EU - what's next?

Italy: Exit and Instant polls shows that the right-wing electoral alliance formed by FdI (ECR), LEGA (ID), FI (EPP) and NM (EPP) could win an overall majority of seats in both houses with 55-64% of seats.
#ElezioniPolitiche2022 #Meloni #Salvini #Berlusconi

— Europe Elects (@EuropeElects) September 25, 2022

Cousin Billy wrote:Au kako jak romanesco akcenat, mogu da ga slušam ceo dan (ne od nje, doduše)

Giorgia Meloni, set to lead a new Italian government with two parties once close to Moscow, warned on Sunday of the risk posed to Western nations by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, calling it the "tip of the iceberg" in a struggle for influence.
"If Ukraine falls and the West perishes, the big winner will not be (Vladimir) Putin's Russia, but Xi Jinping's China," Meloni, leader of the nationalist Brothers of Italy party, told a business conference.
"And those who are weakest in the West, namely Europe, risk finding themselves under Chinese influence. So we have to fight this battle," she added at the Ambrosetti Forum in northern Italy.

boomer crook wrote:kapiram da ce izdrzati dve godine u vlasti. ocekujem neki silvio/liga karambol ubrzo.

can't believe they made mussolini a woman in the reboot. this woke nonsense has ruined yet another franchise

— Ida️‍� (@Ida_Clemens) September 26, 2022

Slovak PM warns energy crisis will ‘kill our economy’
Eduard Heger says Bratislava needs billions of euros from Brussels, or his economy faces ‘collapse.’

BY CAMILLE GIJS
SEPTEMBER 28, 2022 9:29 AM

Soaring electricity costs are leaving Slovakia's economy at risk of "collapse," Prime Minister Eduard Heger told the Financial Times.

In an interview published Wednesday, the Slovakian leader said the huge increase in prices following Russia's invasion of Ukraine would "kill our economy" unless Bratislava receives billions of euros of support from Brussels.

Heger added that he would be forced to nationalize the country’s power supplies if the support was not forthcoming.

His comments are the starkest warning yet from an EU leader on the effects of the global energy crisis, while countries grapple with the consequences of Moscow's gas squeeze driving the prices to record levels.

Early this year, Slovakia's biggest energy provider sold off excess power to energy traders.

These traders are now selling the contracts back to Slovakia at market prices that are about five times higher, Heger said. "Slovaks are buying for €500 what they sold for €100."

For this reason, the Commission's plan to raise more than €140 billion from electricity generators by member countries would not work for Slovakia. "If we want to have a windfall tax, it must be European," Heger said, with the profits distributed evenly around the bloc.

Јанош Винету wrote:

boomer crook wrote:kapiram da ce izdrzati dve godine u vlasti. ocekujem neki silvio/liga karambol ubrzo.

Остаје цео мандат. Нови, женски Орбан.

Huge fan of the European Political Community pic.twitter.com/SDKtTUOkrL

— Luka Ivan Jukic (@lijukic) October 7, 2022

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Let me try to summarise what is happening to us. Maybe I am wrong, but I want to discuss with you about it. I think that we Europeans are facing a situation in which we suffer the consequences of a process that has been lasting for years in which we have decoupled the sources of our prosperity from the sources of our security. This is a sentence to provide the headline, and I am taking that from Oliver Schmitt, who has been developing this thesis – I think - quite well.  

Our prosperity has been based on cheap energy coming from Russia. Russian gas – cheap and supposedly affordable, secure, and stable. It has been proved not [to be] the case. And the access to the big China market, for exports and imports, for technological transfers, for investments, for having cheap goods. I think that the Chinese workers with their low salaries have done much better and much more to contain inflation than all the Central Banks together.  

So, our prosperity was based on China and Russia – energy and market. Clearly, today, we have to find new ways for energy from inside the European Union, as much as we can, because we should not change one dependency for another. The best energy is the one that you produce at home. That will produce a strong restructuring of our economy – that is for sure. People are not aware of that but the fact that Russia and China are no longer the ones that [they] were for our economic development will require a strong restructuring of our economy.  

The access to China is becoming more and more difficult. The adjustment will be tough, and this will create political problems.  

On the other hand, we delegated our security to the United States. While the cooperation with the Biden Administration is excellent, and the transatlantic relationship has never been as good as it is today – [including] our cooperation with the United States and my friend Tony [Anthony] Blinken [US Secretary of State]: we are in a fantastic relationship and cooperating a lot; who knows what will happen two years from now, or even in November? What would have happened if, instead of [Joe] Biden, it would have been [Donald] Trump or someone like him in the White House? What would have been the answer of the United States to the war in Ukraine? What would have been our answer in a different situation?

These are some questions that we have to ask ourselves. And the answer for me is clear: we need to shoulder more responsibilities ourselves. We have to take a bigger part of our responsibility in securing security.

You - the United States - take care of our security. You - China and Russia – provided the basis of our prosperity. This is a world that is no longer there.
...

Let us have a look now at the mega trends that will shape our world: Ukraine, but not only Ukraine. I want to insist on this.  

Last year, everybody was talking about Afghanistan. Afghanistan was the big issue, remember in August [and] in September [2021]. Where is Afghanistan now? In Afghanistan, certainly, but it is no longer on the front pages of the newspapers. It looks like Afghanistan does not exist. The same problems exist – they are the same ones - but nobody talks about it. So, take care with the issues that appears – a crisis and then a following crisis erases the previous one, it looks like it is being solved but it is not solved. [It] is still there. There are many crises around the world, which are the trends that move this world.

First, a messy multipolarity. There is the US-China competition. This is the most important “structuring force”. The world is being structured around this competition - like it or not. The two big powers – big, big, big, very big – are competing and this competition will restructure the world. And this will coexist with a broader “democracies vs. authoritarians", a big divide. I would not insist a lot on it because on our side, there are a lot of authoritarian regimes. We cannot say “we are the democracies”, and the ones which follow us are also democracies - that is not true. That is not true.

Yes, there is a fight between the democratic systems and the authoritarian systems. But authoritarianism is, unhappily, developing a lot. Not just China, not just Russia. There is an authoritarian trend. Sometimes, they are still wearing the democracy suit, but they are no longer democracies. There are some who are not democracies at all – they do not even take the pity to look like democracies.

So, this competition is a structuring force. The fight between democracies and authoritarians is there. But it is much more than that.

The world is not purely bipolar. We have multiple players and poles, each one looking for their interest and values. Look at Turkey, India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, Indonesia. They are middle powers. They are swing states – they vote on one side or the other according to their interests, not only their theoretical values. But these people – I mention them again: Turkey, India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, Indonesia – are players and poles. This creates this messy multipolarity. These people – and there are a lot of people inside – are there, and not always following us. Look at Mexico’s President [Andrés Manuel López Obrador]’s speech yesterday. Who is our Mexico delegate? Is he here? You heard what the Mexican President said about us yesterday.  

The second characteristic is a competitive world where everything is being weaponised. Everything is a weapon: energy, investments, information, migration flows, data, etc. There is a global fight about access to some strategic domains: cyber, maritime, or outer space.

The third characteristic of this world is the rising nationalism, revisionism plus identity politics. Putin does not want to re-store communism. He knows that nobody wants communism again. Putin is using a resource, which is an everyday resource, very powerful and they never disappear. And this is radical nationalism and imperialism.  

And in the middle of that, we have the Global South. These people do not want to be forced to take sides in this geopolitical competition. More [importantly], they feel that the global system does not deliver, and they are not receiving their part. They are not receiving enough recognition. They do not have the role they should have according to their population and their economic weight. And when facing these multiple crises – these multipolar crises - financial, food and energy crises – it is clear that they are not there following us because they blame us, rightly or not.

...

We are too much Kantians and not enough Hobbesians, as the philosopher says.
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https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/eu-ambassadors-annual-conference-2022-opening-speech-high-representative-josep-borrell_en