Senate The European Politics Thread

Fine, it's anti-Nazi, in the same way you're a pedant.

 

Meanwhile, the talks about a Jamaica coalition in Germany have failed.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/19/german-coalition-talks-close-to-collapse-angela-merkel

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Surprised the FPD quit. Usually a reliable partner for her.

 

They learned their lesson from the last time they joined the ruling coalition.

It was increasingly obvious that a compromise wasn’t possible, less because of the FDP, more the Greens and the CSU (who have elections in Bavaria next year)

 

Came across this short video, which was made back in February, long before the recent Catalan hullabaloo made worldwide news, that explains succinctly how regional autonomy is organised in Spain. The comments by Spaniards underneath the video seem to vouch for its accuracy but feel free to point out if anything is misleading in it, JoinTheSchwarz.

 

Yeah, it's good.

 

I see the Catalan independence movement is playing the "EU" card again. This time, demanding Brussels oversees regional elections because Madrid is planning to "rig the vote" - in their words, not mine.

 

Let them, why not? If that's what it takes to give them confidence. I don't see how it hurts the Madrid government.

 

Latest opinion polls puts the independence parties on course for a working majority.

 

This video popped up in my subscriptions yesterday, and is about how Belgium resolves having several distinct lingual communities, and how it puts into practice having three official languages. It's tangentially relevant to the current discussion, plus it's also sure to be interesting to some of the readers, as it was to me, so I thought I'd share it here:

 

Belgium is such a wonderful country, even though it is a very boring place.

 

Good grief. Erdoğan is on a state visit in Athens today and I've never seen anything like these joint statements and press conferences with our guys. Short of a declaration of war live on TV, I can't imagine how it could have gone worse.

 

Did his security people assault your citizens (like they did here in the U.S.)? That's one way it could be worse.

 

No, but his plane was escorted well into Greek airspace by Turkish F-16s and his pilot was refusing to let the Greek airforce take over. Does that count?

He also complained that Greece failed to "silence" his critics and said that the Lausanne treaty (that defines the Greek-Turkish border) should be revised. And that's just the beginning of it.

It was nuts.

 

Yeah, that's bad.

 

Martin Schulz calls for a United States of Europe, bound by a constitution, by 2025 and countries (who do not accept it) should leave the EU.

 

Wasn't that what the EU was trying to attempt? LOL

 

So is Doom by those standards but that didn't stop them from complaining about it.

One has to wonder what point will be far enough in terms of provocation (short of an actual invasion) will tip the scales into full-blown conflict.

 

In Austria, the far-right party doesn't only get to join the governing coalition. It gets the ministries of interior, defence and foreign affairs.

In Austria.

I can't imagine what could possibly go wrong with this.

 

Yeah, they don't have the best history here with this do they...

 

Last time this happen, I believe the EU put sanctions in Austria.

 

If you think the Austrian far-right running the ministries of interior, defence and foreign affairs is bad. EU Commission has now decided to start with article 7 procedures against Poland because of the government planned Judicial reforms. This is pretty much how far it can go, the second part of article 7, the loss of voting rights in council, requires unanimity in the Council. The Hungarian government will definitely block it, along with perhaps the other two V4 countries Czechia and Slovakia.