in more lighthearted election news. a german local politician sent out an invitation for a small event at a retirement home. to the "all" list of his party. 400k members.
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
More Sweden I just read that Social democrats want to ban all profit in schools. Like if you're running a private school you can't take out profit.
You love to see it.
It also says they want to ban all religious private schools.
You looooooooooooooooove to see it.
PSN: Honkalot
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I don't know that this can pass any parliament but what do I know. This is also fifteen years late but hey.
I don't know that this can pass any parliament but what do I know. This is also fifteen years late but hey.
They also explicitly refused to vote with V (the left party) for banning schools for profit before, but by what I assure is purely coincidence there's an election next year and V has been gaining a whole lot of voters from S.
More Sweden I just read that Social democrats want to ban all profit in schools. Like if you're running a private school you can't take out profit.
You love to see it.
In theory, we have that in Michigan for publicly-funded charter schools. In practice, the owners set up a separate consulting company ("full-service management services"), have the school hire it, and suck out the money that way.
Emmanuel Macron has endorsed a divergent position from the growing Anglophone consensus. Calls to “join all together against China” create a “scenario of the highest possible conflictuality” and are “counter-productive”, the French president said in February at a discussion broadcast by the Washington DC think-tank the Atlantic Council.
“France has a more cautious approach towards China, whereas what America wants is for countries to join together collectively and balance against China,” noted Shashank Joshi, defence editor of The Economist.
Macron gave concrete form to this stance when he backed German Chancellor Angela Merkel in forming the “Comprehensive Agreement on Trade” with China unveiled in December 2020.
While the deal would handsomely benefit influential businesses like German car companies, critics accused Macron and Merkel of naively trusting China’s commitments on technology transfers and the use of forced labour. Across the Atlantic, the incoming Biden administration was disappointed that the EU had effectively rebuffed its requests for consultation about European economic relations with China.
Then the Chinese government’s actions made the “Comprehensive Agreement” politically unsustainable in May, when it imposed sanctions on several MEPs and European researchers specialising in China – prompting the EU Parliament to suspend the deal.
“In Washington, that episode contributed to a scepticism towards Paris,” said Robert Singh, a professor of American politics at Birkbeck, University of London. “France is very much seen as too soft on China – at a time when the US is clearly concerned that too many states on every continent are being suckered by China’s economic statecraft into position where US security alliances are likely to be endangered.”
“So to see France do what it did with that trade deal was very disappointing to the Biden administration,” Singh continued. “My impression is that the US won’t care very much that it has outraged France with this Australian submarine deal.”
From 2016 to now, China/Australia relationships have vastly deteriorated, and ambivalence is just not good enough anymore:
But it seems ambivalence is not good enough for the US – or indeed for Australia. Not only was French submarine technology less attractive for Canberra in the context of Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific, but France’s geo-strategic approach also made it a less attractive partner than the US, said Richard Whitman, a professor of politics and international relations at the University of Kent.
“The US thinks about how to contain China. And Australia too is in the position of thinking about how one contains, as opposed to how one accommodates; that’s the fundamental difference with France,” Whitman said. “As a consequence, the US looks like the better partner – when France was always a second-order partner that could supplement rather than replace anything the US might have to offer.”
Similarly to the US, France has historically liked to pursue independent foreign policy goals irrespective of their allies strategic aims.
Unlike the US, France does not have enormous resources to assuage hurt feelings. (or coerce people into shutting up.)
It's really understandable for France to be annoyed by being undercut in an arm's deal, but they're probably overplaying their hand. I doubt any other European country is going to seriously go to bat for France over this particular issue, and when the French government kicks up a stink but ultimately accomplishes little to nothing, it's just going to annoy French voters.
There's, like, some tepid statements from the EU commision about "disrespect to a partner" and blah blah but haven't seen any actual EU country being bothered about it.
Biden and Macron spoke on the phone Wednesday, in a bid to smooth over the diplomatic fallout from a defense partnership the U.S. struck with Australia and the United Kingdom.
"The two leaders agreed that the situation would have benefitted from open consultations among allies on matters of strategic interest to France and our European partners," the statement from the White House and the Élysée Palace said. "President Biden conveyed his ongoing commitment in that regard."
Biden and Macron plan to meet in Europe in October, according to the statement. Biden is set to head to Glasgow, Scotland, that month for a summit on the climate crisis, although the two sides did not say where the leaders planned to meet.
Meanwhile, Macron will return the French ambassador to Washington next week -- France had recalled him in response to the defense news -- and the ambassador will who will "then start intensive work with senior U.S, officials," the statement reads.
The two leaders "have decided to open a process of in-depth consultations, aimed at creating the conditions for ensuring confidence and proposing concrete measures toward common objectives," the White House and the Élysée Palace said. "They will meet in Europe at the end of October to reach shared understandings and maintain momentum in this process."
The statement also said Biden "reaffirms the strategic importance of French and European engagement in the Indo-Pacific region."
“I think it is important to say, in relation to the discussions that are taking place right now in Europe, that I experience Biden as being very loyal to the transatlantic alliance,” Frederiksen (Denmark’s prime minister) told Danish daily Politiken from New York, where she was attending the United Nations General Assembly.
“And I think in general that one should refrain from lifting some specific challenges, which will always exist between allies, up to a level where they are not supposed to be. I really, really want to warn against this,” she added.
Is better to just kiss and make up for everybody involved.
open a process of in-depth consultations, aimed at creating the conditions for ensuring confidence and proposing concrete measures toward common objectives,
That's some major league meaningless business speak
France wants a stronger Europe, but that either means Germany increases defense spending and integration, or closer cooperation with Britain.
Rumsfeld was stupid to call it "old Europe" and "new Europe", but there is a big split between Eastern and Western Europe in many regards. Does Poland or the Baltic states see France as a convincing protector from possible Russian threats?
Basically, France either needs to convince more European nations to pool resources into a common army and foreign policy (which is tricky, as it either won't be French enough, or leave other members feeling like France now, a junior member in a pact they have little say in), or cooperate with nations like the US and GB. France can't go it alone and I doubt most of Europe are willing to out Paris solely in charge of their foreign policy, and yet France wants to alienate its closest allies.
I don't know that this can pass any parliament but what do I know. This is also fifteen years late but hey.
They also explicitly refused to vote with V (the left party) for banning schools for profit before, but by what I assure is purely coincidence there's an election next year and V has been gaining a whole lot of voters from S.
Saw more stuff on this, and S was against that because of their deal with C (the center party) -- C required that (in addition to "zero cooperation with V") in order to form a government with S. This is the thing that V grudgingly accepted purely so that a government could form that kept the conservative and/or racist parties out.
It was the recent vote of no confidence that kind of trashed C's plan here -- now S is free from C's requirements.
France wants a stronger Europe, but that either means Germany increases defense spending and integration, or closer cooperation with Britain.
Rumsfeld was stupid to call it "old Europe" and "new Europe", but there is a big split between Eastern and Western Europe in many regards. Does Poland or the Baltic states see France as a convincing protector from possible Russian threats?
Basically, France either needs to convince more European nations to pool resources into a common army and foreign policy (which is tricky, as it either won't be French enough, or leave other members feeling like France now, a junior member in a pact they have little say in), or cooperate with nations like the US and GB. France can't go it alone and I doubt most of Europe are willing to out Paris solely in charge of their foreign policy, and yet France wants to alienate its closest allies.
Poland signed mutual defense treaties with both Britain and France in 1939, and then put up a heroic defense to hold the ports for seven days in a battle the Nazis initially expected to take hours so that British troops could arrive by sea. The UK never made any move to assist and France folded like a lawn chair.
I catch a lot of Polish TV whenever I visit my parents and the mood I get from their politic shows is that they only trust the United States to give a damn if they're invaded by Russia, and that the EU in general, Western Europe as a vague area and Germany specifically look down on them, take them for granted and don't give a fuck if they live or die.
Sailing a convoy into the Baltic Sea would of been suicide.
Like I get that during and after the war the Allies kinda abandoned Poland, and maybe they could of made it more clear what their plans were but the French had based their entire strategy around defensive (which is good, France had a smaller population and couldn't bleed troops in offensive actions against Germany) and Britian again had downsized their army.
Any force that made it to Poland would of ended up captured or destroyed. I think the speed of the attack caught a lot of people off guard as nations like Serbia and Romania were able to hold off Central Powers for a much longer time.
Edit: it's also a little unfair to say France folded like a lawn chair. I think people forget how much she was crippled by the First World War, combined with some really bad leadership.
France also didn't have the strategic deapth of say, the USSR. Once the majority of the French Army was encircled and destroyed along side seeing the most populous and industrialized part of your nation capture the war was over.
I think you are underplaying the amount of political sympathy/support France has right now.
Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden (and everyone else in Europe with a defence industry) are not happy at all, and their governments are making it known. I don't think we'll see a trade dispute now, but US/UK/AU are probably going to have a tougher time at the bargaining table. Because this is basically not how defence industry contracts are done.
This is probably also going to strengthen France long term goals of reducing US military influence over european arms development, and with Britain out of the EU their biggest opponent to tightening EU military cooperation is gone. For Germany I think it's mostly a matter of reluctance until everyone has worked out an economy plan where Germany isn't bearing the heaviest loads (because Germany has a tendency to get saddled with a large portion of the costs for EU projects).
Overall, I wouldn't say that this UK&Sons pact has shot itself in the foot, but they've definitely solidified a political anti-china block where they've alienated most EU powers with long range capability (the only possible exception would be the Dutch, but I'm not very well versed in dutch military policy. They don't seem to get involved much outside the european zone unless they're current post-colonial territories are threatened).
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I think you are underplaying the amount of political sympathy/support France has right now.
Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden (and everyone else in Europe with a defence industry) are not happy at all, and their governments are making it known. I don't think we'll see a trade dispute now, but US/UK/AU are probably going to have a tougher time at the bargaining table. Because this is basically not how defence industry contracts are done.
This is probably also going to strengthen France long term goals of reducing US military influence over european arms development, and with Britain out of the EU their biggest opponent to tightening EU military cooperation is gone. For Germany I think it's mostly a matter of reluctance until everyone has worked out an economy plan where Germany isn't bearing the heaviest loads (because Germany has a tendency to get saddled with a large portion of the costs for EU projects).
Overall, I wouldn't say that this UK&Sons pact has shot itself in the foot, but they've definitely solidified a political anti-china block where they've alienated most EU powers with long range capability (the only possible exception would be the Dutch, but I'm not very well versed in dutch military policy. They don't seem to get involved much outside the european zone unless they're current post-colonial territories are threatened).
I guess I just wonder how much real long range power has been alienated, if you are evaluating towards Asia.
France has 1 Carrier, 3 Helo-carriers, 4 boomers, 6 attack subs and a bunch of destroyers and frigates. Italy 2 VTOL carriers and 5 attack subs, Germany is 6 attack subs, and 11 frigates. Spain 2 attack subs.
So between 4 nations of ~250m people, there is one actual aircraft carrier(about half the size of the US carriers roughly the size of the RN Queen Elizabeths) and the 2 Italian Vtol carriers-which will only carry about 15 planes each.
That isn't a ton of force projection(when you account for overhaul it'll be 0 a lot of the time) and how much of it ever goes further East than the Red Sea/Arabian peninsula or even has the support ships/facilities in the Indian/Pacific to really be present there?
Where as the RAN is going to be operating nearly exclusively in that area, so tying the RN and USN in tighter with them is maybe worth the trade.
It'd be the worst white elephant gift of all time in terms of maintenance costs, and completely impractical for the RAN to stand up in manpower terms, but the US just gifting Australia a to be retired Nimitz would be a sort of hilarious brilliant like a fox move.
The Dutch military is tiny (8b a year budget), and is buckling under the decision 18 (!) years ago to switch out all F16s to F35s, who have since become 4x as expensive per plane, and still mostly haven't been delivered. When they do, we'll only have 25 of them... (the original plan was 110). Eventually it's going to be 45 due to newer budgeting... but it's seen as the absolutely under limit, and they mostly have to stay at home for our own airspace.
The Afghanistan debacle has also really turned the current generation sour against American foreign adventures.
If the US does come knocking, I'd expect the right wing to arrange some kind of token support but there's nothing to we would actually contribute.
The NL would probably take baby steps towards further European integration of armed forces, preferably with Germany. But nothing drastic.
One of the most important things NL has is probably our spy agencies. Half the worlds internet goes through Amsterdam.....
The Dutch military is tiny (8b a year budget), and is buckling under the decision 18 (!) years ago to switch out all F16s to F35s, who have since become 4x as expensive per plane, and still mostly haven't been delivered. When they do, we'll only have 25 of them... (the original plan was 110). Eventually it's going to be 45 due to newer budgeting... but it's seen as the absolutely under limit, and they mostly have to stay at home for our own airspace.
The Afghanistan debacle has also really turned the current generation sour against American foreign adventures.
If the US does come knocking, I'd expect the right wing to arrange some kind of token support but there's nothing to we would actually contribute.
The NL would probably take baby steps towards further European integration of armed forces, preferably with Germany. But nothing drastic.
One of the most important things NL has is probably our spy agencies. Half the worlds internet goes through Amsterdam.....
The spy agencies and a bunch of submarines.
When I was younger I always argued that we needed to spend less on our military. But - having learned more about international relations - I've come to realize that if we're going to work together with other countries we need to share the costs of maintaining a sensible military. I feel like the discourse in The Netherlands has been hijacked by these absurd images of a military being just a bunch of foot soldiers milling about an army base and only describing it as a cost instead of an asset. (Kinda what US politicians do when they say that healthcare only costs people money, as if good health isn't valuable. )
Oh and at least 1 Dutch military airport has American nuclear weapons on it. Everyone knows it, though it's never officially discussed. Except in that one NATO leak a few years back....
Looks like the Netherlands is swapping out F-16s for F-35As on a per plane basis. That seems like a smart move to me, the F-35 should be a much better plane.
Looking it up, the Netherlands is part of the nuclear sharing program, which means if WW3 breaks out Dutch planes might carry nukes into battle.
I think you are underplaying the amount of political sympathy/support France has right now.
Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden (and everyone else in Europe with a defence industry) are not happy at all, and their governments are making it known. I don't think we'll see a trade dispute now, but US/UK/AU are probably going to have a tougher time at the bargaining table. Because this is basically not how defence industry contracts are done.
This is probably also going to strengthen France long term goals of reducing US military influence over european arms development, and with Britain out of the EU their biggest opponent to tightening EU military cooperation is gone. For Germany I think it's mostly a matter of reluctance until everyone has worked out an economy plan where Germany isn't bearing the heaviest loads (because Germany has a tendency to get saddled with a large portion of the costs for EU projects).
Overall, I wouldn't say that this UK&Sons pact has shot itself in the foot, but they've definitely solidified a political anti-china block where they've alienated most EU powers with long range capability (the only possible exception would be the Dutch, but I'm not very well versed in dutch military policy. They don't seem to get involved much outside the european zone unless they're current post-colonial territories are threatened).
I guess I just wonder how much real long range power has been alienated, if you are evaluating towards Asia.
France has 1 Carrier, 3 Helo-carriers, 4 boomers, 6 attack subs and a bunch of destroyers and frigates. Italy 2 VTOL carriers and 5 attack subs, Germany is 6 attack subs, and 11 frigates. Spain 2 attack subs.
So between 4 nations of ~250m people, there is one actual aircraft carrier(about half the size of the US carriers roughly the size of the RN Queen Elizabeths) and the 2 Italian Vtol carriers-which will only carry about 15 planes each.
That isn't a ton of force projection(when you account for overhaul it'll be 0 a lot of the time) and how much of it ever goes further East than the Red Sea/Arabian peninsula or even has the support ships/facilities in the Indian/Pacific to really be present there?
Where as the RAN is going to be operating nearly exclusively in that area, so tying the RN and USN in tighter with them is maybe worth the trade.
It'd be the worst white elephant gift of all time in terms of maintenance costs, and completely impractical for the RAN to stand up in manpower terms, but the US just gifting Australia a to be retired Nimitz would be a sort of hilarious brilliant like a fox move.
Spain also has a Helocopter carrier, ironically they would sell two ships of the same class to Australia.
But yeah, the only powers in Europe with long range capabilities and interests in the Indo-Pacific region would be Britian and France.
I'll also disagree on "that's not how defense contracts are done". Orders get canceled all the time. If a better offer appears, you almost always have to put you own nations safety and capabilities first.
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Conservative candidate for chancellor Laschet managed to theoretically invalidate his own vote because he folded the paper wrong and now there are lots of photos that show how he voted. The office at the voting place, again theoretically, should've stopped him from casting his vote like that. Sigh.
The Netherlands has a Constitution, much to chagrin of half the political spectrum, with a ruling from 1850 in it that no member of the government is to undermine the policies of the government. If a member of the government disagrees they can either resign or shut up. If they decide to speak up, the prime minister can fire them, effective immediately. This ruling was specifically designed to be able to communicate clearly to the population about policy changes. The ruling has been invoked before, but every time the disagreeing minister or secretary has just resigned.
Until yesterday.
Mona Keijzer decided to do a huge interview with the country's biggest newspaper in which she disagreed with new anti-corona measures (with a corona pass to prove you have been vaccinated) and wondered what the point even is. She was offered a chance to explain herself and she was offered a chance to resign, but she refused. So now she's fired and will probably also be kicked out of her party, because the corona pass was introduced by fellow party member Hugo de Jonge.
Corona is still very much a thing in the Netherlands, in an attempt to open up pubs and clubs we just had to install the Corona App and show the guy at the door that we've been vaccinated. Pub and club owners hate it, because they're supposed to check before admittance. Support for the app was already precarious and this weekend is the first time it'll be used. Keijzer her actions are just full-on anti-vaxxer bullshit and it is worrisome that she has held such a position of power for so long.
I kinda want to stop living in interesting times now.
Early numbers in Germany have CDU and SPD within less than a percentage point. Fuck. That's way too close for my liking. I can't deal with the possibility of 4 years of Armin Laschet as chancellor. With either Merz or Lindner as finance minister. God help us.
Greens are also underperforming compared to polling and the Left is scraping the 5% line. They might not make it into the parliament.
Early numbers in Germany have CDU and SPD within less than a percentage point. Fuck. That's way too close for my liking. I can't deal with the possibility of 4 years of Armin Laschet as chancellor.
As someone who got to cast his first-ever U.S. presidential vote between Biden and Trump: all the German candidates seem ultimately fine. No one who's trying to burn down the republic among the three.
Early numbers in Germany have CDU and SPD within less than a percentage point. Fuck. That's way too close for my liking. I can't deal with the possibility of 4 years of Armin Laschet as chancellor. With either Merz or Lindner as finance minister. God help us.
Greens are also underperforming compared to polling and the Left is scraping the 5% line. They might not make it into the parliament.
In Germany, if a party doesn't get more than 5% nationally, they won't get into parliament, right?
Sailing a convoy into the Baltic Sea would of been suicide.
Like I get that during and after the war the Allies kinda abandoned Poland, and maybe they could of made it more clear what their plans were but the French had based their entire strategy around defensive (which is good, France had a smaller population and couldn't bleed troops in offensive actions against Germany) and Britian again had downsized their army.
Any force that made it to Poland would of ended up captured or destroyed. I think the speed of the attack caught a lot of people off guard as nations like Serbia and Romania were able to hold off Central Powers for a much longer time.
Edit: it's also a little unfair to say France folded like a lawn chair. I think people forget how much she was crippled by the First World War, combined with some really bad leadership.
France also didn't have the strategic deapth of say, the USSR. Once the majority of the French Army was encircled and destroyed along side seeing the most populous and industrialized part of your nation capture the war was over.
Not to relitigate ww2, but a Soviet Union style defense in depth was exactly how France won WW1 (the Soviets were very inspired by Ferdinand Foch defeating the Germans before and tried to implement his war strategy as much as possible.)
The problem with WW2 is that France went from a defense in depth strategy to a strategy of static defense, and it just flat out didn’t work in the context of 20th century warfare. A soviet style withdrawing defense was possible in France, because thats exactly what happened in WW1 when the French defeated the Kaiserschlacht.
If anything I think the historical narrative overstates the performance of the German forces (which at no point in the war were anywhere near as good in reality as a lot of the historical narrative attributes them to be) and understates how much the French (and British) underperformed in the early stages of the war compared with what they should have been capable of on paper. (I remember at one point the HoI developers talking about how they had to literally fudge Germany and the allies strength at the beginning of WW2 because if they went by historical numbers and orders of battle an AI Germany would often straight up lose the initial invasion to AI France and Britain, which spoiled the game if you were playing US or USSR.)
Early numbers in Germany have CDU and SPD within less than a percentage point. Fuck. That's way too close for my liking. I can't deal with the possibility of 4 years of Armin Laschet as chancellor. With either Merz or Lindner as finance minister. God help us.
Greens are also underperforming compared to polling and the Left is scraping the 5% line. They might not make it into the parliament.
In Germany, if a party doesn't get more than 5% nationally, they won't get into parliament, right?
Yes. And it would be really disheartening of the left didn't make it in while the far right is sitting at a comfortable 11+ % right now.
Coalition building will be a real clusterfuck with the current tight numbers. Both SPD and CDU are already calling shotgun for chancellor.
Early numbers in Germany have CDU and SPD within less than a percentage point. Fuck. That's way too close for my liking. I can't deal with the possibility of 4 years of Armin Laschet as chancellor. With either Merz or Lindner as finance minister. God help us.
Greens are also underperforming compared to polling and the Left is scraping the 5% line. They might not make it into the parliament.
In Germany, if a party doesn't get more than 5% nationally, they won't get into parliament, right?
Almost. It's a mixed-member proportionality (MMP) system. Two votes, one for a first-past-the-post candidate (FPtP) in your district. Another (more important) vote for a party that determines overall proportional representation in parliament.
If you manage a FPtP victory in any district, the directly-elected candidate is seated even if the party as a whole doesn't manage 5%.
Early numbers in Germany have CDU and SPD within less than a percentage point. Fuck. That's way too close for my liking. I can't deal with the possibility of 4 years of Armin Laschet as chancellor.
As someone who got to cast his first-ever U.S. presidential vote between Biden and Trump: all the German candidates seem ultimately fine. No one who's trying to burn down the republic among the three.
Comparing European democracies to other countries is kind of useless. We're all hoping for a better country, not just for a country that's only slightly better than a country where armed terrorists stormed government buildings.
For those checking into the German election but unfamiliar with the parties, here is how they were traditionally placed on the left-right spectrum; with some asterisks for the two special ones. Bold denotes the traditionally big parties that basically always provide the chancellor.
The usual disclaimers apply: the midpoint of the spectrum isn't the same as the midpoint in the U.S. And on a left-leaning forum, the far-left will of course appear more mainstream than the far-right.
Die Linke/The Left (far-left) - SPD (center-left) - Die Grünen/The Greens (center-left)* - FDP (Euro Liberal)** - CDU/CSU (center-right) - AfD (far-right)
*Originally an environmental party with a platform against nuclear power and NATO. They have since evolved into a mainstream pro-environment party with a platform covering a complete spectrum of issues. It's difficult to say whether they are still more left than the SPD.
** European liberals are often put in the center between your standard left and right parties. They stand for individual choice, lower taxes, etc. Imagine U.S. Libertarians, but dial it from an 11 to a 3.
Fascinatingly, the main public news live election show has the chancellor-candidates or party leaders (where no candidates) in the studio along with the moderators. So there is live analysis, some jousting, and some discussions about potential coalitions happening between the top leadership. Unfortunately I cannot find a version of this with English subtitles.
Early numbers in Germany have CDU and SPD within less than a percentage point. Fuck. That's way too close for my liking. I can't deal with the possibility of 4 years of Armin Laschet as chancellor. With either Merz or Lindner as finance minister. God help us.
Greens are also underperforming compared to polling and the Left is scraping the 5% line. They might not make it into the parliament.
Did you not like Merkel either or has CDU substantially changed due to her stepping down?
SPD looks to have edged ahead. Do they get the first chance to form a party because of that and do they need to get at least 50% of the seats to back it which would mean getting FDP onboard?
This leads to a 3 party coalition right? So the question is basically who they exclude?
How is the negotiating done in Germany?
Getting 3 parties to agree to exclude leads some weird Game Theory and has a high chance of becoming pretty negative ...
i wouldnt put SPD more to the left than the greens and i would consider the FDP more right leaning than the CDU.
my voting district is incredibly despressing:
CSU still in despite cronyism, AFD gains voters because ... ???
Well, CSU cronyism is at least locally focused. That might help with their voting block. Still some major losses. Sadly to the even more right wing it seems.
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You love to see it.
It also says they want to ban all religious private schools.
You looooooooooooooooove to see it.
They also explicitly refused to vote with V (the left party) for banning schools for profit before, but by what I assure is purely coincidence there's an election next year and V has been gaining a whole lot of voters from S.
In theory, we have that in Michigan for publicly-funded charter schools. In practice, the owners set up a separate consulting company ("full-service management services"), have the school hire it, and suck out the money that way.
Unlike the US, France does not have enormous resources to assuage hurt feelings. (or coerce people into shutting up.)
It's really understandable for France to be annoyed by being undercut in an arm's deal, but they're probably overplaying their hand. I doubt any other European country is going to seriously go to bat for France over this particular issue, and when the French government kicks up a stink but ultimately accomplishes little to nothing, it's just going to annoy French voters.
Between Biden quite frankly not wanting to have this argument and statements in Europe kinda lacking on support for France:
Is better to just kiss and make up for everybody involved.
That's some major league meaningless business speak
Rumsfeld was stupid to call it "old Europe" and "new Europe", but there is a big split between Eastern and Western Europe in many regards. Does Poland or the Baltic states see France as a convincing protector from possible Russian threats?
Basically, France either needs to convince more European nations to pool resources into a common army and foreign policy (which is tricky, as it either won't be French enough, or leave other members feeling like France now, a junior member in a pact they have little say in), or cooperate with nations like the US and GB. France can't go it alone and I doubt most of Europe are willing to out Paris solely in charge of their foreign policy, and yet France wants to alienate its closest allies.
Saw more stuff on this, and S was against that because of their deal with C (the center party) -- C required that (in addition to "zero cooperation with V") in order to form a government with S. This is the thing that V grudgingly accepted purely so that a government could form that kept the conservative and/or racist parties out.
It was the recent vote of no confidence that kind of trashed C's plan here -- now S is free from C's requirements.
Poland signed mutual defense treaties with both Britain and France in 1939, and then put up a heroic defense to hold the ports for seven days in a battle the Nazis initially expected to take hours so that British troops could arrive by sea. The UK never made any move to assist and France folded like a lawn chair.
I catch a lot of Polish TV whenever I visit my parents and the mood I get from their politic shows is that they only trust the United States to give a damn if they're invaded by Russia, and that the EU in general, Western Europe as a vague area and Germany specifically look down on them, take them for granted and don't give a fuck if they live or die.
Like I get that during and after the war the Allies kinda abandoned Poland, and maybe they could of made it more clear what their plans were but the French had based their entire strategy around defensive (which is good, France had a smaller population and couldn't bleed troops in offensive actions against Germany) and Britian again had downsized their army.
Any force that made it to Poland would of ended up captured or destroyed. I think the speed of the attack caught a lot of people off guard as nations like Serbia and Romania were able to hold off Central Powers for a much longer time.
Edit: it's also a little unfair to say France folded like a lawn chair. I think people forget how much she was crippled by the First World War, combined with some really bad leadership.
France also didn't have the strategic deapth of say, the USSR. Once the majority of the French Army was encircled and destroyed along side seeing the most populous and industrialized part of your nation capture the war was over.
Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden (and everyone else in Europe with a defence industry) are not happy at all, and their governments are making it known. I don't think we'll see a trade dispute now, but US/UK/AU are probably going to have a tougher time at the bargaining table. Because this is basically not how defence industry contracts are done.
This is probably also going to strengthen France long term goals of reducing US military influence over european arms development, and with Britain out of the EU their biggest opponent to tightening EU military cooperation is gone. For Germany I think it's mostly a matter of reluctance until everyone has worked out an economy plan where Germany isn't bearing the heaviest loads (because Germany has a tendency to get saddled with a large portion of the costs for EU projects).
Overall, I wouldn't say that this UK&Sons pact has shot itself in the foot, but they've definitely solidified a political anti-china block where they've alienated most EU powers with long range capability (the only possible exception would be the Dutch, but I'm not very well versed in dutch military policy. They don't seem to get involved much outside the european zone unless they're current post-colonial territories are threatened).
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I guess I just wonder how much real long range power has been alienated, if you are evaluating towards Asia.
France has 1 Carrier, 3 Helo-carriers, 4 boomers, 6 attack subs and a bunch of destroyers and frigates. Italy 2 VTOL carriers and 5 attack subs, Germany is 6 attack subs, and 11 frigates. Spain 2 attack subs.
So between 4 nations of ~250m people, there is one actual aircraft carrier(about half the size of the US carriers roughly the size of the RN Queen Elizabeths) and the 2 Italian Vtol carriers-which will only carry about 15 planes each.
That isn't a ton of force projection(when you account for overhaul it'll be 0 a lot of the time) and how much of it ever goes further East than the Red Sea/Arabian peninsula or even has the support ships/facilities in the Indian/Pacific to really be present there?
Where as the RAN is going to be operating nearly exclusively in that area, so tying the RN and USN in tighter with them is maybe worth the trade.
It'd be the worst white elephant gift of all time in terms of maintenance costs, and completely impractical for the RAN to stand up in manpower terms, but the US just gifting Australia a to be retired Nimitz would be a sort of hilarious brilliant like a fox move.
Anyways, joint statement is up, everybody made up, let's move on.
The Afghanistan debacle has also really turned the current generation sour against American foreign adventures.
If the US does come knocking, I'd expect the right wing to arrange some kind of token support but there's nothing to we would actually contribute.
The NL would probably take baby steps towards further European integration of armed forces, preferably with Germany. But nothing drastic.
One of the most important things NL has is probably our spy agencies. Half the worlds internet goes through Amsterdam.....
The spy agencies and a bunch of submarines.
When I was younger I always argued that we needed to spend less on our military. But - having learned more about international relations - I've come to realize that if we're going to work together with other countries we need to share the costs of maintaining a sensible military. I feel like the discourse in The Netherlands has been hijacked by these absurd images of a military being just a bunch of foot soldiers milling about an army base and only describing it as a cost instead of an asset. (Kinda what US politicians do when they say that healthcare only costs people money, as if good health isn't valuable. )
Looking it up, the Netherlands is part of the nuclear sharing program, which means if WW3 breaks out Dutch planes might carry nukes into battle.
Spain also has a Helocopter carrier, ironically they would sell two ships of the same class to Australia.
But yeah, the only powers in Europe with long range capabilities and interests in the Indo-Pacific region would be Britian and France.
I'll also disagree on "that's not how defense contracts are done". Orders get canceled all the time. If a better offer appears, you almost always have to put you own nations safety and capabilities first.
That being said, keeping up the restrictions against travelers from the US is absolutely fair and correct here.
Conservative candidate for chancellor Laschet managed to theoretically invalidate his own vote because he folded the paper wrong and now there are lots of photos that show how he voted. The office at the voting place, again theoretically, should've stopped him from casting his vote like that. Sigh.
Until yesterday.
Mona Keijzer decided to do a huge interview with the country's biggest newspaper in which she disagreed with new anti-corona measures (with a corona pass to prove you have been vaccinated) and wondered what the point even is. She was offered a chance to explain herself and she was offered a chance to resign, but she refused. So now she's fired and will probably also be kicked out of her party, because the corona pass was introduced by fellow party member Hugo de Jonge.
Corona is still very much a thing in the Netherlands, in an attempt to open up pubs and clubs we just had to install the Corona App and show the guy at the door that we've been vaccinated. Pub and club owners hate it, because they're supposed to check before admittance. Support for the app was already precarious and this weekend is the first time it'll be used. Keijzer her actions are just full-on anti-vaxxer bullshit and it is worrisome that she has held such a position of power for so long.
I kinda want to stop living in interesting times now.
Greens are also underperforming compared to polling and the Left is scraping the 5% line. They might not make it into the parliament.
As someone who got to cast his first-ever U.S. presidential vote between Biden and Trump: all the German candidates seem ultimately fine. No one who's trying to burn down the republic among the three.
In Germany, if a party doesn't get more than 5% nationally, they won't get into parliament, right?
Not to relitigate ww2, but a Soviet Union style defense in depth was exactly how France won WW1 (the Soviets were very inspired by Ferdinand Foch defeating the Germans before and tried to implement his war strategy as much as possible.)
The problem with WW2 is that France went from a defense in depth strategy to a strategy of static defense, and it just flat out didn’t work in the context of 20th century warfare. A soviet style withdrawing defense was possible in France, because thats exactly what happened in WW1 when the French defeated the Kaiserschlacht.
If anything I think the historical narrative overstates the performance of the German forces (which at no point in the war were anywhere near as good in reality as a lot of the historical narrative attributes them to be) and understates how much the French (and British) underperformed in the early stages of the war compared with what they should have been capable of on paper. (I remember at one point the HoI developers talking about how they had to literally fudge Germany and the allies strength at the beginning of WW2 because if they went by historical numbers and orders of battle an AI Germany would often straight up lose the initial invasion to AI France and Britain, which spoiled the game if you were playing US or USSR.)
Yes. And it would be really disheartening of the left didn't make it in while the far right is sitting at a comfortable 11+ % right now.
Coalition building will be a real clusterfuck with the current tight numbers. Both SPD and CDU are already calling shotgun for chancellor.
Almost. It's a mixed-member proportionality (MMP) system. Two votes, one for a first-past-the-post candidate (FPtP) in your district. Another (more important) vote for a party that determines overall proportional representation in parliament.
If you manage a FPtP victory in any district, the directly-elected candidate is seated even if the party as a whole doesn't manage 5%.
Comparing European democracies to other countries is kind of useless. We're all hoping for a better country, not just for a country that's only slightly better than a country where armed terrorists stormed government buildings.
The usual disclaimers apply: the midpoint of the spectrum isn't the same as the midpoint in the U.S. And on a left-leaning forum, the far-left will of course appear more mainstream than the far-right.
Die Linke/The Left (far-left) - SPD (center-left) - Die Grünen/The Greens (center-left)* - FDP (Euro Liberal)** - CDU/CSU (center-right) - AfD (far-right)
*Originally an environmental party with a platform against nuclear power and NATO. They have since evolved into a mainstream pro-environment party with a platform covering a complete spectrum of issues. It's difficult to say whether they are still more left than the SPD.
** European liberals are often put in the center between your standard left and right parties. They stand for individual choice, lower taxes, etc. Imagine U.S. Libertarians, but dial it from an 11 to a 3.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=K0T4bED7EVY
my voting district is incredibly despressing:
CSU still in despite cronyism, AFD gains voters because ... ???
Did you not like Merkel either or has CDU substantially changed due to her stepping down?
SPD looks to have edged ahead. Do they get the first chance to form a party because of that and do they need to get at least 50% of the seats to back it which would mean getting FDP onboard?
How is the negotiating done in Germany?
Getting 3 parties to agree to exclude leads some weird Game Theory and has a high chance of becoming pretty negative ...
Well, CSU cronyism is at least locally focused. That might help with their voting block. Still some major losses. Sadly to the even more right wing it seems.
+9% for FDP here, blegh