European Politics Thread

Problem is, as I mentioned many adults have incorrect ideas of hazards on the Internet.

Otherwise, discussing my early votes in Switzerland:

• No on the free trade treaty with Indonesia, because the thing about safeguards in free trade treaties (here palm oil is the bing hang-up) is that they usually exist only on paper.
• No on the veil ban. Nothing more than thinly veiled Islamophobia. And the government is requesting a rejection.
• No on the ID act. Run it yourselves, government. Don't contract it out.
• Yes on a change to the canton constitution that allows extra spending.
• No on authorizing "social detectives". Go after the tax dodgers you morons.
• No on both cantonal proposals to authorize police to tell the nationality of people involved in crimes (not just criminals, also suspects or victims). This is just an attempt to foment xenophobia. Also put in a casting vote for the government's proposal as it's the narrower one.
• Yes to both municipal proposals to reduce traffic around the rail station. I hate playing dodgeball with cars. Put in a casting vote for the non-government proposal as it goes farther.
• Voted for Marta Delgado in the school board election. Don't know anything about her but she's the Socialist candidate so I vote for the party.

Doublepost, because the results of the Catalan regional elections have yielded more gains for the independentist parties. So the Catalan quagmire is likely to continue.

As a consolation prize, the Socialists have picked up a lot of seats and Podemos kept their current share of seats. In general, there has been a leftward shift in the regional parliament.

Doesn't read like that to me - it looks like independence maintained about the same share, since one of the independence parties suffered a Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies result, as did Cs. It's more of a pro-extremist shift (Vox also entered the Catalan parliament).

Are they seriously still going on with that in the current situation? At least Scotland has the justification of trying to get back into the European Union.

Given that Spain flagrantly violated its own laws to crush the last independence movement^note They're not allowed to use rubber bullets at all, let alone on peaceful civil disobedience...yes, yes they are.

Edited by Ramidel on Feb 15th 2021 at 5:14:31 AM

But of course, the Spanish government has to keep shooting itself at the feet when it comes to this issue.

Yeah considering the Spanish government I wouldn’t put it past them to fuel the independence movement by doing something crazy like uneven vaccine distribution.

General Motors made a Super Bowl ad with Will Ferrell targeting Norway for being the leading country in electric cars. Try to guess how we reacted to that. (Notify me if this post violates any rules)

Edited by Delibirda on Feb 16th 2021 at 11:02:12 AM

Catalan here speaking . My two cents about the election results:

In general, they more or less are what they were expected. Abstention has been the highest since the transition to democracy, but between the pandemic and the (relatively) less tense situation -last election bordered 80% of participation- not unexpected.

Personally, I'm not euforic about the results, but not too sad either; as I said, they are more or less what was expected. The strong irruption of Vox far right is very worrying, but they are fourth with 11 seats, very far for the first three and still much less powerful than they are at Spain level.

Not very happy that En Comú Podem/Podemos stays at only 8, but they saved face and stayed as they were without losing in a nation vs nation ideological confrontation that is not their strong point, so it's something I guess.

About the independence thing, It's still there, strong, and it won't go away, but because of the pandemic and other factors there is not a sense of urgency and "now or never" approach there was in 2017/2018. The most voted pro-independence party -which practically for sure will get the presidency-, ERC, is now in a (often) much calmer and moderate position about it, fortunately.

I am nearly sure that would not happen -at least, not intentionally- and it hasn't happened at the moment. Things that the Spanish governments/Tribunals/other parties do that makes independentists angry have more to do with very questionable sentences for their leaders, not letting them go in and out of prison as it is normal for this point in their sentences, or other declarations/ slip ups/ minor actions that transmit -intentionally or not- contempt for Catalonia or Catalans in general.

While I disagree with much of the independentists ideas, I can see where they are coming from, and the things I mention in the last paragraph also bother me greatly. Hopefully, the new goverments in Catalonia and in Spain can start to make steps in the good direction.

Anyway, sorry for the wall of text

I would assume Schadenfreude?

Edited by 3of4 on Feb 16th 2021 at 11:15:37 AM

Watcha mean?

I mean, I'm not Norwegian but this feels more like humorous envy than an attack

But hey maybe you *tell* us then instead of using some non-saying rethoric question.

Edited by 3of4 on Feb 16th 2021 at 11:30:51 AM

Well, even Audi made some jabs at GM via ads.

Further on Catalonia, I'll admit that I am half surprised by the seat gains the socialists made. Surprised, because they are currently the national government and Spain hasn't done so well in the COVID-19 crisis and apparently their candidate in Catalonia is the health minister. Half, because I get the impression that voters don't blame their governments for COVID-19 management unless it's really extraordinarily bad and blame for Spain's bad COVID-19 situation goes a lot farther than just PSOE.

You're very right on your conclusions. His administration of the pandeminc has obviously not been stellar and can be subjected to a lot of criticism, but they are far from the only factor that caused the bad situation on COVID (and, if you ask me, not even the most significant one).

Without going into much detail: Spain is decentralized, so a good part of the decisions on public health go to the Autonomous Communities; some of the opposition refuse to vote on favor of general lockdowns and so on -and the critize the goverment for not doing it (!); incomprehensible judicial decisions that cripple regional and central goverment decisions; and, frankly, being a tourism dependant- aged population- high on commercial mobility country doesn't do any favours.

If we were to have to select the most guilty public responsable of all, look no further than Isabel Diaz Ayuso, president of Madrid Community from the Popular Party, that has applied nearly Trumpist politics on the pandemic, and bragged about staying with nearly all opened while the other communities, even those also governed by the same political party had at least closed partially.

Reading about Poland makes me sad, and I'm slightly confused about how there can be such a powerful fascist ruling party and so many protesters.

Fidesz-MPs have officially split off the EVP today.

The fight between Orban and EVP faction leader Weber has escalated after the EVP has enacted a party-intern resolution that allows for the suspension of national delegations within the party. This resolution was done in reaction to Orban's increasingly authoritarian actions.

This now completes Fidesz's political isolation within the european parliament. It is not clear if they will try to represent themselves or found a new party with similar far-right allies, but they have now lost their last political allies outside of Poland, should they complete this move.

This is both a good and a bad thing.

Good because Fisdesz long deserved such a treatment.

Bad because who knows what Orban will do next. We should not forget what happened a few years after the Tories left the EPP.

I don't think Fidesz is in the same situation as the Tories. If anything this looks like another string of "bad < worse" choices Orban is forced to make. He cannot remain in the EVP, as long as that resolution is there, since it opens him up to being censured.

So, as bad as leaving one of the more powerful political blocs in the parliament is for him, it is the "better" option. And given the last few months, I expect his situation to continue to worsen. He has burned down pretty much all bridges and the only thing keeping over the water is the similarly authoritarian, racist polish government.

What we're seeing here is a slow dismantling of his political power outside of Hungary. And given this happening during COVID, where the EU has bigger problems, I expect things to deteriorate for him even further, once the pandemic passes.

Mind, he might not be in power anymore by the time the pandemic goes. Current polls say the united opposition coalition has a chance to win in the next elections if Fidesz doesn't do something on the propaganda front.

Edited by amitakartok on Mar 3rd 2021 at 1:27:41 PM

Is it likely that Orban will, uh, count the votes like Lukashenko did?

Definitely. Fidesz modified the election law in every single term they've been in power, either by gerrymandering the borders of electoral districts to neutralize opposition majority in urban areas by tossing in Fidesz-majority rural areas with a higher combined population into the same district, or by simply changing the rules.

One of the more controversial (to me) changes they made was a "winner takes all" system of compensation votes where whichever fraction wins the elections in first place gets extra seats proportional to their lead ahead of second place. This is how Fidesz has been able to near-constantly hold 67% of all seats in parliament for three consecutive terms despite having actually gotten only around 50% of the votes: in their first term, they rigged the system to make it mathematically possible to have supermajority even with an absolute minority.

They also erased the rule that the election turnout must reach a certain threshold or else a second round must be held, then unleashed all kinds of disinformation propaganda to destroy voter interest in politics so that turnout gets as low as possible so that the poor rural folk Fidesz is outright extorting into voting for them can keep them in power.

Edited by amitakartok on Mar 3rd 2021 at 5:23:09 PM

There is a limit to this, I believe. Hungary is part of the Eu, so Orban can't just openly ignore election-results or blatantly cheat, without making things very difficult for him. Legal shenanigans is the word here, anything beyond that will be difficult to push through.

Lukashenko gets away with what he does because he has Russia backing him. Orban has basically no one, at this stage. And I'm not sure if the EU will tolerate a blatant dictatorship in its midst. If he really would openly discount elections, then its likely they would react.

Granted, this is speculation on my part. But if Orban thought he could get away with undoing elections altogether, then he would have done so, already.

Edited by TheNohen on Mar 3rd 2021 at 5:30:15 PM

I'd submit that the actual limits are less on the electoral side and more on the policing side.

Hungary isn't France either, so if Orban openly uses the police to crack down against protestors after "winning" an election, the EU might do something about that.

Edited by Ramidel on Mar 3rd 2021 at 7:39:54 AM

FYI, Fidesz' parliament speaker has already preemptively declared that the opposition is going to cheat like crazy in next year's elections at around the same time Trump had his own phase with the same.