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elijah

Supreme Elitists
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Posts posted by elijah

  1. 10 hours ago, jonski43 said:

    Wasn't it their crackdown on the LGBT community that started all this off? I thought the EU threatened some kind of sanctions?

    And I read the Danes, Dutch and Italians were all considering leaving in the last few years. 

    But this is the only one where it's because of a clash with the EU.

    Yes, their government has been right wing trump wanna bes. The lgbtq free zones were established by local authorities as a “way to fight the lgbtq doctrine”. However EU stopped the funding for those localities and they repealed that shameful status. 

  2. Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found here. 
    https://www.ft.com/content/6abff800-1b3e-4e73-ad66-2cbb9e280a3d

    For years after Poland joined the EU in 2004, the country was the biggest success story of the bloc’s eastern expansion — seemingly set to be a permanent and reliable bulwark of European integration. But Thursday’s ruling by Polish judges — that parts of EU law are incompatible with the country’s constitution — has sparked fears that a “Polexit”, to follow the UK’s Brexit from the EU, could one day cease to be an idea from political fiction. Luxembourg’s foreign minister Jean Asselborn warned on Friday that the ruling was “playing with fire”. France’s Europe minister Clément Beaune said it flew in the face of the rules Poland had accepted by joining the bloc, and raised the risk of a “de facto exit”. “When you sign a contract with someone and say ‘My rule, which I define when I want and how I want, is worth more than what I have signed with you’, there is no more contract,” Beaune said in an interview with BFM TV. Opinion surveys suggest that more than 80 per cent of Poles want their country to remain in the EU. Poland’s conservative-nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS) insists that the idea that it could take the country out of the union is nonsense. “The entry of Poland and the countries of central Europe to the EU was one of the most important events of the last decades. Both for us and for the EU itself. We all won from this,” Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki wrote on Facebook on Thursday. “That is why I say clearly: the place of Poland is and will be in the European family of nations.” Yet critics fear that even if PiS does not want to undo Poland’s EU membership, its constant clashes with Brussels could set in train a dynamic that eventually leads that way, much as David Cameron’s attempts to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU paved the way for Brexit. “Cameron came to the EU . . . with a gun to his head threatening that if he wasn’t granted what he wanted he would shoot himself,” said an official from one EU state. “This is similar: the Poles are threatening to shoot themselves in the foot, if not the head.” For the EU, which has to balance the need to protect its legal order against the risk of inflaming tensions with Warsaw, deciding how to respond to Thursday’s verdict is a perilously difficult decision. The European Commission, the EU executive, has faced increased questioning of the primacy of EU law — and the right of the European Court of Justice to have the final word — in a number of member states. But the Polish ruling is more serious given that it explicitly rejects key parts of EU law as incompatible with the country’s constitution in a challenge brought by the country’s own prime minister. It also follows five years of clashes between Warsaw and Brussels over changes by PiS — including an attempt to purge the supreme court and the introduction of a system allowing judges to be punished for the content of their rulings — which have sparked deep concerns in Brussels that the independence of Poland’s judiciary is being dismantled. Previous disciplinary proceedings against Poland under the so-called Article 7 process have foundered due to opposition from Warsaw’s key ally Hungary. Ursula von der Leyen, the commission’s president, has additional means of leverage if she wishes to use them. Recommended The FT ViewThe editorial board Brussels is tightening the screws on Warsaw The commission is likely to consider as a minimum bringing infringement proceedings over the judgment — although only after it has been published and comes into effect. The commission is also weighing up a €36bn Polish bid for recovery funding, which Warsaw submitted in May. While Brussels has been seeking to insert “rule of law” conditions into the plan, Thu Nguyen, a policy fellow at the Jacques Delors Centre, said the commission should now reject the Polish plan outright. The commission is also under pressure to examine powers that would allow it to hold back Poland’s regional development funds under certain circumstances. It has also been considering whether to bring a case against Poland under a new mechanism that allows money to be withheld from member states where there is a clear risk of waste and fraud. While such a case would not be founded on the tribunal ruling itself, it could politically strengthen the hand of those arguing in favour of deploying the mechanism. The risk is that withholding billions of euros of EU funding would only embolden anti-Brussels politicians in Poland, worsening the stand-off. But Nguyen said the risks of inaction were worse still. “This is quite unprecedented — a country so fundamentally rejecting EU law primacy,” she said. “Letting these things slide and doing nothing would risk giving the impression that member states can do what they want. This would mean that we may as well give up on the EU project.” 

    https://www.ft.com/content/6abff800-1b3e-4e73-ad66-2cbb9e280a3d

    Its hard to believe Poland is disputing supremacy of EU law. Supremacy of the EU law as a principle is accepted since 1962 - in the Van Gend en Loos v Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen (Case 26/62), the Court declared that the laws adopted by European institutions must be integrated into the legal systems of EU countries, which are obliged to comply with them. EU law therefore has primacy over national laws. This follows from the fact that the case law (jurisprudence) of the Court of Justice of the European UnionCourt is mandatory: see Art 251 and the following of TFEU. That principle has been in effect since the 60ties and every country that entered the EU knew about this. In practice that means that as the EU law develops and changes (as does any law), the Member States have already agreed to change their legal system in line with the EU one. The relation between national courts and the EU court is similar to the relation between US Supreme court and the courts of US states.

    Its hard for me to believe there would be no consequence for Poland for such a shameful decision.

  3. France Threatens U.K. Power Supply as Brexit Tensions Escalate

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-05/france-threatens-u-k-power-supply-as-brexit-tensions-escalate

    when will the English/Welsch face the fact that Brexit was a stupid idea??? Practically all countries in Europe that are not within EU, are strongly linked to it: Iceland, Norway etc. I d like to see how UK, even though big, makes an exception.

  4. 9 hours ago, Kim said:

    Nah, that would just highlight even more the need for Scotland to permanently get away from an England/Wales that's eating itself. Better for them that we all face the same shit.

    The Irish situation is different because, well...they have a history of blowing people up and so the peace agreement between north and south needs to stay in place, which it won't if a hard border (for goods and services) is erected again.

    Yes, the Good Friday agreement… but I never thought that Scotland was de facto the only part of UK that didn’t get what they voted for. NI at least is within the common market. And you are right, it would probably have led to a quicker split of Scotland with the other parts of UK

  5. 7 hours ago, sotos8 said:

    It's not coincidence that only a week after the new alliance is formed France sold to Greece battleships costing 10 billion euros with of course the agreement of the US .

    That's why i don't believe for a second that France didn't know about the AUCUS 

    Well Greece-France deal is far from surprising having in mind the Turkey-Greek tension around the gas/border in the Eastern Mediterranean. I still remember France and Italy and maybe Spain were the ones who firmly backed Greece and Germany tried to mediate between Turkey and Greece. I d say this is kind of expected. And it’s high time for EU defence, on that subject. But of course u are probably right the French were in the know. Maybe the french “rage” has a lot to do with the upcoming elections in France

  6. 7 hours ago, Kim said:

    No British party has rejoining the EU as part of their manifesto. Only the SNP in Scotland.

    The Northern Ireland protocol keeps them in the single market remember, so the only part of the UK that didn't get what it voted for is Scotland.

    All quite galling when you consider that we are a net exporter of energy yet are caught up in all this shit because of the political choices of another country.

    The Scotland situation is really absurd. The least Boris could have done if he wanted to keep UK united is negotiate the same deal for Scotland that he did for Northern Ireland...

  7. On 9/26/2021 at 12:17 PM, karbatal said:

    This mess with Australia and UK has left the EU thinking he's just as random as Trump. 

    Hmm. No-one could beat Trump, but Biden has done like so little to make amends with EU, hasn't he? I mean do USA not care at all about EU at this point? Would EU even be in the alley club or what? As far as I know the Afganistan withdrawal was never even coordinated with EU and now this deal wit AUS, for which the French had to learn from the press? He still is better than Trump, but it seems like the focus of USA is firmly on Asia (and China) and Europe is just there... Weird.

  8. 11 hours ago, karbatal said:

    Somehow even though they are trying, homophobia will not grow much in Spain in my opinion. Spain has lots of flaws but it's curious that the country is very open regarding LGTB. 

    But it is true that they are trying A LOT recently. 

     

    This is one of the reasons I so love Spain. Its really socially liberal regarding LGBTQ, its like the Netherlands of the south! And its a fucking beautiful country with great ppl!

  9. 17 hours ago, sotos8 said:

    the big question imo was Biden the best choice to lead US at this point? 

    Yes, everything but Trump. Having said that, Afghanistan was a major fuck up for Biden, but I guess from the info it’s obvious all is a consequence of the Trump administration and their deals with the Talibans. However this is not a great look for Biden, especially from the point of view of Europe 

  10. 7 hours ago, karbatal said:

    Once a European Parliament member who was really veteran and had worked hand in hand with Giscard d'Estein told me that one of the main reasons to expand the EU further and further East was Germany's goal to put the frontiers as farther as possible from themselves.

    I have no idea if that was true. 

    In my opinion though, being Spaniard, I'm all for giving more countries the opportunity to join. For us it was such an incredible opportunity back in 1985 to become part of the EU. 

    It's true though that certain policies should start being competence of Brussels. It's time for a new treaty where civil rights are included. Just the fact that I'm married in Spain but if I travel to my husband's country, EU member too, I'm not married, it's an absurdity that is only allowed because of plain homophobia from the EU leaders themselves.

     

    So true. But The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union does exist since Lisbon treaty: https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/government_in_ireland/european_government/eu_law/charter_of_fundamental_rights.html

    it’s plainly obviously Hungary has infringed many of those with their new “law”. And I agree with you: BG has to be forced to accept gay marriages or risk being thrown out like most of the Eastern EU members… it’s too much Russian propaganda for family values here. Yet Sofia pride was attended by 10000 ppl while the protest for traditional family by 100. 

  11. On 5/18/2021 at 10:15 PM, karbatal said:

    The propaganda of Israel is laughable. Today I watched how they were lamenting the death of an Arab girl in Israel killed by a Hamas rocket. Of course it's a tragedy but they've killed DOZENS of children! 

    Killing from both sides is atrocious, but let’s be real: Israel has always been much more equipped with modern weapons than Hamas so as the more equipped side is expected logically to inflict more damage, is it not? Its not right of course, but it has been expected as it has been the case since the 40ties. It’s a hot topic and I understand why both sides are hating the other. I think at present both sides are ruled by parties/organisations who do not want peace and that’s the biggest problem. There must be two state solution, but I don’t know how that would happen with the situation in West Bank...

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