European Politics Thread

Given all the mess that has been the Roman Empire, why is it only after its Fall?

The Roman Empire (and before it the Roman Republic) were pretty stable for a very long time, given the time period. Not to mention very impressive.

Unifying Italy was a mistake.

Edited by TerminusEst on Oct 19th 2018 at 1:06:58 AM

Republic of Venice, people. It wasn't exactly a spring chicken when Napoleon decided to be a dick to it.

It was Switzerland before Switzerland got its act together. Or, you could say... Switzerland took notes.

Venice was also full of corruption so I didn't count it after some consideration. Italy is still doing a good job in a lot of sectors, but little ends up with the people as result of all those abilities. They have actually a better baseline than the UK has, at least imho, but they are unable to truly use it to their advantage.

Edited by Swanpride on Oct 19th 2018 at 2:17:06 AM

It was much less corrupt than you'd think: Florence or Genoa it most certainly wasn't.

Venetians had very pointed views on things like fraud, embezzlement, contract infringement and election-rigging. I'm not saying none of that happened. Heck, spying and industrial espionage was a cottage industry.

But, if it did and you got caught actually undermining contact law, it didn't matter who you were: your head rolled, even if you were the Doge. No bribes accepted. If bribes were found to have been attempted... Well, your head generally rolled faster.

Venice was decadent, louche, lewd and morally lax when it came to gender and sexual matters according to the lights of most of the rest of Europe, yes. But, it came down hard on anything that would mess with their rep as people you could trade and deal honestly with, no matter who you were.

People often forget that when they focus on the whole "party city with pretty masks" thing. <_<

Look into the actual history of the bauta mask some time: its name can be translated to "ballot" (and a couple of other things like "beastly", too: puns!). It's the shape it is so you could attend long debating sessions, eat, drink, vote then swish off to a party. All anonymously.

In short: Anonymous picked the wrong mask.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Oct 19th 2018 at 12:29:09 PM

Italy in the MA was also quite impressive (even before the Renaissance). Italian merchants invented modern book-keeping, and the Italian city states had a highly sophisticated bureaucracy, easily surpassing anything North of the Alps.

And not it is a country infamous for corruption, inefficy and an inept (at best) civil service.

Point taken. Though this was naturally a local arrangement. The rest of Italy wasn't looking quite as good during the same period.

Which period? <_<

Venice had been ticking along as a hub of trade and a republic for almost 1,000 years before Napoleon decided international treaties and neutrality meant nothing, just so long as he could splatter some Austrians across the landscape. Would be a right shame if your city got flattened in the bombardment by my awesome cannons...

Edited by Euodiachloris on Oct 19th 2018 at 11:02:54 AM

Court in Finland finds pro-Kremlin trolls guilty of harassing journalist

A troll is actually going to prison for harassment?

Oh, joyous day! (not sarcasm)

One can only hope that other countries follow. Aside from the problem of - specifically Russian - trolls, people need to understand that their actions online can have legal consequences.

Mixed news from the exit polls after today's local government elections in Poland.

Pi S still won in voivodeship sejmiks (with about 32,3% of votes). But they had less votes than KO (PO and .Nowoczesna coalition) and PSL combined (24,7% and 16,6% respectively). So most of the regional affairs are likely to be governed by coalitions instead of one party.

Also it seems that anti-Pi S candidates won with 50+% votes for city presidents in most of the major cities (meaning there won't be a second round of voting there).

So....is this good?

Neither side can feel comfortable with the results. Pi S won but lost about 5% (in comparison to 2015 sejm elections) of the votes and it is likely they won't be governing the regions (outside the positions of the voivodes which are filled by the central government). PO and .Nowoczesna also lost some votes (around 8% in comparison to 2015 sejm elections). PSL gained over 10% of votes - from 5,4% in the last sejm election to 16,7% - but they are always much stronger in local government elections. PSL got about 28% of seats in sejmiks in the previous local government elections (in 2014) so they likely lose some seats there.

There are also some local groups that got seats in sejmiks. Since Pi S alienated most groups I feel they are less likely to govern there despite better results than the last local government elections (where they got around 30% of the seats in sejmiks).

But the exact situation won't be clear until there are official results of the elections.

My current feeling: the results are bad for Poland but they aren't catastrophic and the fight is still possible (despite nasty state media propaganda that rivals Fox "News" and sometimes exceeds it).

PS. It's good to know that many commentators treat the elections as lost by Pi S (they lost in major cities and they got less votes than the various opposition parties).

Edited by WojtekPod on Oct 21st 2018 at 11:05:07 AM

Given that PiS is trying to run a managed democracy, not winning outright majorities is definitely losing.

Europe’s conservative (non) choice

Sigh…I guess the list of parties which are electable has shrunk again….

I would have preferred it in any case if someone from another country had been chosen. Thanks to Weber it is now unlikely that we can get a German as head of the ECB and considering how desperately the Euro needs a new ECB fiscal policy, this is bad news indeed.

Pulling over from US Politics because I'm curious:

@Robrecht: What happens if a currently-incarcerated criminal is elected to the States General?

Austria will not sign UN migration pact

I feel like I should say something about Spain. The center-right parties (PP and C's) seem to be dangerously veering rightwards. I really hope their electorate will punish them for this, even if only just enough so we can continue to have a left-leaning government! Thankfully, the true far-right party (VOX) currently has no parliament representation, though that may be about to change.

Just talked to two Austrians...they are pretty p... Since they have a far right government, 12 hour workdays have been reintroduced, their health care system is undermined and there have been questionable government dealings.

We may have problem. A leaked document from Supo (he Finnish security service) basically forbids the sharing of a trace request to the Austrian BVT, relating to a Russian diplomat suspected of spying. This has launched speculation that the Austrian BVT is effectively shut out of any activities relating to Russia, due to concerns of the FPÖ's close ties to the nation.

According to the Austrian government, the BVT had withdrawn itself from the sharing system due to recent events in Austria or they would have risked getting kicked out. So yes, taking the FPÖ into government turned out to be a poor idea.

Supo is saying nothing as per usual.

Edited by TerminusEst on Nov 7th 2018 at 12:06:33 PM

The Austrian government is a problem, period. For the EU, but also for the people living there, whose life has gotten worse since they have seized power.