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Did Berlusconi seriously get 1 month of community service in punishment or did my newspaper just make a mistake? 
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Apr 23, 2014 13:32
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NihilismNow posted:But electoral districts are bad for democracy? It's not like that 1% wouldn't buy them any political mandate. They wouldn't be eligible for the European parliament (or most of the national parliaments for that matter) but that 1% would buy them a lot of seats at the municipal and regional level. Is it unfair? Sure, in a better world one seat would be the barrier to entry. In the European parliament that would mean you would only need slightly beneath 0.125% of the total vote to get a seat. This isn't how it works though because most European governments favour stability over some sense of fair play. Here in Sweden for example to barrier to entry for the national parliament is 4%. Anything below that and you don't get a single seat in the swedish Riksdag.
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May 1, 2014 19:03
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V. Illych L. posted:oh gee i dunno maybe by being the effective enforcer of the currently lovely global status quo While what happened in Kosovo is truly terrible that's the only point I'm willing to agree with you on. I think you're naive if you seriously believe American foreign policy is in any way decided based on the opinions of European governments. The overwhelming amount of poo poo the US has been up to for the last decades has not in any way been dependent on the military alliance.  The NATO project is and will keep being a resounding success until the day there's an actual war on NATO soil. Having the vast majority of the worlds military spending united under one banner is a actually a very good thing believe it or not.
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May 6, 2014 13:43
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Yeah, people seem to forget that the current combined military expenditure of each European country is currently thrice of what Russia is spending. 
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May 6, 2014 18:02
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KoldPT posted:http://www.ilga-europe.org/home/how_we_work/european_institutions/ep2014/candidate/signed/map Is that loving map for real? How can so many countries have less signes then they have seats?
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May 11, 2014 22:24
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Cat Mattress posted:It's quite important to keep in mind that what politicians say has absolutely no bearing on what they'll do. Depends on the country and political party. Some have really good track records on winning elections and then turning the vast majority of their promises into actual legislation.  Others don't quite... 
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May 13, 2014 11:06
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Cat Mattress posted:That means it's a problem that's never going to be solved, because you cannot build consensus with 28+ countries with divergent interests, so you're never going to be able to steer it in another direction. Yes you can, it just takes time, something which the politicians that authored the eurozone didn't have the patience for. They wanted to unite Europe and they wanted to do it fast no matter the risk.
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May 20, 2014 12:51
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forkboy84 posted:Certainly in the UK at least the whole "voting for a Euro party" isn't even mentioned. You're voting UKIP, Tory, Labour or nationalist and that's the end of it. I haven't heard much (if any) mention of the idea that this election has any impact on the selection of the next commissioner. It's exactly the same here in Sweden. The focus is on the candidates rather then the politics of which ever political alliance they might join in the parliament.
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May 22, 2014 11:02
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It's completely legal and completely dumb. How deluded are the politicians in Holland if they honestly believe the results of their minuscule vote could sway all the other European nations?
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May 22, 2014 20:09
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Then why just not hold the vote on sunday? Am I missing something obvious here? 
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May 22, 2014 20:18
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Carbon dioxide posted:Apparently Holland did release the results right away back in 2009. Then the European Commission got angry at Holland and threatened with legal action against the country (I don't even know what that means). So Holland promised to not do that again, but now these journalists decided to use our democratic rights to get early preliminary results anyway. The EU everyone! 
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May 23, 2014 04:45
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Clearly mandatory voting is the way to go.Cardiac posted:Check how many voted for Swedish Democrats (SD) in Almgården, which is the area right next to Rosengård, the most famous immigrant-rich area in Sweden. Doesn't change the fact that they're conservative, xenophobic and religious nationalists. The racism some of their members exhibit is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to lovely opinions within that party. They're anti-unions, pro-tax cuts, pro-increased prison sentences, anti-abortion, anti-HBTQ, pro-christianity and anti-immigration all at the same time. You're right in that they've only been growing because they've been cutting back on the racism but that doesn't change that they're awful. MiddleOne fucked around with this message at 11:40 on May 26, 2014 |
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May 26, 2014 11:31
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GaussianCopula posted:So paying people for goods and services they want to sell is the same as "raping and bombing"? Thats quite interesting. Just to cover all my bases, I'm against any and all forms of agrarian subsidies, so please dont argue that the EU is ruining the agrarian industry in 3rd world countries by artificially lowering the world price but at the same time the evil banks are speculating with food, thereby rising the prices and causing world hunger. That's not what he's implying. That example he gave you wasn't hyperbolic, that's literally how the vast majority of the worlds chocolate is produced. Cocoa trees take 5 years to grow 1 harvest. They're incredibly expensive to grow and only grow in a few select countries in the entire world. Companies like Nestle (among others) made this process a lot cheaper by replacing vast amounts of the workers with children working under slave-like conditions. That was the only way to cut the costs to what it is today. As conditions in the few countries where cocoa trees can be grown are getting better the global supply to chocolate is estimated to start to dwindle. It just can't be sold at a reasonable price without undue human suffering. Chocolate is just one example out of to many to count. Almost everything around you that isn't locally produced has in some way contributed to human suffering.
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May 27, 2014 09:14
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food-rf posted:I don't think I understand how this factors into the immigration debate though. The number of people adversely affected by western Imperialism within the last century or so probably goes into the hundreds of millions, if not billions, so it is impossible to offer immigration to any significant fraction. "We'll help you out, but only if you abandon your current home and completely turn your life around" also seems somewhat arrogant to me. Wouldn't improving local conditions, e.g. by no longer messing with foreign economies as much, paying fair prices and so on, be a better use of resources? "Close All the Borders" and "No Borders" are both equally catastrophic ideas that would bring ruin to any western country that adopted it. "No Borders" only works if you gut all social security spending (kinda like the US and it's illegal immigrant situation) and "Close All the Borders" would bring a shitheap of hiring, export and cultural problems. In Sweden the big problem with immigration is that it takes an average of 7 years for the typical asylum seeker to get integrated. During these years the brunt of the cost doesn't fall upon the state budget as it should, it falls upon whichever municipality they decide to move to. Since they get to pick freely once asylum has been granted they tend to move wherever they've got relatives or countrymen (like everyone would in their situation) which means that a few select cities carry almost all the financial burden in caring for and educating them. This also isolates them from the rest of the population by stranding them in cheap apartment complexes for years which greatly increases the time it takes for them to learn Swedish and get the contacts necessary to land a job. In short, the problem isn't that we can't afford the asylum immigration (we absolutely can) but the current system pushes all the costs on a small percentage of the municipal budgets. The cities who say no to the initial wave of immigrants from any disaster zone end up not having to pay a dime as all who follow move wherever the first went.
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May 27, 2014 10:35
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Randler posted:I did not contend the claim that life sucks for a lot of people. I take issue with Sassbot Alpha's claim that the quality of life in Europe has degraded for the last thirty years. Indices relevant to the question like the Human Developement Index do not back that assertion at all (e.g. graph below). Furthermore, the claim is extremely counter-intuitive considering that 30 years back (1984) numerous countries either came out from under dictatorships recently (e.g. Portugal, Greece) or were still under a dictatorship (e.g. Germany, Romania). Not that I'm disagreeing with your point but I think you're going to have to find a graph that goes just little bit longer to convince him seeing as the European crisis didn't really blossom until 2011.
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May 27, 2014 10:47
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kissekatt posted:Conversely, it only includes a certain brand of Eurosceptics, the rightwing racist/nationalist Eurosceptics. To make an example there's the swedish left party (V) seat that's not getting counted as "Eurosceptic" despite them being heavily against the EU. There's also several of the primary candidates of the social democrats like Marita Ulvskog who have been outspoken critics of the EU-project for over a decade. I'm sure there's more in other countries if you start looking. They're obviously not getting mentioned since they don't fit the narrative the image wants to tell.
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May 27, 2014 12:36
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Mans posted:We're not even talking about changing the entire political and economic structure of the world, we're talking about treating those that reached our land with human dignity and decency and give them jobs and a modest living. ...and right there you hit the nail on the head. The reasons these nationalistic movements grow and are so popular among disenfranchised youth is because they feel that they have not been given exactly that. They feel that they're getting coldly shoved aside by a society that doesn't want them in favor of others who weren't even born in their countries. Their opinions are wrong for so many reasons but that doesn't change the way they feel.
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May 27, 2014 12:51
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blowfish posted:Elephant culls are a thing. Wait, so elephants have become the wild boars of Africa? When did this radical change happen?
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Jun 4, 2014 17:31
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CSM posted:The glorious German economy: It's looking pretty much the same over here in Sweden. At the same time we can't really lower interest rates more then we already have without torpedoing the already disfunctional housing market off a cliff.
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Jun 8, 2014 08:00
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Postorder Trollet89 posted:Our situation is similar but we still have collective bargining ensuring decent hourly wages atleast. Kinda but kinda not. For example I worked in logistics last year (on an hourly contract) and earned about 132kr an hour with no work experience and no truck assigment in accordance with the collective bargaining contracts set between the union Transport and my workplace. However if you're hired trough a temp agency (as one of my friends has been for the past year) a significant chunk of that hourly wage is pocketed by the temp agency. You could be doing the same work, under the same conditions, in the same numbers of hours and still earn significantly less just because you were hired trough a temp agency. EDIT: That's not even mentioning how our unions are steadily getting weaker as hourly contract and temp agencies are eating away at union memberships. Currently without a full-time or part-time contract union membership simply isn't beneficial to the individual which in turn makes strikes less scary and the unions bargaining position weaker. It's been on a downward slope for a while now and it will keep that direction until legislation makes it more expensive for companies to utilize these forms of employment. MiddleOne fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Jun 10, 2014 |
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Jun 10, 2014 22:33
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LemonDrizzle posted:What are the unions doing about this, if anything? Well the current train strike for one is a giant gently caress you to the current way companies and organizations have been handling employment for the last few years. Beyond SEKO who is leading the strike IF-metall (the biggest union in Sweden) and Elektrikerförbundet seem to be planning to also go into strike if negotiations keep stalling. Letting workers go and telling them to reapply for hourly positions is something that started just last year here and it's become somewhat of a trend among companies who apply for government contracts. LO (a union lobbying organisation basically) have also been pressuring the Social Democrats to tighten up legislation if they win the election in fall in regards to temp agencies and hourly contracts. They've also demanded that the framwork for the worker insurance (a-kassa) which is currently keeping a lot of people outside unions gets improved upon.
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Jun 11, 2014 07:02
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Reveilled posted:So I think that while, privately, a large section or even the majority of the other heads of government probably agrees with Cameron about Juncker, there's no way to choose anyone else without risking serious damage to the EU's political organs. This is why putting the ball in the parliaments court in the first place was an incredibly short sighted move.
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Jun 26, 2014 23:02
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Cat Mattress posted:So you can see that, if these numbers are actually accurate, the weight of a Malta voter in the EP is over twelve times that of a German voter; his weight in the COEU is over twenty times that of the same German voter. The Netherlands are the most fairly represented country in the Parliament, Poland and Romania are given the fairest weight in the COEU. France is getting the worst deal in the Parliament, Germany the worst in the COEU, and the best deals are respectively for Malta and Luxembourg. None of that loving matters in a parliament setting. The German, French, British and Italian parties rule the blocks and can freely exclude any politician beneath the top 8 if they don't vote according to the block. They have massively more influence despite having a lower ratio.
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Jun 27, 2014 18:46
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Adar posted:I mean, if that's the best you've got, Cameron's right. I realize it's for the wrong reasons, but ultimately, you've got the right wing leader of a right wing party threatening a popular vote and the left falling all over itself to claim it's a political ploy / deny a vote will ever take place. Does no one else see this as a huge problem? If this is the best the left can do to defend the status quo right now and if the US of Europe project (ie moving in the other direction) is genuinely untenable, at least one country is going to try to leave during the next crisis if not sooner and they'll probably be right. Then what? If any of the major nations decides to take their ball and go it's pretty much all over. The EU has no way to enforce it's rules if the nations decide not to follow them and the threats of stopping trade with member nations that leave are hogwash. For example, if the EU decided to seize trade agreements with the UK on it quitting the project both the UK and half of Europe would fall into a deep recession. It's the economical equivalent to MAD, it's a hollow threat. Instead the EU would be forced to give in to the demands of the UK to keep trade going. This would start a chain reaction with countries like Norway, Turkey and Portugal demanding their own amendments and the foundation of the entire EU project (the trade union) imploding on itself.
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Jun 28, 2014 10:57
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steinrokkan posted:Ultimately any country trying to leave the EU would have to realistically negotiate an Association Framework that would force them to comply with all the EU policies without having any of the political influence coming from membership and voting rights in the EP / Council. Which is basically the deal Norway currently has.
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Jun 28, 2014 18:33
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Your argument runs on the presumption that the EU (Council, Parliament, Eurozone, Trade Union, etc) are all too big to fall which I believe to be false. Both the Eurozone and Parliament are relatively recent inventions (the parliament increasing rapidly in influence over the last decade) and what they both have in common is that they're not very popular anymore. They were both instruments to push the federalization of Europe and as it looks now I feel that they've accomplished the exact opposite. As it stands today the parliament has less democratic legitimacy then ever before as proven by the last election and the Eurozone is benefiting a few select countries while shafting everyone else in it. Sabers being rattled in the UK in fear of UKIP is just the tip of the iceberg. Nationalistic and eurosceptic parties are on the rise in a great number of European nations and as such they also gain more influence. You'd be crazy to argue that they won't react poorly to ECP and EP pushing pro-federalization policy. The UK is in a terrible bargaining position right now (which is why Cameron is stalling with the 2017 date) but that could very well change in the coming years.
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Jun 28, 2014 21:14
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One in particular is just baffling to me. quote:A Swedish family recently faced similar persecution for homeschooling their children. In 2009, when Christer and Annie Johansson attempted to leave Sweden because of Sweden's laws against homeschooling, Swedish authorities abducted their son Domenic, without a court order, solely because he was homeschooled. What did they expect to happen? Did they really think their freedom to practice their religion would cover them breaking one of the biggest childcare nono's Sweden has?
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Aug 5, 2014 19:00
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Andrast posted:Countries with sensible education systems can handle students with unique problems that prevent normal schooling. Heh we so can not. In Sweden the policy has been that every school should be able to adapt to every disability. In practice this has proven to be a complete pipedream. Special needs students need special needs teachers and schools.
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Aug 5, 2014 19:12
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baka kaba posted:Everything I can find about this case suggests he was taken into care for slightly more complex reasons Nice find, I didn't manage to find any real source trough google. 
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Aug 5, 2014 19:37
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Is it true that the ECB dropped it's rates to 0,05%?
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Sep 9, 2014 12:15
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LemonDrizzle posted:Giving the economic vice presidency to Finland is basically saying "full steam ahead on austerity", isn't it? We'll have to wish them good luck on that since big parts of their export economy will collapse if the conflict with Russia stays for long.
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Sep 10, 2014 10:23
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As long as austerity is still kicking god won't truly be dead. It's the religion of the new age.
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Sep 11, 2014 09:48
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LemonDrizzle posted:Are we likely to see further attempts to enforce corporation tax harmonization within the eurozone? I sure hope not. Ireland is having it hard enough without the server farms and call-centers moving out.
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Sep 30, 2014 08:58
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The Swedish Central bank announced earlier today announced that the rate is getting lowered all the way to 0%. Set sail oh glorious european economy.  http://www.dn.se/ekonomi/riksbankens-nya-ranta-0-procent/
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Oct 28, 2014 17:16
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3peat posted:Does anyone know more about Podemos? Because, umm, Wow, this could get interesting.
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Nov 2, 2014 09:52
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Torrannor posted:So I take it the chances of Juncker doing anything against the tax-evasion scheme the Luxembourg government set up for foreign firms are pretty slim? Everyone is pissed, it's all the news have been talking about in Sweden for the entire day. With this one reveal everyone, regardless of their side on the political bench, has come together in their hatred for Juncker. He better loving get his response in order because otherwise the next thing on his table is going to be whatever the european equivalent is of a vote of no confidence. Him having spent years preaching austerity doesn't mix well with the now common knowledge that he also helped engineer Luxemburg as a tax heaven.
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Nov 6, 2014 19:41
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Junior G-man posted:My main question is just 'what in Reagan's unholy name is going on in loving Poland?' and 'who the gently caress elects this guy?' It's from eating all that questionably produced polish meat I tell you.  
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Nov 9, 2014 22:59
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LemonDrizzle posted:Giving the average German a pay rise and encouraging them to go out and spend would be a pretty good way of helping out the periphery... Boosting inflation and purchasing power trough increased wages?! You're mad!!! 
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Nov 20, 2014 16:32
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YF-23 posted:I meant independent, as in independent from whichever country is the EU strongman at the time (in the present case Berlin). That will never happen as long the parliaments has the distribution of the seats decided by size of population. If it's not Germany it will be France, Italy, Spain or the UK.
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Nov 20, 2014 18:02
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Cat Mattress posted:What other system can there be? One in which one Luxembourger has more voting power in the European Parliament than a hundred Italians? Why not? All they would have to do in order to retain similar representation is dividing themselves into smaller nations trough separation, something for which there already is major popular support as we can see by looking at Spain, Belgium and the UK. Hell even Germany has support for it as we can see with the east versus west divide which has started to resurface in the passing year. The eurocrisis has pretty much proven that representation by population only leads to the bullying of less populous nations. One thing is for sure though, the current status quo benefits no one. The EU must centralise or decentralise, it can't keep tip-toing the line.
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Nov 20, 2014 18:35
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