European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 390

On January 15 2016 19:04 silynxer wrote:

As a disclaimer, I have not read Arendt and am not sure what the banality of evil entails for her exactly but have you read "Un si fragile vernis d’humanité : banalité du mal, banalité du bien" by Michel Terestchenko? I think he makes a pretty good case using multiple accounts and sources (not all of which are perfect to be honest, like the Milgram experiment but still). Also by contrasting evil to altruism, he creates a pretty interesting and in my opinion useful framework for understanding either actions through the individual self-concept.

EU citizens would have a harder time finding jobs and the economy would suffer should Europe's internal passport-free zone collapse under the pressure of the migration crisis, the head of the bloc's executive said on Friday.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker conceded it would not be easy to curb the mass influx of migrants and refugees, a top priority for Germany - the 28-nation bloc's biggest economy and the main destination for those arriving.

The migration crisis, Europe's worst since World War Two, exposed bitter disagreements between EU members and has put the Schengen zone of passport-free travel on the verge of collapse, a prospect Juncker set out to warn against.

"Less Schengen means less employment, less economic growth," he told a news conference in Brussels. "Schengen is one of the biggest achievements of the European integration process."

"Without Schengen, without the free movement of workers, without freedom of European citizens to travel, the euro makes no sense.. And the same applies to the link between Schengen, freedom of movement and the internal market."

"If anybody wants to kill off Schengen, then ultimately what they are going to do is do away with the single market as well. And that's going to lead to unemployment issues in Europe."

Juncker said the brake-up of Schengen would also make freight and business travel much more expensive as he urged member states to deliver on measures the bloc has already adopted to mitigate the crisis but largely failed to deliver on.

EU members have traded accusations over who is to blame for the crisis, with Brussels and Germany accusing Italy and Greece of letting too many people in. The southern states lambasted Berlin for an open-door policy that encouraged more arrivals.

Last year, more than one million arrived in the EU. The bloc had little success in creating migrant registration 'hot-spot' sites in Greece and Italy, relocating people who already arrived to other EU countries or getting Turkey to keep more of the migrants and asylum-seekers on its soil.

Juncker said he would not give up seeking a European solution to prevent member states from resorting to national fixes, like reintroducing border controls within Schengen. But he admitted that would continue to be an uphill battle.

"I don't have too many illusions about the year ahead because everything is going to be difficult. But I'm not going to give up, I reject the idea that this is somehow the beginning of an end," he said.

The European Union is teetering, and Dutch Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders wants to tip it over the edge.

Wilders, 52, whose party leads opinion polls with calls to close Dutch borders to refugees, pledged to immediately pull the Netherlands out of the 28-nation EU should he become prime minister in elections due in March next year. The EU is unraveling and that’s to be encouraged, he said, urging the U.K. to quit the bloc in its forthcoming referendum.

“We are not sovereign any more; we are not even allowed to form our own immigration policy or even close our borders and I would do that,” Wilders said Thursday in an interview in the Dutch parliament building in The Hague. “I would wish the Dutch to be more like Switzerland. In the heart of Europe, but not in the European Union.”

A household name in the Netherlands since 2004, when he split from the mainstream Liberal party to form his own on an anti-Islam platform, the bouffant-haired blond has enjoyed a swell of support as voters grow increasingly alarmed at the arrival in Europe of more than a million refugees from Syria and elsewhere. The latest poll showed him winning the most parliamentary seats -- as many as Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s Liberals won in 2012 -- if elections were held now.
After years of turbulence surrounding Greek membership of the euro, the focus of uncertainty in the EU has shifted to Britain, where Prime Minister David Cameron is set to call a referendum as early as June on whether the U.K. should stay in or leave. Wilders said he “hopes” Britons will opt to quit, with a knock-on effect on the Netherlands.

‘Enormous Incentive’

In the event of a so-called Brexit, “you will see that it will be easier for other countries to make the same decision,” Wilders said. “The beginning of the end of the European Union has already started. And it can be an enormous incentive for other countries if the United Kingdom would leave.”

Wilders’s Freedom Party is at the vanguard of a movement of populist parties on both right and left that are making inroads across Europe espousing a mixture of anti-austerity, often euro-skeptic and sometimes anti-immigration policies.
The Netherlands has been a forerunner in the splintering of European politics and ideologies. While Spain made headlines in December for having four major parties competing in elections for the first time, the Netherlands saw 11 groups gaining parliamentary seats in the last election. That makes coalition-building difficult and stable governments increasingly rare. Early elections have been called four times in 10 years. If the current Liberal-Labor cabinet completes its full term, it would be the first to do so for nearly two decades.

For Wilders to succeed Rutte, he will need to ensure that the Freedom Party emerges “as big as possible” from the next elections. Amid a fractious parliament, sizable support would make it difficult for other groups to shun him as he bids to form a government, he said. “I believe that parties that exclude us today will have a different tune next year.”
Support for the Freedom Party has risen to the equivalent of 41 seats in the 150-member Dutch parliament, up from 15 in the 2012 elections. The Liberals have sent mixed messages on cooperating with Wilders, while the Christian Democrats have ruled it out in the past. The two parties are battling for second place in the polls.

‘Given Away’

Wilders says he’s ready to form a government with the Liberals, though he won’t work with the premier himself. Rutte has “given Holland away,” Wilders said, blaming him for “so many austerity measures to touch the Dutch with lower pensions, lower benefits for the elderly, higher taxes, at the same time giving all that money to, for instance, Greece, or asylum seekers.”

The Netherlands gave refuge to 59,000 people last year -- a fraction of the number entering Germany -- at a cost to the government of 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion), Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem has said.

Wilders, who lives under constant government security protection, rejects the idea that Syrians seeking a home in the Netherlands are refugees at all, noting that to get there, they passed through other peaceful countries. He says Gulf nations should take more people in and Syrian men of military age should return to the country to fight, rather than European troops being sent in. Dutch warplanes are flying missions over Iraq in order to fight Islamic State.
“Europe cannot handle this any more,” Wilders said, citing incidents such as the sexual assaults reported in Germany over the New Year’s celebrations, including in Cologne, close to the Dutch border.

Since Wilders left the Liberals amid opposition to the party’s support for Turkish EU membership and tension from his anti-Islamic rhetoric, he’s used the media to boost support and awareness for his cause. In 2008, he released “Fitna,” a movie showcasing his views on Islam.

‘Fewer Moroccans’

Of course, Wilders has plenty of opposition at home. He’s been put on trial once before for inciting hatred with his speech and will again appear before a Dutch court in March for remarks he made in 2014 calling for “fewer Moroccans” in the country.

That statement and its impact on young people in the Netherlands were “so horrible,” Rutte said on Dutch television Sunday. The prime minister said he would only consider governing with Wilders if he withdrew the comments, before adding that he’s not eager to govern with him even after meeting that condition. On Thursday, the Freedom Party leader refused to recant or apologize for his statements.

Wilders has enjoyed popular support before in polls, only to falter on election day. He acknowledged that he needs to keep voters engaged over the next year, saying he’s not celebrating yet.

“The good news is that you see now in any European country parties like mine are on the rise and we can be very influential, as my party was, outside the government,” he said. “The best would be to win elections inside the government. That’s my aim and that is our goal.”

On January 16 2016 01:18 Maenander wrote:
Wow, Erdogan's speeches. Academics signing a petition against the anti-PKK operations? Traitors who should be fired in an instant.

"You are not intellectuals, you are ignorant and dark, you know nothing about the East or Southeast. We know this region as well as your home address."

You couldn't make this stuff up.