EU discussion / and other European countries

Elections in Austria.

Austrian elections: Could the far-right FPÖ win?
Austria's general election this Sunday will likely reshape the country's political landscape for the next five years, as that's the length of a legislative period. Austria's 6.3 million eligible voters will get to choose between very different parties across the political spectrum. Above all, however, the election will determine whether the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) will once again secure the most votes and become the strongest political force in Austria. After all, in Austria, the FPÖ already came first in the European parliamentary elections this June.
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https://www.dw.com/en/austrian-elections-could-the-far-right-fpö-win/a-70350413
 
TwoSheds said:
What's Draghi's report about?
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Basically that EU is rapidly falling behind and it is not being competitive compared to the US and China. He is urging a massive increase in R&D.

Obviously innovation and regulation aren’t best friends, so not surprised that the EU regulation guy was fired/quit immediately after that.
 
Revan said:
Basically that EU is rapidly falling behind and it is not being competitive compared to the US and China. He is urging a massive increase in R&D.

Obviously innovation and regulation aren’t best friends, so not surprised that the EU regulation guy was fired/quit immediately after that.
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Is this what happened? I thought Breton resigned because he wasn't given some portfolio by Von der Leyen.
 
HTG said:
It looks more and more likely that we will see an attempt to prohibit the AfD in Germany.
Couldn’t find an English link, however.
https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/afd-verbotsverfahren-102.html
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Which would be a massive mistake.

Their supporters would be scream "Witch Hunt and Deep State!" and that would only reinforce their ranks.

We need also to see how much of the population they represent. Sending them underground is the best way to lose track of their growth and representativity.
 
That_Bloke said:
Which would be a massive mistake.

Their supporters would be scream "Witch Hunt and Deep State!" and that would only reinforce their ranks.

We need also to see how much of the population they represent. Sending them underground is the best way to lose track of their growth and representativity.
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I completely disagree. The danger lies within a failed attempt. That would be disastrous. But successfully prohibiting them would destroy their whole network and cause them to need to reorganise within a new party. Which is difficult, especially if interior intelligence monitors everything they do.
Their followers already cry witch-hunt at everything. That doesn’t really matter. I believe it’s completely futile to care about appearances when those you try to paint a nice picture for, live in an alternative reality altogether. The AfD is their most important organisation. Destroy them. As good as you can.
And I don’t see why in the world we need to watch them. What for? We know their plans. The watching is done. We watch, so we can gather evidence in order to act. Now it’s time to act. Otherwise, the damage done to our democracy might be gigantic. We can’t allow these people to be responsible for a whole state or even the country. The damage they’d cause would just be too big.
We desperately need to act on them. Otherwise, a new Weimarer Republic is starting to look extremely likely. Thuringia is already on the verge of becoming ungovernable. We can’t let this happen.

It’s time to act. But we have to act carefully and can’t make any mistake whatsoever.
 
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Revan said:
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I'd rather the 2nd personally.
I dont need or want innovations in rockets. Boring sustainability and responsibility is far, far more valuable to me.
I dont particularly care how big of an influence we have on middle eastern politics. America will veto any workable idea or plan so its meaningless.
The last thing this world needs is more deregulation. feck your profits, feck your international influence (double feck it where Macron is concerned).
 
caid said:
I'd rather the 2nd personally.
I dont need or want innovations in rockets. Boring sustainability and responsibility is far, far more valuable to me.
I dont particularly care how big of an influence we have on middle eastern politics. America will veto any workable idea or plan so its meaningless.
The last thing this world needs is more deregulation. feck your profits, feck your international influence (double feck it where Macron is concerned).
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And you probably won't get shot in Europe. Probably.
 
WPMUFC said:
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A cursory glance at it seems like this is just the reverse of what happened with Brexit. Obvious meddling and one side narrowly wins.

With nearly 50 per cent of the country against joining, how does the country go about doing so in a way that won't be very unpopular?
 
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horsechoker said:
A cursory glance at it seems like this is just the reverse of what happened with Brexit. Obvious meddling and one side narrowly wins.

With nearly 50 per cent of the country against joining, how does the country go about doing so in a way that won't be very unpopular?
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It sounds like the meddling in this instance went significantly beyond our Brexit experience of planting fake news and funding politicians, with some of the “no” vote attributable to outright buying of votes for cash (this is Europe’s poorest country for context). If the EU makes some promises of investing in the country, then I imagine at least some of those venal voters can be brought on board. I would also hazard a guess that demographic trends would favour an increasing pro-EU majority as those with memories of the Soviet days die off.
 
MoskvaRed said:
It sounds like the meddling in this instance went significantly beyond our Brexit experience of planting fake news and funding politicians, with some of the “no” vote attributable to outright buying of votes for cash (this is Europe’s poorest country for context). If the EU makes some promises of investing in the country, then I imagine at least some of those venal voters can be brought on board. I would also hazard a guess that demographic trends would favour an increasing pro-EU majority as those with memories of the Soviet days die off.
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The demographic trend is that those who want to be part of the EU have already made sure to get a Romanian passport and are in the EU.
 
The Europeans are good at rhetoric. But if the conclusion is "we need to be more independent" of the US, what happens next? Are they acting on it?

 
Volkswagen intends to shut German 3 factories, labor say
German automotive giant Volkswagen plans on shutting at least three plants in Germany, the company's works council said on Monday.

"Management is absolutely serious about all this. This is not sabre-rattling in the collective bargaining round," the Reuters news agency cited Daniela Cavallo, Volkswagen's works council head, as telling several hundred employees in Wolfsburg.
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https://www.dw.com/en/volkswagen-intends-to-shut-german-3-factories-labor-says/a-70618400
 
  • Car sector, chemical industry and engineering sector all having problems at the same time.
  • Dire infrastructure.
  • Excessive bureaucracy.
  • High energy & labour costs.

 
The ailing news channel was bought out in 2022 with funds from close associates of Hungary's nationalist prime minister, according to confidential documents.
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VorZakone said:
  • Car sector, chemical industry and engineering sector all having problems at the same time.
  • Dire infrastructure.
  • Excessive bureaucracy.
  • High energy & labour costs.

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The Germans bounced back from WW2, trust them to overcome a tiny recession.

As for excessive bureaucracy, they have a million civil servants less than France with 15 million more inhabitants
 
I think with Trump‘s victory and the UK already being quite destabilized and thrown out of the international concert, foreign interference efforts will now focus more and more on the EU. I expect Russia and their allies to target the EU even more now. What has already started with Hungary and Poland, will now become more extreme.
The EU is not at all equipped to handle this and I wouldn’t be shocked to see it dissolve or rendered meaningless in the next two decades.
 
HTG said:
I think with Trump‘s victory and the UK already being quite destabilized and thrown out of the international concert, foreign interference efforts will now focus more and more on the EU. I expect Russia and their allies to target the EU even more now. What has already started with Hungary and Poland, will now become more extreme.
The EU is not at all equipped to handle this and I wouldn’t be shocked to see it dissolve or rendered meaningless in the next two decades.
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We'll see, it is for sure difficult not to be very pessimistic about security and stability in Europe for the coming years. Russia must be in overdrive right now planning their campaigns and influences across Europe.

There is still the chance that EU will step up collectively (for the most part, excluding Hungary/Slovakia, maybe Germany) and realize the dangerous situation that is unfolding and take a stance against Russia with increased military spending and security without reliance on US



Specially Finland/Sweden and Baltic states, and Poland, who have the most to lose due to their proximity to Russia. We might see a shakeup of alliances - perhaps EU in its current form will fold and other kinds of cooperation come through instead. Too soon to tell but the window to take a strong stance and shape the security for the coming decade will also close quickly.
 
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