EU Politics

[laPapessaGiovanna]

Hi everyone! With the upcoming French elections and Marine Le Pen looming over us I'd like to hear French FJers opinions. Do you really think she has a chance? The polls I have heard of say she's at 25%, it seems a bit low to me to be able to rule without allies. Also, she seems to be very divisive and it looks like those who aren't with her are vehemently against her. But France comes from some very rough times terrorism,  economic crisis and a Holland presidency that isn't well liked. Fillon seems a lost cause after the last scandal, so who could be the next French president? 

Should MLP win the presidency what do you think French people would vote in the referendum to abandon EU and NATO that she wants to propose? I understand that there are anti-EU feelings, but anti-NATO too? ETA2 And how widespread are these feelings?  I mean after the brexit a frexit would probably destroy the EU, should we prepare for it?

And now a question for German speaking FJers. As you surely know Anis Amri was killed by two policemen in the outskirts of Milan. Our stupid Minister for Internal Affairs was idiot enough to shout their names for the whole world. So now they are hiding under protection programs with their families. I was told by someone who wouldn't read a newspaper to save his life that German newspapers accused said Italian policemen of being killers and that threats were published against them. I tried to tell him that there is junk press in Germany as there's in Italy, but I am curious to know how much truth there's to this claim. Unfortunately my German is nowhere good enough to search for something like this so I'm asking you if you heard or read something. Thanks. 

ETA1 Merkel is up to reelection this year, she was harshly criticised in the past year but Martin Schulz doesn't seem a strong enough opponent. How do you see the upcoming race?

 

[fraurosena]

We'll also be having elections next month, and things here are also somewhat polarized because of the populist Geert Wilders.

I'm sorry to say that the turnout for elections over here has been dismally low the past few elections as only about a third of those eligible to vote actually do so. Problem is, those that do vote do so because of their strong convictions, and it might just give Wilders a win. Then again, even if the PVV (Wilders' party) were to win the elections, it's quite improbable that he would get a full majority to govern on his own. Almost all of the other political parties have vowed not to work with him, so he hasn't really got a chance of governing.

(That said, look what happened in America...)

I'm not too sure how Willders' base will react to them not being able to govern even though they 'won' the elections, but they don't tend to be as rabid as the Branch Trumpvidians, so that doesn't worry me overly much.

If he does win, and MLP does so in France, then that will almost certainly lead to very, very big problems for the EU. They've already formed a front in the European Parliament, which besides their parties, consists of Polish KNP,  Austrian FPÖ, Belgian 'Vlaams Belang',  Italian Lega Nord, and ex-UKIP member Janice Atkinson.

Potentially nerve-racking times ahead.

[Smash!]

Just want to say thank you for this thread!
Switzerland is not in the EU, but whatever happens will affect us a lot. So I'm very curious to get some insight from you all.

[AnywhereButHere]

My father-in-law thinks Le Pen will make it out out of the first round of voting but that the others will form a coalition against her, so she won't make it all the way. He's not sure who will wind up winning though, but he is sure it will be disastrous for France if they leave the EU. 

(He's been in the US for quite some time but was born and grew up in Marseilles, and still votes in elections.)

[Gobbles]

Quote

ETA1 Merkel is up to reelection this year, she was harshly criticised in the past year but Martin Schulz doesn't seem a strong enough opponent. How do you see the upcoming race?

I don't have time for more, but Schulz's party the SPD was for the first time ahead of the CDU (Merkel) in polls today. Schulz seems to be a major help for the SPD. Personally I hope for another "great coalition", a partnership between the CDU and SPD. Not sure for whom I'm going to vote. CDU is a no-go usually because they don't support same sex marriage, but SPD is also not my type of party. Difficult! For the federal elections I voted for the green party, but I don't want them on a higher level. 

AfD (aka right wing) is hovering around 10%. They lost quite a bit. As cynical as it sounds: Please no attacks here or in Europe during the time leading to the elections. Attacks give them votes. 

 

[fraurosena]

Not only do we have to keep our fingers crossed that there won't be any terrorist attacks, we also have to be vigilant about Russians interfering with all the elections here in Europe:

https://www.rt.com/usa/377885-kick-ass-russia-2017-sanctions/

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) had this to say on the subject:

Quote

“So we’ve introduced Russia sanctions for interfering in our election, apart from what they did in Crimea, we’re going to have a vote on it. 
It’s going to be bipartisan, we’re going to get north of 75 votes and my goal is to put it on Trump’s desk and I hope he will embrace the idea that as the leader of the free world, he should be working with us to punish Russia.”

Graham said he believed Moscow would try to influence the upcoming elections in Europe. “To our German friends, you’re next. To our friends in France, they’re coming after you. And to my friend Mr. Lavrov, I hope you finally suffer some consequences for what you and your regime have been doing to democracies, and 2017 is going to be the year of kicking Russia in the ass in Congress,” he told delegates at the Bayerischer Hof Hotel on Sunday.

 

[faraway]

 

On 18.2.2017 at 9:37 AM, laPapessaGiovanna said:

And now a question for German speaking FJers. As you surely know Anis Amri was killed by two policemen in the outskirts of Milan. Our stupid Minister for Internal Affairs was idiot enough to shout their names for the whole world. So now they are hiding under protection programs with their families. I was told by someone who wouldn't read a newspaper to save his life that German newspapers accused said Italian policemen of being killers and that threats were published against them. I tried to tell him that there is junk press in Germany as there's in Italy, but I am curious to know how much truth there's to this claim. Unfortunately my German is nowhere good enough to search for something like this so I'm asking you if you heard or read something. Thanks. 

ETA1 Merkel is up to reelection this year, she was harshly criticised in the past year but Martin Schulz doesn't seem a strong enough opponent. How do you see the upcoming race?

 

I am German and follow the news media, sometimes even the yellow press (simply to know what they're up to) and I don't know of anything like that. I mean they did shoot him, but I don't think anyone is out to get them. However when something like this happens there's always a debate in Germany about wether it was really necessary to kill the person and why the police isn't able to immobilize the person when they could provide valuable information if captured alive. Obviously that's a difficult discussion when there's a shoot-off.  There was one guy in Germany arrested who plotted a terrorist attack and then hung himself in jail. Authorities were criticized after that because they were aware of the danger. But even in the shittiest of news sources I have never seen death threats about policemen.

I wouldn't underestimate Martin Schulz. IMHO: There would be a fresh atmosphere but politicly there wouldn't be a huge change if the SPD won. Like Gobbles I have voted Green in the past but now I don't really see much of a point to be honest. I would also like to see a change in the stance of gay marriage in the CDU, I wonder if there will be a change before the election.

[prayawaythefundie]

Oh boy, election season in Europe... and if that's not exciting enough for any of you, I'd recommend watching the Turkish / Geman relationship escalate. It's another key relationship for the EU and it's scary, you guys. Turkey keeps a journalist with dual citizenship (Turkish and German) arrested for doing his job. Several German cities have cancelled public speeches in front of giant audiences that were intended for members of the Turkish goverment campaigning for their alteration of constituion  abolishing the very last bit of democracy left. Now, they ask Germany to "behave or else..."

[fraurosena]

Not only is Turkey actually trying to campaign in Germany they are also attempting to do this in the Netherlands. Several campaign manifestations have been planned, whose sole purpose is to muster support for an increase in Erdogan's powers, as @prayawaythefundie said.  

As Germany has cancelled two turkish campaigning activities (saying the venues aren't fit for campaigns) the Turkish government has summoned the German ambassador for an explanation. 

[prayawaythefundie]

@fraurosena There has even been a third cancelling just hours ago. I do believe this is the right way to go but I also see how it's dangerous to provoke Erdogan.

ETA: The German embassador must be used to that by now. If I remember correctly, this is at least the third time he has been summoned within the last year.

[fraurosena]

This makes me stabby.   

Erdogan makes Nazi jibes against Germany

Quote

Turkey's president has compared German officials to Nazis, in the latest escalation in a war of words.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan hit out after German authorities cancelled rallies designed to woo ethnic Turkish voters in Germany ahead of a key referendum.

"Your practices are not different from the Nazi practices of the past," Mr Erdogan said.

[fraurosena]

Today is International Women's Day. And then this hits my twitterfeed... I hate Piers Morgan, but this Polish MEP is way worse.

I had to LOL a bit when he said taller people should be paid more too. It would mean my country will be the richest - well, at least the best paid - in the world. Because we're the tallest people on the planet. 

And it would certainly make me and my family quite rich too, cause my guys are all really, really tall ya'll. 

[Childless]

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Today is International Women's Day. And then this hits my twitterfeed... I hate Piers Morgan, but this Polish MEP is way worse.

I had to LOL a bit when he said taller people should be paid more too. It would mean my country will be the richest - well, at least the best paid - in the world. Because we're the tallest people on the planet. 

And it would certainly make me and my family quite rich too, cause my guys are all really, really tall ya'll. 

Eh.  This guy only says these things because he has self esteem issues.  People only put others down to make themselves feel better.  Its the hallmark of poor self image.  Perhaps he should seek out a therapist.

[Red Jumper]

coming back to Erdogan: they are trying to set up a new law here that gives 2 people of the goverment (internal + external affairs) the power to prohibit the campaining of not-EU-politicians if ... now they give a lot of points that must be met one of them is like upset the local people. I think that reason is so hilarious. It was rumored that the EU still has to approve this because of possble human rights issues

It is very interesing to hear that there has been no national out-cry against this (yet). The bill was poposed by the same internal affairs guy which only a couple of months ago suggested limitation on the freedom of assambly. THAT got a big booooo-response from everywhere (FYI internal affairs is currently hold by a party that used to be combine central, conservative, business-supporting. They are now moving right to get back the voters because they are down to about 25%, while the right is about 1/3 (and rising). External affairs is hold by majorty socialist party

[GreyhoundFan]

I'm not as familiar with EU politics as I am with the mess in the US, but I thought this was an interesting article: "France Braces for the Now-Possible Impossible". The article begins:

Quote

PARIS — Now we know.

Now we know about election upsets, about wrong predictions and unreliable polls, about blind assumption by many of us in the media that voters tend to think as we do.

We know that a majority of British voters have decided that their country should leave the European Union, we know that Donald J. Trump has been elected president of the United States, we know that Geert Wilders, the populist candidate who likes to call himself “the Dutch Trump,” will most likely emerge as the winner of the Dutch parliamentary election next week. We know of the nationalist Polish government’s disregard for the rule of law.

So now we also know that the possibility of Marine Le Pen being elected president of the Republic of France on May 7 is no longer impossible.

True, all rational calculations tend to prove otherwise: Doesn’t the French electoral system wisely leave voters two weeks to cool their heads between the first and second rounds? Don’t we have a tradition of rallying behind the “democratic” candidate in the end, as we did in 2002 when Jacques Chirac faced Ms. Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, in the second round? Isn’t the glass ceiling of 50 percent of the votes unbreakable for an extremist candidate?

But rational calculations do not fool anybody anymore. These are not rational times. As weeks and months go by, Ms. Le Pen’s verdict on Mr. Trump’s victory keeps haunting some of us: “What seemed impossible,” she said on Nov. 9, “is now possible.”

We are now bracing ourselves for the possible impossible. “The threat is real,” President François Hollande acknowledged publicly for the first time last weekend, when I asked in an interview whether a Le Pen victory would kill the European project. “But France will not give in.”

Will the dam hold? This is a French campaign like no other. All the political patterns established since 1958, when the present Constitution was adopted, have come apart. The National Front has been a fixture of national politics for 40 years, but never before has its presidential candidate been a consistent front-runner. Today, none of Ms. Le Pen’s opponents doubt that she will get to the second round; in fact, they are not even fighting her. They are fighting among themselves to win second place on April 23, to have a chance to beat her in the runoff.

...

 

I hope things go better in France than they did here in November...

[Red Jumper]

i hope but i doubt it. From my point of view France has been making a lot of mistakes concerning imigration for more than 30 years. F.i. They have created a lot of trouble by packing new imigrants with working poor into badly planned places (try as short summery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banlieue ) I just saw the one one Paris in the 90s but what i've readand seen in the media this has has gotten so much worse.As I said we had 30% voters for the rightest legal party in the last national election and it is nowhere near as bad as the banlieues.

So for France I would rather say the chance of Le Pen winning with 75% is pretty high *knock on wood that i am wrong*

[prayawaythefundie]

On 5. März 2017 at 6:49 PM, fraurosena said:

This makes me stabby.   

Erdogan makes Nazi jibes against Germany

This is an outrageous claim of his, of course, which is first and foremost beyond disrespectful towards holocaust suvivors and the families of holocaust victims. The very second he says stuff like this, journalists are rotting in his jails for nothing and he is working on building his very own dictatorship. He's got nerves, lecturing Merkel about humans rights. However, I'm not even shocked, he is just that guy.

 

I am even more angry though at the way so many Europeans seem to be very ready to just throw away everything that has been fought and worked for so hard in the upcoming elections. Do people not remember / can they not imagine what it used to be like? For the first time in centuries there has been peace in almost all of Europe for decades! Our ancestors just used to kill each like ALL THE TIME! 

[Childless]

19 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I'm not as familiar with EU politics as I am with the mess in the US, but I thought this was an interesting article: "France Braces for the Now-Possible Impossible". The article begins:

I hope things go better in France than they did here in November...

Maybe Canada really is the only sane place left in the world.  Hold strong Canadians!  You're our only hope!

[Smash!]

I think Marine Le Pen winning is very likely as well. But probably people come to their senses now seeing what a mess Trump is. But it is indeed a scary year for Europe...

Politicians and parties just lost their ability to react to the topics "normal" people are concerned with. I hate that right wing parties are benefitting from it because they don't have solutions.

[fraurosena]

Oh guys, I've just got to share this news! Usually I'm not a big fan our our PM, but today he did something I am incredibly proud of.

The Turkish ambassador, Çavusoglu, was coming to Rotterdam today and had done a public appeal for a massive manifestation in support of Erdogan.  As foreign, politically charged public manifestations in the streets are a possible threat to public security and saftey,  our government was in talks with Çavusoglu, on how to keep things civilized and within the consulate gounds.

This morning, whilst the talks were still ongoing, Çavusoglu publicly threatened our country with harsh economic and political sanctions if we wouldn't give in to his demands.

Whereupon Mark Rutte, our PM, promptly responded by denying the ambassador's airplane the right to land in our country.

We will not be bullied!

So now Erdogan is calling us calling fascist and nazi's. Yes, that's right. The man who is fast becoming the dictator in Turkey, who is garnering support to give him more power and authority in order to become a full dictator, is calling us fascist and nazi's for not giving him what he wants. 

[fraurosena]

I've found two english-language news articles on the whole Turkey/Netherlands conflict, for those of you who are interested:

https://www.rt.com/news/380263-netherlands-turkey-cancel-flight/ 

https://www.rt.com/news/380282-erdogan-turkey-dutch-nazis/

 

We are living in weird and dangerous times, folks.

[prayawaythefundie]

Guess the Dutch and the German embassador in Ankara can give each other rides now whenever they're both summoned. 

[fraurosena]

The Dutch ambassador has been told he isn't welcome in Turkey anymore... 

This situation is escalating fast. Another Turkish minister, Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya of Family Affairs,  ducked the airplane landing ban by entering our country in a convoy of cars. She arrived at the consulate and immediately accused the Netherlands of breaking the law and breaching human rights. 

So basically, when you say you won't be bullied into doing something they want, you are breaching human rights... owkayyyyy...

What I do find kind of offensive though, is that Mevlüt Çavusoglu has been allowed entry into Metz, France, where he arrived this evening. He's going to hold a grand scale rally there tomorrow. Ugh. I'm not so enarmored with France right now... 

[fraurosena]

I just found this comprehensive overview by the NYT of Dutch politics in the run-up to the elections next week.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/world/europe/geert-wilders-dutch-netherlands-election.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share

One thing bothers the heck out of me though:

Quote

On the right, Sybrand Buma is a straight-talking leader of the Christian Democrats. Mr. Buma’s party was in power for many years, fell out of favor, but now is experiencing a revival with a message that plays to members of the ethnic Dutch majority who are keen to preserve Dutch traditions and limit immigration.

What the everloving fuck? The Dutch people are now an ethnic group in their own country ? 

Let's just hope that's a typo...

 

-------------------------------- splitting merged posts as they don't belong together --------------------------------------

 

Newsflash.

The Turkish minister for Family Affairs has just been detained by the Dutch authorities and will be escorted out of the country to Germany. This conflict with Turkey is really revving up! Protesters of Turkish descent are out in the streets in Rotterdam and Amsterdam. In Turkey there are protests in front of the Dutch Embassy. 

It doesn't look like this is going to end well... 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

@fraurosena, thank you for those links, they were interesting. The WaPo had an article about the situation in the Netherlands: "Anti-immigrant anger threatens to remake the liberal Netherlands"

Quote

Xandra Lammers lives on an island in Amsterdam, the back door of her modern and spacious four-bedroom house opening onto a graceful canal where ducks, swans and canoes glide by.

The translation business she and her husband run from their home is thriving. The neighborhood is booming, with luxury homes going up as fast as workers can build them, a quietly efficient tramway to speed residents to work in the world-renowned city center, and parks, bike paths, art galleries, beaches and cafes all within a short amble.

By outward appearances, Lammers is living the Dutch dream. But in the 60-year-old’s telling, she has been dropped into the middle of a nightmare, one in which Western civilization is under assault from the Muslim immigrants who have become her neighbors.

“The influx has been too much. The borders should close,” said Lammers, soft-spoken with pale blue eyes and brown hair that frames a deceptively serene-looking face. “If this continues, our culture will cease to exist.” 

To Europe’s powers that be, the threat looks dramatically different but no less grave: If enough voters agree with Lammers and support the far right in elections here on Wednesday and across the continent later this year, then it’s modern Europe itself — defined by cooperation, openness and multicultural pluralism — that could come crashing down.

...