European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 668

On February 17 2017 19:35 opisska wrote:


Isn't the problem actually a symptom of the presidential system, not the parliamentary one? The presidential system has strong propensity to put a single party into a focus, because the party that wins the president gets enormously strong and no small party has any real chance to talk to presidential elections, because you can't win "a little" - thus this naturally forces the system into the domination of 2, at best 3 major parties and that then reflects inevitably in the parliamentary elections, because those are done by the same voters, in the same social atmosphere and media coverage.

On February 17 2017 21:43 nitram wrote:

The spread of Islam in the west is an enormous issue. How dare you minimalism it.
Hey, how does Paris look? Does it look like the capital of European culture or does it look like a trashcan?

On February 17 2017 20:48 opisska wrote:


But that is still the same point. For the government to be independent, is must be elected independently and not "report" to the parliament (in the sense of being removable at any time). So you essentially have the same two options - one when the government is installed by the parliament and one when it is somehow elected directly (presumably by electing its head or someone with a sole power to appoint it). Then there is the question about the exact distribution of "power" which can be varied regardless of the chosen election mechanism (regulated by how many things need legislative action), sure. But in principle, the "independent government" scenario will always create the same issue - that you elect it in a "all or nothing" scenario.

On February 17 2017 21:04 Acrofales wrote:

But isn't that exactly the point? In a presidential system, there is 1 president who forms his government. While he could, in theory, draw his ministers from a coalition, in practice he simply appoints ministers from his own party (or outsider experts who nevertheless have the same vision for the country as the president and his party). This government has to work with a parliament that may be hostile, or not, depending on the balance of power in parliament. In France this has worked fairly well recently, whereas in the US, there were 6 years of gridlock.

In a parliamentary system, the parties in parliament get together to find a coalition that is willing to govern together. This means they will *always* have a majority in parliament and thus do not have to worry about not getting things done, but the negotiation is done in government: having multiple governing together can cause friction, and only small parts of any party's program being executed.

There are of course, mixes of the two: England has a first-past-the-post parliamentary system that systematically gives one party a majority in parliament, which means they have almost carte blanche to implement their vision (until the next elections come along, anyway).

On February 17 2017 20:55 bardtown wrote:
Parliament: Danes Should Not Become the Minority in Denmark
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/02/15/danish-parliament-danes-not-become-minority-denmark/
http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/15/danish-parliament-adopts-declaration-barring-muslim-majority-neighborhoods/

Any Danes here who can expand on this? It is only being reported by far right media who I'm sure are overblowing its importance.

On February 17 2017 20:54 farvacola wrote:
So some here are saying that Trump's embarrassing first weeks as president have served as a warning signal throughout much of the Western world in terms of what happens when alt-right populism comes to power. WaPo seems to think that Schulz is going through a period of ascendancy in Germany right now partially for that reason. Does this sentiment hold any water?

On February 17 2017 23:04 Ghostcom wrote:


I'm not sure what you want more info about? I think the general agreement is that a good definition of a Dane is very hard to come by (which has been a major point of contention for this bill), yet there are some very obvious ghettos which we have tried for years to dismantle without any sort of success. This is one of the more hard-line approaches to trying to solve the issue, but the overall notion (that we don't want parallel societies) is hardly new in Denmark.

On February 17 2017 21:21 DickMcFanny wrote:


There are no moderates. Once you're not part of the multi-cultural hype-train of Islam is great and whites are evil, you're a right wing fascist per definition.

On February 17 2017 18:07 Big J wrote:


I do not think this makes much of a difference, the problem is that you cannot really switch candidates at that stage properly. You create a scenario in which the public perceives the new frontrunner as a second tier candidate, and the corruption case as proven, which still sheds a bad light on your party. Additionally, the followes who think that Fillion is not guilty, or what he did is not a big thing, will be angry with the party, which may lead to internal trouble and these voters boycotting the new party candidate nevertheless.

On the flip side, creating a parliamentary system that decides the executive system is quite a dirty type of democracy in my opinion. It becomes a party dictatorship. The parliament basically just becomes a chamber that does whatever the ruling party leaders decide. In my opinion there should always be at least two powerful and serperately elected organs in the decision making process.

On February 17 2017 20:13 Gorsameth wrote:

And it would still be a 2 party system for the most part because there can only be 1 winner for the Presidency. Smaller parties might scoop up a few congress seats but I doubt it would change the math much.
Plus the party that wins the Presidency just forms a coalition with whoever is needed to get a majority in congress.

On February 17 2017 23:14 opisska wrote:


This is such a terrible approach to discussion. Also, I can't help myself but notice that I see it quite often from this side - people aggressively "defending" themselves from the "left" or whatever you want to call them, but I don't really see this oppression that you claim happening. I do not know anyone who would be of the clear cut opinion that Islam is great and whites are evil and I definitely do not see that as the mainstream talk in society and media. So who are you actually fighting against? Why does every discussion that even remotely mentions islam or migration be immediately so heated? What prevents you from talking about the things normally?

I assure you, there are plenty of "moderates" - because most of the people are moderate by nature. The people with extreme opinions are easier to notice, but that's about it. I don't really see why we have to communicate by angry generalizations here among reasonable people.

The US vice-president has delivered the most uncompromising message yet from the Trump administration to Nato allies that they have to step up financial contributions towards defence spending.

On his first visit to Europe since taking office, Mike Pence said “some of our largest allies do not have a credible path” towards paying their share of Nato’s financial burden. Although he did not name individual countries, his targets included Germany, France and Italy. “The time has come to do more,” he said.

This section of his speech to the Munich security conference, which is being attended by 500 delegates including government leaders and defence and foreign ministers from around the world, was greeted with lukewarm applause.

He was speaking immediately after the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, made it clear she would not be bullied by the US over defence spending. She said Germany had made a promise to increase defence over the next decade and would fulfil that commitment rather than be forced into the faster rises that Trump is looking for.

Merkel said the focus on defence spending could be misleading. Even if Germany was to spend more, there was not the military capacity available to invest in. She added that Germany saw spending on development in countries in Africa and elsewhere as vital to security as military spending.

The conference marks the first major meeting between the Trump administration and leaders from across Europe since Trump took office.

Pence went further than the US defence secretary, James Mattis, at Nato headquarters on Wednesday in warning Nato allies to stump up more. He said: “As of this moment, the US and only four other Nato members meet that basic standard.”

Those four countries are the UK, Estonia, Greece and Poland. The other 23 Nato members do not meet the target of spending 2% of GDP on defence.

In a thinly veiled warning, Pence said that while the US was bound by Nato’s article five– an attack on one member would be an attack on all – he also reminded the audience that article three contained a commitment to sharing the financial burden, echoing Trump’s warning last year that he did not feel bound to come to the defence of countries that did not pay their share.

Pence peppered his speech with regular references to Trump, stressing that he was delivering messages from the president. He softened his criticism of allies with assurances that the president, in spite of rhetoric about isolationism, valued Nato “The US strongly supports Nato and will be unwavering in our support of this transatlantic alliance,” he said.

On February 19 2017 00:30 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Imagine the shit storm if the US declared it would only defend those that met the 2% GDP goal.... Because that seems to be where we are slowly headed.



Source

On February 17 2017 23:10 Big J wrote:


I think there are many factors to look at with SPD/Schulz ascendancy in the last weeks. For one I believe that a lot of people are fed up with Merkel, but she is seen as a stabilizer in these times and the German economy is running fine, so people just went with her, especially liberals which the CDU/CSU cannot take for granted as their voters usually. But Schulz also kind of brings all of that, as he has been a leading figure of Europe in the past years, but additionally adds that element of "change" to the race, as despite being from SPD, he is not being part of the government.
The Trump factor is probably around a bit as well, as Schulz is much more a figure of a strong, united Europe than Merkel and his party is further from Trump's positions, than Merkels.
Then there is simply the fact, that Sigmar Gabriel, the former head of SPD was simply not well-liked. SPD has been down for years now, after SPD-Greens reformed the country in ways that split the social-democrats and created "Die Linke", a party formed by former SPD and former PDS members (PDS was the heavily reformed SED, the ruling communist party of the GDR). Schulz is a much more integrative figure and other than Gabriel and the others who believe in the "Agenda 2010" reforms, he seems to be willing to create a SPD-Linke-Greens government (which would have had a majority after the last elections, but the SPD did not work with "Die Linke", lots of personal reasons between SPD and former SPD members included). This makes him quite more popular with left-wingers as well, despite his policy not even being that left-winged.
Last but not least there is the infamous subreddit The_Schulz, which was created as a persiflage towards Trump, much before Gabriel somewhat surprisingly announced to step down and make Schulz head of SPD. MEGA (Make Europe Great Again) with Schulz's face and similar memes are currently breaking even into mainstream media.

Also, for those who don't know, the CDU, Merkel's party cannot be elected in Bavaria, they have CSU there, which is a more right-winged, formally independent group. In national elections they act as one party. But CDU/CSU are quite split on the immigration topic, which weakens Merkel's position with conservative voters too.

On February 19 2017 00:37 LegalLord wrote:
I think that countries who disproportionately make noise that underlies a desire to start a war should have an even higher threshold - say, 3%. The US makes a whole lot of noise and it spends that much, so the others should do the same.

In any case, pay up kids.