Europe
News and information from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
Rules (2024-08-30)
- This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
- No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
- Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
- No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
- Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
- If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
- Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in other communities.
- Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
- No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
- Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.
(This list may get expanded as necessary.)
Posts that link to the following sources will be removed
- on any topic: Al Mayadeen, brusselssignal:eu, citjourno:com, europesays:com, Breitbart, Daily Caller, Fox, GB News, geo-trends:eu, news-pravda:com, OAN, RT, sociable:co, any AI slop sites (when in doubt please look for a credible imprint/about page), change:org (for privacy reasons), archive:is,ph,today (their JS DDoS websites)
- on Middle-East topics: Al Jazeera
- on Hungary: Euronews
Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media (incl. Substack). Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com
(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)
Ban lengths, etc.
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the admin that applied the rule (check modlog first to find who was it.)
view the rest of the comments
Why would we suddenly follow Germany's stance and not Spain just because unanimity is gone? We would likely follow a qualified majority or supermajority, just as other aspects of legislation (perhaps even draw out higher thresholds for voting). If the majority elected to take a position against Russia (or for Ukraine, if you will), then it isn't anything but counterproductive, that we remain in a political quagmire because of one individual exercising veto powers. If the majority elected to take a different approach to foreign policy towards the US, then it would also be frustrating if it was up to an individual head of state (sponsored by the US regime and Heritage Foundation, no less) to veto our collective action. This won't get us moving at all.
On regards to corruption, the EU already witholds funding from Hungary on account of rule of law and democraric backsliding. We can't hold a position to be for individual sovereignty when it comes of foreign policy and at the same time demand a supranational organisation to come in and prosecute national leaders, who were still at some point in time elected by their people fairly. As you've said, we aren't a federation yet, if the EU prosecuted another country's leader, it would be a massive overreach and a tremendous cry for sovereignty in jeopardy.
On a personal note, I would be happy with both scenarios playing out, and personally feel federation might be a way to survive a growing upending of rules-based order in the world.
I wholeheartedly disagree. Spain's position is a minority within the EU. If Germany or France want to support genocide, that's for their people to deal with, the EU as a union, if there is no consensus, should not, through qualified majority have the chance to act as EU in representation of Spain when Spain does not agree with the EU position. Nothing is stopping the countries that support Ukraine (which is basically the almost entirety of the EU) to continue supporting Ukraine. What makes no sense is Hungary to serve as a guaranteur country for a loan for which its people allegedly do not agree with.
It's not lost on me that Hungary is a net receiver of EU funds, but the EU was not designed for the latest expansionist waves of the late noughties. That's where the legislative framework difficulties come from. German and British companies wanted access to cheap labour and a larger market, so now we have to deal with the consequences of expanding. The most urgent step is to repeal the lobbying law of 2007 and return to the stringent anti-corruption enforcement. Also, most EU countries already are subject to supra-national legal entities, i. e. the ECJ is sovereign, despite some German judges arguing otherwise. Whoever signed in should have read the ToS.
Edit: As if reality conspired to make my point...