***European Politics Thread***

9,736 Views | 88 Replies | Last: 10 days ago by nortex97
fullback44
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AG
So for us not in the know in the EU, is the EU gonna finally turn right wing and fight the globalist that have had a stranglehold over most of those EU countries. If I'm not mistaken, wasn't a lot of this started when the farmers rose up in The Netherlands and ousted their globalist leader? Mark Rutte I believe was his name
aggiebird02
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Legal Custodian said:

It still fascinates me how fast changing Parliamentary governments are. I love Justice Scalise's interview on Capitol Hill where he demeans the detractors of the US Government who say it's ineffective because of the gridlock.

He ended up saying (paraphrased) that we need to embrace the gridlock as that is exactly what the founders intended. That all the gridlock and checks & balances force the government (in theory) to work together and compromise to put forth a much better law that adheres to the Constitution and survive the checks and balances. That the gridlock creates a steady government that doesn't get overtaken by wherever the winds are blowing from at the time.

Following the politics over in Europe and seeing the Parliamentary style of legislation, it's amazing how things change at the drop of a hat. Piss poor laws are written and passed, then changed, then stalled. It's amazing that their governments operate at all.


Our founding fathers based our government after ancient Sparta, with a judicial branch and supreme court, an upper and lower congress, and an executive branch. And the founders set it up that way as you said, to make change difficult.

The only difference is the executive branch. Sparta had two royal families, and two kings at all time, we have one president…

Edit: although, our position of Vice President serves the same function as a second king, to always have someone in charge of the executive branch in case of a president's (a king's) death while in office.
EX TEXASEX
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Europe is waking up too, just like here. Guess, the left's election stealing game is not as strong as U.S. Communist
The King Commie Frog, is getting curb stomped.

#FJB
Legal Custodian
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AG
Macron, to his credit, has called a snap election for June 30th. If it holds the same (which all say it will) the Right party will take hold of parliament and LePen will take the PM role in France.

Le Pen's platform, for those that don't know, runs on stopping mass immigration as their main policy point.

They're saying it's a land slide for right across Europe for conservatives
80sGeorge
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AG
Been following some BBC accounts since Brexit.

These guys are a good follow as well. Some of their reporting is surprising in how messed up certain situations/countries are.



nortex97
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AG
Check out the demagoguery about 'nationalists' and folks not wanting more war in his speech.

Quote:

"The rise of nationalists and demagogues is a danger for our nation and for Europe," Mr. Macron said. "After this day I cannot go on as though nothing has happened."

The French leader has always been a passionate supporter of the 27-nation European Union, seeing in it the sole means for Europe to count in the world and calling on it to achieve "strategic autonomy" through ever greater integration. But the political winds have turned in favor of less Europe, not more.
They tried to use fear and "muh, Russia" as a rationale for status quo EU leadership. It's not flying even there.





This is a massive win, from what I can see, of the 'far right' against the swamp globalist war hawk 'green new deal' Soros faction in the EU.

fullback44
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AG
Don't F with the Farmers and their tractors ….
80sGeorge
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AG
I mean…thank you Putin. He exposed the greens and ineffective energy policies and then the globalists have committed cultural suicide with their migration policies.

It's a one-two punch that keeps on giving
YouBet
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AG
What a Sunday! The "far right" (LOL!!!) is winning in Europe.

The "far right" is sanity and logic.

That's all anyone needs to know.
cgh1999
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AG
nortex97
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AG
The danger is that the war parties/interests are more emboldened and desperate than ever before.



Who?mikejones!
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Down with the EU. Hope these center right govts move on immigration and farming.
aezmvp
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The reason for the French (and maybe Belgian) snap votes are to prevent the new rightist parties from getting additional candidate recruits, infrastructure and fundraising, they had less of the vote before so now these upstarts can be cut off from the time and space to organize. It's a good political move on their part. I don't know that it will work. Especially in France this has the result of significantly lowering turnout (and has done so since the first French revolution) so only the most motivated show up. Not sure that's the best move but I'm sure we will see a bunch of shenanigans along the way.
nortex97
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AG
The globalists are in absolute panic. Belgium.

Quote:

Although he will oversee a caretaker government until a new coalition is created, he will nevertheless hand in his resignation to Belgium's King Philippe on Monday at the royal palace in Brussels.
The results in both France and Belgium indicate a growing political move in Europe toward the right as economic issues, unfettered immigration, and other concerns are turning off voters:
Quote:

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo will resign, he said, reflecting on the poor performance of his governing coalition in the country's 'Super Sunday' election which saw residents vote for their new parliament as well as regional representatives, and for their new members of the European Parliament.
While Belgium didn't experience a landslide victory, the gaining of ground by a handful of right-wing parties and the cliff-edge collapse of the country's two Green parties has been enough to shift the electoral picture in the country, making the present centrist-globalist coalition untenable.

Macron bets the house in snap election move:
Quote:

Macron's gamble is a simple one, and is intended to bring Le Pen down to Earth with a bump. While the European election has delivered a decisive victory for the National Rally, legislative elections are unlikely to deliver such a clear win. The National Rally will land more seats in parliament but probably not win enough to be in a position to govern.
"It will almost certainly put a brake on Le Pen. Because the base case is not that she will win a majority in the legislative election," said Mujtaba Rahman, Europe head of the Eurasia Group, a risk consultancy. "I don't think Le Pen will do as well in the legislative election, it's a two round election, it's a different group of voters who will be mobilized."
French parliamentary elections do not use the same electoral system as European elections. In order to win a seat as a deputy you have to win 50 percent in the first round or, if not, face a run-off. Essentially, it's a lot harder for a far-right candidate to win a seat in the national parliament.
As Brussels is viewed as a very distant concern, the European election is usually where the protest vote is expressed most strongly. In contrast, the legislative election is a two-round vote on June 30 and July 7 that historically favors more traditional parties, as voters from the left and the right usually rally round the more mainstream candidate to beat the far right.
YouBet
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AG
So, Macrons logic is to gamble and hold elections now to restart the clock on how long his side holds the reins.

Because he's assuming he will win now vs possibly not winning later if he lets the current terms play out.

Correct?
LMCane
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Nanomachines son
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fullback44 said:

So for us not in the know in the EU, is the EU gonna finally turn right wing and fight the globalist that have had a stranglehold over most of those EU countries. If I'm not mistaken, wasn't a lot of this started when the farmers rose up in The Netherlands and ousted their globalist leader? Mark Rutte I believe was his name


I doubt it. The center rights in Europe always will ally with the left over anyone even remotely considered far right. I expect this to happen here too once again. Until I am proved wrong, I will assume nothing will change.
nortex97
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AG
It's not much of a gamble unfortunately; the turnout for French elections instead of French elections for the European Parliament, will be much higher in urban areas (Paris, Lyon, Toulouse etc) his party/team needs support for.

The results still really are pretty surprisingly large for the conservatives;
Quote:

As noted by Le Monde , RN gaining 31.5 per cent of the votes means Le Pen and Bardella have grabbed the best result for any French political party at the European elections in 40 years. And that's before you even count the fact the right-populist vote was split to some degree by the running of a rival party co-led by Le Pen's niece Marion Marechal Le Pen, who picked up a further five and a half per cent.

Quote:

This hammer-blow to President Macron's authority triggered an instant response on Sunday night, as he announced he was dissolving the national Parliament for a snap election later this month. Win that vote and Macron would claim a strong national mandate to continue to govern as President for the rest of his term. Lose that, however, and at best he would have to sit until April 2027 as a lame duck.

It's a massive gamble, but Macron will have to hope the French people will treat elections for their important national parliament differently to their vote for the remote and less consequential European Parliament in Brussels. This effect was well demonstrated in the years when Britain was still a member of the European Union, and the Eurosceptic UKIP and then Brexit parties of Nigel Farage were major vote-winners for Brussels, but struggled to get a toe-hold for Westminster.

But Le Pen's RN has momentum on its side, and with just 21 days to go until the first round of that snap election called tonight, Macron may have a hard time turning the narrative around. But he's had a good try already, reports French broadsheet Le Figaro . Delivering the news in a speech on Sunday night, the President said: "I have decided to give you the choice of our parliamentary future again by voting… [this is a] serious, heavy decision, but above all it is an act of trust", and saying he wants to "let the sovereign people speak".
I think the RN conservatives would be very unlikely to get to 50% in the first round of the snap election, and a run off will lead to them having something like 45 percent and having to form a coalition government, while Macron sits in office no matter what thru 2027. Last time (in a direct election), Le Pen lost to Macron by 58-40, roughly.

LMCane
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Tumble Weed said:

I will admit that I follow British politics. Watching Brexit and the fallout is intriguing.

I read everything that you posted above, and the EU still makes zero sense.

One thing that I like about the euros is that they are still proud of who they are. Italians, Greeks, Germans, etc aren't afraid of their own history and celebrate it.

Meanwhile Americans are busy tearing down 100 year old statues for the crisis du jour.

that may have been true 20 years ago. Not anymore. This is BELGIUM a few weeks ago:

Faustus
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YouBet said:

So, Macrons logic is to gamble and hold elections now to restart the clock on how long his side holds the reins.

Because he's assuming he will win now vs possibly not winning later if he lets the current terms play out.

Correct?
That seems right, although Macron will still be President regardless since he was elected to a 2nd five year term a couple of years ago. The other option is he's looking to put NR in limited power and that after 3 years of trying to govern (with Macron still President) the party won't be as appealing to the public as they are now sniping from the sidelines.

I imagine NR is willing to take that bet.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/10/world/europe/france-macron-elections-analysis.html

Quote:

In Calling Elections in France, Macron Makes a Huge Gamble
. . .
On the face of it, there is little logic in calling an election from a position of great weakness. But that is what President Emmanuel Macron has done by calling a snap parliamentary election in France on the back of a humiliation by the far right.

After the National Rally of Marine Le Pen and her popular protege Jordan Bardella handed him a crushing defeat on Sunday in elections for the European Parliament, Mr. Macron might have done nothing, reshuffled his government, or simply altered course through stricter controls on immigration and by renouncing contested plans to tighten rules on unemployment benefits.

Instead, Mr. Macron, who became president at 39 in 2017 by being a risk taker, chose to gamble that France, having voted one way on Sunday, will vote another in a few weeks.

"I am astonished, like almost everyone else," said Alain Duhamel, the prominent author of "Emmanuel the Bold," a book about Mr. Macron. "It's not madness, it's not despair, but it is a huge risk from an impetuous man who prefers taking the initiative to being subjected to events."
. . .
For Le Monde, it was "a jump in the void." Raphal Glucksmann, who guided the revived center-left socialists to third place among French parties in the European vote, accused Mr. Macron of "a dangerous game."

France is always a mystery, its perennial discontent and restiveness at odds with its prosperity and beauty, but this was a surprise of unusual proportions. Mr. Macron, after a stinging defeat in which the National Rally won 31.37 percent of the vote to 14.6 percent for the coalition led by his Renaissance party, has in effect called his country's bluff, asking if its apparent readiness for the extreme right in power is real or a mere letting-off of steam.

The risk is that about a month from now Mr. Macron would have to govern with Mr. Bardella, 28, who represents everything he abhors, as his prime minister. If the nationalist, anti-immigrant National Rally wins an absolute majority in the 577-member National Assembly, an unlikely scenario, or merely emerges as by far the strongest party, which is more plausible, Mr. Macron may be obliged to swallow hard and do that.

Ms. Le Pen, with her eye on winning the presidency in 2027, would almost certainly defer to Mr. Bardella, who led the party's European election campaign, for the post of prime minister.
. . .
Why play with fire in this way? "It's not the same election, not the same form of ballot, and not the same stakes," said Jean-Philippe Derosier, a professor of public law at the University of Lille. "Macron apparently feels it's the least bad choice to have a possible National Rally prime minister under his control, rather than a Le Pen victory in 2027."

In other words, Mr. Macron, who is term limited and will leave office in 2027, may be flirting with the notion that three years in office for the National Rally turning it from a party of protest to a party with the onerous responsibilities of government would stall its inexorable rise.
. . .
It is one thing to rail from the margins, quite another to run a heavily indebted and polarized country so angry over the level of immigration, crime and living costs that many French people seem driven by a sentiment that "enough is enough."
. . .
Ms. Le Pen on Sunday announced the end of "the painful globalist parenthesis that has made so many people suffer in the world." Given that mainstream pro-European parties won about 60 percent of the vote in the European Parliament election, despite the far-right surge, that appeared to be a bold prediction.

A "cohabitation," as the French call it, between a president from one party and a prime minister from another, is not unknown most recently, Jacques Chirac, a center-right Gaullist, governed with a Socialist prime minister, Lionel Jospin, between 1997 and 2002. France survived and Mr. Chirac was re-elected.

But never before has there been such an ideological gulf, going to the very conception of French values and the core importance for the continent's liberty of the European Union, as there would be between Mr. Macron and a National Rally prime minister.
WolfCall
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AG
It was a blood bath for the Left in Europe

"Europe's Green parties and globalist left-wing parties suffered the largest losses in the European Union's Parliamentary elections."


https://www.dailywire.com/news/media-orgs-panic-after-right-wing-parties-surge-in-european-elections
Quote:

Media Orgs Panic After Right-Wing Parties Surge In European Elections
By Ryan Saavedra Jun 10, 2024 DailyWire.com

Media organizations smeared right-wing parties in Europe over the weekend after they gained serious traction in elections across the continent as backlash grows to the political Left's radical climate agenda, inflation, and the millions of migrants that have come from the Middle East and Africa.

News organizations, from The New York Times to Reuters to the Associated Press, labeled right-wing parties as "far-right," "extreme right," and "radical right." Meanwhile, left-wing socialist parties were simply labeled as "center-left" and "pro-democracy" parties.

French President Emmanuel Macron was crushed by Marine Le Pen's National Rally, which is set to become the country's largest political party.

"The rise of nationalists and demagogues is a danger for our nation and for Europe," Macron said. "After this day, I cannot go on as though nothing has happened."

In Germany, the country's center-right was leading but the second strongest showing came from the country's Alternative for Germany, which media organizations claimed was an "extreme right" party.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's right-wing Brothers of Italy party also made significant gains in Italy.

Europe's Green parties and globalist left-wing parties suffered the largest losses in the European Union's Parliamentary elections.

POLITICO noted that if hard-right parties formed a single group, they would be the second most powerful force in the E.U.'s parliament behind the center-right European People's Party.....

....
Who?mikejones!
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The globalist/socialist/greens have essentially forced the people into this.

As much as globalist etal want to believe we're simply a big human race, it's untrue. Traditions, customs, culture, history all matter. Forcing immigration for lands so dissimilar to one's own and then essentially disallowing assimilation so much so that it changes the host will indeed cause consternation amongst the native population.

Throw on heavy handed, system style totalitarianism with rules made up by what's essentially a foreign state that impacts how hard it is to simply exists, and you're going to get a populist response.
Ag with kids
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AG
Old McDonald said:

unsurprising, americans generally tend to look unfavorably upon authoritarian dictatorships. there has been an effort in recent years among certain right-wing circles in america to rehabilitate franco's image and dictatorship as a necessary evil to save spain from communism, on the basis that they want an american franco-type regime to save us from wokeism, DEI, degeneracy, communism, atheism, what have you. the author of the article you quoted just so happens to be the founder of an organization working toward just that.
YouBet
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AG
Quote:

News organizations, from The New York Times to Reuters to the Associated Press, labeled right-wing parties as "far-right," "extreme right," and "radical right." Meanwhile, left-wing socialist parties were simply labeled as "center-left" and "pro-democracy" parties.


Always drives me crazy. According to the media, there is no such thing as a far left. You are either pro-Democracy or part of the "Far Right".

So much gas lighting.
fullback44
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AG
The European left has pushed the people into a corner and they are now fighting back, I think all the stuff about killing the farms and ranches and taking the people food away woke a lot of them up, they put up with a lot and g stupid green laws but the food and infectious immigration sent them over the edge .. the media will cover up as much of the ass kicking as they can … people have had enough over their it seems
LMCane
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watching the leftist/marxist/Hamas factions in Belgium literally cry as they lose power

De Croo

LMCane
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the biggest single issue is not farms, but the illegal immigration of Muslims swamping Europe

in EVERY country this is what is driving the votes of the right wing and demolishing the Greens
fullback44
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AG
LMCane said:

the biggest single issue is not farms, but the illegal immigration of Muslims swamping Europe

in EVERY country this is what is driving the votes of the right wing and demolishing the Greens


Going to be interesting if these new governments start sending all the Muslims home back to the **** holes they came from… stop f ing up the EU and go take your asses back to the places you already destroyed

Going to be an interesting next few years watching EU politics ..
Ag In Ok
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AG
Would it be racist to appeal to Americans with Western European ancestry to return to their aboriginal lands?
Legal Custodian
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AG
Here is an example of the only say-so that the EU has over its member countries.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clww729180po

Hungary fined 200million euros for not following EU Asylum Policies. Hungary didn't take in any Asylum seekers directly and made them travel to Kyiv or Belgrade to apply for a travel visa in order to enter Hungary.
Faustus
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Macron appeals to the centrists in France while taking shots at his left flank in addition to ones on the right.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/12/world/europe/macron-france-elections.html

Quote:

Defiant Macron Predicts Chaos if France Succumbs to Extremes
. . .
Declaring himself an "incorrigible optimist," President Emmanuel Macron of France appealed on Wednesday to all French people "who reject the extremes" to vote for centrist parties in snap elections and so save the Republic from the bigotry of the far right and the antisemitism of the extreme left.
. . .
"I do not intend to hand the keys of power to the extreme right in 2027," Mr. Macron, who is term limited, vowed, alluding to the next presidential election.

Yet by dissolving the National Assembly and calling parliamentary elections starting 18 days from now, Mr. Macron has opened the possibility that he may have to hand over some of those keys in 2024. His gamble that the National Rally, which won more than double the vote of Mr. Macron's centrist alliance in European Parliament elections on Sunday, will not repeat that performance in a domestic vote is a high-risk one.

If the National Rally emerges as by far the largest party in the elections on June 30 and July 7, as polls currently indicate it will, Mr. Macron may be obliged to name a prime minister from Ms. Le Pen's party, probably its president, Jordan Bardella, 28.

Asked why he had rolled the dice, Mr. Macron said it was essential to have a "clarification," a word he returned to multiple times. It would have shown disrespect for the will of the people, he insisted, if he had ignored the fact that "50 percent of French people voted for the extremes" in the European election a reference to votes for far-right and far-left parties.

"You would have said, 'This guy has lost it!'" he said.

Yet that is precisely what many French people have been saying over the past few days. Even members of his own party have expressed dismay over a leader who made a decision that was not dictated by any constitutional requirement and that has thrust the country into turmoil on the eve of the Olympic Games, which begin in Paris next month.
. . .
Asked repeatedly if he would name Mr. Bardella prime minister if the National Rally triumphed, Mr. Macron refused to engage in "fictional" speculation and took refuge in a defiant optimism that for now seems more wishful than anchored in facts.

The outreach of Mr. Macron to what is left of the French center seemed heartfelt and was laced with the word "humility," as well as promises of governing in a different way. But it could not obviate the fact that he has effectively eviscerated the center-right Republicans, who are in turmoil over whether to ally with the National Rally in the election, and, to a lesser degree, the center-left Socialist Party since coming to power in 2017.

He has replaced them with a party that is little more than a personal vehicle representing what is known as "la Macronie," a collection of centrists whose chief shared characteristic is their fierce loyalty to the president.
. . .
The problem is that Mr. Macron has made such promises before. At the time of the Yellow Vest protest movement that began in 2018, and after his re-election in 2022, he vowed to listen better and assume a new humility. There is little evidence as yet that the other political currents he has ignored during a very centralized and hierarchical presidency are ready to come to his rescue.
. . .
The president's accusation of antisemitism appeared certain to anger the leftist France Unbowed party founded by Jean-Luc Mlenchon, which has been fervent in its support of Palestinians and virulent in its criticism of Israel since the Gaza war began.

Mr. Mlenchon has accused the former prime minister, lisabeth Borne, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, of presenting a "foreign point of view," and Yal Braun-Pivet, the Jewish president of the now dissolved National Assembly, of "camping out in Tel Aviv."

Meanwhile, Ms. Le Pen, whose father Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of her party, was an outright antisemite, has been outspoken in her defense of Israel and argues that her party has now become the natural home for the French Jewish community, given its hostility to Muslim immigration. Major Jewish organizations have up to now resisted her appeals.

Mr. Macron, clearly trying to appeal to National Rally voters, said he was determined to impose more "firmness" and "authority," lamenting that measures already taken to increase the recruitment of police officers and curtail illegal immigration had not been "seen enough, felt enough, or understood by our compatriots."
. . .
Faustus
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Legal Custodian said:

Here is an example of the only say-so that the EU has over its member countries.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clww729180po

Hungary fined 200million euros for not following EU Asylum Policies. Hungary didn't take in any Asylum seekers directly and made them travel to Kyiv or Belgrade to apply for a travel visa in order to enter Hungary.
Orban will probably look at it as a cost of doing business.

The Ukraine war has resulted in an array of subsidies to affected countries (due to energy displacement, etc.), so you can't look at current numbers to get a sense of what Hungary usually gets out of the EU each year, but here is an article that spells out the 2021 numbers. Needless to say unless this calculation turns negative, there's no incentive to bail (and that's without considering military benefits):

https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/hungary-eu-divide/
Quote:

Hungary joined the European Union in 2004. The country remained a net recipient of EU structural assistance from then until 2022, when budget funds were withdrawn by Brussels over rule-of-law issues. In 2021, the country contributed 1.7 billion euros to the EU budget while receiving 6 billion from it. Most of the structural assistance is devoted to "cohesion, resilience and values."
. . .
FJB24
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I doubt it. His Chinese benefactors and domestic politics don't align with the WEF/EU/war parties.

Faustus
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Hungary gets around 1-3% of its gdp gifted from Western European taxpayers each year simply because the country is poor, and of late Europe has tried withholding/penalizing a portion of the largesse to coerce the desired behavior from Hungary to hilariously limited effect.

I guess that's extortion. In 2021 Hungary pocketed a cool 4.3 billion Euro surplus from the EU, so if it has to deal with finger wagging and 500 million against its allowance I suspect it won't be the end of the world. Orban is still coming out on top, plus he gets to play footsie with Russia and China.

It has to be pretty galling to the traditional EU powers.
notex
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AG
This sounds devastating to Macron remaining as anything but a figure head.

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