EPTEuropean Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 1411
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28665 Posts
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Silvanel
Poland4726 Posts
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28665 Posts
Didn't know KO had drifted to the left on economy, but if that's the driving factor it does make sense that Confederation voters could go for them over PiS. | ||
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Doublemint
Austria8511 Posts
On May 18 2025 23:26 Dan HH wrote: Durov just sent a message to every Romanian Telegram user (today is the presidential run-off election by the way) with the following text: "A Western European government (guess which one *baguette emoji*) contacted Telegram, asking us to silence conservative voices in Romania before today's presidential elections. We categorically refused. Telegram will not restrict the freedom of its Romanian users and it will not block their political channels. You cannot "defend democracy" by destroying democracy. You cannot fight "election interference" by interfering in elections. You either have freedom of speech and fair elections or you don't. And the Romanian people deserves both." + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/a4NdwRg.jpeg) Worth noting the exact term used for "Romanian people" in the last sentence, "poporul", has pretty much been the motto of the far-right campaign for the past half a year. good thing Nicusor won then! Liberal mayor Dan beats nationalist in tense race for Romanian presidency The liberal, pro-EU mayor of Bucharest, Nicusor Dan, has fought off a strong challenge from a Romanian right-wing nationalist to win the presidency after months of political turbulence. George Simion, the leader of the far-right AUR party, won a dramatic first-round victory earlier this month, riding a wave of anger from Romanians who had seen the presidential race annulled late last year because of claims of Russian interference. But it was the softly spoken Nicusor Dan who swept to victory with 53.6% of the vote, even though Simion was more successful in the diaspora. "We need to build Romania together irrespective of who you voted for," said Dan, once his victory was secure. About 11.5 million Romanians voted in Sunday's run-off, and Dan attracted the support of more than six million of them. The mathematician waited until after midnight on Sunday before he could be absolutely sure that the numbers were on his side and he could join his supporters in a park opposite City Hall in Bucharest. They went wild, chanting his name and cheering. At one point he was almost mobbed but this was a huge moment for the president-elect and for his supporters after months of political tension. "A community of Romanians who want a profound change in Romania won," Dan said. Mihai, one of many Dan supporters who gathered outside his electoral headquarters in the capital, told the BBC he was "really worried about Simion". "I want to choose the pro-European way. It's the only way. It's really important," he added. | ||
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Jankisa
Croatia594 Posts
Balkan politics are insane, my country also had regional elections and it's a mixed bag. For the uninitiated, Croatia has been, with minor interruptions ruled by a center right party that is basically also a semi-sophisticated crime syndicate, lucky for us, they figured 20ish years ago that it's best for them to be pro-EU with everything that entails because that allows them to steal much more money, both from the EU funds and by the whole economy being bigger, more investments more opportunity to steal. This makes them relatively chill on LGBT rights, great on Ukraine and relatively good on social spending, but most smart people of Croatia would never vote for them because they know how big criminals they are (it's very well documented), while their voters mostly just say "everyone's corrupt and these guys aren't that bad, also they employ half my family so fuck it". Then we have Zagreb, our capital, where, after 20 years of rule from a populist ex-left guy who's connected with Zagreb but also state mafia we have an Oxford educated, very left and quite populist movement and a mayor. In their first mandate they knocked it out of the park, fixed the deficit, started and (in some cases) finished projects that were waiting for 20 years, and thankfully they got almost 50 % both for the mayor and in the city council. All that despite the criminals in charge and criminals who ruled Zagreb from the shadows trying to fuck with them every step of the way. This kind of gives me hope that in the next 4 years this example that is extremely visible shows the people that not everyone is corrupt and we can keep the 20 % of our GDP that gets stolen by the state mafia every year, put all the amazing resources our country has to good use and have a great country. Given that I've seen in this thread that it seems to be a pattern, I hope more of these liberal/populist mayors get in power and get to work all across the Europe and with their actual policies and work show that we can have good societies without giving the reigns to Simon's and AFD's of the world. | ||
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Dan HH
Romania9118 Posts
On May 19 2025 21:40 Jankisa wrote: Romania was looking scary for a while, glad they didn't allow the travesty of these shallow right wing guys using populism and bullshit to take over, still scary that it got this close. The far-right candidate, Simion, may have won if he had simply shut up during the past two weeks. It was the most catastrophic run-off campaign I witnessed, if Nicusor Dan was running his opponent's campaign to intentionally try to sabotage him I'm not sure he could have done a better job. At one point I was honestly questioning if he even wants to win. A lot happened in these past two weeks but I want to tell you guys about just one key moment that triggered this crashout and avalanche of gaffes. Some context, last summer Simion ran a campaign for "35 000 euro houses". His party, AUR, had a big media push and spared no expense to promote that if he becomes president people that give their personal information and sign some papers will be able to buy houses for 35k with a 1k deposit and no interest (which is not even remotely feasible). There were lines of hundreds of people at every AUR office to sign "pre-contracts" for these houses. Back to around 2 weeks ago there was an interview with Simion and the journalist asked him about it, and the key part is that he asked the question in an entirely non-confrontational way, appealing to Simion's narcissism with an understanding tone. Simion felt comfortable and didn't go into defense mode as usual, so instead of lying about it he took it as an opportunity to brag to the journalist about how clever he is. He said it was just a marketing campaign and that he couldn't have taken the party to 40% (his score in the 1st round) without his brilliant marketing initiatives. A couple of days later was the first presidential debate, the only one that Simion ended up going to, leaving an empty chair in his place for every other scheduled programme with the two of them. Dan got a zinger on the houses subject which became the most viral clip of the debate. To fully appreciate it I need to give you guys another bit of context. Dan, then mayor of Bucharest, had some unruly hair during the pandemic which became a meme. + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](https://static4.libertatea.ro/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/nicusor-dan-netuns-1024x575.webp) He embraced the meme and ended up making some short videos about going to get a haircut. In the debate when Dan pressed Simion about his interview response regarding the houses scheme, Simion said "it was a marketing campagin, just like when you go to get a haircut you make a marketing campaign out of it" to which Dan replied "when I go to get a haircut there aren't thousands of people waiting in line for false hope". He never recovered from that. | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21668 Posts
Basic conman 101 mistake. | ||
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Simberto
Germany11507 Posts
On May 19 2025 23:01 Dan HH wrote: The far-right candidate, Simion, may have won if he had simply shut up during the past two weeks. It was the most catastrophic run-off campaign I witnessed, if Nicusor Dan was running his opponent's campaign to intentionally try to sabotage him I'm not sure he could have done a better job. At one point I was honestly questioning if he even wants to win. A lot happened in these past two weeks but I want to tell you guys about just one key moment that triggered this crashout and avalanche of gaffes. Some context, last summer Simion ran a campaign for "35 000 euro houses". His party, AUR, had a big media push and spared no expense to promote that if he becomes president people that give their personal information and sign some papers will be able to buy houses for 35k with a 1k deposit and no interest (which is not even remotely feasible). There were lines of hundreds of people at every AUR office to sign "pre-contracts" for these houses. Back to around 2 weeks ago there was an interview with Simion and the journalist asked him about it, and the key part is that he asked the question in an entirely non-confrontational way, appealing to Simion's narcissism with an understanding tone. Simion felt comfortable and didn't go into defense mode as usual, so instead of lying about it he took it as an opportunity to brag to the journalist about how clever he is. He said it was just a marketing campaign and that he couldn't have taken the party to 40% (his score in the 1st round) without his brilliant marketing initiatives. A couple of days later was the first presidential debate, the only one that Simion ended up going to, leaving an empty chair in his place for every other scheduled programme with the two of them. Dan got a zinger on the houses subject which became the most viral clip of the debate. To fully appreciate it I need to give you guys another bit of context. Dan, then mayor of Bucharest, had some unruly hair during the pandemic which became a meme. + Show Spoiler + He embraced the meme and ended up making some short videos about going to get a haircut. In the debate when Dan pressed Simion about his interview response regarding the houses scheme, Simion said "it was a marketing campagin, just like when you go to get a haircut you make a marketing campaign out of it" to which Dan replied "when I go to get a haircut there aren't thousands of people waiting in line for false hope". He never recovered from that. Wow, dude got pwned so hard he lost not just that one game, but the next few too. But yeah, in my opinion voters should punish people just not answering questions or attending debates way more. That should be an immediate knock-out. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25245 Posts
On May 19 2025 23:01 Dan HH wrote: The far-right candidate, Simion, may have won if he had simply shut up during the past two weeks. It was the most catastrophic run-off campaign I witnessed, if Nicusor Dan was running his opponent's campaign to intentionally try to sabotage him I'm not sure he could have done a better job. At one point I was honestly questioning if he even wants to win. A lot happened in these past two weeks but I want to tell you guys about just one key moment that triggered this crashout and avalanche of gaffes. Some context, last summer Simion ran a campaign for "35 000 euro houses". His party, AUR, had a big media push and spared no expense to promote that if he becomes president people that give their personal information and sign some papers will be able to buy houses for 35k with a 1k deposit and no interest (which is not even remotely feasible). There were lines of hundreds of people at every AUR office to sign "pre-contracts" for these houses. Back to around 2 weeks ago there was an interview with Simion and the journalist asked him about it, and the key part is that he asked the question in an entirely non-confrontational way, appealing to Simion's narcissism with an understanding tone. Simion felt comfortable and didn't go into defense mode as usual, so instead of lying about it he took it as an opportunity to brag to the journalist about how clever he is. He said it was just a marketing campaign and that he couldn't have taken the party to 40% (his score in the 1st round) without his brilliant marketing initiatives. A couple of days later was the first presidential debate, the only one that Simion ended up going to, leaving an empty chair in his place for every other scheduled programme with the two of them. Dan got a zinger on the houses subject which became the most viral clip of the debate. To fully appreciate it I need to give you guys another bit of context. Dan, then mayor of Bucharest, had some unruly hair during the pandemic which became a meme. + Show Spoiler + He embraced the meme and ended up making some short videos about going to get a haircut. In the debate when Dan pressed Simion about his interview response regarding the houses scheme, Simion said "it was a marketing campagin, just like when you go to get a haircut you make a marketing campaign out of it" to which Dan replied "when I go to get a haircut there aren't thousands of people waiting in line for false hope". He never recovered from that. Cheers for the context! From the BBC summary up the page: But it was the softly spoken Nicusor Dan who swept to victory with 53.6% of the vote, even though Simion was more successful in the diaspora. A wee additional question, why do you think this is? One would assume (always a dangerous thing) that a diaspora spread over mostly Europe, would see the benefits of European integration and migration and be more, not less behind the pro-EU candidate. I mean a non-trivial amount of British expatriates voted for Brexit and some were genuinely surprised that it threw their migration status into question. Leopards, faces and all that. One thing I find, especially in the current era is a lot of ex-pats get bombarded with a lot of negative news, without the lived experience to mitigate some of that, so I wonder if that’s a factor. Or just being less tied into the totality of the news cycle. Anyway, rambling aside interested to hear your thoughts! | ||
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Dan HH
Romania9118 Posts
On May 19 2025 23:59 WombaT wrote: Cheers for the context! From the BBC summary up the page: A wee additional question, why do you think this is? One would assume (always a dangerous thing) that a diaspora spread over mostly Europe, would see the benefits of European integration and migration and be more, not less behind the pro-EU candidate. I mean a non-trivial amount of British expatriates voted for Brexit and some were genuinely surprised that it threw their migration status into question. Leopards, faces and all that. One thing I find, especially in the current era is a lot of ex-pats get bombarded with a lot of negative news, without the lived experience to mitigate some of that, so I wonder if that’s a factor. Or just being less tied into the totality of the news cycle. Anyway, rambling aside interested to hear your thoughts! Here's a map of the results abroad: + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/5kcgEbU.png) The far-right candidate won in all the countries that are popular destinations for temporary manual labor (construction/agriculture) and virtually nowhere else. In Germany, Italy and Spain with >65%. The overall result for votes abroad was 55-45 in favor of Simion. The people doing this form of work form enclaves and their social circle is basically the "Romanians in [insert European city]" Facebook group. There's no integration, no partaking in local culture, minimal interaction with locals, and minimal learning of the local language. A Romanian that has been working in construction in Koln for the past 6 months has infinitely less in common with a lifelong Koln resident than I have in common with you despite the distance. They go back-and-forth a lot, and I can imagine that some frustrations arise from being invisible 2nd class citizens for several months in Germany back to being normal citizens in their home village in Romania then going back next summer to earn money and so on. There are opportunities for them in Romania but not in the places where they live, that's the issue. The same thing happens in my city, only with people from Pakistan, Sri-Lanka, Vietnam coming to do manual labor. I never see them in mixed groups with locals, only together by themselves. It's difficult to communicate with them since they only speak a tiny bit of English and a tinier bit of Romanian. So of course they're going to bond over their national identity and retreat into that. It's easy for populists to tap into that by promising them some kind of revenge, an inversion of social status, a return to a glorious past that never existed. You're right to invoke Brexit, they would have absolutely hated getting what they voted for, since beyond the smoke and vague fantasies the concrete plans of the far-right are bankrupt ideas. But there is also a significant segment of educated Romanians abroad and they were decisive in these elections. Going only by votes from inside the country, Dan would have finished 3rd place in the 1st round and we would have had a Biden-esque political dinosaur in the runoff without them. | ||
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maybenexttime
Poland5554 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25245 Posts
On May 20 2025 01:49 Dan HH wrote: Here's a map of the results abroad: + Show Spoiler + The far-right candidate won in all the countries that are popular destinations for temporary manual labor (construction/agriculture) and virtually nowhere else. In Germany, Italy and Spain with >65%. The overall result for votes abroad was 55-45 in favor of Simion. The people doing this form of work form enclaves and their social circle is basically the "Romanians in [insert European city]" Facebook group. There's no integration, no partaking in local culture, minimal interaction with locals, and minimal learning of the local language. A Romanian that has been working in construction in Koln for the past 6 months has infinitely less in common with a lifelong Koln resident than I have in common with you despite the distance. They go back-and-forth a lot, and I can imagine that some frustrations arise from being invisible 2nd class citizens for several months in Germany back to being normal citizens in their home village in Romania then going back next summer to earn money and so on. There are opportunities for them in Romania but not in the places where they live, that's the issue. The same thing happens in my city, only with people from Pakistan, Sri-Lanka, Vietnam coming to do manual labor. I never see them in mixed groups with locals, only together by themselves. It's difficult to communicate with them since they only speak a tiny bit of English and a tinier bit of Romanian. So of course they're going to bond over their national identity and retreat into that. It's easy for populists to tap into that by promising them some kind of revenge, an inversion of social status, a return to a glorious past that never existed. You're right to invoke Brexit, they would have absolutely hated getting what they voted for, since beyond the smoke and vague fantasies the concrete plans of the far-right are bankrupt ideas. But there is also a significant segment of educated Romanians abroad and they were decisive in these elections. Going only by votes from inside the country, Dan would have finished 3rd place in the 1st round and we would have had a Biden-esque political dinosaur in the runoff without them. Merci beaucoup! | ||
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Silvanel
Poland4726 Posts
Trump is threatening 50% tarrifs on EU... | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25245 Posts
On May 23 2025 22:43 Silvanel wrote: Here we go again: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgr5xrygzk5o Trump is threatening 50% tarrifs on EU... Oh for fuck’s sake. It feels we’re in the worst of both worlds with this tariff nonsense. Not doing it at all, ideal. But I think the Trump admin just biting the bullet and doing it is preferable to this. It’ll be a shitshow, blow up in their faces and showcase why it’s such a fucking bad idea. This yes/no, raise/lower, dangle tariffs, pull them back, it’s just perpetual instability and uncertainty. As an aside I feel almost bad for Apple at this point playing shift production whack-a-mole. Tariff-move, new tariff, move… | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21668 Posts
On May 23 2025 22:57 WombaT wrote: Just take lessons from China. Tariff the US into oblivion and wait for the rich and powerful to complain to Trump.Oh for fuck’s sake. It feels we’re in the worst of both worlds with this tariff nonsense. Not doing it at all, ideal. But I think the Trump admin just biting the bullet and doing it is preferable to this. It’ll be a shitshow, blow up in their faces and showcase why it’s such a fucking bad idea. This yes/no, raise/lower, dangle tariffs, pull them back, it’s just perpetual instability and uncertainty. As an aside I feel almost bad for Apple at this point playing shift production whack-a-mole. Tariff-move, new tariff, move… | ||
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Simberto
Germany11507 Posts
This yes/no, raise/lower, dangle tariffs, pull them back, it’s just perpetual instability and uncertainty. But that is how they can make lots of cash. Decide a thing, tell your friends you are going to announce it, they buy stocks and options and so forth accordingly, then announce the thing. Instant money. Then the next day, tell your friends you are gonna take back the thing, they buy/sell, take it back. More instant money. That they are destroying their countries economy in the process is not relevant to these grifters. | ||
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Sent.
Poland9193 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25245 Posts
On May 23 2025 23:11 Simberto wrote: But that is how they can make lots of cash. Decide a thing, tell your friends you are going to announce it, they buy stocks and options and so forth accordingly, then announce the thing. Instant money. Then the next day, tell your friends you are gonna take back the thing, they buy/sell, take it back. More instant money. That they are destroying their countries economy in the process is not relevant to these grifters. That’s a rug pull you can do a few times. If you keep going ‘will she/won’t she’ over and over again, the markets might assume it’s the boy crying wolf and not react according to how you want them. While shitty, I 100% agree that it’s a smart move for the shady, but you can’t keep doing it. ‘Look I’ve got my suitcase, I’m leaving you’ will make me sit up and pay some notice if my partner did that I’ll be figuratively shitting myself. If it’s like the fifteenth time she’s done that and not left I’ll roll my eyes and get on with my day | ||
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Silvanel
Poland4726 Posts
-Like I have written earlier Trzaskowski really was a terrible candidate. He might be popular inside his own party, but Poland does not have two party system, You have to reach out to voters outside Your hard base to win. A he always have had a huge negative base. -Main selling point of Trzaskowski was: "I am not PiS" -Trzaskowski was seen as pro Immigration and LGBT rights etc. And especially immigration is a losing issue in Poland as a whole. It might win You big cities, gave some votes in parlimentary elections but as shown here it will lose You entire country. -His party leader (currently PM) Tusk didnt help. He should have just shut up. He has GIGANTIC negative electorate and every time he opens his mouth people just get riled up. He should hire a spokeperson and just hide in the shadow as Kaczyński does. -The hate for PiS might have carried KO last elections, but every day thats gone by since last time PiS ruled this effect diminishes. Some people already forgot how much they hate PiS. -KO had a much better candidates - Sikorski would have been a slam dunk. He has none of Trzaskowski flaws and a lot pluses and mertis. It is true he lost KO primaries but again in national election You have to win votes outside of Your party. Being more liked (or easier to control by Your own party) is not a merit in a country wide election. TLDR: Its a very similiar to how Trump was elected, especially first time. The pararels are obvious. For me choosing Trzaskowski over Sikorski was very much like choosing Hillary over Bernie. Might make sense from party point of view, but Your own party is NOT ENOUGH to win election. | ||
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Jankisa
Croatia594 Posts
We just had local elections in Croatia and they went in a depressingly similar fashion, our second biggest city has, for the last 4 years had a physicist, smart guy as it's mayor, the guy ran for re-election but because his local party got into the fight with the 2 biggest left parties in the country over them having a candidate running against him (who fell out in the first round), in the second round the voters for the other 2 parties stayed at home and now our second biggest city will be ruled by a guy who's a proven criminal, a corrupt piece of shit who stole city and state property for his family, all of this was documented but it didn't matter, the right came out, voted and now they get to steal for another 4 years. The physicist guy is leaving politics and the world is, once again, just like in the case of Poland a bit shittier of a place for it. Yey. | ||
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