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[Baffler]

Precisely. There is a major difference in degree. The right coalition seems to want to leave the EU ASAP and even have plans to introduce an interim "currency" of tradeable government bonds (or something like that anyway, they're called minibots) in case ASAP isn't fast enough.

[andrea]

LN wants that, but the right wing coalition includes Berlusconi's party, with nearly 15% of the overall vote (less than LN, but still very relevant) , which is pro-europe and doesn't want to leave.

[ChairmanPoo]

IIRC both LN and M5S dropped a good chunk of their anti EU rhetoric after Le Pen  failed against Macron. Berlusconi was anti EU at the beginning as well but did same.

Re Transversal movements: after seeing what Podemos and Syritza did (nothing meaningful, and a failed bluff that made everything worse, respectively), I'm fairly skeptical of  them. Seem to be as full of hot air as right wing populists.

Not that traditional parties are any better. THEIR failure is why these windbags are succeeding.

[martinuzz]

Some angry Duch taxi drivers called upon their colleagues in a private Telegram channel with 268 anonymous users, to attack the Uber headquarters in Amsterdam, and to bring bricks, fireworks and molotovs.
The police is trying to find out who is behind the incitement.

Telegram took the channel offline after Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad uncovered the plot this morning.
A Volkskrant contact said 5 young lads are behind the initiative, and their intention was to put Uber in bad publicity, for unfair competition with real taxi drivers.

Looks like the only thing they accomplished is put themselves in a bad daylight. Dutch general public opinion isn't very fond of threats with molotov cocktails.

Still, Uber is indeed bad news for official taxi drivers. It is unfair competetion, considering official taxis need expensive extra chauffeur diplomas and expensive city taxi licenses which aren't required for Uber.

[martinuzz]

Heh, scary. In 11 out of 25 'security regions' our country is divided into for calamity response reasons, it was quiet this monday at noon.

Scary, because every first monday at noon, te air raid sirens are supposed to go off for a test run.
Ever since the system was installed in the early Cold War days, it has never failed once.

Well maybe every once in a while a single siren fails and needs replacing, but nearly half of all 4000 sirens nationwide failing, never happened.

The ministry of Justice and Safety is investigating how this could have happened.

Silly system it is. Every nation in the world by now knows that if you ever want to invade or bomb the Netherlands, you do that on the first monday of the month at noon, no one will think the air raid sirens are for real.
I do wonder how many people called emergency services to say our nation is under attack, because there were no sirens.

[martinuzz]

A former Russian spy that defected to the UK is in hospital in critical condition, after he was poisoned with an unknown substance in Salisbury.
Police has not revealed the man's identity, but according to British media it is 66-year old Sergej Skripal.
A 33-year old woman that was with him is also in critical condition.

The pair was found at a bench in a mall in Salisbury. An eyewitness says that "the woman was leaning on the man, as if she had fainted, and the man was looking at the sky making weird hand gestures. It looked like they were on something very strong".
According to the Guardian they have been posioned with fentanyl, a strong opoid, but this has not been confirmed.

The case brings back memories from the Litvinenko case. Alexander Litvinenko was murdered in 2006 in London, when two Russian agents poisoned his tea with the radioactive element polonium. Litvenenko died six weeks later of radiation sickness. It is assumed the murder was approved by Putin, of whom Litvenenko was an outspoken critic. **

Sergej Skripal is a former colonel that worked for the GRU and the Russian ministry of foreign affairs. In 2006 he was convicted to 13 years in prison for providing MI6 with the names of Russian spies operating in the UK. He had been recruited by MI6 in 1995.

In 2010, he was released in a Cold-War style spy exchange between Russia and the US, at Vienna Airport. Four spies were exchanged by Putin in exchange for 10 Russian sleeper cell agents from the US.
The 10 agents were welcomed home in Moscow personally by Putin, who sang patriottic songs with them.

EDIT: **) Apparently you can get away with a nuclear attack on NATO soil if it's precise enough /s

[martinuzz]

The Netherlands, Danmark, Sweden, Finland, Letland, Estland, Ireland, and Latvia have formed an alliance inside the EU, to counteract further transfer of power from national states to Brussels.
They believe it's nescessary to form a bloc and raise their voice, to put a break on Germany and France's ambitions to further integrate the EU nations.

They have made a list of 6 demands, including that all EU nations will keep themselves to the EU budget rules, and that there will be no new emergency shock fund that acts as a buffer for countries that can't make the 3%.
They also want a brake on the transfer of power to Brussels. They only want to see small, modest steps that make the Union stronger, and want to restrict big steps to the expansion of the internal market and free trade.

This did not come as a surprise to Brussels. The 8 nations have been pleading for less integration and less centralisation for months now.

[Jopax]

An EU within the EU? Madness!

Also good on them, now to see if Germany actually listens. If not they can always do a brexit and form their own EU, with hookers and blackjack!

[Dorsidwarf]

The Eastern European Union shall rise.


btw, why do they want the "no emergency fund" demand? I cant see why a country would want that

[Sheb]

The Eastern European Union shall rise.


btw, why do they want the "no emergency fund" demand? I cant see why a country would want that

Those are mostly contributor countries. So when a country like Greece need a EU bail-out, they're mostly on the hook.

Did they say anything about defence integration? I would have thought that for the Balts at least that would have been a welcome improvement.

[martinuzz]

The Eastern European Union shall rise.


btw, why do they want the "no emergency fund" demand? I cant see why a country would want that

Because the populists will slaughter them in elections if they don't say that. Populists don't want to bail out Greece again with 'their money'.

[scriver]

The Eastern European Union shall rise.


btw, why do they want the "no emergency fund" demand? I cant see why a country would want that

The main cause of the economic crisises in Europe is Germany putting their own economy over that of the other EU members'. You see, through some economical nonsense I only half remember, the shared Euro currency but separate economies mean that when Germany makes a surplus, it causes deficits in her fellow Euro-users. Because of this, the countries involved entered an agreement that, to make sure that the other economies did not crash, Germany had to restrict her surplus to a certain percentage. Germany then proceeded to completely ignore this agreement, ran the other economies into the ground, and then pretended to be all surprised when shit exploded.

Since then Germany have continued to fuck the crashed states over in every way they can while constantly repeating that "EU solidarity means that everybody else have to help pay for the mess we caused for our own profit". Unsurprisingly, the rest of the EU is not amused, and are worried that any kind of "emergency fund" is just a way to make the rest of the EU foot the bill while Germany continues to bolster her own economy through said economic practices which causes the deficits to begin with.

[Doomblade187]

I am interested. Link to the mechanics of this?

[martinuzz]

The EU Court of Justice has placed a bomb under all 196 bilateral trade agreements between EU nations, by dismissing the damages claim that Dutch insurance company Achmea had against Slovakia.

All bilateral EU trade agreements have a clause for legally independent investor-state dispute settlement. (Bascially the same as the ISDS clause in the TTIP, but then for EU investors and nations).

In 2004, the Slovakian government opened it's market for private insurance companies, and Achmea set up an insurance company there. The next government however, partially rolled back the liberalisation. Achmea was pissed about the restriction on dividend payments, and Achmea went to the arbitrage commission.
With success: the arbiters ruled that Slovakia had to pay Achmea 22.1 million euros in damages.

Slovakia disagreed, and went to the EU Court of Justice.
Today, 14 years later, the EU Court ruled that Slovakia does not need to pay.

The EU Court of Justice ruled today that such legally indepenent dispute settlement goes against the autonomy of EU member's legislation, and is thus in contradiction with EU law.

I can only say, good call, EU Court. Investor-state dispute settlement is very undemocratic.

[smjjames]

Sounds like Achmea being a sore loser more than anything. That the next government is going to change policies is always a risk. It's the same for in general, European companies can complain loudly or lobby their home government over it (or maybe take them to the WTO courts) when the US changes some policy, but they can't sue the US over it.