European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 933

On August 28 2017 16:52 Mafe wrote:
Isnt it a bit too simple to say that Macron won because le Pen was the alternative? I mean, he still had to be the the "best of the rest". Ok, I seem to remember the other candidates have been shooting themselves in their feet repeatedly, but still it is like saying team liquid won TI7 only because Newbee had a bad day, while conveniently forgetting that liquid needed a long lower bracket run to get there.

On August 28 2017 09:25 sc-darkness wrote:
I've been reading that support for Emmanuel Macron is in decline. Why is it so? I think his support for the EU is refreshing with a few exceptions. I don't know how he is doing in France though.


Yeah, I think the way he deals with foreign leaders is interesting. Also, I like he is pro-EU. I don't like that he is for refugees though. EU has got too many refugees since 2015. Same story about Merkel.

BERLIN, Aug 28 (Reuters) - German police on Monday raided the homes and workplaces of a policeman and another person suspected of planning to capture and kill left-wing politicians because of their views on immigration, authorities said.

The suspects, who feared Germany’s refugee policies would impoverish the country, had begun to stockpile food and ammunition and plan attacks, the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

“The suspects see the crisis they fear taking hold as an opportunity to capture left-wing political representatives and kill them with their weapons,” the statement said.

The suspects, who had drawn up a list of target names, planned “serious violence threatening to the state,” the prosecutor’s office said.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a weekend newspaper interview she had no regrets about her 2015 decision to leave Germany’s borders open to hundreds of thousands of refugees and added she would not be deterred from campaigning by angry hecklers.

A spokesman for the federal prosecutor’s office said neither suspect had been arrested and no arrest warrant had been issued yet.

Pictures on the website of the mass-circulation daily Bild showed black-clad police, some in balaclavas, carrying out searches.

The suspected policeman worked in the eastern town of Ludwigslust, some 150 km (90 miles) northwest of Berlin. Disciplinary measures had been initiated against him, the state interior ministry of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern said.

Police also carried out raids on the properties of people linked to the two suspects, but who were not themselves suspects, the prosecutor’s office added. One of these was also a policeman, the state interior ministry said.

On August 28 2017 18:34 r.Evo wrote:

Painting Merkel as "pro-refugees" is highly misleading, the response to the crisis has to be seen as an exception to both her course and the course of her party. That's why in their party program for the upcoming election e.g. both the goal of a low intake of refugees and deportation of those who were denied refugee status is mentioned.

On September 01 2017 18:55 PM_ME_NICE_PUPPERS wrote:


Of course that's what the CDU is saying, because they know that's what popular. We've had rather enough of Multiculturalism. We had some, we didn't like it, we don't want more. Merkel said this herself: "Der Ansatz für Multikulti ist gescheitert, absolut gescheitert!" (our approach to multi-culti has failed. Absolutely failed.) http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/integration-merkel-erklaert-multikulti-fuer-gescheitert-a-723532.html

I really long for the days when politicians could be clear and honest about this issue. I really don't know what happened in seven years, but going from "multi culti doesn't work" to "the next generation of Germans should come from Eritraea" seems rather a big change to me.

At the same time, the only Alternative is crap on any other issue. I'm really not sure what to vote for this time around and for the first time in my life, I'm considering not voting at all. The amount of votes AfD are getting in early polls is ridiculous and really disheartening. Either there are more climate change deniers in Germany than I thought, or single-issue-voters are a bigger issue than I had anticipated.

On September 02 2017 03:51 Artisreal wrote:
What country are you speaking of?

On September 02 2017 03:49 sc-darkness wrote:


I think the bigger issue is left wing's policy to use labels. You criticise open borders, then you're called nazi, racist, biggot, islamophobe, etc. No discussion at all. Just plain labels.

My point is about left wing in general.

On September 02 2017 03:49 sc-darkness wrote:


I think the bigger issue is left wing's policy to use labels. You criticise open borders, then you're called nazi, racist, biggot, islamophobe, etc. No discussion at all. Just plain labels.

The EU believes that there will have to be a “standalone” deal on Northern Ireland’s border with the Republic of Ireland, paving the way for a special status for the province after Brexit.

Senior sources at the European commission said a tailor-made solution that works for Ireland must be found.

When the third round of Brexit talks ended on Wednesday, officials made it clear that the British proposal for a customs waiver on the border was a non-starter.

It said the plan was predicated on the EU suspending the application of its laws, namely checks on goods from the UK coming into Ireland, which will remain a member state.

Dublin believes the best solution for Northern Ireland is for the UK to remain in the customs union.

Sinn Féin, which represents the nationalist community in Northern Ireland, has called for Northern Ireland to be granted special status, but this stance is opposed by the Democratic Unionist party.

It was also made clear in Brussels that talks on the Northern Ireland border have been kicked into the second phase of discussions, because the EU is not prepared to allow it to be a proxy for Britain’s negotiations on its future trading relationship with the EU.

One senior commission source described the British position paper on the matter as an attempt to make Ireland a “hostage” in the talks.

There was agreement, however, on the desire to continue with the common travel area after Brexit. It allows passport-free travel between the islands and has existed since Ireland gained independence in 1922.

It is understood that the UK also moved on its position that after Brexit, the travel area would only apply to British and Irish passport holders, paving the way for mandatory passport controls for other EU citizens travelling between the two countries.

One source said the UK had given guarantees that it would not change the operation of the common travel area “to the detriment of EU citizens”, suggesting the border would remain open.

While ostensibly there is broad political will to maintain the travel area in Europe as well as Britain and Ireland, legal experts have warned that it will not secure the rights of Irish citizens settled in Britain.

Irish citizens are deemed to have separate status to other EU citizens because of the historical and cultural ties between the two countries.

Theresa May has said Irish nationals will not have to apply for the new immigration category of “settled status” that will apply to EU citizens.

The British position on Irish citizens is that employment and social rights will flow from existing agreements under the common travel area arrangements, the 1971 Immigration Act and the 1949 Ireland Act, which ended Ireland’s status as a British dominion and stated that it would not be treated as a foreign country.

Bernard Ryan, a law professor, said there was no legal basis for that position. “There needs to be a special provision in immigration law that says Irish citizens are exempt or for them to be equated to British citizens for the purposes of immigration law, essentially treated the same as British,” said Ryan, who has acted as an expert on the issue for several parliamentary committees.

Such legislation already exists in Ireland, equating British nationals to Irish. Following the Good Friday agreement in 1998, Ireland’s 1935 Aliens Act was amended by the then taoiseach Bertie Ahern to exempt “every person who is a citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland” from the laws that apply to immigrants.

On September 02 2017 03:54 sc-darkness wrote:


Me? My point is about left wing in general. It applies to quite a lot of countries in Europe.

On September 02 2017 04:46 Artisreal wrote:

Well,I actually was curious whether you could have pointed me to an instance where the so called open borders were discussed and where a proposal was made how to resolve the humanitarian crisis, which brought Merkel to her invitation of refugees in the first place, that doesn't revolve around labelling people fleeing from war as economy driven migrants seeking to leech off of the German welfare state, the supposed Islamisation of Germany or deportation of criminals into war zones.
To just name a few highlights.
As far as I am concerned, a huge part of the political left is demanding action to actually address the root of the current migratory movements instead of outsourcing the violent repelling to the Saharan desert so that a lot less news makes it to our consciousness than now.

What Merkel did can probably be labelled as the single most humanitarian thing Germany has done since maybe not delivering arms to Saudi Arabia (sorry for the hyperbole).

Where have people been dismissed for their serious proposals for trying to solve this problem?
Outsourcing the European border to Africa and Turkey doesn't count as a solution because it just shifts the struggle to regions that in part are struggling themselves.

And even though I'm not a fan of the fortress Europe, of you can give me some valid advantages, I'm all ears