European Union

Around 70% of Labour, Lib Dem and Green voters think future PM should open talks on rejoining EU, poll suggests

Even, a bit of a line in the sand?

Keir Starmer’s government has been told a closer EU trade deal is a “strategic necessity” for companies in Britain as growing numbers of exporters find it tougher to do business under the UK’s post-Brexit agreement

Of course, any such deal must be made in isolation – no going around changing the terms of trade with non-EU in order to get something from the EU.

Which the EU isn’t going to do so there’s the end of that, eh?

Fewer companies operating in Europe will be made to carry out due diligence on the societal harms they cause, in what green groups have called a “betrayal” of communities affected by corporate abuse.

The gutting of the EU’s sustainability reporting and due diligence rules, which was greenlit by MEPs on Tuesday, slashes the number of companies covered by laws to protect human and ecological rights, and removes provisions to harmonise access to justice across member states.

Social and environmental reporting will be required only of companies with more than 1,000 employees and a net annual turnover of at least €450m, while due diligence will have to be carried out only by companies with more than 5,000 employees and a net annual turnover of at least €1.5bn. The latter requirement has been delayed until 2029.

“How are you, Mr Oil Company, boiling Flipper?” never really was going to be a useful level of bureaucracy, was it?

It was both enjoyable and strange to see the EU enlargement commissioner, Marta Kos, present the news on Moldovan TV a couple of months ago. For one thing, she is Slovenian – and she is also a diplomat, not a news anchor. But there she was, announcing that Moldova had made more progress in the last three years than it had in the previous 30, and that negotiations for our country to join the European Union would open soon.

It was equally surprising to spot Kos in the Instagram stories of leading Moldovan influencer siblings Emilian and Nina Crețu at the end of August – she had invited them to her house in Brussels for a Moldovan pie-making workshop. Kos even brought together the two heads of Moldova’s biggest Orthodox churches for a meeting, in spite of their mutual animosity. This is not the way we are used to EU officials communicating.

The departure from stiff, technocratic speeches is part of EU efforts to involve civil society and the public in the EU’s next enlargement process – a difference from the last phase of expansion, from 2004 to 2013, where only the political elites were involved. If the EU is to create a more harmonious kind of European integration, it needs to meet its citizens on the terrain of everyday life like this.

This is known as “propaganda”.

Sovereignty is not bought, it is built. With no globally dominant digital companies of its own, Europe will assert credible and lasting sovereignty only by combining ambitious regulation, massive investment, sovereign innovation, coordinated action and the development of its talent.

It must invest in research and critical infrastructure: sovereign cloud services, networks and satellites, semiconductors. It must support the European ecosystem across the entire value chain: AI and algorithms, cybersecurity, quantum technologies and datacentres. It must train and attract far more top-tier digital experts. And it must foster the emergence of industry champions capable of competing with big tech, through funding for startups, consolidating innovative SMEs and building native European platforms.

Recreate everything that everyone else is already doing. Rather than, say, adding to human richness and wealth by doing something additionl, something we cannot get elsewhere…..

Today in Brazil, Europe’s climate leadership could unravel. This is not only because the US has again withdrawn from the Paris agreement and the Trump administration is actively seeking to undermine other countries’ commitments, including those in Europe. Nor is it solely because countries in the global south – from India and Indonesia to the Gulf states and Turkey – refuse to compromise growth for climate, blaming the global north, especially Europe, for the crisis. It is also because Europe itself, gripped by an internal “greenlash”, risks going missing in action.

After the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the dominant narrative around the Green Deal’s potential to drive investment and innovation shifted. Nationalist and far-right groups gained traction as they turned the deal into a bogeyman: an ideological project driven by liberals and the left – wittingly or unwittingly in league with China – to weaken Europe. These forces, alongside entrenched fossil fuel and agricultural lobbies, repeatedly claimed that the Green Deal would cause Europe’s deindustrialisation and allow Beijing to exploit new green interdependencies.

As Hannah Arendt observed decades ago, the more falsehoods are repeated, the more they harden into convictions.

That is, after all, logically possible. That the EU hsa adopted bad policies which it is also implementing badly. No?

You don’t have to go as far as I do – that because it is the EU it is therefore by definition bad policies done badly – to accept the at least possibility that they’re doing the wrong thing….

The anti-fraud inquiries focused on two groups, both created in late 2014. The first was the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe (ADDE), a pan-European political party based in Brussels and composed of Eurosceptic MEPs. Its director was Roger Helmer, a Ukip representative who later resigned his seat amid a separate inquiry into misuse of public funds, while the majority of its members belonged to Ukip, including Farage himself. Eurosceptics from France, Italy and Germany were also members.

It was eligible for public EU funds and successfully applied for €1.2 million — the maximum amount available — in its first year, using the money on assorted costs including restaurants, taxis and “consultancy” bills.

Now, wholly true, I know none of the details here. But think about incentives just for a moment. You’ve a bureaucracy, the bureaucracy gets to give money to the politics which funds the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy is going to be right pissed at having to give money to the politics which would like to defund, abolish, the bureaucracy.

State funding will lead to – inevitably – th exclusion of those who would rock the establishment boat.

Veggie burgers, tofu steak and cauliflower schnitzel will be off the menu if the European parliament gets its way after a vote on food names.

MEPs voted on Wednesday by 355 in favour to 247 against to reserve names such as “steak”, “burger” and “sausage” exclusively for products derived from meat, a longstanding demand of farm unions.

In order to come into effect, the idea would have to be approved by a majority of the EU’s 27 member states, which is far from certain.

The vote is a victory for the French centre-right MEP Céline Imart, who drafted the amendment to legislation intended to strengthen the position of farmers in the food supply chain.

Given that we’ve only got 30k farmers – actual real farmers that is, not including the hobbyists – that’s an organisation we do not wish to belong to then.

Good, glad we’ve got that settled then.

American democracy might not survive another year – is Europe ready for that?
Alexander Hurst

Trapped between Putin and Trump, EU citizens understand the grave dangers facing the continent. Their leaders urgently need to face reality, too

Europe’s run by incompetent tossers who cannot see the nose on their face. Therefore, of course, we must have more Europe!

Starmer’s ID plan has caused upset, but in the EU the debate has long been settled

We are not Europeans we are Britons. With a wholly different structure of the relationship between ruled and rulers.

Ribera, the executive vice-president of the European Commission for clean, just and competitive transition…….Jessika Roswall, the EU commissioner for environment, water resilience and a competitive circular economy,

“just transition” “circular economy”. They’ve already baked into their job titles the political outcome they desire rather than the actual technical one of OK, so whaddawedo about this particular problem then?

It would be reasonable to assume that people who move from one EU country to another in search of work and opportunity are among the union’s most reliable supporters.

Go out there, see what shits Europeans are, decide against the project.

I don’t say that’s necessarily true but it’s perfectly fine as a logical proposition, no?

The Greek prime minister has vowed to get to the bottom of how a scheme of fraudulent EU subsidy claims could have operated undetected in the country for years, as he admitted that the scandal had revealed “the state’s inadequacy” in dealing with corruption.

Faced with revelations that “fake” farmers had been scamming designated agricultural funds to the tune of a reputed €290m (£249m), Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Monday a special taskforce would be set up to “immediately and exhaustively” investigate the illegal payments.

Fraud? In EU farming subsidies in Greece?

Whatever next?

The European Union is planning to ban airlines from charging extra to take both a “personal item” — the small under-seat bag — and a one small carry-on wheelie bag.

The wheelie bag would be stowed in the overhead locker and would need to weigh less than 7kg and have maximum dimensions of 100cm (sum of length, width and height).

Members of the European parliament’s transport and tourism committee voted to ban airlines charging extra for two bags, in an effort to simplify booking processes, remove so-called drip pricing and save consumers money.

All tickets will now go up in price.

Complete fucking idiocy.

But this is what the elected representatives of 450 million people get up to. Trying to micromanage life – and being cuntish idiots with it to boot.

Jacquerie. It’s the only answer.

Cheap phone calls for British holidaymakers were blocked by the EU in Brexit reset talks.

Southern European states, including Spain and Italy, derailed a bid by Sir Keir Starmer to drop roaming charges for UK tourists.

The EU, pushed by countries that attract millions of British tourists, refused to allow the UK back into a scheme that lets travellers use mobile data at local rates when abroad.

The rejection was a blow to Government negotiators hoping to reduce friction for holidaymakers.

When the EU first decided to scrap roaming charges in 2016, the government estimated it would save UK travellers £1.4 billion a year. Following Britain’s exit from the EU, most British providers now charge extra for bundles so that their customers can use mobile internet overseas.

But, but, what in buggery does that have to do with the European Union? With Britain’s relationship with 450 million people? With giving them all the fish? What is this to do with government at all?

Sir Keir Starmer has given European fishermen access to British waters for 12 years to land his Brexit “reset” deal.

These people can’t negotiate their way out of a wet paper bag, can they?

Starmer insists reset with EU will make people better off
Prime Minister’s claim comes as Macron demands ‘hard link’ between fishing rights and defence in bid to secure greater access to UK waters

“Fuck off” would suffice.

Fuck off you French bastard would be more accurate.

Sir Keir Starmer’s reset with the European Union could involve a deal on the status of Gibraltar, Spain’s foreign minister has suggested.

Any idea on rejoining – or, as here, in a new deal – would be subject to every Dago and other types of dastardly foreigner insisting that the bee in their bonnet must be addressed. The French would demand the fish, Spain Gibraltar and no doubt we’ve one or more outstanding niggles with all of them. All of which we’d have to surrender upon so that Islingtonites can feel good and European about themselves.

So, you know, let’s not do that.

A vast network of trade and aid agreements connects the EU with more than 70 countries. The union could become an important standalone global actor and even thrive in a multipolar world. But it must first shed its Eurocentric worldviews, complacent policymaking and double standards.

Europe must not be run for Europeans.

Hmmm.

Centrists won’t beat Reform UK by echoing its messages. They should emphasise the true unworkability of policies like Brexit

Yes, yes. All the things that Nige emphasises would be solved if we were just run by Ursula instead.

It’s a fairly extreme political poisition that, no?