the other hand, explicitly referred only to the ECB's PSP programme and explicitly excluded other purchase programmes. It therefore has rather an effect on the past. Now that the dispute over the proportionality of the PSP programme has been settled, it no longer has any direct effect. How the Court will decide in future rulings remains to be seen. The established reservations have been activated once; apart from that, the primacy of European law remains completely untouched, also and especially from the perspective of the BVerfG.
7. The Polish Constitutional Tribunal resists any form of alleged encroachment by the EU in general and the ECJ in particular. In contrast, the Federal Constitutional Court explicitly calls for stricter control by the ECJ and will then retreat again to its reserve role. Whatever one thinks of the BVerfG's ruling, it is in any case not directed against the institutional order of the EU, but rather wants to see it strengthened with respect to separation of powers.
8. With regard to the design of the national judicial system, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal ultimately denies any competence of the EU. This is practically untenable, since the Polish courts are part of the European judicial network and act within this framework as functional Union courts. For this reason, non-independent national courts are incompatible with the European rule of law, which is why such an organisation of a national judiciary can and must be sanctioned by the EU. This is a matter of fundamental principles, the non-existence of which would prevent EU accession. The case of the Federal Constitutional Court, on the other hand, was about very technical questions of monetary union, which ultimately do not threaten the foundation of the EU as such from the outset. In fact, the BVerfG's ruling did not even have any serious impact on the monetary union or the ECB's ability to act (as I, among others, have already predicted here).
9. The Polish Constitutional Tribunal denies national judges the established power to review the conformity of national measures with European law themselves and to disregard conflicting provisions. This is another fundamental encroachment on basic principles of the European judicial system and the community of law. Obviously, none of this can be found in the BVerfG decision.
In this context, the Polish Constitutional Court also prohibits national judges from applying superseded national law, insofar as the new superseding law should be contrary to European law. This also massively damages the legal community with effect in the future; the EU could no longer be considered a supranational organisation. There is nothing of that sort in the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court.

The bottom line is this: Regardless of what one thinks of the BVerfG ruling, the Polish ruling has a completely different quality. It shakes the foundations of European integration, massively impairs the functioning of the supranational European judicial system and, in this respect, primarily affects the future. With the blanket rejection of the primacy of European law, European integration in its previous form is no longer possible. Strictly speaking, Poland's remaining in the EU is no longer conceivable under these circumstances; the EU would be nothing more than a weak confederation of states (like the German Confederation of 1815-1866). The BVerfG's ruling, on the other hand, does not question any of the established principles, not even and especially not the primacy of European law, but merely sees the EU outside its competences in a very specific and hardly relevant field in the future. To put it differently: In one case, integration in general becomes practically impossible, while in the other case, only selective corrections are demanded without touching the basic principles. The dispute between the ECJ and the BVerfG can be resolved, the one between the Polish Constitutional Court and the EU (and the ECJ) cannot – at least not legally. Formally, this judgement still has to be published by the Polish government. Until then, it has no formal legal force. Irrespective of this, however, the political damage has already been done.

Quote from: Zanza on October 12, 2021, 12:06:11 AM
If you consider a dispute on informing about a technical decision of an EU institution somehow the same as invalidating Article 1 of the Treaty of the European Union then sure, same thing.

Quote from: Tamas on October 12, 2021, 04:03:55 AM
Even if the legal technicalities make it a more minor point (I have no idea so I won't argue that) in term of EU impact the German decision can (and possibly did) have the same level of impact as the Poland one. Germany is the engine of the EU. Integration can survive Poland opting out, heck even Italy opting out, but cannot survive Germany opting out. The German decision IMHO was at least equally if not more dangerous precedent, simply due to the sheer size and influence of Germany.

Quote from: Sheilbh on October 12, 2021, 04:25:34 AM

Quote from: Tamas on October 12, 2021, 04:03:55 AM
Even if the legal technicalities make it a more minor point (I have no idea so I won't argue that) in term of EU impact the German decision can (and possibly did) have the same level of impact as the Poland one. Germany is the engine of the EU. Integration can survive Poland opting out, heck even Italy opting out, but cannot survive Germany opting out. The German decision IMHO was at least equally if not more dangerous precedent, simply due to the sheer size and influence of Germany.

I agree - and I'd add the prestige of the German Constitutional Court is huge internationally. It's a very respected and admired court.

My point isn't that the situations or the rulings are the same. Indeed, no two legal cases ever are. The point is that the principle written about by the Constitutional Court for decades and then used by them over the ECB issue was the same principle picked up and applied by the Polish court. That's the reason that - I think posted about it - when the ECB ruling came in in 2020 lots of people said: this is unprecedented and this will be used by Poland and Hungary (see the 20-25 or so European law academics' comment I posted earlier). And I agree it came from an important country and respectable court which provided even greater cover.

Now Hungary can make a similar case and write "as the esteemed courts of Germany and Poland have already established" :lol:

But the other concern I have right now is what the EU can do about this because I've read a few pieces and basically they have financial leverage and enforcement proceedings in the CJEU etc. But that seems to be it. It was agreed that the rule of law package would be approved but suspended until the CJEU heard the Polish and Hungarian challenges to it - those challenges are only at the hearing stage now. I'm not sure how quickly the CJEU can move - I'm not sure what it's quickest turnaround is but it normally takes about six months from the hearing to get the Advocate General's opinion and the opinion of the court follows six months after that.

In terms of Withdrawsaw, I've read a couple of pieces by different EU lawyers and their view is basically that for that to happen Poland would need to use Article 50 and there's no sign they will. There's an argument that the other member states could basically use enhanced cooperation to set up a "no Homers club" within the EU. Otherwise apparently the best alternative would be for the other 26 (maybe excluding Hungary) to do Article 50 immediately and re-found an EU 2. Obviously that doesn't sound very practical but that they're reaching for that suggests there's really not really many mechanisms available to deal with it.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on October 15, 2021, 01:58:03 PM
Good on ya Holland.  Get your shit together Sweden.

Quote from: The Brain on October 17, 2021, 03:52:27 PM
Who doesn't trust the guys in Parliament?

QuoteAlex Pigman
@AlexRPigman
Germany and France have pressed upon EU council chief Charles Michel to keep rule-of-law off the agenda at the EU summit. He has (so far) acquiesced. Merkel on Friday said that careful dialogue with Warsaw should be the way and France never warms to the topic anyway.
In other words, neither of them want the LGBTI fireworks from the summit in June, where Merkel and Macron came out as dinosaurs when the summit veered into an emotional free-for-all against Viktor Orban on LGBTI rights, sparked by PM Rutte of the NL and Bettel of Lux.
Can Merkel/Macron put the genie back in the bottle? A lot will probably hang on the Polish PM's speech in Strasbourg tomorrow, and of course if Rutte and friends make rule-of-law a topic on Thursday, regardless of the agenda.

Quote from: Zanza on October 22, 2021, 09:08:55 AM
Today was Merkel's 107th and likely last EU Council. She was lauded there, but I find her record mixed.

QuoteI don't think history will be as kind to Merkel as contemporaries seem to be.

Quote from: Sheilbh on October 22, 2021, 09:36:18 AM


I also find it slightly odd that she voted against gay marriage in 2017 when it was legalised, but was still a liberal icon for many globally - I always felt it was more because of what people projected onto Merkel (and others - I think there's similar madness with RBG, with Macron, with Arden etc) rather than anything to do with her actual politics. I think I remember reading one piece in the UK that was some incredibly torturous conspiracy theory about why Merkel voted against it. It was bizarre.

QuoteI don't think history will be as kind to Merkel as contemporaries seem to be.

I think a lot of that depends on what comes next.

Quote from: Grey Fox on October 22, 2021, 09:47:45 AM
Norway really need to gets it's shit sorted.

Quote from: Jacob on October 22, 2021, 10:16:10 AM

Quote from: Grey Fox on October 22, 2021, 09:47:45 AM
Norway really need to gets it's shit sorted.

What are you referring to?

Quote from: Grey Fox on October 22, 2021, 10:26:09 AM
The previous maps, Trust in Others and Parliements. No data from Norway. As an outsider, it really seems incomplete.

Quote from: Jacob on October 22, 2021, 10:29:11 AM

Quote from: Grey Fox on October 22, 2021, 10:26:09 AM
The previous maps, Trust in Others and Parliements. No data from Norway. As an outsider, it really seems incomplete.

:lol:

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on October 22, 2021, 10:12:30 AM
Who the hell projected on Jupin besides you?  :D

Quote from: Sheilbh on October 22, 2021, 10:44:05 AM

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on October 22, 2021, 10:12:30 AM
Who the hell projected on Jupin besides you?  :D

I think there was loads of international interest/projection on Macron - which he actively encourages/encouraged. Just do a Google search in the American press in 2017. As I say same with Arden, Trudeau etc.

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on October 22, 2021, 10:56:41 AM
Jupin is less worse than Trudeau. Beyond that...

Quote from: Jacob on October 22, 2021, 11:29:01 AM
Partially this because I'm curious which things about Trudeau has travelled beyond Canada and which remain, and partially it'll help me understand a bit more about Jupin (whom I know very little about).

Quote from: Sheilbh on October 22, 2021, 09:36:18 AMI think with the Euro crisis there is a case that her and her government helped save the Euro ...

Quote from: Jacob on October 22, 2021, 11:29:01 AM

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on October 22, 2021, 10:56:41 AM
Jupin is less worse than Trudeau. Beyond that...

It always surprises me when non-Canadians have opinions on Trudeau. I can broadly guess what your objections are to him given what I know of your politics, but I'm still curious about any specifics. What are you rating him on, and how is he worse than Jupin?

Partially this because I'm curious which things about Trudeau has travelled beyond Canada and which remain, and partially it'll help me understand a bit more about Jupin (whom I know very little about).

Quote from: Zanza on October 22, 2021, 09:08:55 AM
Today was Merkel's 107th and likely last EU Council. She was lauded there, but I find her record mixed.

QuoteJessica Parker
@MarkerJParker
#CharlesMichel has been paying tribute to #AngelaMerkel at #EUCO and it's quite something

In the room he's apparently told her: "You are a monument... EUCO without Angela is like Rome without the Vatican or Paris without the Eiffel Tower."
He's described her "extreme sobriety & simplicity" as a "powerful seduction weapon"

And said she's a "compass and a shining light of our European project."

Quote from: Sheilbh on October 22, 2021, 01:57:40 PM
She really was lauded. I mean good lord man, get a grip:

QuoteJessica Parker
@MarkerJParker
#CharlesMichel has been paying tribute to #AngelaMerkel at #EUCO and it's quite something

In the room he's apparently told her: "You are a monument... EUCO without Angela is like Rome without the Vatican or Paris without the Eiffel Tower."

Quote

QuoteHe's described her "extreme sobriety & simplicity" as a "powerful seduction weapon"

Quote from: Savonarola on October 22, 2021, 02:04:40 PMEr... what?  :huh:

Quote from: Sheilbh on October 22, 2021, 02:11:15 PM

Quote from: Savonarola on October 22, 2021, 02:04:40 PMEr... what?  :huh:

I can't even imagine how uncomfortable that must have been in the room.

It reminds me of the Christopher Hitchens piece about how Thatcher was sexy and seductive - I just feel like straight men shouldn't be allowed opinions on women politicians until they can resist the temptation to talk about their "seductiveness".

Quote from: Savonarola on October 22, 2021, 02:04:40 PM
Er... what?  :huh:

Quote from: Barrister on October 22, 2021, 02:26:11 PM
I was curious and googled what you were talking about.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/margaret-thatcher-iron-lady_b_1199269

It's weird all right, but the backstory is that he was asked to answer the rather silly question "Who Are More Attractive: Left-Wing Women or Right-Wing Women?".  David Brooks took the opposite position, writing as a rightie that left-wing women are more attractive.

QuoteI did once, however, reap an enormous mailbag of the "Come off it; you must be kidding; let's get out of here" sort. This was when, in New Statesman, I discoursed a bit on what to me was obvious, viz., the sexual magnetism of Margaret Hilda Roberts, the second Mrs. Denis Thatcher, and now a full-blown baroness.

The year was 1977 or so, and she was still a very provisional Leader of the Opposition. At the New Statesman, which was then the flagship journal of the British left, it was easy to share in the prevalent view, which was that the Tories had made a historic mistake. By picking that "shrill, narrow, suburban housewife," they had surrendered the all-important middle ground of politics and set themselves up for a thorough trouncing as "extremists" and "ideologues." I had other reasons for thinking this opinion to be a mistaken one, but this article is not about my foresight. It's about my political libido.

Quote from: Sheilbh on October 22, 2021, 02:41:04 PM

Quote from: Barrister on October 22, 2021, 02:26:11 PM
I was curious and googled what you were talking about.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/margaret-thatcher-iron-lady_b_1199269

It's weird all right, but the backstory is that he was asked to answer the rather silly question "Who Are More Attractive: Left-Wing Women or Right-Wing Women?".  David Brooks took the opposite position, writing as a rightie that left-wing women are more attractive.

For that article - but it was (at least) his second article on the sexiness of Thatcher. As he writes there:

QuoteI did once, however, reap an enormous mailbag of the "Come off it; you must be kidding; let's get out of here" sort. This was when, in New Statesman, I discoursed a bit on what to me was obvious, viz., the sexual magnetism of Margaret Hilda Roberts, the second Mrs. Denis Thatcher, and now a full-blown baroness.

The year was 1977 or so, and she was still a very provisional Leader of the Opposition. At the New Statesman, which was then the flagship journal of the British left, it was easy to share in the prevalent view, which was that the Tories had made a historic mistake. By picking that "shrill, narrow, suburban housewife," they had surrendered the all-important middle ground of politics and set themselves up for a thorough trouncing as "extremists" and "ideologues." I had other reasons for thinking this opinion to be a mistaken one, but this article is not about my foresight. It's about my political libido.

I think the 77 piece (when Brooks was a teenager) about how she was "surprisingly sexy" :ph34r: :x

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on October 22, 2021, 12:47:48 PM
Mostly multiculturalism. Even Jupin does not go that far, at least openly.

QuotePoland 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".

Quote from: Grey Fox on October 26, 2021, 01:07:53 PM
Oh a to live in a place with no Americans, Brits or French.

Quote from: Grey Fox on October 26, 2021, 01:07:53 PM
Oh a to live in a place with no Americans, Brits or French.

Quote'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.

QuotePolish PM blames Vladimir Putin for Belarus border crisis
Mateusz Morawiecki says Russian president is mastermind behind flow of migrants towards EU borders
(https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b56198e497fc8f7fafb04735fd082fb00510ee9c/0_0_3072_1843/master/3072.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=b1ac7e2a65c80b7df6780bec99658a67)
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.

Quote from: Sheilbh on November 10, 2021, 08:28:07 AM
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.

Quote from: The Larch on November 10, 2021, 08:29:21 AM

Quote from: Sheilbh on November 10, 2021, 08:28:07 AM
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.

Quote from: Tyr on November 10, 2021, 09:49:32 AM
I do wonder why the puppet is going along with it though if it is all the puppet master's doing.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 10, 2021, 10:10:19 AM

Quote from: Tyr on November 10, 2021, 09:49:32 AM
I do wonder why the puppet is going along with it though if it is all the puppet master's doing.

FYP and answered the question.

Quote from: Tyr on November 10, 2021, 10:11:32 AM
Past experience shows Lushenko does hold his own with Putin.

Quote from: garbon on November 10, 2021, 09:33:41 AM
If it is so obviously manufactured, what's the potential damage to NATO/EU?

Quote from: Tamas on November 10, 2021, 10:18:33 AM
Based on past records I'd think Russia/Putin hasn't thought this through past the "will it cause trouble for rivals? Yes!" point

Quote from: Barrister on November 10, 2021, 11:42:32 AM

Quote from: Tamas on November 10, 2021, 10:18:33 AM
Based on past records I'd think Russia/Putin hasn't thought this through past the "will it cause trouble for rivals? Yes!" point

That seems to be Putin's MO.  There's no grand strategy that I've seen - causing troubles for your perceived enemies is it's own reward.

Quote from: Jacob on November 11, 2021, 11:59:57 AM
The sooner the EU stops relying on gas piped in from the East, the better.

Quote from: Jacob on November 11, 2021, 11:59:57 AM
The sooner the EU stops relying on gas piped in from the East, the better.

Quote from: Jacob on November 11, 2021, 11:59:57 AM
The sooner the EU stops relying on gas piped in from the East, the better.

Quote from: Tyr on November 10, 2021, 10:11:32 AM
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.

Quote from: Jacob on November 11, 2021, 11:59:57 AM
The sooner the EU stops relying on gas piped in from the East, the better.

Quote from: HVC on November 12, 2021, 12:20:17 PM
They need help building wall? i hear trumps available.

Quote from: The Larch on November 16, 2021, 07:42:53 AM
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.

QuotePoland 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."

Quote from: Tamas on December 07, 2021, 07:19:34 AM
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.

Quote from: Syt on December 07, 2021, 07:40:02 AM
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.

QuoteSerbia Votes 'Yes' to Judiciary Constitution Changes

Against the urgings of many opposition parties, most Serbian voters on Sunday backed proposed changes to the constitution – announced as a way towards the depoliticisation of the judiciary, which the EU has said it wishes to see.

Serbian citizens voted to change the country's constitution and accept a judicial reform package, with 60.48 per cent voters saying "Yes" to the proposals in Sunday's referendum, according to the first results on Sunday night.
(...)
Some of the most important changes in the referendum are about the way judges and prosecutors will be elected in future. Parliament will now elect only the Supreme State Prosecutor and five out of 15 Constitutional Court judges. All other judges and prosecutors will be elected by two judicial councils.

Four members of each council will be so called "prominent lawyers", chosen by parliament. Unlike now, the justice minister will be a member only of the prosecutorial council, while representatives of parliament will not be members of either council any more.

Experts said the changes were a needed step – but were not enough to guarantee that the Serbian judiciary will be independent of political influence.

Most opposition parties and some professionals urged a "No" vote in the referendum, saying that there was not enough legitimacy when parliament – with barely any opposition parties present – adopted the amendments. They insist there is still a real possibility of political influence on the judiciary.

Serbia's 2006 constitution was adopted at a time of high tension over the future of Kosovo, a former Serbian province that was then a ward of the United Nations, but pushing for independence.

The constitution affirmed Serbia's claim to Kosovo as an integral and inviolable part of its territory, despite which Kosovo declared independence in 2008 and has since been recognised by mosty EU states.

QuoteMeta Renews Warning to EU It Will Be Forced to Pull Facebook
European regulators are currently re-working data regulations
Company said exit may be option if it couldn't rely on rules

Meta Platforms Inc. has once again threatened to pull Facebook and Instagram from Europe if it is unable to keep transferring user data back to the U.S., amid negotiations between regulators to replace a scrapped privacy pact.

European Union regulators have for months been stuck in negotiations with the U.S. to replace a transatlantic data transfer pact that thousands of companies relied on, but which got struck down by the EU Court of Justice in 2020 over fears citizens' data isn't safe once shipped to the U.S.

In its annual report published Thursday, Meta said that if it couldn't rely on new or existing agreements -- such as so-called standard contractual clauses -- to shift data, then it would "likely be unable to offer a number of our most significant products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe."

Meta has already warned in its previous annual report that if it is not allowed to use standard contractual clauses, it would be "unable to operate" parts of its business in Europe, without naming its two key social media platforms.

"We have absolutely no desire and no plans to withdraw from Europe, but the simple reality is that Meta, and many other businesses, organizations and services, rely on data transfers between the EU and the US in order to operate global services," a Meta spokesman said in an emailed statement.

The latest comments highlight the increasing tension between the social media company and lawmakers over the ownership of user data. The stock suffered a 26% plunge Thursday over fears about Facebook's outlook, which produced the biggest value wipeout in stock market history. Meta shares fell as much as 4.5% in trading in New York on Monday. 

"Digital giants must understand that the European continent will resist and affirm its sovereignty," French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said in Paris on Monday.

The European Commission said data transfer negotiations with Washington have intensified, but they "take time given also the complexity of the issues discussed and the need to strike a balance between privacy and national security," a commission spokesperson wrote in a statement to Bloomberg on Monday.

"Only an arrangement that is fully compliant with the requirements set by the EU court can deliver the stability and legal certainty stakeholders expect on both sides of the Atlantic," the spokesperson added.

Intensifying Discussions

Privacy campaigner Max Schrems has long been challenging Facebook in the Irish courts -- where the social media company has its European base -- arguing that EU citizens' data is at risk the moment it gets transferred to the U.S.

In 2020, Facebook sought a judicial review of the Irish Data Protection Commission's preliminary decision that the company may have to halt trans-Atlantic data transfers using standard contractual clauses. An Irish court last year rejected the social network's challenge, saying it didn't establish "any basis" for calling into question the Irish watchdog's findings.

Data protection authorities are increasingly scrutinizing these kinds of supplementary security measures that have allowed companies to send data back and forth in the absence of a new agreement, according to Patrick Van Eecke, a partner and head of cyber and data at law firm Cooley LLP.

"I am not surprised companies outside of Europe are reconsidering whether or not it makes sense to continue offering services to the European market as there are not many options left any longer," said Van Eecke.

It is not the first time Facebook has threatened to withdraw its services. In 2020 it said it plans to block people and publishers in Australia from sharing news, in an attempt to push back against a proposed law forcing the company to pay media firms for their articles.

The company has also previously affirmed its commitment to Europe.

Nick Clegg, the company's head of global affairs, said at an event in 2020: "Let me also be absolutely crystal clear. We have absolutely no desire, no wish, no plans to withdraw our services from Europe. Why would we?"

Quote from: Sheilbh on February 07, 2022, 03:51:49 PMFacebook, WhatsApp, Insta - I think there'd be plenty of users who'd be annoyed.

QuoteThe other key bit of context on their report is that a lot of those losses, they say, are attributable to changes to the Apple OS that makes it easier to stop tracking.

Quote from: The Larch on February 07, 2022, 04:09:42 PMPersonally it'd be Whatsapp the one that would screw me over the most, but there's always Line. On a personal level, loosing FB and IG would really hurt my ability to get in touch with many international friends, but would not have a massive day-to-day impact. For lots of businesses (advertising and media) it'd be a pretty big blow, I imagine. Even small places would be affected, as lots of hole in the wall restaurants and bars basically use their FB pages as their main website.

Quotelet him, but he'll have to swallow a bit more then a 25% drop on the stockmarket if he does I guess.

QuoteCommission moves to cut Polish funds over unpaid coal mine fine
Warsaw says it will use 'all possible measures' not to pay.

The European Commission has launched an unprecedented procedure to reduce budget payments for Poland over an unpaid court fine.

The budget cut, which is expected to amount to approximately €15 million, comes after Polish authorities didn't pay a €500,000 daily fine over failure to comply with an order from the Court of Justice of the EU in a dispute with the Czech Republic over the Turów open pit coal mine.

While Warsaw struck a deal with Prague last week to settle the Turów dispute, the Commission said it was still legally obligated to act on Warsaw's unpaid fines. Poland owes a total of more than €68 million.

"The Commission has informed Poland that it would proceed with the offsetting of payments for penalties due," a spokesperson for the Commission confirmed on Tuesday, adding: "The Commission will proceed with the offsetting after 10 working days from this notification."

The move comes at a sensitive moment for Warsaw's troubled relationship with Brussels.

Some Polish officials, including President Andrzej Duda, have sought to de-escalate tensions over rule-of-law problems. But the country has yet to concretely address Brussels' concerns over the independence of its judiciary, and a separate daily fine of €1 million over an illegal disciplinary regime for judges remains unpaid.

The current offsetting process in the Turów case covers penalties imposed from September 20 until October 19, the spokesperson said.

"When performing offsetting, the Commission fulfils its legal obligation to collect financial penalties imposed by the Court in accordance with its order of 20 September 2021. In this regard, the Commission follows the rules set out in the Financial Regulation, in the absence of payment by the Member State," the spokesperson added.

The Polish government, however, criticized the Commission's decision.

"Poland will use all possible legal measures to appeal against the plans of the European Commission, the more so that an agreement has been reached between the governments of Poland and the Czech Republic," government spokesperson Piotr Müller told the Polish Press Agency.

"This is particularly important in the context of the current geopolitical threats from Russia. From the very beginning, Poland emphasized that the decisions taken by the [Court of Justice] had no legal or factual basis. They go beyond the EU treaties and violate the treaty guarantees of energy security," Müller said, adding: "We want to emphasize that the smooth implementation of projects from EU funds is not threatened."

QuoteThe Berlin elite's Ukraine dilemma
After promising a sea-change in German foreign policy ⁠— a Zeitenwende ⁠— Olaf Scholz is reverting to type.
By Tyson Barker

BERLIN – Recently the Berliner Ensemble has been staging a revival of the Bertolt Brecht-Kurt Weill classic, Threepenny Opera, at the theatre in the German capital where it first appeared in 1928. The musical play is known for the ominous line: "Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral." The line, roughly translated as "first comes the devouring, then come the virtues", captures a truism of human nature: that often animalistic desires precede morality in the hierarchy of needs. The interests of Germany's most adroit political animals lie in political survival, relevance and power, which often flow from party loyalty and fealty to the status quo, so the play is a fitting one in Berlin, Europe's most important political capital.

In many ways, the present moment is best clarified by the controversy around Kyiv's decision not to accept an offer by the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, to visit Ukraine. Although the reasons for the decision are unclear, discontent in Berlin is less about the man or the presidency as a symbol of German democracy than the perceived attack on a political system, of which Steinmeier is the best example: the kind of party man that many in Berlin's political elite aspire to be, somebody who can survive it all and have it all. Call it the Steinmeier system.

Kyiv also struck a nerve. Germany's commitment to Ukraine has been softening and there are growing questions around the speech by Olaf Scholz, the chancellor, on 27 February proclaiming a Zeitenwende — a taboo-busting sea change in German foreign policy that set it on the path to an emergency military modernisation, defence spending, energy independence from Russia, lethal assistance for Ukraine and EU financing for weaponry. In fact, in a press conference on 19 April, Scholz decelerated Germany's provision of heavy weapons to Ukraine and cast a cloud of doubt over the Zeitenwende and its spirit.

The Steinmeier controversy is the perfect prism through which to understand Berlin's shifting posture toward Russia's war on Ukraine. Steinmeier is a totemic figure in German politics but he is, first and foremost, a party man — forged in a 30-year career in the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Steinmeier is affable, hard-working and effective, but also anodyne, ferociously loyal and morally malleable.

He is part of the so-called Hanover Mafia of protégés of the former chancellor Gerhard Schröder. He was first the director of Schröder's personal office in Lower Saxony in 1993, before accompanying him to Berlin where he would eventually become Schröder's chief of staff and then Germany's foreign minister in the first Merkel grand coalition. As such, Steinmeier criticised European missile defence and US nuclear posture as designed to give Nato first-strike capabilities against Russia. During the Merkel era he was perceived as the balancing force in German politics — an opposition leader for a party that was, in fact, part of the government. Steinmeier, like Angela Merkel but more so, embodies a consensus-based political culture with a demobilised base of voters largely satisfied with the status quo and a business elite invested in preserving Germany's privileged access to markets in authoritarian states.

During the 2014-2015 Ukraine crisis and the Russian annexation of Crimea, when he was once again foreign minister, Steinmeier played a broker role seeking to de-escalate tensions, dutifully enforcing the Euro-Atlantic consensus on sanctions and strengthening Nato in central Europe, while also keeping the door open for "change through trade" ("Wandel Durch Handel") as Germany and Russia deepened their energy relationship at the expense of Ukraine.

In February 2015 Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine drew up the second of the two Minsk agreements intended to put an end to the fighting in eastern Ukraine. It required both sides to withdraw heavy equipment from the Donbas, cauterise the Ukrainian border and ultimately set up elections to enable potential constitutional reform that could give Russian-controlled areas more autonomy within Ukraine. Within months, a consortium of companies backed by Russia and Germany signed the Nord Stream 2 (NS2) agreement.

In 2016 Steinmeier was also the architect of the so-called Steinmeier Formula. This would have allowed for elections in the Donbas under the supervision of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, but blurred the sequencing on whether elections in eastern Ukraine should be held before or after the withdrawal of Russian forces. If elections took place before the departure of Russian troops, it would have given Moscow preponderant control over their outcome, a fact clear to Kyiv, Washington and Brussels at the time. In one brisk moment, Russia's February 24 invasion of Ukraine smashed Minsk II, the Steinmeier Formula and NS2, and with them the notion of Wandel Durch Handel.

The SPD is still coming to terms with the limits of Wandel Durch Handel. More than a foreign policy, it was a moral worldview the Social Democrats had invested in for decades. It allowed them to both "do good" (transforming the lives of citizens behind the veil of authoritarianism, perhaps even the system itself) and to "do well" (making money hand over fist for Germany Inc, which became the world's largest exporter with a 7 per cent GDP current account surplus). In many ways, the moral awakening is similar to what Silicon Valley underwent in the past decade as the 2012 sheen of techno-utopianism gave way to a reality of democracy-destroying disinformation, surveillance capitalism and a new class of unaccountable American oligarchs. Steinmeier himself has half-heartedly acknowledged past mistakes in the pursuit of Russo-German ties — including NS2 gas diplomacy — which discounted the security interests of Germany's central European allies and Russia's slide into authoritarianism.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine could have opened the debate about whether or not Steinmeier has the standing to represent the moral centre of Germany. It has not. Instead, the perceived attack on Steinmeier led not only to a rally around the man and the Schröder-Merkel system of geo-economic realism he represents, but it also opened up a window for the proponents of something closer to the status quo ante in how Berlin governs.

Rather than eliciting an outpouring of self-reflection, the perceived snub generated a fierce backlash against Ukraine across the political spectrum. Scholz called Kyiv's decision "irksome". Attacks on Ukraine's ambassador to Berlin have been particularly relentless. Florian Post, a former SPD Bundestag member, tweeted: "Not a day goes by that it doesn't occur to the Ukrainian ambassador what types of weapons Germany could provide to Ukraine. I would recommend that he expand — and limit — his vocabulary to the following two words: "PLEASE and THANK YOU..."

It was not limited to the party of Steinmeier and Scholz. The Russo-curious Green politician Jürgen Trittin inexplicably called it a "propaganda victory for Vladimir Putin", before condescendingly stating that "we expect that Ukraine will win it back". Wolfgang Kubicki, deputy chairman of the Free Democratic Party and Russlandversteher, haughtily stated that sympathy with Ukraine's leadership "has its limits". Numerous others piled on.

The backlash is emblematic of several shifts in Germany's political posture. Aside from allowing Germany's most ardent Russia-sympathisers to re-enter the political debate, it precipitated a snap back to a default position of delayed action to support Ukraine — at times couched in terms of serving "European interests".

This is particularly important when compared with Germany's key European ally, France. Whereas France often uses "Europe" as a kind of Ironman suit, Germany uses "Europe" as a kind of cloaking device. France speaks about Europe as a means of power projection for French national interests on the global stage. In contrast, Germany disguises some of its most egregious pursuits of "Germany First" policies as being in the European interest — primarily aimed at pacifying German domestic public opinion. This is how German politicians sold NS2 as a "European initiative" even as Ukraine, the European Commission and central Europe passionately argued against it. It was also the case for the Comprehensive Investment Agreement with China, the capstone of Germany's 2020 EU presidency. The same is true for the morally dubious 2016 EU-Turkey deal to stem the flow of Syrian refugees, which was largely foisted on Brussels by Berlin.

And it is for this reason that Scholz regularly warns that Germany would not act unilaterally but in co-ordination with European allies and the United States when considering any delivery of heavy weapons to Ukraine. On 13 April, when pressed on this spurious line with the fact that the Czech Republic had announced it would send tanks, Slovakia S-300 long-range missile systems, and the UK, Poland and the US heavy artillery, Scholz dismissed such provisions as essentially faulty equipment that Nato allies did not want. In fact, Ukrainian troops are familiar with this equipment. The German government has since announced that it will provide an additional €2 billion to finance the Ukrainian military. However, the Scholz government continues to delay decisions on providing the tanks, anti-ship missiles, long-range artillery and helicopters the Ukrainian government has requested. Scholz repeated the false narrative that Germany would not "go it alone" without Europe in his 19 April press conference.

The Wende 

Deferred action has long been the default political setting for Germany. In contrast, French politics is full of policy entrepreneurship, big ideas and grand visions. Limits are mostly imposed by the parameters of its capacities as a middling power and the French street, which works as an important brake. German politics is the opposite. Plodding and iterative, Germany has preferred to ride the brakes. In fact, Helmut Schmidt, the chain-smoking, Diet Coke-drinking former Hamburg mayor turned Social Democratic chancellor (and model for Olaf Scholz), famously said that people who have visions should get their eyes checked. Merkel was cut from the same cloth. Over the course of her 16-year chancellery, Merkel cultivated an image as a cautious Mutti, a steady hand who approached problems "schritt für schritt" (step by step).

There is a particular moment in which a brand of strong German executive leadership can punctuate the country's political equilibrium to ram through a transformative policy. Like a sword of Excalibur, the Wende is the German moment in which a strong executive wields the power of the state. It has happened at pivotal points in recent German history: the Covid-recovery EU fund that Europeanised stimulus (2020); Merkel's decision to let in more than a million Syrian and Iraqi refugees (2015); the post-Fukushima Energiewende that led to the decision to phase out nuclear energy (2011) and even the original Wende, the "Wende of all Wenden", German reunification (1989-90).

In each of these, Germany's Wendepolitik followed five basic precepts. First, it is always triggered by seismic external events rather than an ideological or political agenda. Second, it displays a bias towards action in the immediate aftermath. Third, it takes advantage of a fleeting moment in German public opinion before the riptide of public opinion knocks out. Fourth, the response is sweeping, reactive and not subject to the astringent effects of democratic debate. Finally, it mobilises the entire German political establishment to build up a strategic justification ex post facto. In the past, Wendepolitik has tended to stick.

The Zeitenwende has seemed to fit these precepts. It is closing the door to Nord Stream 2; laying the timetable for diversification away from Russian coal (now set for August), oil (now set for the end of the year) and gas (now set for 2024); implementing comprehensive changes to the German military; opening the door to support for Ukraine, a democratic European nation under siege by a dictatorial aggressor; and elevating Germany's security responsibility in Nato, the EU and Europe.

But as mentioned, it is softening. The Zeitenwende numbers do not exactly run. At €50.1 billion, the 2022 budget request keeps defence spending essentially flat as a proportion of GDP. If the €100 billion special purpose appropriation is meant to bridge the difference, it will be exhausted by 2025, the moment in the political cycle when Germany will be headed into federal elections. February's promises are inconsistent with absorption capacity issues, unanswered questions about long-term planning, a sclerotic procurement bureaucracy and even sticking points around taxation. A big point in its durability will be anchoring defence spending of 2 per cent of GDP — the target for Nato countries — in the German constitution.

Now the political basis for the Zeitenwende seems to be weakening as well. Scholz is losing both the moral high ground and cohesion within his coalition — particularly with the Greens — as he seeks to shore up his Social Democrats and the political system that has kept them in power (at times as the senior, at times the junior coalition partner) for 20 of the past 24 years. Perhaps, in his wavering, Scholz hears the dictum of Homo Berlinicus, a political twist to Bertolt Brecht's famous words: Erst kommt die Partei — und der Status Quo — dann kommt die Moral.

Quote from: Sheilbh on February 07, 2022, 03:51:49 PMIt is very arrogant though and assumes that there wouldn't be a replacement developed in Europe's tech scheme.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 24, 2022, 07:38:28 AMIt's only arrogant if you think they're bluffing.  The possibility does exist that Europe is no longer profitable for them.

QuoteEmmanuel Macron has called for a new political organisation to unite democracies on the European continent, as he warned that Ukraine would probably not join the EU for several decades.

Speaking two days after being sworn in for a second term as French president, Macron called for big thinking on the future of Europe, saying the war in Ukraine showed the need for a "historic process of reflection".

He proposed "a European political community ... a new European organisation [that] would enable democratic European nations who adhere to our values to find a new space for political cooperation", listing security, energy, transport, infrastructure investment and movement across borders, especially for young people, as issues that body would tackle.

Being part of this organisation would not exclude a country from joining the EU, and the organisation could include "those who have left" the bloc, he said.

Macron's intervention comes as EU states clash on how quickly to move forward with Kyiv's membership application. The question is likely to reach a crunch point in June, when EU leaders decide whether to grant Ukraine candidate status, a procedural step that normally takes years to attain.

Macron suggested he favoured a quick decision on candidate status, while dampening Kyiv's hopes of a speedy entry into the EU. The awarding of candidate status is followed by talks on accession and a process of reform so that a country meets the EU's political, economic and legal criteria.

"Even if we were to give it the status of candidate country tomorrow – I hope we move forward towards accession rapidly – even if we were to do that, we all know only too well the process for accession would take several years; in truth, it would probably take several decades. And that is the truth unless we decide to lower the standards for accession and rethink the unity of our Europe, and also partially the principles that we hold," he said.

"The European Union, given its level of integration and ambition, cannot be the only way to structure the European continent in the short term."

Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, is championing a speedy processing of Ukraine's membership application, backed by central and eastern European states. Western European members, however, are wary about allowing Ukraine to proceed quickly, fearing Kyiv would not have time to complete vital political reforms, while the process would stoke tensions with six western Balkan countries that have been stuck in the EU membership queue for years.

Von der Leyen said Ukraine had submitted a 5,000-page document to Brussels answering questions on its suitability to join the bloc, and in remarks aimed at Ukrainians at an event in the European parliament to celebrate Europe Day, she said: "The future of Europe is also your future."

Macron also set out goals for the war, saying Europe had "to do everything to ensure that Ukraine will survive, Russia will never win, preserve peace on the rest of the continent of Europe and avoid any escalation".

Only Ukraine could decide on negotiating conditions with Russia, he said. And he warned against a punitive settlement on Russia when the war is over. "When peace returns to European soil, we will have to build new security balances and together we must never give into the temptation ... or the desire for revenge, because we know how much that has ravished the road to peace in the past."

The two leaders were speaking at a special session of the European parliament in Strasbourg, where they marked the end of an 11-month citizens' juries project, the Conference on the Future of Europe. At the closing ceremony, EU leaders, citizens and MEPs listened to the EU anthem and watched an interpretative dance routine performed in the aisles of the parliament's debating chamber.

Both leaders contrasted the event with the Victory Day commemorations in Moscow. Referring to a woman who appeared with her baby at the Strasbourg ceremony, Von der Leyen said she wanted to celebrate this image on 9 May, "an image far more powerful than any military parade going up and down the streets of Moscow".

Quote from: Zoupa on May 09, 2022, 06:51:10 PMI hated that speech. Found it tone-deaf and full of of weird ideas.

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on May 10, 2022, 11:44:41 AMA French president speaking out of turn and trying to run Europe/EU as if it was a french colony.
Some things never change.

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on May 21, 2022, 01:54:03 PMThat's because the French can't conceive of the EU as anything but a vehicle for french grandeur. They still think there's this god-given right for france to rule and dominate Europe.

Quote from: Zanza on May 21, 2022, 01:58:16 PMFor once, I share a view with Crazy Ivan. Is there any EU country other than France seriously interested in strategic autonomy, especially on the military side? I guess more countries are interested in localization of supply chains and national or European champions. But besides that? Might change if a new Trump is elected...

QuoteAnyway, I wonder if these charts count the same things. The last US package included replenishment of American stock. Or equipment for NATO partners that does not directly go to Ukraine. Is similar spending included in the figures for other countries?

Quote from: Jacob on May 21, 2022, 11:30:34 PMA few different thoughts on the current conversation re: France, the EU, Germany etc.

1) I have heard it claimed that both Scholz and Macron are co-ordinating their Putin conversations with Zelenskyy. I have seen no evidence of this, but I will note that Zelenskyy is not shy about calling out perceived shortcomings in his European allies, and IIRC he hasn't complained about the calls.

Quote"We must not look for a way out for Russia, and Macron is doing it in vain," Zelensky told Italian television Rai 1, according to the Ukrainian president's Telegram channel.

"I know he wanted to get results from mediation between Russia and Ukraine, but he didn't get any," Zelensky said.

[...]

Zelensky said that "some European leaders think we need to find a way of talking with Putin".

"We have been looking for them for years. And today, these routes are littered with bodies, bodies of our people," the Ukrainian leader added.

Zelensky however repeated his offer to speak with Putin directly but described talks with Russian as "no longer possible".

"Today, the stage when we could sit down with Russia has passed."

Quote3) You're right Yi, and good on you. I think when it comes to as ratio of GDP you may have competition, but in absolute terms no one else is near. I think the US will reap soft power (and thus economic) benefits from this for a long time to come.

QuoteThe Italians are also wildly wrong. I don't expect anything from Germany so I'm not surprised.

QuoteBut this "off-ramp" BS from Macron is baffling. In the end it doesn't matter for Ukraine, as they're the ones who'll decide how best to end this war, but this is a GOLDEN opportunity for France to achieve huge, transformative changes in line with what we've always wanted for the EU, and Macron is fumbling continuously. Thoroughly disappointed.

Quote from: Zoupa on May 22, 2022, 04:47:00 PMYes but why say it now? Just shut up about it, and play up the hopes of Ukrainians. They're fighting for survival.

Quote from: Zoupa on May 22, 2022, 04:47:00 PMYes but why say it now? Just shut up about it, and play up the hopes of Ukrainians. They're fighting for survival.

Quote from: Josquius on May 23, 2022, 02:34:12 AM

Quote from: Zoupa on May 22, 2022, 04:47:00 PMYes but why say it now? Just shut up about it, and play up the hopes of Ukrainians. They're fighting for survival.

As soon as the talk of EU joining started up at the start of the invasion wasn't it said they would have to meet the criteria and there's no reward for fighting Russia and the like?
Within 2 decades you'll be part of the EU sounds quite good to me.

Quote from: Sheilbh on May 23, 2022, 03:27:42 AMIn a symbolic level I think Macron - a profoundly European politician - should be positioning France as Ukraine's champion (while practically knowing other countries have a veto and will slow it down). But again I think there's a large dependency of traditional French policy - he vetoed North Macedonia, France is always wary of expansion as it reduces French influence (which could be changed by engaging as equals with new members) and he seems trapped on that approach.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on May 23, 2022, 08:57:03 AM

Quote from: Sheilbh on May 23, 2022, 03:27:42 AMIn a symbolic level I think Macron - a profoundly European politician - should be positioning France as Ukraine's champion (while practically knowing other countries have a veto and will slow it down). But again I think there's a large dependency of traditional French policy - he vetoed North Macedonia, France is always wary of expansion as it reduces French influence (which could be changed by engaging as equals with new members) and he seems trapped on that approach.

In the specific case of Ukraine, I believe that France is justifiably wary that Ukraine - a relatively largish country in the EU membership context - inevitably will be drawn into the German orbit of influence, thus upsetting from France's POV the balance of power within the EU.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on May 23, 2022, 08:57:03 AMIn the specific case of Ukraine, I believe that France is justifiably wary that Ukraine - a relatively largish country in the EU membership context - inevitably will be drawn into the German orbit of influence, thus upsetting from France's POV the balance of power within the EU.

QuoteYeah, a country of the size of Ukraine would be a significant voting bloc inside the EU. I suspect France is wary of the balance of power inside the EU tilting too much towards the East.

Quote from: Threviel on May 23, 2022, 08:56:09 AMYeah, but the 2004 enlargement was problematic. Perhaps more time should have been spent fighting corruption and establishing stable rule of law and democracy in a few of those countries, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria in particular.

Lesson learned, let's not forget that Ukraine is extremely corrupt, far more than what the 2004 group were.

Quote from: Maladict on May 23, 2022, 11:30:50 AM

Quote from: Threviel on May 23, 2022, 08:56:09 AMYeah, but the 2004 enlargement was problematic. Perhaps more time should have been spent fighting corruption and establishing stable rule of law and democracy in a few of those countries, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria in particular.

Lesson learned, let's not forget that Ukraine is extremely corrupt, far more than what the 2004 group were.

Romania and Bulgaria didn't join in 2004. Overall I think the 2004 expansion was a net positive development for the EU.

Quote from: Maladict on May 23, 2022, 11:30:50 AM

Quote from: Threviel on May 23, 2022, 08:56:09 AMYeah, but the 2004 enlargement was problematic. Perhaps more time should have been spent fighting corruption and establishing stable rule of law and democracy in a few of those countries, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria in particular.

Lesson learned, let's not forget that Ukraine is extremely corrupt, far more than what the 2004 group were.

Romania and Bulgaria didn't join in 2004. Overall I think the 2004 expansion was a net positive development for the EU.

QuoteDaniele Albertazzi
@DrAlbertazziUK
.@EnricoLetta must be commended for having done more to define the identity of the PD in a few months than all of his predessors put together. In short, the debate about whether the PD is a Social-Democratic party is now truly behind us.
With an eye to liberals abroad (the Italian centre-left MUST find inspiration elsewhere) we could say that the party now resembles the UK's Lib-Dems, & is happy to try and please constituencies that are already lending it their vote.
100% pro-US & pro-EU, theoretically in favour of gender equality (more work to be done in practice, of course), coherent on individual rights. It does not - & will not - try to "think big" on issues that it has contributed to create throughout the years: precarity, "flexibility"
... the erosion of rights in the workplace. It will not position itself as a socio-democratic party because it isn't one.

In time, people will digest this & get used to it. But them - at least - they will be able to pass judgement & decide whether they like this or not.
Given that Conte's M5S has also (strangely) dropped whatever left wing features it may have had for a while, & wants to occupy same space as PD (and others), this creates an opportunity for a party on the left of the PD (don't call it "radical left", please, unless it is such...)
Of course this has been tried before, & egos, rivalries & the sheer fun of engaging in civil war have always prevailed. I am not predicting this time it will be different. I am only saying that, in my view, Letta has helped clarify the situation.
It is now apparent that, with more economic hardship, squeezing of pensions & climate-induced inequalities on the horizon, the opportunity is definetely there.

Quote from: HVC on May 24, 2022, 11:17:52 AMStill don't understand how the EU was created without a way to expel members.

Quote from: The Larch on June 01, 2022, 01:56:22 PMCroatia to join the Euro next year.

Quote from: HVC on May 24, 2022, 11:17:52 AMStill don't understand how the EU was created without a way to expel members.

Quote from: alfred russel on June 03, 2022, 03:17:49 PMIt is sad that Turkey spends so much food when it is named after poultry.

Quote from: The Larch on June 23, 2022, 04:18:27 PMUkraine and Moldova have been given official EU candidate status.

Quote from: The Larch on June 23, 2022, 04:18:27 PMUkraine and Moldova have been given official EU candidate status.

Quote from: Sheilbh on June 23, 2022, 04:26:47 PMAnd apparently Macron's going to explain his "European Political Community" concept tonight - it'll be interesting to see reactions.

Quote from: The Larch on June 23, 2022, 04:18:27 PMUkraine and Moldova have been given official EU candidate status.

Quotelaurence norman
@laurnorman
Macron has just said at the press conference right after Ukraine given candidate status that 1) NATO has said no to Ukraine. and that 2) over time, opening EU accession process to Ukraine is not the right geopolitical response.   These are both highly problematic.
To put in context, his argument was that his political community structure is the right geopolitical response. OK, leaders will discuss that tonight. But that is NOT the NATO position. And it seems extraordinary to diss Ukraine's EU accession prospects minutes after agreeing it.
This is my translation from French. Others may have better version. But was asked by @markuspreiss about his comment 3 years ago that the only response EU had to non-members' predicament was to invite it to become a member, knowing you wouldn't have to deal with consequences...
As part of a long answer, he said, "So therefore, the geopolitical response in the context of the war is indeed to continue to give this perspective. Is it that over time, I think it's the right geopolitical perspective? I tell you frankly, as I did three years ago. No."...
"Because it will take time and because we see a phenomenon of some sort of fatigue of enlargement among the countries that have joined." Again, he's not saying Ukraine will never join or they'll stop the process. And he's pitching a broader argument to have another construct...
ie his European political community idea. But it's still a remarkable thing to say minutes after offering Ukraine candidate status. And it will do nothing to prevent Russia and its social media mob saying this is an unserious process and Ukraine will never join.
Very open to hearing if people think this is a misinterpretation of @EmmanuelMacron comments. I have now listened back several times.
And sorry to harp on this but I see lots of stereotypical tweeting on this. Macron did not say he was opposed to offering candidate status. He said that was the right response now in context of war and without alternative. But not the right "geopolitical" response over time.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 23, 2022, 06:02:59 PMMoldava is a pretty dodgy place AFAIK, even by Balkan standards.

QuoteEU to open accession talks with Albania, North Macedonia
The European Union's 27 members have agreed to open accession negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia. The two countries have long criticized the slow progress on their EU membership bids.

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, whose country currently holds the European Union's rotating presidency, said on Monday that the bloc's members had agreed to open accession talks with Albania and North Macedonia.

EU accession negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania have been pending since 2020.

The process to to become an EU member state is a long one. But since Russia invaded Ukraine, the strategic importance of the Western Balkans to the EU has increased.

Monday's announcement also came after North Macedonia resolved a long dispute with its EU neighbor Bulgaria, which had been blocking the start of the accession talks with Skopje.

EU countries have "just agreed to open accession talks with Albania and North Macedonia!" Fiala wrote on Twitter. "We have taken another important step towards bringing the Western Balkans closer to the EU," he added.

Albania and North Macedonia's leaders will meet with Fiala on Tuesday in Brussels "to discuss the next steps on their path to the EU," he said.

Quote from: Sheilbh on June 01, 2022, 04:20:09 PMNoted by Luka Ivan Jukic on Twitter - Croatia's now been promoted from a Balkan country :lol:

Quote from: Valmy on July 19, 2022, 05:59:56 PM

Quote from: Sheilbh on June 01, 2022, 04:20:09 PMNoted by Luka Ivan Jukic on Twitter - Croatia's now been promoted from a Balkan country :lol:

Just goes to show they always belonged in a union with Austria, none of this Serbia or Hungary shit.

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on July 20, 2022, 12:09:55 PM

Quote from: Valmy on July 19, 2022, 05:59:56 PM

Quote from: Sheilbh on June 01, 2022, 04:20:09 PMNoted by Luka Ivan Jukic on Twitter - Croatia's now been promoted from a Balkan country :lol:

Just goes to show they always belonged in a union with Austria, none of this Serbia or Hungary shit.

They were part of Austria as land of the crown of Saint-Stephen, with a limited autonomy from, guess whom, Hungary.  :P
You may be mixing up with Slovenia.

Quote from: Valmy on July 20, 2022, 09:00:57 PM

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on July 20, 2022, 12:09:55 PM

Quote from: Valmy on July 19, 2022, 05:59:56 PM

Quote from: Sheilbh on June 01, 2022, 04:20:09 PMNoted by Luka Ivan Jukic on Twitter - Croatia's now been promoted from a Balkan country :lol:

Just goes to show they always belonged in a union with Austria, none of this Serbia or Hungary shit.

They were part of Austria as land of the crown of Saint-Stephen, with a limited autonomy from, guess whom, Hungary.  :P
You may be mixing up with Slovenia.

What? I am well aware they were part of the Kingdom of Hungary, the fact that they were part of Hungary was what I was referring to. Why do you think I mentioned Serbia AND Hungary if I was not aware of that? But they were often played off against the Hungarians by the Austrians.

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on July 21, 2022, 02:28:46 PMIt was not too clear. You almost made it sound Hungary was part of the Balkans.  :P
But then Habsburg Austria also included Serbia for a short time (had they successfully defended it from the Ottomans things might have been different).
Maybe let Hungary have another go at Serbia, not just Voivodina + Belgrade.  :D

Quote from: Tamas on July 21, 2022, 03:41:55 PMIt was Hungary which controlled (parts) of Serbia and for a while they DID defend it from the Turks. :P 1456, remember! In Hungary we were told since that successful siege defense the whole world is ringing church bells at noon every day, because of the Papal order at the time to do so (whereas, I am fairly sure, its only us who have been doing that for the past 500 years :P )

Quote from: Zanza on July 23, 2022, 03:47:35 AMWhat should we take responsibility for with what concrete measures?

What bill comes due?

Quote from: Zoupa on July 23, 2022, 04:38:31 AMFor being so completely besotted with cheap gas from a mass murderer?

For spending next to nothing on your military?

You're gonna be hard pressed to find accommodating European partners. No one feels sorry for Germany.

Quote from: Zanza on July 23, 2022, 05:18:11 AMOk, so nothing in particular. 

Quote from: Sheilbh on July 23, 2022, 12:16:29 PMAnd there will be understandable frustration and pushback from countries who, last time needed help to ensure cohesion etc, were lectured about not doing their homework and failing to live within their means.

Quote from: Zanza on July 23, 2022, 10:04:13 AMWhat gives you the impression that Germany had any particular strategy regarding China, Russia, the US or even the EU? A strategy to me is something you actively pursue, whereas Germany just tried to benefit from a cozy status quo without any particular strategic goals.

Quote from: Zoupa on July 23, 2022, 11:58:55 AM

Quote from: Zanza on July 23, 2022, 05:18:11 AMOk, so nothing in particular. 

Do you agree with Habeck that other Europeans should subsidize Germany's gas consumption?

Quote from: Sheilbh on July 23, 2022, 12:16:29 PMAnd there will be understandable frustration and pushback from countries who, last time needed help to ensure cohesion etc, were lectured about not doing their homework and failing to live within their means.

Quote from: Zoupa on July 23, 2022, 11:58:55 AM

Quote from: Zanza on July 23, 2022, 05:18:11 AMOk, so nothing in particular. 

Do you agree with Habeck that other Europeans should subsidize Germany's gas consumption?

Quote from: Sheilbh on July 23, 2022, 12:16:29 PMAnd there will be understandable frustration and pushback from countries who, last time needed help to ensure cohesion etc, were lectured about not doing their homework and failing to live within their means.

Quote from: Zoupa on July 23, 2022, 02:23:05 PMThe condescension certainly doesn't help your case, fyi.

Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on July 23, 2022, 01:25:45 PM

Quote from: Zanza on July 23, 2022, 10:04:13 AMWhat gives you the impression that Germany had any particular strategy regarding China, Russia, the US or even the EU? A strategy to me is something you actively pursue, whereas Germany just tried to benefit from a cozy status quo without any particular strategic goals.

The Economist had a good article this week about something I had long observed in my experiences in Germany and dealing with Germans on a number of issues, but had never quite been able to put into words. The way the Economist puts it--Germans have been living in a dream, and embracing fantasies.

That in and of itself isn't too shocking--most people around the world do exactly this thing, I think it just conflicts with more widespread stereotypes the West holds about Germany and Germans. When we think of Germans we think of engineers and pragmatists, people who would rather save for five weeks to buy something than buy it today on cheap credit. But on energy policy and Russia policy it is more like Germans have been living in the sort of fairy tale world of German fantasy tales of the past.

The concerted decision to "go big on Russia" involved multiple layers of delusion to be justifiable, particularly into the late 2010s and even 2020s (remember Nordstream 2 was still being vociferously defended until this very year.) Even worse though is the concerted decision--largely driven by people who believe in things that are not real, in the Green Party, to shrink other sources of energy.

Germany has around 800bcm of natural gas never exploited, and likely could quadruple or more domestic natural gas production with hydraulic fracturing. Instead, fairy tales (sometimes even promoted by Putin) deeply held by the Greens that fracking is the end of the world and causes cancer, radiation sickness, poisoned water etc etc were uncritically accepted and fracking was banned. Note that the technology had been used on a limited scale in Germany since the 1950s with no major environmental or health disasters of any kind.

After the Fukushima disaster, Germany decided to shutter all of its nuclear power plants--including three reactors to be shuttered soon that the Greens still are fairly insistent on shutting down. This was again, built upon fairy tale fears that are out of step with scientific and practical reality. Even worse, if you are concerned about the environment, much of the nuclear power production in Germany was replaced with biofuel and coal, which are unambiguously worse for the environment.

A segment of Germany's population wanted a fantasy land--one where they would have wide access to cheap energy, that bore no environmental costs because environmental harm occurring in Russia obviously aren't real in the minds of a German Green. Vladimir Putin, and Merkel were very happy to satisfy this fantasy.

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on July 23, 2022, 02:05:29 PMSpain and Portugal are not linked to the Eurasian European gas pipelines (several projects to link them were cancelled as mentioned by Sheilbh) so Germany can pretty much forget it regarding Iberia.
They also have their LNG-ready ports, in Vasco da Gama's city for instance.

Quote from: Zanza on July 23, 2022, 02:18:44 PMWe will not do neither of these things because we want to contribute to the common European cause of sanctioning Russia and moving towards becoming independent of them. But on the way there, as the decision to reduce Russian gas import was a shared decision, there should also be a common European policy towards alleviating the scarcity. Regardless of prior German (and Central European policies) that led to the dependency in the first place.

Quote from: Zanza on July 23, 2022, 02:31:55 PMThe article was posted here on the forum and is generally a sensible description.

But your editorializing that all of that is somehow to be blamed on the Greens does at least not fit my perception of what happened. 

The Conservatives ruled Germany 32 of the last 40 years. They decided - together with the Social Democrats - on foreign and energy policy. The Greens were in opposition. That said, public consensus has been against nuclear power for decades, originally driven by Greens, bit long adopted into the mainstream. Whereas gas was so far seen fairly neutral, except fracking, which was banned by the last conservative government (without any Greens involved). Not sure where this perception of German Greens comes from. They are by far the most hawkish party on Russia and China and have long criticized our dependency on fossil fuels and pushed for more renewables (which were massively harmed in the same year as the nuclear phase out after Fukushime - a double whammy by the Conservative-Liberal government of the day).

Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on July 23, 2022, 02:33:56 PMI don't really think Germany could even just snatch up gas that happens to be transiting the country bound for other locations. Those flows are usually based on legally binding, long-term contracts signed by various multinational corporations. I would be shocked if a modern OECD country like Germany can even within its own laws, just legally steal a bunch of gas that under the contractual laws of the country itself do not belong to the State. At least not without some sort of special legislation or something--and it would undermine confidence in the entire German legal and business system for a generation.

Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on July 23, 2022, 02:33:56 PM

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on July 23, 2022, 02:05:29 PMSpain and Portugal are not linked to the Eurasian European gas pipelines (several projects to link them were cancelled as mentioned by Sheilbh) so Germany can pretty much forget it regarding Iberia.
They also have their LNG-ready ports, in Vasco da Gama's city for instance.

The articles I was seeing suggested Spain would more likely be able to divert some gas to Italy, with which I believe it has transit links, as Italy is also in a bad way right now due to Russian supply issues.

Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on July 23, 2022, 01:25:45 PMThe Economist had a good article this week

Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on July 23, 2022, 02:39:04 PMI mean the Greens were heavily against nuclear power and fracking, is why I bring them up. It is true they did not control the government, but the government did make a choice to accept their narratives and ideas. The government can actually help shape public perceptions, as far as I can tell no one in a position of responsibility in Germany even sought to lobby for or defend nuclear or fracking, which made it pretty easy for public opinion to turn so far against both. Given the tight business or personal ties between many leading Germans and Russia, perhaps it is unsurprising none felt the need to push back against narratives that ultimately benefitted the pro-Russia, pro-gas import desire.

Quote from: Zanza on July 23, 2022, 02:47:56 PM

Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on July 23, 2022, 02:33:56 PMI don't really think Germany could even just snatch up gas that happens to be transiting the country bound for other locations. Those flows are usually based on legally binding, long-term contracts signed by various multinational corporations. I would be shocked if a modern OECD country like Germany can even within its own laws, just legally steal a bunch of gas that under the contractual laws of the country itself do not belong to the State. At least not without some sort of special legislation or something--and it would undermine confidence in the entire German legal and business system for a generation.

Not as long as we adhere to the Common Market laws of the EU. But it was questioned whether as part of our common EU decision to cut Russian gas imports,Germany should expect solidarity from the rest of the EU. I think yes to a degree. But if we cannot expect solidarity, adherence to other EU principles surely is also in question.

Quote from: Jacob on July 23, 2022, 02:24:34 PM

Quote from: Zoupa on July 23, 2022, 02:23:05 PMThe condescension certainly doesn't help your case, fyi.

Zoupa, I love you dearly but that's clearly a shared European trait - not something unique to Zanza and the Germans  :lol:

Quote from: Zoupa on July 23, 2022, 03:01:50 PMLet's just say condescension from Germans is especially irritating for other Europeans... I wonder why 🤔

Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on July 23, 2022, 01:27:00 PMI think they should, but it is entirely reasonable for people in Spain and such to do so with a lot of resentment towards Germany, who bears the vast majority of blame for Putin's invasion of Ukraine and threat to peace in Europe and who were more than happy to lecture their friends when they were in need during the Euro crisis.

Quote from: Zoupa on July 23, 2022, 03:10:42 PMThe difference is we've been guided by our mission civilisatrice for a millennium, so we're allowed. :frog:

Quote from: Zoupa on July 23, 2022, 03:10:42 PMThe difference is we've been guided by our mission civilisatrice for a millennium, so we're allowed. :frog:

Quote from: Zanza on July 23, 2022, 03:51:37 PM

Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on July 23, 2022, 01:27:00 PMI think they should, but it is entirely reasonable for people in Spain and such to do so with a lot of resentment towards Germany, who bears the vast majority of blame for Putin's invasion of Ukraine and threat to peace in Europe and who were more than happy to lecture their friends when they were in need during the Euro crisis.

That's silly. The vast majority of the blame for Putin's invasion of Ukraine should be assigned to Putin and his elites, maybe also common Russians. Not to Germany or any other factor.

Germany (and France) being appeasing after the first invasion of Ukraine in 2014 surely did not help dissuade him. But it is hardly the cause for Putin's view of history and the world nor for centuries of Russian imperialism, both of which drive the current Russian war.

QuoteEU agrees plan to ration gas use over Russia supply fears
Despite most energy ministers backing the scheme the EU was forced to water down proposals

The EU has been forced to water down its plan to ration gas this winter in an attempt to avoid an energy crisis generated by further Russian cuts to supply.

Energy ministers from the 27 member states, except Hungary, backed a voluntary 15% reduction in gas usage over the winter, a target that could become mandatory if the Kremlin ordered a complete shutdown of gas to Europe.

[...]

Quote from: Zoupa on July 26, 2022, 02:09:17 PM:grr:  :glare:

Quote from: Sheilbh on July 26, 2022, 02:18:17 PMIt's the right decision - and I think rationing may well be necessary in the end. Also strikingly (possibly deliberately?) 10 years to the day from "whatever it takes".

Quote from: Zoupa on July 26, 2022, 02:29:46 PMMaybe if it was actually accompanied by the famous Zeitenwende. Still waiting on that. Ukrainians are dying every day, still waiting on that.

Quote from: Zoupa on July 26, 2022, 02:29:46 PM

Quote from: Sheilbh on July 26, 2022, 02:18:17 PMIt's the right decision - and I think rationing may well be necessary in the end. Also strikingly (possibly deliberately?) 10 years to the day from "whatever it takes".

Maybe if it was actually accompanied by the famous Zeitenwende. Still waiting on that. Ukrainians are dying every day, still waiting on that.

Quote from: HVC on July 26, 2022, 02:50:07 PMHow long would it take to get a pipeline through France to pass along that sweet sweet North African gas?

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on July 26, 2022, 04:00:50 PM

Quote from: HVC on July 26, 2022, 02:50:07 PMHow long would it take to get a pipeline through France to pass along that sweet sweet North African gas?

Years indeed but n ot that critical, France has already 3 LNG ports. Norway is ahead of Russia for gas exportation to France by the way. Algeria already sends some LNG through the southern LNG port of Fos-sur-Mer.
A further terminal is planned in Le Havre.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on July 27, 2022, 12:20:03 AMThis question is for all the Yuros, not just poor Zanza besieged in Stalingrad.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on July 27, 2022, 12:20:03 AMHave you guys seen any tangible stuff moving on the rearmament front?  This question is for all the Yuros, not just poor Zanza besieged in Stalingrad.  Budgets being passed?  I think you mentioned the order for F-35s.

On a related note, how do your militaries recruit, specifically do they play ads on TV and such?  I don't recall seeing any on French TV when I was there.  They're all over American TV, or at least used to be when I had a TV.

Quote from: Zanza on July 27, 2022, 01:01:28 AMGermany has published what it wants to spend the 100bn extra fund on. Besides small arms and equipment such as night vision goggles etc. the big ticket items are:

Air, about 44 bn:
- F-35 to continue being able to deliver American nukes stored in Germany
- Chinook CH47 transport helicopters
- Eurofighter Typhoon equipped for electronic combat
- Heron TP combat drones
- light support helicopters
- recon satellites
- marine recon aircraft

Command capability, about 20bn:
- More secure radio and data links, especially NATO inoperability
- Data centers
- Satellite communication

Land, about 16 bn:
- Main investment is additional PUMA IFVs

Sea, about 19 bn:
- More K130 corvettes
- More U212 submarine
- More F126 frigates

Right now, about 80 bn of the 100 bn are assigned to concrete procurement measures.

In Germany the military is doing recruitment ads in all media channels.

Quote from: HVC on July 26, 2022, 04:21:00 PM

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on July 26, 2022, 04:00:50 PM

Quote from: HVC on July 26, 2022, 02:50:07 PMHow long would it take to get a pipeline through France to pass along that sweet sweet North African gas?

Years indeed but n ot that critical, France has already 3 LNG ports. Norway is ahead of Russia for gas exportation to France by the way. Algeria already sends some LNG through the southern LNG port of Fos-sur-Mer.
A further terminal is planned in Le Havre.

I was thinking more sending the gas to Germany. Though I guess Germany could use Frances infrastructure already. Start sending the gas east rather then west. At least eventually. 

Quote from: crazy canuck on July 27, 2022, 11:09:55 AMNo attack through the Ardennes?

QuoteLa France est en capacité d'envoyer 5 % mde sa consommation de gaz en Allemagne

La France serait en capacité (sic) d'envoyer au maximum l'équivalent de 5 % de sa consommation de gaz en Allemagne en hiver, si cette dernière connaissait une pénurie de gaz, a appris l'agence Reuters mercredi auprès du cabinet de la ministre de la transition énergétique, Agnès Pannier-Runacher.

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on July 27, 2022, 11:12:48 AM

Quote from: crazy canuck on July 27, 2022, 11:09:55 AMNo attack through the Ardennes?

No gas, no attack.  :P

Quote from: The Brain on September 12, 2022, 09:25:51 AMIn Sweden the Social Democrats sit on a lot of the old votes, people who remember a time when the Soc Dems were THE party in Sweden, so you're not gonna get really big AND be an old-folks party.

Quote from: Josquius on September 12, 2022, 09:28:56 AM

Quote from: The Brain on September 12, 2022, 09:25:51 AMIn Sweden the Social Democrats sit on a lot of the old votes, people who remember a time when the Soc Dems were THE party in Sweden, so you're not gonna get really big AND be an old-folks party.

Surely they have a on-ramp via mellowing left voters?

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 12, 2022, 07:54:13 AMThe same pattern of lower support among the young and the elderly and strongest support amont peak working age people is also present in France, Spain, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands. I believe it's similar in some other Western European countries too (it'd be interesting to know about Eastern Europe).

But I was wondering if anyone had any theories?

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 12, 2022, 05:29:51 PMCompetition for jobs with immigrants and net tax payers.

Quote from: Sheilbh on September 12, 2022, 05:42:44 PMMaybe - although it makes me wonder more about the US/UK age polarisation.

QuoteMujtaba Rahman
@Mij_Europe
The Commission is planning to leverage cost of living crisis to propose major changes to EU fiscal rules (Stability & Growth Pact) in Oct - effectively jettisoning preventive arm, abandoning annual structural deficit targets & assessing debt sustainability over 10(not 1)yrs 1/
The core idea is to move away from top down, uniform benchmarks to a more tailored, individualised application of the rules. Member states would devise their own debt reduction plan for 10yr alongside reform & investment plans; Bxl would do DSA & make recommendation to Council 2/
-No 1/20 debt reduction rule
-No annual structural fiscal deficit reduction
-No reference to output gaps
-Only benchmark Commission wd consider wd relate to public expenditures

Will Berlin agree?

Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 22, 2022, 04:11:43 PMAnyone who can find delight in that announcement should really be working as a bureaucrat.

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on September 23, 2022, 12:45:27 AMAh, so even more debt.

QuoteEurope's odd couple: The dysfunctional relationship at the heart of the EU
Relations between European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel have never been so bad.
By Suzanne Lynch
November 10, 2022 4:55 am CET

When the leaders of the world's most powerful countries meet at the G20 summit in Bali next week, don't expect the European Union to present a united front.

Rather than coordinate, the bloc's top two officials — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel — are more likely to avoid each other, with staffers involved in organizing the trip under strict instructions to avoid any overlap in itineraries.

In the nearly three years since their tenures began, relations between Michel and von der Leyen have undergone an extraordinary breakdown, with staff from the two institutions discouraged from communicating and the two leaders locking each other out from meetings with foreign dignitaries.

The dysfunctional partnership is not only impacting the EU's legislative and political agenda, which depends on a delicate inter-institutional balancing act. It's also threatening to undermine the EU's standing in the world.

One of the centerpieces of the G20 will be a meeting between Michel and Chinese leader Xi Jinping scheduled to take place on the fringes of the summit. Given the divisions within the EU about how to deal with Beijing, it's shaping up to be a crucial meeting. But von der Leyen hasn't been invited. The reason? Her refusal to allow Michel to attend a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the G7 in Germany in June.

Rivalry between the Commission and the Council has long been a challenge due to an inherent structural tension within the EU's byzantine system.

The Commission is the bloc's executive arm, with the ability to propose legislation, putting its president at the heart of nearly every EU initiative. But the Council is where heads of state or government meet to hammer out the bloc's biggest decisions. Though its president plays a coordinating role, moderating the debate between the real decision-makers, the position is arguably closer to where the bloc's real power lies.

With the two roles assigned overlapping areas of responsibility the result is added confusion to the age-old question often attributed to Henry Kissinger — who do you call when you want to call Europe? (The European Parliament, with its own president, provides a third center of power, but few would argue it is anything other than a younger sibling to the other two).

The personality clash between the current incumbents has taken inter-institutional competitiveness to another level, according to multiple EU officials, including those who worked under previous administrations when Jean-Claude Juncker headed the Commission and Donald Tusk was president of the Council.

Meetings between von der Leyen and Michel are virtually nonexistent, even in the run-up to European Council summits, typically the forum where the EU makes progress on the big strategic and immediate challenges facing the bloc.

Officials from other countries and international bodies are frequently confused as to who their interlocutor should be. Staffers at the two institutions report a tit-for-tat attitude between the Commission and Council toward attendance at meetings with third parties. During rolling discussions on the global food crisis, United Nations representatives were surprised when a senior EU staffer who had previously been part of the talks was suddenly cut out of subsequent meetings.

"Communication has completely broken down," said one official who wished to remain anonymous.

Von der Leyen on the couch

When von der Leyen and Michel were picked to head the two most powerful EU institutions in 2019 they made an unlikely pair. Von der Leyen, a defense minister in German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government, had spent most of her career in domestic politics; Michel, a former Belgian prime minister from a prominent political family had more EU experience, having sat around the European Council table as leader of his country.

The two shared some biographical similarities. Both came from families steeped in politics. Von der Leyen's father was director general of the EU's competition division in the 1970s and later enjoyed a successful career in state-level German politics; Michel's father was a well-known Belgian minister of foreign affairs, an EU commissioner and a member of the European Parliament.

But in terms of personality, the two are very different. Von der Leyen, a medical doctor and mother of seven, is analytically minded and carefully controlled. Michel is a soft-spoken turtleneck-wearing leader with a penchant for poetry. When he married his long-term partner last year, he invited the spouses of EU leaders to dinner and a special viewing of an exhibition of works by the British artist David Hockney in Brussels' Bozar center for fine arts.

According to officials, the relationship started off calmly. "There were some minor hiccups, but nothing unexpected," said one EU official. In the early months, the Council's secretariat scheduled a weekly afternoon meeting between Michel and von der Leyen every Monday.

But though the meetings soon petered out, things didn't completely fall apart until April 2021 after the two leaders traveled to Turkey to meet with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Cameras caught von der Leyen's shocked reaction when Michel quickly snagged the only chair next to the Turkish president, leaving her to sit on a couch across from the Turkish foreign minister. The Commission president, the first woman to occupy the position, later told the European Parliament she was "hurt" by the incident, blaming the snub on sexism.

Dubbed "Sofagate," the incident went viral globally, with the mutual (if not always public) recriminations driving a downward spiral in relations that has only worsened since.

At the height of the uproar, it was widely reported that Michel added insult to injury by canceling a regular Monday lunch with von der Leyen due to a conflict with a visit by an African head of state. Today, Council officials say that von der Leyen had repeatedly canceled the lunch meetings, even before Sofagate. "In reality, it never took place weekly." Commission officials say the two meet "almost" every week in various fora, though the scheduled one-to-one has been abandoned.

In contrast, von der Leyen and Michel's predecessors Juncker and Tusk met most weeks and had a good working relationship, helped by their previous acquaintance as prime ministers and despite differences over policy issues like migration.

When it comes to Sofagate, Michel appears to have been slow to learn his lesson.

In February 2022, after months of being pilloried in the press, he stood by mutely during a handshake photo-op with African officials when Uganda's foreign minister breezed past von der Leyen to seize his hand and then Emmanuel Macron's. (The French president gently suggested to the African dignitary that he might want to acknowledge the Commission president.)

Public tensions

The breakdown in relations has started to impinge on the workings of the EU, according to officials from both institutions.

Though the two leaders appear alongside each other at post-summit press conferences, dialogue on day-to-day matters between the leaders and their close staff is all but nonexistent.

During the Juncker-Tusk years, the leaders of the Council and Commission met regularly ahead of euro-summits with the presidents of the European Central Bank and the Eurogroup, the informal body of finance ministers from the eurozone. Since 2019, however, the gathering has not happened — even as the bloc's economic difficulties have mounted.

The Council staff is forced to "chase information like journalists," said one official in the institution's Europa building headquarters, complaining that the Commission does not brief Michel on its upcoming proposals, even though those initiatives will ultimately need the backing of the national governments he works with.

The Michel cabinet typically learns of the Commission proposals at the same time as the "sherpas" or representatives of member countries. "It's a constant fight to get both sides to share information," said one Council official. (Commission officials point out that it is the Commission's prerogative to propose legislation without input from the Council.)

The breakdown in communication has spurred some EU commissioners to resort to reaching out directly to Council staff to ensure that their file or portfolio is given prominence in Council conclusions, the formal documents reflecting decisions taken by national leaders during EU summits.

With private channels unused, tensions have spilled out into public ones, especially over the handling of the energy crisis. This week, in a letter seen by POLITICO, Michel dinged von der Leyen for not coming forward with a proposal for a price cap on natural gas, after national leaders called for one during their October summit. 

The mistrust has also spilled into issues of security. Once, during the COVID pandemic, when von der Leyen's chief of staff Bjoern Seibert and an EU Commissioner wanted to speak to a high-level counterpart in the U.S. administration, the delegation decided to travel to the outskirts of Brussels to use the secure line in NATO headquarters rather than make use of the Council facility across the street.

It was only this year that the Commission got its own secure room to make calls to the United States.

'Both responsible'

In the contest between the two leaders, von der Leyen is seen as having the upper hand. Though Michel formally represents the EU at external events, the Commission president has emerged as the EU's most prominent leader, particularly when it comes to relations with Washington.

Since Russia's all-out assault on Ukraine, U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has cultivated a close working relationship with von der Leyen's team, cooperating closely in particular in the area of sanctions.

Michel, in contrast, struggles to break through. When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Brussels in March, protocol dictated he meet with the Council president. But the Canadian delegation insisted that he also meet with von der Leyen, an indication of her international standing.

"Frankly, the view is that Michel has disappointed, but von der Leyen has exceeded expectations in her role," said one longtime Commission official.

But when it comes to the breakdown in relations, officials generally agree that both leaders are to blame — Michel for his mishandling of incidents like Sofagate and von der Leyen for her penchant for keeping close control at the expense of collaboration.

"Honestly, they are both responsible," said an EU official.  "You had tensions in the past as well, but in the end, it always came down to personalities. Their predecessors realized it was in both of their interests to find a stable working relationship."

Another longtime EU official said the inter-institutional relationship had never been so low.

"It makes no sense for the European Commission head and the European Council president to be fighting," the official said.

"In a crisis the EU is supposed to come together," the official added. "Yes, structurally the two institutions are in conflict. There is sometimes not a clear division of labor. But we need adults in the room."

Joshua Posaner and Barbara Moens contributed reporting.

Quote from: Sheilbh on November 15, 2022, 07:28:16 PMDuring the Eurozone crisis which was fundamentally about cash and common debt ...

Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 16, 2022, 04:02:36 PMThe proximate cause of the crisis was buyers of sovereign bonds thinking they might not get repaid.

Quote from: Iormlund on November 16, 2022, 04:30:02 PMThat was a consequence, not a cause.

The cause was that the ECB set interest rates for France and Germany, which were experiencing a downturn.
Meanwhile countries like Spain were experiencing high inflation (eg. house prices were going up 15-20% a year).

Here, the logical consequence of having unsuitably low rates was massive private borrowing. That was exposed when the sub-prime fiasco set the world on fire.
The reaction was to bail out private lenders at the cost of public finances. The combination of that newly acquired debt and the loss of 10% of the economy overnight (construction) with no automatic stabilizers showed the markets that Club Med countries might have to exit the Euro, which led to the sovereign bond crisis.

Only that last link in the chain was addressed when Draghi made clear that there was no risk to exit the Euro. The inability to set a monetary policy that's optimal for every Euro country remains.

Quote from: Iormlund on November 16, 2022, 04:30:02 PMThat was a consequence, not a cause.

The cause was that the ECB set interest rates for France and Germany, which were experiencing a downturn.
Meanwhile countries like Spain were experiencing high inflation (eg. house prices were going up 15-20% a year).

Here, the logical consequence of having unsuitably low rates was massive private borrowing. That was exposed when the sub-prime fiasco set the world on fire.
The reaction was to bail out private lenders at the cost of public finances. The combination of that newly acquired debt and the loss of 10% of the economy overnight (construction) with no automatic stabilizers showed the markets that Club Med countries might have to exit the Euro, which led to the sovereign bond crisis.

Only that last link in the chain was addressed when Draghi made clear that there was no risk to exit the Euro. The inability to set a monetary policy that's optimal for every Euro country remains.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 16, 2022, 04:53:56 PMThat may have been the cause in Spain, Ireland, and Portugal but AFAIK that was not the cause in Greece and Italy.

And even accepting that in those countries mentioned it was originally a private debt crisis does not inevitably lead to the conclusion that the ECB set the wrong discount rate.  Rather that lenders, much like with the subprime crisis, mispriced real estate lending risk.

And none of that leads inevitably to the conclusion that taxpayers in other countries should pay for the mistakes made in those real estate markets.

Quote from: Sheilbh on November 16, 2022, 05:16:21 PMBut I think those fundamental flaws are still there and I think it's a not insignificant cause of the collapse of the mainstream right and left in France and Italy.

Quote from: The Larch on December 11, 2022, 04:06:10 PMBelgian police has detained a number of current and former MEPs on suspicion of taking bribes from Qatar.

QuoteQatar scandal: What just happened at the European Parliament?
POLITICO answers all your questions about the influence scandal rocking Brussels.
By Sarah Wheaton
December 11, 2022 4:04 am CET

Watchdogs say it could be the "most serious," "most shocking," "most egregious" corruption scandal to hit Brussels in years.

A series of at least 16 raids by the Belgian federal police Friday netted five people they said had committed "alleged offenses of criminal organization, corruption and money laundering." The morning searches yielded €600,000 in cash, plus phones and computers.

Initially, the culprits weren't major names by Brussels standards: A former member of the European Parliament, a few parliamentary assistants, and a trade union boss, all allegedly on the take for World Cup host Qatar. But to what end, really? Some questioned whether �— if the charges were true — Doha had really made a smart investment.

By the evening, however, it was clear this wasn't just a story of some has-beens and wannabes lining their pockets. Eva Kaili, a vice president of the European Parliament and vocal defender of Doha, landed in police custody, according to the Belgian federal police. The case also centers around an NGO that, until recently, counted some of the biggest luminaries in left-wing politics among its board members.

"The State of Qatar categorically rejects any attempts to associate it with accusations of misconduct," said a Qatari official in a statement e-mailed Sunday morning.

As this potentially superlative scandal continues to unfold, POLITICO answers all your questions about the controversy roiling the EU capital.

Q: Who is Eva Kaili?

As one of Parliament's 14 vice presidents, Kaili is one of the institution's most powerful players — and as a former news presenter with celebrity status in her native Greece, one of Brussels' most glamorous figures.

But Kaili has also emerged as one of the most vocal defenders of Qatar. She recently called the country a "frontrunner in labor rights" after meeting with the country's labor minister, despite deep international concerns about conditions for stadium construction workers. A member of the center-left Socialist & Democrat (S&D) party, her portfolio includes special responsibilities related to the Middle East.

Kaili's partner and co-parent, Francesco Giorgi, has also been detained, according to police and people with direct knowledge. He's an adviser on the Middle East and North Africa region in the European Parliament — and a founder of an NGO called Fight Impunity, which aims to promote "accountability as a central pillar of the architecture of international justice."

Crucially, Fight Impunity's president is Pier Antonio Panzeri, a central figure in the case.

Q: Who else is involved?

Panzeri, an Italian ex-MEP also from the S&D, was among those arrested Friday morning. By the evening, his wife and daughter were also nabbed by Italian police. A warrant for their arrest, seen by POLITICO, accused Panzeri of "intervening politically with members working at the European Parliament for the benefit of Qatar and Morocco."

Former parliamentary aides, especially those with ties to Fight Impunity, are also falling under scrutiny. In addition to arresting Giorgi, police also sealed the office of another parliamentary assistant who used to work for Fight Impunity, currently serving as an aide to Belgian S&D MEP Marie Arena.

Arena, who inherited the chairmanship of the human rights subcommittee from Panzeri and works closely with Fight Impunity, confirmed that her aide's office was under seal. Arena said she herself has not been questioned by police.

According to Italian newswire Ansa, Niccolò Figà-Talamanca has also been detained. He's the director general of another NGO, No Peace Without Justice. Focused on international criminal justice, human rights and promoting democracy in the Middle East and North Africa, the organization is officially based in New York and Rome. However, it has the same Brussels address as Fight Impunity, at 41 Rue Ducale.

Emma Bonino, a former liberal MEP and foreign affairs minister for Italy, founded No Peace Without Justice. She is listed as an honorary board member of Fight Impunity. She and Figà-Talamanca did not immediately respond to requests for comment through Peace Without Justice.

In a sign of Panzeri's connections, former French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, former European Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, former EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and former MEP Cecilia Wikström are also listed as honorary board members.

Mogherini resigned from the board on Saturday morning, according to a spokesperson for the College of Europe, where Mogherini is now rector. Avramopoulos said in an email Sunday morning that he, Cazeneuve and Wikström had also resigned "immediately when we were informed back on Friday."

The list of staff at Fight Impunity has apparently been deleted; however, web archives show Giorgi and other current parliamentary assistants holding key roles in January.

Q: Is this limited to the European Parliament?

Nope. Also detained: Luca Visentini, who just last month became secretary general of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). Before that, he was the longtime chief of the European Trade Union Confederation. (He didn't have to move for the new role: Both the global and the European organizations are based at the same address in Brussels, on Rue Albert II.)

Builders' unions have been some of the top critics of Qatar's record on worker's rights in the lead-up to the World Cup. But even before Visentini took over, ITUC was a notable exception. Sharan Burrow, the previous ITUC chief, urged external critics of the country's labor laws to "go and have a look at a look at the change" in a video posted by the Qatari labor ministry in June.

Q: Why would Qatar want to lobby?

The Gulf emirate is hosting the World Cup, but rather than a public relations coup, the tournament turned out to shine a negative spotlight on the country. Accusations of bribery in the bidding process and slave-like conditions for foreign workers cast doubt on the choice, and liberal critics seized on the moment to attack the conservative Muslim country's position on women's and LGBTQ+ rights.

Maintaining a good reputation is crucial, as Qatar works to hash out deals with EU countries for its natural gas. A proposal to give Qataris visa-free travel to the EU's Schengen area is also moving forward in Parliament — at least, it was.

Q: How has Kaili advocated for Qatar?

Kaili has arguably been the dean of the (sizeable group of) Doha defenders within the S&D.

On November 24, for example, as the plenary passed a resolution "deplor[ing] the deaths of thousands of migrant workers," Kaili took to the floor to praise the "historical transformation" of Qatar brought on by the World Cup. Similarly, 10 days ago, she showed up to vote in favor of visa liberalization for Qatar and Kuwait in the Parliament's justice and home affairs committee — even though she's not a member of the committee.

Kaili also alienated MEPs on a panel dedicated to the Middle East when she freelanced her own trip after Doha canceled the group's visit. The Parliament's Delegation for Relations With the Arab Peninsula (DARP) had been planning to head to Qatar just ahead of the World Cup in November, to visit tournament facilities and observe labor law changes.

With barely a month's notice, however, Qatar's consultative assembly, known as the Shura Council, asked to postpone. Instead, Kaili went to Qatar the week the full delegation was supposed to be there — and gave full-throated praise to the emirate's labor reforms. According to local press, she said she was there representing 500 million European citizens who see the country's progress as representing common values.

"She was somehow going behind my back," said MEP Hannah Neumann, the German Green at the helm of DARP. Doha was "uninviting the group that would have had a balanced position" and "instead invited her, knowing that her statements would be less critical."

Repeated calls to Kaili's mobile phone Friday and Saturday went unanswered.

 Q: How big a deal is this?

Watchdog groups agree on the superlatives. The Qatar scandal could be "the most egregious case" of alleged corruption Parliament has seen in years, said Transparency International chief Michiel van Hulten. Alberto Alemanno, a law professor at HEC Paris, called it the "most shocking integrity scandal in the history of the EU."

German Green MEP Daniel Freund, co-chair of the Parliament's anti-corruption intergroup, called it one of the "most serious corruption scandals in Brussels in recent decades."

Van Hulten said the Parliament has created a "culture of impunity ... with a combination of lax financial rules and controls and a complete lack of independent (or indeed any) ethics oversight." Alemmano likewise predicted this would just be the "tip of the iceberg," hoping a pile-up of scandals would create political momentum for an independent ethics system.

Q. What are people saying can be done about it?

The Commission is due to propose an independent ethics body that would apply to all EU institutions, but it almost certainly will not come with investigative or enforcement power.

Freund argued that countries that are not part of the EU should have to follow the "relatively good lobbying rules already in force" in Brussels. At the moment, countries don't have to register in the EU's transparency register of interest groups, for example, and MEPs don't need to report those contacts. "The EU must improve this immediately," Freund said.

Incidentally, Panzeri's NGO, Fight Impunity, is not listed in the transparency register. That's an apparent violation of the existing rules for EU-based groups that want to make their case in Parliament. Under the latest transparency register guidelines, NGOs are required to include extensive details about their funding.

Arena, the current chair of the human rights subcommittee, has worked closely with Panzeri and Fight Impunity, including the NGO in press conferences and traveling with Panzeri for discussions on civil liberties.

Even as she defended her own independence, Arena predicted that more revelations would come out. "If Qatar is doing so, I know that others are doing exactly the same," Arena said. "And so we have to really prevent this kind of capacity to influence."

Q: How's it going now for Qatar?

The blowback from these accusations is already coming fast.

The S&D has called for the visa liberalization proposal to be put on hold, and the Green rapporteur said he would vote against the measure if it comes up for a vote next week.

Separately, Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee planned to head to Saudi Arabia and Qatar in the coming weeks. Now the latter part has been canceled — meaning a top rival of Doha gets all the attention. 

"Any association of the Qatari government with the reported claims is baseless and gravely misinformed," said the Qatari official statement issued Sunday. "The State of Qatar works through institution-to-institution engagement and operates in full compliance with international laws and regulations."

Q: What's next in the Parliament?

Late Saturday, Parliament President Roberta Metsola suspended all of Kaili's "powers, duties and tasks" related to being a vice president. To revoke the title completely would require a decision by the Parliament's conference of presidents, and then a vote in the plenary.

When the plenary gathers in Strasbourg this week, MEPs are likely to revoke Kaili's parliamentary immunity. The Left has already formally called for a debate about the incident to be added to the agenda, with a vote slated for Monday evening.

Kaili has also been suspended from the S&D group and her domestic party in Greece, Pasok.

Eddy Wax, Nektaria Stamouli, Hannah Roberts and Vincent Manancourt contributed reporting.

Quote from: HVC on December 11, 2022, 04:27:18 PMShe looks so trustworthy.

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Quote from: viper37 on December 12, 2022, 12:31:54 AMAt first, I thought it was a picture of Tricia Hellfer and I was wondering what it was doing in that thread. :lol:

Quote from: Sheilbh on December 12, 2022, 07:30:38 AMLooks like it might be spreading to the Commission now with questions about Margaritis Schinas, who's one of the Commission's vice-presidents and Commissioner for Promoting our European Way of Life (the one they had to change the job title from "Protecting our European Way of Life" given that it's the migration portfolio).

Apparently he'd been pushing Kaili to be getting top jobs, as had the Greek PM, despite the fact that they're from New Democracy while she's from PASOK. He'd also made very similar statements to Kaili about Kuwait and Qatar's "remarkable success".

QuoteEU becomes the planet's biggest NIMBY over US climate bill
Brussels should stop complaining about Joe Biden's subsidies plan and 'get its act together,' says European Investment Bank boss.
By Karl Mathiesen
December 9, 2022 4:47 pm CET

Europe finally got what it wanted: An American president who is serious about tackling climate change. Then it turned into the world's biggest NIMBY.

After an initially muted response to Joe Biden's law that will spend an estimated $369 billion on energy and climate change — the first significant climate legislation ever passed by the U.S. Congress — Europe went into full freak-out mode over subsidies it said would harm its industry.

The pique from Brussels has raised eyebrows in Washington, coming as it does after years of unconcealed EU frustration at the U.S. failure to pass meaningful laws and spend the billions needed to cut its greenhouse gas emissions. Industry representatives and analysts said that by attacking the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Europe was missing the broader point: that this is what a serious industrial policy for climate change looks like.

"The counter argument there is, of course, wouldn't it be great if the Europeans could get their act together," Werner Hoyer, the president of the European Investment Bank, told POLITICO on the sidelines of the COP27 climate talks last month. "I mean, we are complaining about the Americans and ... we have a tendency to look inward more and more. And we take actions on the present energy crisis which are totally dictated by national considerations. And that costs us, as a European Union, a huge degree of credibility."

The message coming back across the Atlantic is, "Europe ... you are being ridiculous," said Max Bergmann, a former senior U.S. State Department official who now leads the Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "You have to start questioning, what are the priorities of European leaders? Is it to tackle the climate crisis? Or is it just the bottom line of one of their automakers ... and a bunch of bureaucrats ... that are just obsessed with maintaining free trade?"

The economic ramifications in Europe are somewhat wider than that. The IRA's subsidies for U.S.-built clean tech are far more generous than anything on offer in the EU. They are also technically limitless, meaning the amount to be paid out in tax credits and other instruments is only capped by demand.

In response, the companies that were supposed to build European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's Green Deal are now prioritizing the investments needed to make Biden's vision of a clean jobs boom a reality.

Swedish battery developer Northvolt said it was pausing a German factory expansion and looking to the U.S. instead. Germany's Bosch has invested just shy of half a billion dollars in American electric motor and battery production since the IRA was passed in the summer. Swiss solar component manufacturer Meyer Burger is opening a plant in Arizona, raising questions about expansion of its German operations. Spanish utility Iberdrola just released a three-year €47 billion investment plan of which 47 percent will be spent in the U.S. Just 23 percent is heading for the EU.

In response, Europe lashed out. French President Emmanuel Macron called the subsidies anti-competitive and sought changes to the law from Congress (a prospect ruled out by the White House) and threatened action in the World Trade Organization. European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton canceled his attendance at this week's U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council. A joint task force has been set up to explore options for accommodating Europe.

The implication that Europe was being targeted was wrong, Bergmann said. Most likely, the impact on Europe was simply not considered by the senators and the teams who drafted the bill.

"If the U.S. was intending to send a massive diplomatic F.U. to Europe through a climate bill, Europe would know," he said.

Victims' angst

But Europe's sense of victimization abides. The energy crisis means Europe sees itself as shouldering the burden of Russia's war while U.S. companies bank windfalls from LNG exports. EU Green Deal chief Frans Timmermans muttered darkly about the threat to a transatlantic relationship that underpinned "our security ... our values" on a call with reporters last month.

EU angst over the IRA ignores the fact that the main target of its home-grown provisions was China, a competitor the European bloc has failed to counter. Now both the U.S and China have assertive industrial strategies that recognize the massive upfront costs of the energy transition and the fact that they are both in a sprint to dominate the economy of the future.

Europe sees itself as the "global front-runner," as von der Leyen put it in a recent speech in Bruges, Belgium. In fact, it's on the brink of losing the race.

The EU is at a disadvantage to its superpower nation-state competitors. The bloc's industrial policy is fragmented across its 27 countries. The energy crisis has widened those gaps and added an additional hurdle of extreme operating costs for any prospective new project. For years the EU has relied overly on carbon pricing as its key tool for stamping out emissions, unable or unwilling to wield capital as a weapon.

"The continent's limited ability to develop a centralized industrial strategy, or implement any kind of local content requirements, lends itself poorly to making up for lost ground when it is already far behind," said an October analysis from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), shared with POLITICO.

BNEF found that just building the factories to supply the refined metals, electrolyzers and parts for solar panels and batteries to meet local demand by 2030 will cost $149 billion in Europe, $113 billion in the U.S.  The IRA lowers the risk of those investments through tax credits, introduces deficit checks and payments to polluting industries to shut them down.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fjyi6-baMAcONQS?format=jpg&name=small)

"The EU should mimic these design principles rather than bleating about the protectionist elements," said Tim Sahay, senior policy manager at the Green New Deal Network.

Unlike many of its politicians, Europe's big green industrial players quite like the IRA and do plan to invest in the U.S. But that doesn't mean they are all jumping ship. The EU's legally-mandated climate goals mean "the ambition in Europe is not in question," said Iberdrola Executive Chairman Ignacio Galán. But the investment environment in Europe was unattractive long before the IRA.

"The energy transition needs clarity from policymakers everywhere," said Galán. "We need unity and ambition on energy policy to tackle the current crisis. By working together to simplify and adapt its policy frameworks, Europe can rebalance the playing field and remain a global leader in attracting investment in clean energy."

'What's done is done'

The mood music from Brussels shifted a little in recent days, as von der Leyen acknowledged that the IRA was "positive news" for the climate and that EU might need to loosen its state aid rules and provide "new and additional funding at the EU level."

"What's done is done," Breton said at a POLITICO gala dinner on Wednesday. "We have to do our own job here, to protect our companies if we need to, without entering in a subsidies race."

The hope that the transatlantic rift might signal a new dawn for green tech in Europe is clear from the optimism suddenly coursing through the solar industry, which has long been the sector's unloved cousin.

Solar is often held up as a warning for all of Europe's clean industries. Technology developed in the EU was used to build a Chinese industry that today dominates 80-95 percent of the global supply chain.

On the surface the IRA's subsidies should erode the prospects for European solar even further. But the sense in the industry is that it might have finally broken the EU's slavish adherence to carbon pricing and innovation as its main drivers of transition.

A more active industrial policy, combined with a refreshed zeal for bringing industries home to secure supply chains, could mean that even solar has a second coming in Europe, said Solar Power Europe Policy Director Dries Acke.

Solar was one of five industries highlighted in the Clean Tech Europe platform launched this month by the European Commission. This was not on the cards before the IRA. On Friday, the Commission launched a European Solar Industry Alliance.

"It's been the wake-up call that Europe needs," said Acke.

Joshua Posaner contributed reporting.

Quote from: Valmy on December 12, 2022, 03:22:27 PMSorry Euros. Politics in the USA today demands protectionism and jobs for Americans for any intiative. That was a crucial outcome of the 2016 election. The Democrats are terrified of losing more working class votes to right wing demagogues.

QuoteA few bad apples or a whole rotten barrel? Brussels wrestles with corruption scandal
Some EU officials are adamant the Qatar corruption probe concerns 'a few individuals.' Others say the rot goes much deeper.
By Nicholas Vinocur and Nicolas Camut   
December 13, 2022 4:00 am CET

As Belgian police launched a second wave of raids on the European Parliament, a stunned Brussels elite has started to grapple with an uncomfortable question at the heart of the Qatar bribery investigation: Just how deep does the rot go?

So far, police inquiries launched by Belgian prosecutor Michel Claise have landed four people in jail, including Parliament Vice President Eva Kaili, on charges of corruption, money laundering and participation in a criminal organization.

After the initial shock of those arrests wore off, several Parliament officials told POLITICO they believed the allegations would be limited to a "few individuals" who had gone astray by allegedly accepting hundreds of thousands of euros in cash from Qatari interests.

But that theory was starting to unravel by Monday evening, as Belgian police carried out another series of raids on Parliament offices just as lawmakers were gathering in Strasbourg, one of European Parliament's two sites, for their first meeting after news of the arrests broke on Friday.

With 19 residences and offices searched — in addition to Parliament — six people arrested and sums of at least around €1 million recovered, some EU officials and activists said they believed more names would be drawn into the widening dragnet — and that the Qatar bribery scandal was symptomatic of a much deeper and more widespread problem with corruption not just in the European Parliament, but across all the EU institutions.

In Parliament, lax oversight of members' financial activities and the fact that states were able to contact them without ever logging the encounters in a public register amounts to a recipe for corruption, these critics argued.

Beyond the Parliament, they pointed to the revolving door of senior officials who head off to serve private interests after a stint at the European Commission or Council as proof that tougher oversight of institutions is in order. Others invoked the legacy of the Jacques Santer Commission — which resigned en masse in 1998 — as proof that no EU institution is immune from illegal influence.

"The courts will determine who is guilty, but what's certain is that it's not just Qatar, and it's not just the individuals who have been named who are involved" in foreign influence operations, Raphaël Glucksmann, a French lawmaker from the Socialists and Democrats, who heads a committee against foreign interference in Parliament, told POLITICO in Strasbourg.

Michiel van Hulten, a former lawmaker who now heads Transparency International's EU office, said that while egregious cases of corruption involving bags of cash were rare, "it's quite likely that there are names in this scandal that we haven't heard from yet. There is undue influence on a scale we haven't seen so far. It doesn't need to involve bags of cash. It can involve trips to far-flung destinations paid for by foreign organizations — and in that sense there is a more widespread problem."

Adding to the problem was the fact that Parliament has no built-in protections for internal whistleblowers, despite having voted in favor of such protections for EU citizens, he added. Back in 1998, it was a whistleblower denouncing mismanagement in the Santer Commission who precipitated a mass resignation of the EU executive.

Glucksmann also called for "extremely profound reforms" to a system that allows lawmakers to hold more than one job, leaves oversight of personal finances up to a self-regulating committee staffed by lawmakers, and gives state actors access to lawmakers without having to register their encounters publicly.

"If Parliament wants to get out of this, we'll have to hit hard and undertake extremely profound reforms," added Glucksmann, who previously named Russia, Georgia and Azerbaijan as countries that have sought to influence political decisions in the Parliament.

To start addressing the problem, Glucksmann called for an ad hoc investigative committee to be set up in Parliament, while other left-wing and Greens lawmakers have urged reforms including naming an anti-corruption vice president to replace Kaili, who was expelled from the S&D group late Monday, and setting up an ethics committee overseeing all EU institutions.

Glass half-full

Others, however, were less convinced that the corruption probe would turn up new names, or that the facts unveiled last Friday spoke to any wider problem in the EU. Asked about the extent of the bribery scandal, one senior Parliament official who asked not to be named in order to discuss confidential deliberations said: "As serious as this is, it's a matter of individuals, of a few people who made very bad decisions. The investigation and arrests show that our systems and procedures have worked."

Valérie Hayer, a French lawmaker with the centrist Renew group, struck a similar note, saying that while she was deeply concerned about a "risk for our democracy" linked to foreign interference, she did not believe that the scandal pointed to "generalized corruption" in the EU. "Unfortunately, there are bad apples," she said.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who's under fire over her handling of COVID-19 vaccination deals with Pfizer, declined to answer questions about her Vice President Margaritis Schinas' relations with Qatar at a press briefing, triggering fury from the Brussels press corps.

The Greek commissioner represented the EU at the opening ceremony of the World Cup last month, and has been criticized by MEPs over his tweets in recent months, lavishing praise on Qatar's labor reforms.

Asked about the Commission's response to the Qatar corruption scandal engulfing the European Parliament, and in particular the stance of Schinas, von der Leyen was silent on the Greek commissioner.

Von der Leyen did, however, appear to lend support to the creation of an independent ethics body that could investigate wrongdoing across all EU bodies.

"These rules [on lobbying by state actors] are the same in all three EU institutions," said the senior Parliament official, referring to the European Commission, Parliament and the European Council, the roundtable of EU governments.

The split over how to address corruption shows how even in the face of what appears to be an egregious example of corruption, members of the Brussels system — comprised of thousands of well-paid bureaucrats and elected officials, many of whom enjoy legal immunity as part of their jobs — seeks to shield itself against scrutiny that could threaten revenue or derail careers.

QuoteSupport for leaving EU has fallen significantly across bloc since Brexit
People less likely to vote leave in every EU member state for which data was available than in 2016-17, survey finds

Support for leaving the EU has dropped significantly, and sometimes dramatically, in member states across the bloc in the wake of the UK's Brexit referendum, according to data from a major pan-European survey.

The European Social Survey (ESS), led by City, University of London and conducted in 30 European nations every two years since 2001, found respondents were less likely to vote leave in every EU member state for which data was available.

The largest decline in leave support was in Finland, where 28.6% of respondents who declared which way they would vote in a Brexit-style referendum answered leave in 2016-2017, but only 15.4% did in 2020-2022 – a fall of 13.2 percentage points.

Similarly stark falls between 2016 and 2022 were recorded in the Netherlands (from 23% to 13.5%), Portugal (15.7% to 6.6%), Austria (26% to 16.1%) and France (24.3% to 16%), with smaller but still statistically significant falls in Hungary (16% to 10.2%), Spain (9.3% to 4.7%) Sweden (23.9% to 19.3%), and Germany (13.6% to 11%).

Support for leave in the survey's most recent round was highest in the Czech Republic (29.2%), Italy (20.1%) and Sweden (19.3%), but even in those countries it had declined by 4.5 percentage points, 9.1 points and 4.6 points respectively since 2016-2017, the survey showed. Leave was least popular in Spain (4.7%).

The period covers Britain's long and fraught negotiations to leave the EU, but also the country's ensuing political turmoil – five prime ministers in six years – and its current social and economic woes, all of which have been heavily reported on the continent and are widely interpreted as being caused at least partly by Brexit.

They also coincide with the Covid pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which experts suggest have prompted many EU citizens to view membership more favourably, and decisions by many anti-EU parties, including in France and Italy, to abandon Frexit or Italexit policies in favour of reforming the EU from within.

Mathieu Gallard, research director of the leading French polling firm Ipsos, which regularly conducts surveys of European opinion, said the ESS numbers reflected a "veritable collapse" in support for leaving the EU in several countries.

Gallard said the fall in support for a leave vote most likely stemmed from "a cumulative effect combining the EU's attitude towards the various crises of recent years, the radical right's moderation on the subject [of leaving the EU], and the many vicissitudes of Brexit".

The ESS survey also found that respondents' emotional attachment to Europe had increased between 2016 and 2022 in most member states. Asked to rate how attached they felt to the bloc on a scale of zero to 10, 54.9% of Portuguese respondents gave responses between seven and 10 in 2020-2022, against 41.5% in 2016-2017.

Strong emotional attachment to Europe in Finland rose to 58.7% from 46% over the period, while in Hungary – engaged in an increasingly bitter rule-of-law dispute with Brussels – it increased from 60% to 70.3%. In Italy the corresponding figures were 37.2% and 44.3%, and in France 44% and 48.8%. Germany and Spain were stable.

A Pew Research Center survey of 10 EU member states conducted in spring last year also found large majorities in nearly every country surveyed held a broadly favourable opinion of the bloc, with a median of 72% viewing it in a favourable light compared with 26% who had a broadly unfavourable opinion.

The ESS data also showed that support for staying in the EU – again excluding those who said they could not or would not vote, did not know which way they would vote, or would not cast a complete or valid ballot – increased in every member state for which comparable data was available, with remain support in 2020-2022 ranging from a low of 70.8% in the Czech Republic to a high of 95.3% in Spain.

The ESS survey is normally conducted through face-to-face interviews, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, respondents in six countries – including Austria, Germany, Poland, Sweden and Spain – were asked to complete questionnaires themselves in 2020-2022.

In those countries, the percentage of respondents who said they would not cast a vote was generally higher. Tim Hanson, a senior ESS research fellow, said this was most likely because the questionnaire presented them with that option, whereas interviewers asked people to choose between leave and remain.

The overall effect was to depress the "remain" vote in the "self-complete" countries rather than to increase the "leave" vote, Hanson said. Nonetheless, the difference in survey method meant excluding "no votes" provided a more reliable comparison between the two survey rounds.

Quote from: The Larch on January 13, 2023, 09:22:29 AMBrexit seems to have achieved something at least, sapping the desire to leave the EU in every other country.