European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 975

A government without at least two of ANO/SPD/Communists is still not possible at the moment, making it quite difficult.

On October 22 2017 02:18 Big J wrote:
When you say:



you do it because the other parties don't really want to form a coalition with either of them, yes? Or just with SPD/Communists, but ANO will get the Prime Minister anyways and therefore they will have to be in the coalition?
Does the parliament have a say in who is forming the government or is this up to the president and his nominated prime minister?

On October 22 2017 02:41 Yurie wrote:
Can't they not form a coalition and get the government and PM post anyway? Talk their way up to 101 votes and then form a minority government where they lean on different parties in different areas. Instead of leaning on the same parties for all issues.

On October 22 2017 03:54 TheDwf wrote:
Millions of people willingly voting for corrupt right-wing billionaires sums up so perfectly what's alienation in our times.

French far-right plot to attack mosques, migrants, politicians uncovered

French anti-terror police have arrested 10 people over a far-right plot to attack mosques, migrants and politicians. The gang, linked to a 21-year-old activist arrested in June, reportedly had government spokesman Christophe Castaner and hard-left former presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon in their sights.

The suspects, aged 17-25, were rounded up on Tuesday in south-east France and the Paris region.

Nine of them are male, of whom three are minors, according to sources.

The 10th is reported to be the mother of Logan Alexandre Nisin, who was arrested in the southern town of Vitrolles for terrorist conspiracy on 28 June.

His 10 associates face the same charge after an investigation uncovered "intentions to commit violent acts", whose details remain unclear, a judicial source told the AFP news agency.

Admirer of neo-Nazi mass murderer

Nisin, who had no steady job and lived with his mother, came to the police's attention because of a Facebook page he administered that glorified neo-Nazi Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people at a Norwegian Labour Party youth camp in 2011.

Investigators have established that he possessed arms, including a pump-action shotgun, and intended to act on his threats to kill immigrants, drug-dealers and jihadists, sources say. + Show Spoiler +

He had established an organisation he called OAS - the initials of the secret armed organisation that resisted French withdrawal from Algeria in 1961 - whose declared aim was to "set off remigration".

It named potential targets including an Indian restaurant in Aix-en-Provence, a flea-market in Marseille and the two politicians, according to Le Monde newspaper, which published an inquiry into Nisin on the day of the latest arrests.

Neither Castaner, who was until recently mayor of a town in Provence that Nisin regarded as lax on immigration, nor Mélenchon had been told that they might be targets, they both revealed on Wednesday. Mélenchon's supporters said that a request for protection during the parliamentary election campaign had been turned down.

Ultraright groups

Since the age of 16, Nisin has joined a series of far-right groups, notably Action Française, a monarchist organisation founded in the 1930s by Charles Maurras, an anti-Semitic writer who was jailed after World War II for collaborating with the German occupation.

The organisation has gained a new lease of life in the Marseille area recently, its young members attacking students campaigning against the previous government's labour reform and other left-wingers.

Although he considered the National Front ineffective and liable to infiltration by freemasons, Nisin campaigned for its leader, Marine Le Pen, during the presidential election.

After his arrest in June, Action Française issued a statement pointing out that he was no longer a member.

With the debate on a new anti-terror law, set to be passed by the French parliament on Wednesday, centring on Islamist violence, the latest plot serves as a reminder of a warning by former intelligence chief Patrick Calvar, who retired from the post in June.

"We should sooner or later devote more resources to look into other extremist groups because confrontation between the ultraright and the Muslim world is inevitable," he told a parliamentary committee in 2016.

Nisin, who had no steady job and lived with his mother

If EU lawmakers were forced to declare how they spend their monthly expenses, they would be criticized so much that they could struggle to do their job, a lawyer representing the European Parliament said Thursday.

She was speaking during a three-hour public hearing at the European Court of Justice on parliamentary expenses. A group of journalists brought a case to court after the Parliament refused to give them access to information on how MEPs spend public money. Last year, around €450 million was spent on MEPs’ salaries, travel expenses and office costs.

“If everything was visible … it would impose a big pressure on [MEPs],” said the lawyer representing the Parliament, later suggesting that “if everything was under discussion by journalists … in a time where everything is discussed on Twitter,” MEPs would in effect be censored and unable to exercise their “free mandate.”

It was “completely untrue” to suggest MEPs’ activities weren’t already visible enough for the public to hold them accountable, the lawyer argued. She said the Parliament’s website allowed people to see what their representatives are doing in committees, saying this was evidence the institution was “extremely transparent.”

On October 22 2017 23:45 Jockmcplop wrote:

http://www.politico.eu/article/mep-expenses-should-be-kept-secret-to-avoid-pressure-from-media/

And they wonder why there's anti EU feeling growing among the public of member states.

On October 22 2017 23:45 Jockmcplop wrote:

http://www.politico.eu/article/mep-expenses-should-be-kept-secret-to-avoid-pressure-from-media/

And they wonder why there's anti EU feeling growing among the public of member states.