That insulting them will lead to fines and jail, if you are unable or unwilling to pay. Couldn't be much clearer.
EU discussion / and other European countries
- Thread starter Amar__
- Start date
Finland investigates Russian 'shadow fleet' ship over Baltic Sea cable damage
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/...nia-suffers-damage-in-latest-baltic-sea-incid
Possible arson/sabotage at French telecommunications tower.
https://france3-regions.francetvinf...ne-la-piste-criminelle-envisagee-3083758.html
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/01/world/montenegro-shooting-new-years-day-intl-latam/index.html
A gunman who killed at least 10 people in a rampage in a small town in Montenegro died from self-inflicted injuries on Thursday after attempting suicide, the country’s interior minister, Danilo Saranovic, said.
The gunman, identified by police as Aleksandar Martinovic, 45, attempted suicide near his home in the town of Cetinje after being cornered by police.
“When he saw that he was in a hopeless situation, he attempted suicide. He did not succumb to his injuries on the spot, but during the transport to hospital,” Saranovic told Montenegro’s state broadcaster, RTCG.
Saranovic provided no details on the attempted suicide.
Martinovic was on the run after opening fire on Wednesday afternoon at a restaurant in Cetinje, a small town located 38 km (23.6 miles) west of Podgorica, the Montenegrin capital, where he killed four people.
The shooter then moved on to three other locations, killing at least six more people, including two children, police said. Four other people suffered life-threatening injuries.
A gunman who killed at least 10 people in a rampage in a small town in Montenegro died from self-inflicted injuries on Thursday after attempting suicide, the country’s interior minister, Danilo Saranovic, said.
The gunman, identified by police as Aleksandar Martinovic, 45, attempted suicide near his home in the town of Cetinje after being cornered by police.
“When he saw that he was in a hopeless situation, he attempted suicide. He did not succumb to his injuries on the spot, but during the transport to hospital,” Saranovic told Montenegro’s state broadcaster, RTCG.
Saranovic provided no details on the attempted suicide.
Martinovic was on the run after opening fire on Wednesday afternoon at a restaurant in Cetinje, a small town located 38 km (23.6 miles) west of Podgorica, the Montenegrin capital, where he killed four people.
The shooter then moved on to three other locations, killing at least six more people, including two children, police said. Four other people suffered life-threatening injuries.
Russian gas shutdown forces closure of almost all industry in Transnistria
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...down-its-industries-after-loss-of-russian-gas
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqld2n5k733o
Downing Street has not ruled out the possibility of the UK joining an arrangement between the EU and neighbouring countries that is designed to facilitate tariff-free trading.
Downing Street has not ruled out the possibility of the UK joining an arrangement between the EU and neighbouring countries that is designed to facilitate tariff-free trading.
Bizarre story. A German Greens politician was accused of sexual harrassment and had to resign under pressure. The claim came from a non-existant woman. It was apparently invented by another Green official.
https://www.ft.com/content/724de31e-69ce-4807-aae1-1a4564c95c92
https://www.ft.com/content/724de31e-69ce-4807-aae1-1a4564c95c92
And the party somewhat doubled down on it even after it came to light that they're made up
Alleged Russian operation to damage cars and have the Greens blamed.
Politico piece on the above.
https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-hit-by-suspected-russia-backed-sabotage-campaign/
No surprise, really. The greens have been the target of heavy misinformation campaigns for years now. And it’s working very well, sadly.
On one hand you are right, on the other hand actual green/left politicians and activists did say and do so many stupid things that such false flag actions became easily believable.
So out of curiosity, aside from Der Spiegel, is this frontpage news in Germany? You'd think a Russian psyop within Germany would make some noise now.
Others report it too, but all tefer to Spiegel so far
It’s a big story on reliable publications.
That’s how misinformation and propaganda works. The greens do suffer from having any small misstep blown heavily out of proportion, to create exactly the mindset you just showed: it could be true, so people believe it. Especially regarding Habeck, this is often very obvious. It doesn’t matter what he says. The typical players within these misinformation networks and private media love to take his statements out of context to create precisely this image. Most „scandals“ however turn out to be complete non-stories, once they are fact checked.
Which doesn’t mean they don’t feck up. They do. Like other parties. But this image of being this whole mess of a party filled with idiots and lunatics has nothing to do with reality. The greens are basically a boring centrist party when it comes to economic matters and are left in regards to most social issues. That’s about it. This incredibly bad image has been carefully constructed in order to discredit any left leaning politics and creates a need for others, mostly the SPD, to drift to the right in order to distance themselves from these weird greens.
It’s all part of the game.
When I was young I had high sympathy for the Greens and to this day I basically support many of their core beliefs (not all, especially not about social/economic topics, but their environmental topics).
I then worked in the wind power industry for six years. And I assure you when I say that the Greens are a bunch of lunatics, idiots and a few decent people than it's based in having to work with (or rather against) them.
Which is funny because obviously on the big scale of the national government the conservatives are a big problem and the Greens are pushing renewable energies.
But at the grassroots you can make a solid deal with most (not all) of the farthest right people you can find in the countryside, but not with Green lunatics.
I worked in governmental environment protection (local level) for a short time (I was actually involved in wind energy, but not that much) and am still involved a bit in a hobby sort of way and I can’t even begin to say how important the greens are in that regard. I understand how the power industry would hate them. That means they are doing things the right way. Their uncompromising stances especially within local politics might be the main reason we still have nature left to preserve in Germany.
So yeah, you won’t get me this way. The work they and non profits like the NABU do is essential for our environment. The amount of species that might have become eradicated in Germany without them is likely very high.
They are annoying. They are uncompromising in these regards. Thank god for that. Because what many take as radicalism, is mostly an insistence to act according to research.
The German power industry won’t get any love from me and they don’t get the benefit of the doubt from me.
Just consider yourself lucky that you apparently haven't met the idiots I have. Or didn't recognize them as such, fair enough as you have a different background and perspective.
My own experience with the German power industry is in a more general way (supplier of special equipment for cable cutting, peeling, etc. equipment), and I'd like to sign this notion.
I have met idiots blocking the construction of wind turbines. They are usually elderly villagers who simply don’t like how they look and don’t want them near them. Typical nimbys. They are the issue. The greens usually insist on protecting endangered species and therefor oppose certain projects. That’s a good thing. Because unlike the vast majority of the public, they understand that climate change isn’t the only fight we’re involved in. We’re also fighting to keep species extinction as low as possible. These concerns are valid. Unlike all those citizen initiatives that are usually supported by local SPD and CDU groups, because they don’t want to lose the vote of the elderly.
However, that’s a niche topic and we’re going off roads. My original point remains: the greens are obviously the victim of huge efforts to discredit their ideology and politics, mostly fuelled by neoliberal think tanks and foreign actors like Russia.
True. Still it's a fact that the existence of loosely associated groups like Extinction Rebellion and their actions made this story believable. Without such activities before it would have been harder to plausible claim Greens would do such stuff.
@HTG @stefan92
How can one support Green party when their pressure / decisions (regarding closure of nuclear generators during the transition period and deciding not to build new ones at the same time) have contributed to the downfall of the Germany? For a country so reliant on cheap energy for its manufacturing industry…Not to mention it feeds the russian friendly politics in Germany (“we need Russian cheap gas now”). I would rank it as criminal sabotage activity from within or being useful idiots at best.
Germany’s suicidal decisions now negatively impacting not only Germany itself but also Nordic energy system and its consumers:
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20241220-sweden-sees-red-over-germany-s-energy-policy
Looks like Norway and Sweden have had enough of Germany’s stupidity.
How can one support Green party when their pressure / decisions (regarding closure of nuclear generators during the transition period and deciding not to build new ones at the same time) have contributed to the downfall of the Germany? For a country so reliant on cheap energy for its manufacturing industry…Not to mention it feeds the russian friendly politics in Germany (“we need Russian cheap gas now”). I would rank it as criminal sabotage activity from within or being useful idiots at best.
Germany’s suicidal decisions now negatively impacting not only Germany itself but also Nordic energy system and its consumers:
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20241220-sweden-sees-red-over-germany-s-energy-policy
Looks like Norway and Sweden have had enough of Germany’s stupidity.
Don't ask me, it should be pretty clear that I don't
But regarding Sweden I only can say that they did more or less the same as Germany and suffer from the same problems. Shutting down conventional and nuclear power plants (mostly in the South) and adding renewable energy (mostly in the North) and therefore creating massively unbalanced grids lacking powerful enough transmission lines from North to South which would have balance that price difference a lot.
The one thing they did right however was splitting their country in different price zones so that not all citizens suffer from this, only those in the South. I would appreciate if we did the same in Germany as Bavaria is the biggest blocker for a sensible transformation of the electricity production.
But regarding Sweden I only can say that they did more or less the same as Germany and suffer from the same problems. Shutting down conventional and nuclear power plants (mostly in the South) and adding renewable energy (mostly in the North) and therefore creating massively unbalanced grids lacking powerful enough transmission lines from North to South which would have balance that price difference a lot.
The one thing they did right however was splitting their country in different price zones so that not all citizens suffer from this, only those in the South. I would appreciate if we did the same in Germany as Bavaria is the biggest blocker for a sensible transformation of the electricity production.
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Merkel is responsible for the abandonment of nuclear energy.
And the idea that this is what somehow caused a downfall is absurd. It wasn’t just an ideological move to shut those plants off. It was a monetary one. It’s not financially prudent to run these plants.
But I’ll be honest here, I won’t engage further with this discussion. Which has nothing to do with you. But this discussion has been done to death within Germany and I just can’t read it anymore.
Funny thing about the super rich they are welcome in almost every country and if you tax them they'll just move, they didn't get rich being stupid.
True. But the Left is pretty irrelevant and might even fail to get into the parliament, so this isn't really newsworthy. Keep in mind they are the direct successor of the GDR socialist union party which ruled the country as a dictatorship.
Not sure how true this is but seen this point made quite often.
It’s not true. At least I don’t think it is. Read a paper just recently about this. It’s in German, however. If you want, I can summarise its main findings later.
Interested in that as well (and please link it) as my gut feeling confirms that claim
If I haven’t posted it by tomorrow I probably forgot about it, so feel free to remind me by then.
Alright. Here is the paper I mentioned:
https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/stockholm/21030.pdf
The idea behind the research here was to see if it is actually true that the draconian measures the Danish social democrats introduced to fight migration were actually able to accomplish three things:
1. weaken radical right wing parties
2. strengthen social democracy
3. Reduce immigration
It was commissioned by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, a nonprofit that deals with research about the history of the worker movement and is somewhat aligned with the SPD.
The paper starts with a small summary of Danish migration law since the early 2000's, which got more and more restrictive through the years and actually went as far as forcing Syrian couples to live apart from each other, for example. It explains the current law a little further. I'm not going to summarize that, because that's widely available information. Next their most important law from 2019, which is the one usually referenced, is analysed via the two blue graphs one page 5. The graphs show that the law didn't accomplish it's biggest promise: to stop immigration, especially from Turkey, Syria and the countries around. The second graph for example shows, that the number of refugees is actually climbing since the law was introduced.
The graph on page six shows how far to the right different social democratic parties in Europe are positioned. With Denmark leading the rest. In the text before the graph, the writers explain that the main pull factor for refugees isn't the economy of the new country or laws that are friendly to them. It is mostly social connections into these countries. So a person from Syria doesn't really care if they can work immediately after arriving in Europe, or if they like the law there. They go wherever they might have family or other social groups they feel connected to. The countries itself can barely influence this, no matter what they do. It is also explained that the Danish social democrats basically drifted so far to the right, that their ideology and politics could rightfully be labelled as nativist, a core value of right wing extremists and racists.
The really important stuff starts on page 7.
The elections of 2019 are often taken as proof that the anti-immigration stance of the social democrats were the reason for their success. However, data suggests that what drew people towards them, was economic policies that were clearly left, e. g. redistribution of wealth and social welfare programs. The tough stance on immigration however did almost nothing to get right wing voters to vote social democrats. They stuck with the original, so to say. The main reason, besides social welfare and redistribution of wealth, that caused voters to go back to the social democrats were environmental and climate issues, that played a huge role in that election (see the graph on page 8). The social democrats basically benefited from their traditional topics, that happened to be perceived as important in that election, while their stance on immigration had no measurable effect.
They got reelected in 2022, basically for the same reasons, but chose to go into a coalition with parties to their right, not the left. Ever since they are losing acclaim and parties to their left are benefiting from this development. The effect since then is clear: they can't gain voters with their restrictive immigration policies and are also losing voters to the left, because their coalition with parties to their right makes it impossible for them, to implement typically leftist policies, which were the reason for their popularity to begin with.
What this whole drift to the right accomplished is actually disastrous:
They weren't able to gain voters from the right. But they normalized nativist ideology, as the public was more susceptible for such ideology when it came from parties from the political middle or even left. Basically their good reputation and the trust people have in these parties caused them to believe that this ideology and the idea that migration is mostly a burden on social welfare and the countries cultural identity is legitimate. It has established deeply racist convictions into the political mainstream. It has strengthened radical parties to the right. It has increased negative perceptions about immigration and immigrants themselves. It might also cause issues in the labour-market, as highly qualified migrants might not want to stay clear from a country in which the underlying social climate is deeply resentful towards migration, despite the country badly needing qualified immigrants.
And all this happened without accomplishing the actual goal of this policy: to stop the immigration from certain mostly Muslim countries and to deport more people. Overall, the reason Denmark or the Danish social democrats were such an outlier within Europe isn't their stance on migration, it was their traditionally social democrat policies that people were drawn to. Ever since those are getting less, because their coalition partners don't want this stuff to be enacted, they are losing voters to other left or green parties.
What Denmark is doing is disastrous and doesn't work. It was a statistical outlier, caused by multiple factors, that are easily explained. There is no data to suggest that other parties in Europe could benefit from similar actions. The opposite is the case. If anything, a deep analysis of this fiasco should show that social democracy is strongest, when it stands for actual social politics.
I hope all this is understandable. It's not always easy to summarize this stuff into another language.
https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/stockholm/21030.pdf
The idea behind the research here was to see if it is actually true that the draconian measures the Danish social democrats introduced to fight migration were actually able to accomplish three things:
1. weaken radical right wing parties
2. strengthen social democracy
3. Reduce immigration
It was commissioned by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, a nonprofit that deals with research about the history of the worker movement and is somewhat aligned with the SPD.
The paper starts with a small summary of Danish migration law since the early 2000's, which got more and more restrictive through the years and actually went as far as forcing Syrian couples to live apart from each other, for example. It explains the current law a little further. I'm not going to summarize that, because that's widely available information. Next their most important law from 2019, which is the one usually referenced, is analysed via the two blue graphs one page 5. The graphs show that the law didn't accomplish it's biggest promise: to stop immigration, especially from Turkey, Syria and the countries around. The second graph for example shows, that the number of refugees is actually climbing since the law was introduced.
The graph on page six shows how far to the right different social democratic parties in Europe are positioned. With Denmark leading the rest. In the text before the graph, the writers explain that the main pull factor for refugees isn't the economy of the new country or laws that are friendly to them. It is mostly social connections into these countries. So a person from Syria doesn't really care if they can work immediately after arriving in Europe, or if they like the law there. They go wherever they might have family or other social groups they feel connected to. The countries itself can barely influence this, no matter what they do. It is also explained that the Danish social democrats basically drifted so far to the right, that their ideology and politics could rightfully be labelled as nativist, a core value of right wing extremists and racists.
The really important stuff starts on page 7.
The elections of 2019 are often taken as proof that the anti-immigration stance of the social democrats were the reason for their success. However, data suggests that what drew people towards them, was economic policies that were clearly left, e. g. redistribution of wealth and social welfare programs. The tough stance on immigration however did almost nothing to get right wing voters to vote social democrats. They stuck with the original, so to say. The main reason, besides social welfare and redistribution of wealth, that caused voters to go back to the social democrats were environmental and climate issues, that played a huge role in that election (see the graph on page 8). The social democrats basically benefited from their traditional topics, that happened to be perceived as important in that election, while their stance on immigration had no measurable effect.
They got reelected in 2022, basically for the same reasons, but chose to go into a coalition with parties to their right, not the left. Ever since they are losing acclaim and parties to their left are benefiting from this development. The effect since then is clear: they can't gain voters with their restrictive immigration policies and are also losing voters to the left, because their coalition with parties to their right makes it impossible for them, to implement typically leftist policies, which were the reason for their popularity to begin with.
What this whole drift to the right accomplished is actually disastrous:
They weren't able to gain voters from the right. But they normalized nativist ideology, as the public was more susceptible for such ideology when it came from parties from the political middle or even left. Basically their good reputation and the trust people have in these parties caused them to believe that this ideology and the idea that migration is mostly a burden on social welfare and the countries cultural identity is legitimate. It has established deeply racist convictions into the political mainstream. It has strengthened radical parties to the right. It has increased negative perceptions about immigration and immigrants themselves. It might also cause issues in the labour-market, as highly qualified migrants might not want to stay clear from a country in which the underlying social climate is deeply resentful towards migration, despite the country badly needing qualified immigrants.
And all this happened without accomplishing the actual goal of this policy: to stop the immigration from certain mostly Muslim countries and to deport more people. Overall, the reason Denmark or the Danish social democrats were such an outlier within Europe isn't their stance on migration, it was their traditionally social democrat policies that people were drawn to. Ever since those are getting less, because their coalition partners don't want this stuff to be enacted, they are losing voters to other left or green parties.
What Denmark is doing is disastrous and doesn't work. It was a statistical outlier, caused by multiple factors, that are easily explained. There is no data to suggest that other parties in Europe could benefit from similar actions. The opposite is the case. If anything, a deep analysis of this fiasco should show that social democracy is strongest, when it stands for actual social politics.
I hope all this is understandable. It's not always easy to summarize this stuff into another language.
Thanks a lot, very interesting read. And yet I disagree with it (not with you, with the paper). The key for me is that I do believe that the migration policies of the Danish social democrats might not have drawn more voters to them, but that the (perceived) migration crisis pushed voters away from the German social democrats.
Denmark kept things much more under control in that regard and therefore didn't have the same issues as we see in Germany.
This paper draws conclusions that read for me like a justification of SPD policies, which is understandable as it is basically made by the SPD. A party that lost about half of it's voters during the last 20 years.
No, I thoroughly disagree. Especially since the findings of the paper make perfect sense in regards to the downfall of the SPD. That coincides with the agenda 2010. So the very moment the SPD abandoned social democratic principles and became a full blown neoliberal party, was the moment they started losing voters. They haven't recovered since, despite drifting to the right on immigration, because they lack a classically social democratic profile and aren't believable champions of the cause of the workers and the poor.
The policies advocated for and implemented by the Danish social democrats have done absolutely nothing to fight right wing parties. It has strengthened them and legitimized them. The same thing that happened everywhere else. It just happened in a slightly different way, because their social democrats also happened to have a classically social democratic profile. The minute that was gone, they fell in the surveys.
The big lesson from Danish politics should be the opposite of what so many people claim. Instead of becoming anti immigration parties, they should rediscover their roots.