Everyone has been going gung ho about Canadian PM speech but the banger one for me personally is the Belgian PM. He said it best “Being a happy vassal state is one thing, being a miserable slave is another”.
Europe deserves every bit what’s coming to them.
I don’t understand your question. I’m assuming you are asking about the part “Europe deserves”. It’s simple really - for decades now Europe has been relying on US for military support. It’s a cardinal sin to do so if one wants an equivalent seat at the negotiating table. But the EU just can’t agree amongst themselves. Mercosur takes 30 years, India defence agreement has taken 20. The warning signs were there during 2016 but conveniently brushed. EU either acts together for the common good even if they don’t like something or continues to be bureaucratic, irrelevant old person. It’s slow agony at the moment.
I disagree, Europe has not been ”relying” on US military support.
It is true that most(not all, for example Switzerland, Finland Poland all have excellent militaries) European countries have been underfunding their military in stark contrast to the war mongering nation across the Atlantic, but I would not call that “relying on”, just a delusion that we lived in an eternal peace.
FWIW I served my country Sweden for three years, including a tour in Kosovo and another in Afghanistan. I have been against this recklessness for as long as I can remember.
Also, the EU is hardly irrelevant, stop the hyperbole…
The EU couldn't agree amongst themselves because the US (and its biggest vassal, the UK when it was in the EU) did everything to prevent such agreement.
We'll see what the States that were the most against any form of common European defense will do now that the US has proven unreliable. And if they are still under the delusion that the current US policies will go away, then it's time for Two-Speed Europe.
Don't blame this on the UK. UK leave vote was a few months before the 2016 election, so the timing is convenient. But let's not pretend that it was anything but complacency (that was shattered by Trump) is to blame here.
This stuff goes back to Yalta, so just forget parotting these ideas. The US never wanted Europe to be self reliant concerning security, up until Trump and the Paypal mafia. Fortunately De Gaulle gave the Americans the finger during his presidency because he knew better. Not being on the losing side meant that Framce wasn't under US "protection" and could develop their own nuclear program and military hardware, as opposed to Germany (and Japan).
Also the Canadian MP is involved in deploying surveillance[0] on his own country so I am not sure why people are giving him props. He is part of the problem.
Surveillance is a different issue to the one he talked about, which is geopolitical and international instead of domestic (surveillance).
all nations around the world are currently increasing their surveillance capability... And it's worth keeping in mind that at least some of us see that as an issue, that's actually not a broadly accepted fact. There are a lot of people that don't see an issue with it.
And you'll be able to find a topic you disagree with with all politicians, if you discredit everything they say afterwards, you're essentially left holding your ears closed to all dialog.
It's hard to overstate how much a beating the EU's reputation took after the Mercosur fiasco.
Lula took a massive political risk to push the EU-Mercosur FTA despite the power behind the throne in Brazil being wooed/bribed by the Trump admin [0] and already on the fence about the EU-Mercosur FTA because they are Ag Barons that primarily trade with the US and China [1] AND during a hotly contested election year.
This only makes the EU look like a less attractive negotiating partner, and incentivizes countries to unilaterally negotiate with individual EU states instead of the EU as a whole, thus undermining the entire EU.
If the EU alienates China, the US, Russia, Brazil, India, ASEAN, Japan, Korea, etc who else is left?
That is the whole crux of Carney and Zelenskyy's speeches at Davos.
> US is still unable to get a free trade deal with mercosur
Instead, we get an REE extraction deal in Brazil [2], financial backing for our current Venezuela escapade [0], and a president exporting Hispanic American-style far right politics into EU member states like Spain [3] and Italy [4] where right-leaning South Americans have become a major political voting bloc.
The more isolated the EU becomes, the easier it is for countries to begin taking advantage of European nations on their terms.
Edit:
The EU is now unfreezing and ratifying the US-EU trade deal [5]
What makes it more ridiculous, is that fact that we from the EU are shouting US is getting isolated, but some of the biggest economies in the world do not want to trade with 4 countries from the 3rd world, because we think will get bankrupt because of that.
I'm sure everyone would be happy to purchase stuff that respect our own standards. We forbid our farmers to use some chemicals because they are bad for health and nature, it would be completely stupid to start purchasing food abroad that is made using those chemicals, don't you agree?
Sorry, the standards imposed to meat from south america is way higher than the European. Wine is nearly impossible. And spicies like paprika also require higher standards than in Europe. I don’t know what you mean with that. Free trade does not mean there are no standards to met. Same standards will be imposed (as are already imposed) to anything imported in the EU. Also in south America, because of size you don’t need nearly as much chemicals as in EU anyway.
Last but not least, that of quality standards and chemicals doesn’t hold anyway, as there are already loads of products coming from those countries already… I look always where things come from, and fruits come up to 80% from South America (including Mercosur). Dang even apples from Argentina in Germany, which is frankly non sense to me! It’s just not about quality, is good all protectionism and imposing tariffs, just as Trump is doing, but if we do, is ok.
Yes, I agree with the standards, but has absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with the agreement Mercosur/EU. The standard will be imposed for ANY product sold in the EU, doesn't matter where it comes from, as it should be.
Do you have sources for what you say for meat for example? From what I could read on this topic, they don't have the same traceability constraints, may use growth hormones that are forbidden here, etc.
To add to the absurdity, one of the thing we Europeans will be able to export more to SA is chemicals, including those which we forbid here because they damage health and environment...
Or people exporting meat I happen to know. Independent of all requirements for anything in the EU, that of course has to be met, they will ask for lots of things above and beyond. That is the reality of the market. If you want to play with such a big market, it won’t be easy.
I know a guy who had paprika plantation, wanted to sell to Germany. They asked conserved samples of the last 20 years to guarantee consistency. That is just not normal.
Ah yes ok, that some high quality importers are careful and asking higher standards I totally believe it, and can easily understand that they might ask even more guarantees than from the farm next to them.
But there are always buyers for the cheapest products too.
> but some of the biggest economies in the world do not want to trade with 4 countries from the 3rd world,
It's this attitude that makes non-Europeans (especially those of us without European heritage) less sympathetic to European pleas of support, yet it's your politicians that try to sign a defense pacts with "third world countries" like India [0]
Offence is taken, not given. I think it's an overreaction trying to find something to get offended about, instead of seeing the essence of what the parent was trying to clumsily say.
It's because of agriculture and us here in Europe losing our food-related resilience because of that. The tertiary sector won't save you in case of a continental blockade and the Argentinian/Brazilian grain suddenly becoming unavailable. "We'll go back to our farmers here in Europe!" Oops, you've just pushed them into bankruptcy a few years ago as a result of Mercosur, so good luck with that.
Well that doesn’t seem to matter in another areas of the economy… meanwhile in Germany we are experiencing an historical de-industrialization. I don’t see nearly as much fuss about that.
Severely downsizing or shutting down the military production, how has it been working to get it running again so far? And now imagine if Germany wouldn't have the luxury of hiding behind the Ukrainian/American/Polish/Finnish backs and would have to actually fight the war at the same time.
Well, returning the food production while the population is starving would have been an even harder problem.
If only it were that. You have to put up 25000€ in capital and pay absurd amount of fees to the notary for essentially being a text to speech translator.
The minimum capital requirement is the whole point of a GmbH. If you don't want it, you can found a UG, which is the same thing with no capital requirement.
Trustworthiness. You know a GmbH has at least 25000€ you can sue them for. And a UG has to put parts of their profits into becoming a GmbH, so eventually everyone big enough is a GmbH.
>> - yes, German taxpayers are indeed funding bicycle lanes in foreign countries
Just for people to know this, we are talking about 44Mn€ (20Mn€ + 24Mn€) of money in Peru as the commentator mentions below. It is wasteful but it has practically no effect on Germany. There are 1000x things that Germany does within Germany that moves the needle more than the talking about this rounding error. But that requires introspection and ownership of responsibility - both alien to the country’s normal compliance attitude of working.
I believe kindness hasn’t changed in the last 200 years - try it.
You are correct that importers pay tariffs on paper but that doesn’t always mean the tariffs are paid by the importers in real terms. Exporters may not want to change prices for competitiveness to local goods so in the end regardless of the actual invoice, the exporter is paying for those tariffs. You can find multiple exporters talking about absorbing those costs. I
While there are niches where this can happen, in practice the consumer generally pays. If nothing else, most companies who produce export goods simply do not have the margins to absorb a 15% cost. What boring manufacturing industry has 15% net margins?
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