OVOODOCORVO
will take an 8-day break
OVOODOCORVO vai
fazer uma pausa de 8 dias
Há 1 dia
terça-feira, 25 de junho de 2024
OVOODOCORVO will take an 8-day break / OVOODOCORVO vai fazer uma pausa de 8 dias
Austin and Gallant will meet as attacks intensify across Israel’s border with Lebanon.
Austin
and Gallant will meet as attacks intensify across Israel’s border with Lebanon.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/06/25/world/israel-gaza-war-hamas
Defense
Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, will
meet on Tuesday in Washington to discuss the war with Hamas in Gaza and to address the intensifying conflict
along Israel’s border with Lebanon.
Mr.
Gallant’s last visit to the Pentagon was in March, but the two defense chiefs
have been in “almost weekly” contact since the Hamas-led attack in Israel on
Oct. 7 set off the war in Gaza, Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, a Defense Department
spokesman, said in a briefing on Monday.
Mr. Gallant
is meeting with Mr. Austin on his third day of talks with senior Biden
administration officials. Days before, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin
Netanyahu, declared that the intensive phase of fighting in Gaza was nearing an
end and indicated that Israel was preparing to turn its focus to the threat
from Hezbollah. The United States is seeking to prevent those tensions along
Israel’s northern border with Lebanon from becoming another full-fledged war.
In a
statement on Monday, Mr. Gallant’s office said that he had discussed with
American officials the transition in Gaza and its effect on the region,
including with Lebanon.
The
indication of a new phase of the war in Gaza increases pressure on Israeli
officials to develop “robust, realistic” plans for governance in Gaza after the
war, Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesman, said in a briefing on
Monday. “We don’t want to see in Rafah what we’ve seen in Gaza City and Khan
Younis, which is the end of major combat operations and then the beginning of
Hamas reasserting control,” he said.
Mr. Gallant
and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met in Washington on Monday. According to Mr. Miller, they discussed the
stalled cease-fire negotiations with Hamas, next steps for governance and
security in Gaza, and the importance of those efforts to Israel’s security. Mr.
Blinken also emphasized the importance of keeping the conflict with Hezbollah
from escalating further.
That was a
recurring theme in American officials’ talks with Mr. Gallant this week. “We’ve
been very clear that we’re focused on a diplomatic solution as it relates to
the tensions that we see on the border,” General Ryder said at the Pentagon
briefing. “We’ll stay focused on that.”
The Israeli
defense minister began his meetings in Washington on Sunday, sitting down with
Amos Hochstein, a Biden adviser who has overseen previous talks between Israel
and Lebanon. A week earlier Mr. Hochstein met with Mr. Netanyahu in Jerusalem
and with Lebanese officials in Beirut, as the Israeli military warned that
Hezbollah’s cross-border strikes against Israel risked a wider confrontation.
On Monday,
Mr. Gallant met with William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director. On Wednesday, he is
scheduled to meet with President Biden’s national security adviser, Jake
Sullivan.
— Ephrat
Livni
Amsterdam to ban company vehicles & trucks with combustion engines from city center
MONDAY, 24
JUNE 2024 - 09:45
https://nltimes.nl/2024/06/24/amsterdam-ban-company-vehicles-trucks-combustion-engines-city-center
Amsterdam
to ban company vehicles & trucks with combustion engines from city center
From 1
January 2025, company vehicles and trucks with combustion engines will be
banned from Amsterdam city center. The city is implementing an emission-free
zone for these commercial vehicles. Amsterdam is also tightening the
environmental zone within the A10 Ring, banning the most polluting diesel cars.
Various
transitional arrangements and exemptions will apply in the coming years to give
entrepreneurs time to switch to cleaner transport.
Improving
air quality is of vital importance, alderman Melanie van der Horst said.
“Amsterdam residents now live 11 months shorter due to polluted air. And every
year, bad air causes several hundred children in Amsterdam to develop asthma.”
The city is,
therefore, committed to cleaner air. But it also wants to make sure
entrepreneurs can switch to emission-free transport in a workable way. “Many
entrepreneurs have already taken major steps, but we see that small businesses,
in particular, have more difficulty. That is why we have transitional
arrangements, and exemptions can be requested if companies are not yet able to
make the switch financially.”
Amsterdam
initially planned for the emission-free zone to cover the entire A10 ring, but
“because no suitable traffic signs have yet been established in parliament,”
the emission-free zone will initially only affect the S100. The city intends to
expand the zone to cover the entire A10 ring in 2028. Until then, the existing
environmental zone within the A10 ring road will be tightened for diesel
vehicles, allowing only cars from emission class 5 or higher from 1 January
2025.
The
emission-free zone for commercial vehicles and trucks is part of a broader
approach to cleaning up transport in Amsterdam. From 1 January 2025, all new
mopeds and scooters must also be emission-free. The city is also working on an
emission-free zone for pleasure boating. It will expand the public charging
network to accommodate the increased electric traffic.
The city has
postponed the emission-free zone for taxis because “the national legislation
for this is still lacking. The rules for the environmental zone apply to
taxis.”
The new Dutch cabinet is complete, but not without controversy
The new
Dutch cabinet is complete, but not without controversy
June 14,
2024
https://www.dutchnews.nl/2024/06/ministers-in-the-pvv-cabinet/
Marjolein
Faber in parliament. Photo: Peter Hilz ANP
After weeks
of speculation, it appears that the ministerial line up for the next Dutch
government is almost complete.
Dick
Schoof’s first cabinet will have 15 ministers, five for the far right PVV, four
each for the VVD and NSC, and two for the pro-countryside BBB. The ministers
will be supported by 13 junior ministers but not all those names have yet been
finalised.
The cabinet
line-up includes seven women and eight men as well as Schoof. All four NSC
candidates are former members of the CDA as is one of the two BBB
representatives.
Marjolein
Faber (PVV): minister for asylum and migration
Marjolein
Faber is perhaps best known for her statement “my tweet is right” after
circulating a post on social media that the suspect in a Groningen stabbing had
a “north African appearance” when he was known to be white.
Faber is
known as a provocative PVV backer while a provincial councillor and senator for
the party. She was also caught out in 2015 giving thousands of euros worth of
contracts to a company run by her son. She switched to the lower house in the
November election but since then has submitted no questions, motions or
amendments, the NRC said in its mini portrait.
Faber
replaces Geert Wilders’ first choice as minister after Israel-born Gidi
Markuszower failed to get through the security check.
Reinette
Klever (PVV): minister for foreign trade
and development aid
The PVV’s
candidate for the new post of minister for foreign trade and development aid is
reported to be former MP Reinette Klever, who sat in parliament between 2012
and 2017.
In a debate
in 2016 she called for the development aid budget to be scrapped to pay for
plans to get rid of the own risk element in health insurance. Klever will now
be in charge of a department in which the aid budget is being slashed by €2.4
billion.
After
leaving parliament she complained that the PVV tag her CV made it difficult to
get a job.She is also a member of the board and commentator at far right
broadcaster Ongehoord Nederland, defending the channel’s “unique sound” by
retweeting a social media message about its coverage of “mass immigration,
climate hysteria, the coronavirus crisis and global organisations”.
Dirk
Beljaarts (PVV): minister of economic affairs
A former
hotel manager, Beljaarts headed the hospitality industry lobby group Horeca
Nederland for five years before resigning this March. A fervent supporter of
his sector during the coronavirus pandemic, he was not afraid of picking up the
phone and calling ministers to protest. He also initiated court action against
the government over the compulsory closure of bars.
His links to
Wilders may date from that time but Beljaarts is half Hungarian and Wilders’
wife comes from Hungary, so there could be another connection. Beljaarts is
also honorary consul for Hungary in the Netherlands, a Hungarian government
appointment.
Fleur Agema
(PVV): minister for health, welfare and sport
Fleur Agema,
47, has been a fairly uncontroversial MP on behalf of the far right PVV since
2006, specialising in healthcare, and has been number two on the PVV list next
to Geert Wilders since then.
Agema
suffers from MS and was widely tipped for the health role. Her partner is
fellow PVV parliamentarian Léon de Jong and together they have a daughter.
Barry
Madlener (PVV): minister of infrastructure and waterways
Barry
Madlener (56) has been an MP since the founding of the far-right PVV in 2006
apart from between 2009 and 2012 when he served the party in the European
parliament.
Madlener has
been party spokesman on a wide variety of issues and called for the NS and
ProRail, the passenger and infrastructure arms of the Dutch public railway
system, to be merged into a single company. The new government has pledged to
build a railway link between Lelystad and Groningen.
Eelco Heinen
(VVD): minister of finance
Heinen has
been an MP for the past three years, during which he has become the VVD’s
finance spokesman and a major campaigner for lower government spending. Heinen,
who is 44, once said his only aim by being involved in politics is to “spend
less”. Prior to becoming an MP, he worked for the party in parliament for 10
years.
David van
Weel (VVD): justice and security
Former navy
man David van Weel is a new face in The Hague but has been a senior Nato
officials since 2020 as the right hand man of Jens Stoltenberg. He has had a
higher public profile since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, appearing
regularly in the media to talk about aid for Ukraine and the Russian threat.
Prior to
that he was part of the armed services, and acted as advisor to Mark Rutte on
military and foreign affairs issues from 2016 to 2020.
Ruben
Brekelmans (VVD): Defence
At 37, Ruben
Brekelmans will be the youngest member of the cabinet and is widely regarded as
one of the VVD’s new talents. As an MP, he has been a major supporter of
Ukraine in the war with Russia.
He studied
economics and global politics and was a civil servant and political assistant
to Mark Harbers as justice minister before becoming an MP in 2021. He was also
a major backer of the outgoing government’s plans to ensure refugees were
spread more fairly around the country – plans the new government plans to tear
up.
Sophie
Hermans (VVD): Climate and green growth
Sophie
Hermans, 43, was party leader Dilan Yesilgöz right-hand woman during the
cabinet negotiations and a long-term advisor to Mark Rutte.
She will
head the newly created climate and green growth ministry, which will likely be
put together with chunks of the current economic affairs department.
It is worth
noting that she has now agreed to join a cabinet put together by Wilders, who
has called her Rutte’s “bag carrier” on several occasions. Hermans is the
oldest daughter of former VVD minister and party stalwart Loek Hermans.
Judith
Uitermark (NS): home and kingdom affairs
Judith
Uitermark was a judge before joining the NSC and being elected to parliament
last November and is known to be a big supporter of the use of mediation.
Her role as
home affairs minister is crucial to the NSC’s determination to improve the
functioning of the government apparatus as part of a push for “good
governance”. “The most important thing is that the government stands next to
its people once again, and that the government does what is needed,” she said
in a recent interview.
Uitermark
was also a local councillor in Haarlem for the CDA between 1998 and 2001.
Caspar
Veldkamp (NSC): foreign affairs
Veldkamp,
60, is a career diplomat who was ambassador in Israel and Greece and worked in
Washington, Warsaw and London. Before winning a seat for the NSC at the last
general election, he worked for the European Bank for Reconstruction in London
and calls himself a committed European.
He too was a
long time member of the CDA before joining the NSC.
Eddy van
Hijum (NSC): social affairs and employment
Eddy van
Hijum, 52, is one of the four deputy prime ministers and will take charge of
the social affairs and employment ministry.
Van Hijum
became an MP in 2003 on behalf of the CDA but left in 2015 and became a
provincial governor in Overijssel. His experience in the provinces led him to
become increasingly critical of national government’s ignorance of regional
problems. Van Hijum, who was elected to parliament for the NSC in November, was
also Peter Omtzigt’s right-hand man during the cabinet negotiations.
Eppo Bruins
(NSC): education, culture and science
Bruins’
decision to join a right-wing cabinet has ruffled feathers at ChristenUnie,
given he was an MP for the party from 2025 to 2021. “He is not there on our
behalf,” party leader Mirjam Bikker said of the appointment. Ironically, Bruins
used to be in the CDA but switched to the CU, partly because of the Christian
Democrats’ link up with the PVV in Mark Rutte’s first cabinet.
Bruins, a
physicist by profession, is currently chairman of the science, technology and
innovation advisory council.
Femke
Wiersma (BBB): agriculture, fisheries, food security and nature
Femke
Wiersma hit the headlines in 2010 through her participation in popular reality
soap Boer zoekt Vrouw (farmer wants a wife) in which she married a dairy
farmer. Three children and eight years later, the couple divorced.
Wiersma went
on to work for several pro-farming lobby groups, including Team Agro NL and has
been a provincial councillor for the BBB since 2023.
Mona Keijzer
(BBB): Housing
Mona
Keijzer, 55, is the BBB’s choice for deputy prime minister and housing minister
– a new department. Keijzer, 55, was junior economic affairs minister from 2017
to 2021 on behalf of the Christian Democrats but was sacked by Mark Rutte for
publicly criticising the cabinet’s coronavirus policy.
After
failing to win the leadership of the CDA, she appeared to bow out of politics,
only to re-emerge as the right-hand woman of BBB founder Caroline van der Plas
during the election campaign.
Since the
election, she has come under fire for telling a talk show that “the hatred of
Jews is almost part of Islamic culture”, a comment she has refused to withdraw.
PVV asylum minister Faber retracts “replacement theory” comments
PVV
asylum minister Faber retracts “replacement theory” comments
June 24, 2024
https://www.dutchnews.nl/2024/06/pvv-asylum-minister-faber-retracts-replacement-theory-comments/
Marjolein
Faber was grilled by MPs during the ministerial hearings on Monday.
Prospective
asylum minister Marjolein Faber has retracted her use of Nazi-era language on
immigration, but insisted her concerns about the impact of asylum on the
“demographics of the Netherlands” were well founded.
The PVV MP
came under intense questioning over comments she made during a debate in the
Senate four years ago, when she was rebuked by prime minister Mark Rutte for
using the term omvolking, or population replacement.
Faber told a
panel of MPs convened to run the rule over ministerial candidates that she
recognised the word, derived from the German Umvolking, “carried terrible
connotations with the past and Nazism”.
“The fact is
that the demographics of the Netherlands are changing. It is very legitimate to
have big concerns about it, and I have. But I realise that the words omvolking
and replacement theory, a deliberate planned policy to alter or replace a
population, is wrong and inappropriate.”
Faber said
she had “no problem” taking back her words. “I don’t believe in a plan or
conspiracy,” she said. “And my party and I despise everything to do with the
Nazis and their ideology.
“The
[intelligence agency] AIVD and [counter-terrorism agency] NCTV haven’t turned
against replacement theory for nothing. I support that view and will not use
those terms again.”
“Doing a
Rutte”
Other MPs
questioned if Faber was sincere about rejecting racist conspiracy theories
given that she continued to voice alarm about the “phenomenon” of demographic
change.
“We see in
the big cities that demographic developments are beginning to take shape,” she
told D66 MP Anne-Marijke Podt. “We can’t deny it, that’s just the facts.”
Stefan van
Baarle, leader of the migrants’ rights party Denk, accused her of “doing a
Rutte” by claiming that her “racist comments weren’t meant in a racist way”.
Van Baarle
pointed out she had “deliberately referred to a replacement agenda” during a
debate and posed alongside Wilders holding up a banner saying “no Arnhemistan”
shortly after the Muslim former Labour MP, Ahmed Marcouch, was appointed as
mayor of Arnhem.
“Can Mrs
Faber acknowledge that these kind of comments about replacing people and
casting suspicion on people with a different origin are racist and that she has
spent years spreading racist conspiracy theories?” he asked.
“I used the
term omvolking in relation to open borders and I was concerned about it,” Faber
replied. “There is huge pressure on our society and that simply needs to end.”
Strict
asylum policy
Faber said
she would work to proved “dignified” accommodation for asylum seekers as
migration minister, but also strive “200%” to realise a “strict” policy that
brings asylum numbers down rapidly.
“I’ve said
before: our society can no longer handle it,” she said. “We’re approaching the
limit of what we can do. There is huge pressure on various sectors, such as the
housing market and healthcare, and we can’t go on like this.”
She said she
would continue the efforts of the outgoing junior asylum minister, Eric van der
Burg, to ease the pressure on the asylum reception centre in Ter Apel by asking
local mayors to provide alternative facilities, even though the PVV has pledged
to abolish the “spreading law” that sets a minimum number of refugees for each
council.
She also
admitted that an infamous tweet she sent five years ago claiming that a knife
attacker in Groningen had a “north African appearance” was wrong.
A video clip
of Faber insisting that the tweet was correct (“mijn tweet klopt“) even after
it had been directly contradicted by police went viral at the time. Faber
admitted for the first time during Monday’s panel hearing that her tweet was
incorrect: “Mijn tweet klopt niet“.
For Geert Wilders, ‘housing’ is code for ‘immigration’
For Geert
Wilders, ‘housing’ is code for ‘immigration’
The Dutch
firebrand promised to cut waiting lists by freezing out foreigners.
THE HOME
FRONT
JUNE 20,
2024 4:00 AM CET
BY HANNE
COKELAERE
The Dutch
far-right leader Geert Wilders won last year’s election with a campaign that
promised to tackle the country’s housing shortage.
Now that his
party is about to form a populist-led government, the question is whether the
measures his coalition is proposing will solve the problem.
The
Netherlands has an “acute” housing crisis, according to the United Nations. The
country faces a shortage of about 390,000 homes. Existing housing has grown too
expensive. In the run-up to the country’s November election, the issue was a
top concern.
For Wilders,
it was also an opportunity to hammer home his favorite issue: immigration.
As a part of
its election campaign, Wilders’ Freedom Party claimed that the Netherlands’
backlog in house-building “simply cannot match the open-border policy and the
huge population growth” and that Dutch people, “who have to spend more and more
time on the [social housing] waiting list, are strongly discriminated against.”
Competition
between immigrants and the native-born is a narrative that has been “eagerly
used by a number of parties,” said Mathijs ten Broeke, spokesperson for
tenants’ rights group Woonbond. But, he added, it’s a “false contradiction.”
“People
who’ve been on the social housing waiting list for a long time do indeed
compete with asylum seekers who are assigned a house here,” he said. But the
problem is the underlying shortage caused by the sale of housing stock under
previous governments.
While
Wilders’ Freedom Party has snagged the migration portfolio in the incoming
government, the housing beat looks set to go to Mona Keijzer, the top election
candidate for the right-wing populist Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB), one of
Wilders’ coalition partners.
Keijzer — who served in a previous government as a
state secretary for economic affairs until she was fired for criticizing its
COVID measures — tweeted out a “national
emergency plan for housing” in January.
The
Netherlands would have to get rid of “sacred cows” in legislation and quickly
designate construction areas, she argued. And, she added, “of course, migration
[should go] down drastically.”
‘Alternative’
housing facts
In a report
earlier this year, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, U.N. special rapporteur on adequate
housing, wrote that the Dutch crisis had been two decades in the making. The
causes, he said, were structural, including a shortage of adequate land for new
housing, the lack of rent caps in the private rental sector and speculation,
and large investors in the real estate market.
But, he
added, an “alternative narrative has emerged” that pins the housing crisis on
an “influx of foreigners.”
It’s a
narrative that struck a chord with voters, with many — including students —
citing housing as the reason why they supported Wilders.
On a busy
square in Rotterdam’s south district, 40-year-old entrepreneur Laminta van
Keeren said she had skipped the November vote but supported Wilders’ Freedom
Party.
As a single
mother, she had no choice but to keep living with her ex, Laminta said. Asylum
seekers “had all received houses … but I, who’s been living here all my life,
can’t get a house with my children,” she complained.
Housing vs.
migration
The
coalition’s broad-strokes deal, presented in May, included a proposed ban on
giving asylum seekers preferential treatment on social housing, as well as the
allocation of more land for housing and measures to ease permitting procedures.
The home
builders association WoningBouwersNL said it was “delighted” with Keijzer’s
candidacy, arguing that she’s an experienced politician who’s not afraid to
make the major changes that are needed to build 1 million more houses by 2030.
Ten Broeke
said that while new construction is important, the government risks losing
sight of other parts of the problem, including affordability and the quality of
housing.
The risk, he
said, is the government will “fundamentally, not change much on housing — other
than making less room for migrants and very minor interventions on rent
policy.”
For many
voters that might not matter, said Kristof Jacobs, an associate professor at
Radboud University who’s been analyzing Dutch voters.
Migration —
not housing — is the top concern of Wilders’ Freedom Party supporters.
“Suppose, as
a government, that you don’t bring down migration, but you do solve the housing
crisis,” he said. “Then there’s a very good chance that these voters will be
dissatisfied.”
This article
has been updated.
‘I feel sorry for British voters’: our panel on how the UK election is seen around Europe
‘I feel
sorry for British voters’: our panel on how the UK election is seen around
Europe
Britain may
be about to buck a European trend and elect a progressive government – but
correspondents find Brexit amnesia bemusing and Nigel Farage’s return surreal
By Antonello Guerrera, Annette Dittert, María Ramírez, Tessa
Szyszkowitz and Jakub Krupa
Mon 24 Jun 2024 07.00 BST
Annette
Dittert: It’s bizarre that nobody’s talking about Brexit, or challenging Farage
Annette
Dittert
For a German audience currently staring with disbelief at an
upsurge of far-right populism on its own doorstep, the British elections are
mostly a reminder of where the destructive cluelessness of populist politicians
can lead a country. Nothing you want to look at too closely, when you are
potentially just at the beginning of such a turn of events yourself.
But then there is something else. It’s not that Labour’s
Keir Starmer is boring, as is often complained about here in London. (No,
boring is good in Germany. It’s the ultimate German virtue.) The current mix of
slight lack of interest and amazement in Germany stems from something
different. It is the rather bizarre fact that nobody seems either able or
willing to talk about what has happened since the 2016 referendum to leave the
EU. Brex-omertà is a fascinating phenomenon, but one that is rather hard to explain
in Hamburg or Berlin. It is a cliche, but we tend to acknowledge our problems,
then try to develop strategies to fix them. This, however, is not what Britain
generally, nor the Labour party specifically, has decided to do. And most of
the UK media weirdly plays along.
This leaves the country with a big, problem that can’t be
named, which increases the risk that past mistakes will be repeated. Seeing
Nigel Farage re-emerge as the anti-establishment figure is surreal, to say the
least. With some honourable exceptions, most interviewers are not willing to
challenge Farage or break the Brexit taboo. Instead, they accept his deceitful
narrative that he is (still) an outsider. They do not hold him to account for
having used false claims and promises to lead Britain out of the EU. Instead
they give him space to rant, again. It feels like a very British Groundhog Day.
The eerie silence around the issue seems even more absurd
given that a large majority of British voters now regret Brexit. Those who
would like it to be rectified have to hold their noses at the ballot box and
hope Starmer is lying, or at least omitting parts of his plans for Britain’s
future. If Labour does prove more radical in power than it currently appears –
and to solve Britain’s economic problems it will have to be – others who vote
Labour may feel they have been deceived.
Yet this is not a way to restore trust in politics so badly
damaged by the populism of recent years. The total absence of a proper
political debate on what has happened post-Brexit will also make it much harder
for Labour when in office. Starmer might prove us all wrong and I genuinely
hope he does, but seen from a continent that is just about to confront its own
populist wave, his overly defensive tactics are hardly inspiring.
Annette Dittert is the senior UK correspondent for ARD
German TV
María
Ramírez: The tone is more civil than in Spain but is filling potholes really a
promise in a G7 country?
Maria
Ramirez
A few weeks ago, I interviewed James Hall, a British
countertenor I once saw on Broadway playing Farinelli alongside Mark Rylance.
He was on his final days of permitted work in the EU due to Brexit rules, and
spoke about missing opportunities to sing around Europe, “maddening”
bureaucracy and the sadness of British musicians who are no longer part of a
“continental community”. Labour is promising to ease rules for touring
musicians and Hall hoped things would change with Keir Starmer. But, talking to
him, something seemed broken beyond immediate repair. The limited opportunities
at home mean Hall is now singing less and seeking alternative employment as a
teacher.
Sadness and cautious hope are common emotions I have found
in my reporting from a UK on the cusp of a change that seems long overdue,
considering how unusual it is to find voters declaring their support for the
Conservatives.
The energy of “cool Britannia” which I covered over two
decades ago is nowhere to be found. Promises are as underwhelming as the state
of the public finances. I find it puzzling that filling potholes is an actual
electoral promise of a national party in a G7 economy.
The tone of this election campaign is more civil, less
polarised and more policy-based than what we see in Spain. At the same time,
debate and interviews occur within a constrained framework of accepted truths:
“net migration” is bad and everyone is tired of Brexit.
Pollsters and political experts keep telling me Brexit is no
longer a main public concern as an explanation for why candidates and the
journalists interviewing them talk so little about it.
Citizens may be tired of it, but my experience is that
Brexit comes up in almost every conversation, especially when discussing broken
Britain. No matter the topic, whether it is polluted water, a climate protest
chorus, shady university donations, tomato shortages, high-speed trains or
conspiracy theories on traffic filters: Brexit just comes up. When people learn
that I am from Spain, they sometimes apologise to me as if the Brexit vote was
an offence against European neighbours, even clarifying that they didn’t
support leave. I take no offence, but I feel sorry for them.
María Ramírez is deputy managing editor of elDiario.es, a
news outlet in Spain
Antonello
Guerrera: Farage can smell blood. And Starmer should let his hair down
Antonello
Guerrera
I have covered several election campaigns here in the UK and
abroad, but I have never seen anything duller than this one. The Tories are
destined to collapse after 14 tempestuous, sometimes scandalous years. Rishi
Sunak, a pragmatic prime minister who toned down the hostile rhetoric and
improved relations with the EU, has promised several tax cuts and more benefits
for pensioners. Nevertheless, talking with voters along the campaign trail, a
substantial chunk of the conservative base say they wouldn’t vote for the
Tories this time, not even if they got their national insurance slashed by 70%.
The Labour party knows this well and has been playing it
safe for two years. Labour invokes “change”, but there is no bold or
inspirational promise. Just a pledge that they will be the good chaps,
protecting Britain’s finances and restoring solidity and the country’s
reputation.
At least Nigel Farage’s comeback to lead the Reform party
has stirred things up, which tells us an awful lot about the state of the UK.
Farage can smell blood.
To British friends and voters who advocate proportional
representation, I always say: no system is perfect, but so far,
first-past-the-post has saved your country from extremism or populist entities
like the Five Star Movement in Italy.
I have travelled a lot along this campaign trail and find
the British people have an overwhelming sense of disillusionment and fatalism.
In Worcester, I met a young man, Muhammad Waleed, and he told me he was not
sure if he would vote for Labour because he could not see real change coming.
Jane, a GP and Conservative party member in Wiltshire, sounded hopeless: “The
NHS gets less and less money.” Compared to other campaigns I have covered, this
one has no room for dreams and big hopes, not least because the leaders sound
either robotic or artificial.
Yet I travelled with Sunak to the G7, and I can assure you
that he is way more entertaining and funny during informal chats than he
appears in public. Recently, Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, said the
same thing about her boss, Keir Starmer. It’s true, we live in a social media
age where every little mistake goes viral and this petrifies both Sunak and
Starmer. But if both let their hair down, showing more wit and a common touch,
it would help them and British voters. Being natural and unpredictable has made
the fortune of several controversial leaders, such as Boris Johnson, Silvio
Berlusconi and Farage, despite the many flaws in their political records.
Antonello Guerrera is the UK correspondent for the Italian
newspaper, La Repubblica
Tessa
Szyszkowitz: The Austrian right is watching closely: will the Tories turn into
a Trumpist party?
Tessa
Szyszkowitz
After Boris Johnson “got Brexit done”, feverish Austrian
interest in Britain died down. When Brexit turned out to be what in Vienna we
call a Rohrkrepierer (a dud), a tiny bit of shameful but quite delicious
schadenfreude kept my readers going for a bit. But a medium-sized country with
neither partners nor plans is only mildly newsworthy.
Now the general election has put the UK back in our news.
For one, because Nigel Farage is back. Austrians, of course, like to know that
their own far-right party is not the only one whose candidates entertain the
public with eccentric views on Adolf Hitler. A Reform UK candidate who thinks
the UK should have accepted Hitler’s offer of “neutrality”? Almost Austrian in
spirit.
Farage is arguably a lesser threat to democracy than
Austria’s far-right Freedom party. But he deserves our attention for a
different reason: he could be hugely dangerous to the Tories. If the
Conservative party needs a new leader after a painful defeat, the radicalised,
populist right wing around Suella Braverman and Jacob Rees-Mogg could try to
crown the Reform UK leader.
Will Brexit, the poisoned gift that keeps on giving, turn
the Tories into a Trumpist party like the Republicans in the US?. Austrian
conservatives are watching closely since they are still reeling from the legacy
of their own baby Trump, Sebastian Kurz, whose forced exit in 2021 left them
directionless.
I went to Stevenage to take the temperature in a bellwether
constituency that first voted for Tony Blair’s Labour in 1997 and has been
Conservative since 2010. In 2016, 60% voted for Brexit. Today, I found no one
who still supported it. On the contrary, the town needs foreign workers.
Especially big companies located there, such as Airbus. Voters feel betrayed by
the government.
After 14 years voters are turning quite naturally away from
those in power. That might have happened, with or without Brexit. And now the
UK, having delivered the rightwing populist project Brexit, may now get a
social democratic government just as most of its EU neighbours are battling the
rise of far-right parties. These parties might not be campaigning to quit the
EU, but they certainly plan to undermine EU institutions and replace genuine
European cooperation with nationalism. Only in the UK is the tide going in a
different direction. As a result, with Labour in power, the UK might become
more pro-European than some of the actual member states. The irony is not lost
on me.
Tessa
Szyszkowitz is the UK correspondent for the Austrian weekly Falter and the
author of Echte Engländer: Britannien und der Brexit (Real Englanders: Britain
and Brexit)
Jakub Krupa:
With Trump and Marine Le Pen focusing minds, Poles still care about who runs
Britain
Perhaps the most striking aspect of Polish coverage of the
UK elections is that there is so little of it.
Despite still being one of the largest economies in the
world, a Nato ally, and home to as many Poles as some of the largest Polish
cities, Britain has quite astonishingly disappeared from the news horizon.
Donald Trump versus Joe Biden? Sure. Emmanuel Macron’s gamble in France? Up to
a point. But the UK general election, not so much.
Some of that is due to Poland’s extremely polarised domestic
politics. There is little bandwidth for international news other than the war
in Ukraine and the Moscow-induced migration crisis on Poland’s eastern border
with Belarus.
The all-but-certain change of government in London is seen
primarily through that lens. Will Labour-led Britain still support a free and
independent Ukraine and Nato’s defence of the eastern flank?
For all the criticism of Conservatives domestically, both
Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak made the UK seem an important and reliable ally.
Some in Poland vaguely recall Labour’s ambiguous defence
policy during Jeremy Corbyn’s years and want clarity on what, if anything,
would change under Keir Starmer. Nothing? Great – there’s not much else to see
here, then.
After the astonishment at the descent of the UK, once seen
as a paragon of political stability and common sense, into utter chaos during
the Johnson and Truss years, Poles have become so inured to unusual things
happening in the UK that, paradoxically, the unusual no longer seems that
unusual.
Brexit seems largely consigned to history, primarily seen as
a cautionary tale for anyone thinking they could follow the same path. There is
some surprise that despite growing signs of Bregret, there is little movement
to reverse the decision. Similarly, the unexpected re-emergence of Nigel Farage
as a political player and the almost existential challenge to the Conservative
party are both noted, but mostly as political anecdotes or trivia.
Britain is no longer considered a tempting place to live. In
fact, Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, recently even made a specific
political point at Britain’s expense. On the 20th anniversary of Poland’s
accession to the EU, he promised Polish GDP per capita would surpass Britain’s
by 2029. “It’s better to be in the EU,” he declared.
There are still enough reasons for Poles to care about who
runs Britain, particularly as the spectre of Trump and Marine Le Pen focuses
minds on international affairs. However, the contrast with previous campaigns
could not be starker.
Jakub Krupa is a Polish correspondent in the UK
Far-right National Rally ready to govern France, Jordan Bardella says at manifesto launch
%20(1).jpg)
Far-right
National Rally ready to govern France, Jordan Bardella says at manifesto launch
Officials of
Marine Le Pen’s party say support in towns and village signals a clear
rejection of Emmanuel Macron
Angelique
Chrisafis in Paris
Mon 24 Jun
2024 17.21 BST
The French
far-right leader Jordan Bardella has said his party is ready to govern as he
unveiled manifesto pledges to limit immigration and scrap nationality rights
for children born and raised in France by foreign parents.
“In three
words: we are ready,” the 28-year-old president of the anti-immigration
National Rally (Rassemblement – RN) said on Monday as he promised to “restore
faith in France and its greatness”.
In a
wide-ranging policy platform, Bardella said he would cut energy taxes to help
people make ends meet, ban mobile phones from all schools, and prevent dual
nationals from taking certain strategic jobs in the security or defence sector,
which would be reserved for French citizens.
The mood was
buoyant as Bardella gathered top party officials and journalists in a plush
venue with pink marble walls and gold cornicing in the smart 8th arrondissement
of Paris. Many of the officials had spent the weekend canvassing in
constituencies across France after the centrist president, Emmanuel Macron,
called a snap election when his centrists were trounced by the RN in European
elections.
Several
senior RN figures said that in towns and villages they were seeing support for
the far right that exceeded their expectations and signalled a clear rejection
of the president.
“We are the
only alternative. We are credible, responsible and respect French
institutions,” Bardella said as he sought to convince voters that his party,
once attacked by its political opponents as untested and incompetent on the
economy, was now the only one to be trusted with the budget. “Seven long years
of Macronism has weakened the country,” he added, blaming the current
government for France’s public debt.
Bardella
once again called for voters to give him an absolute majority in parliament in
order to form a far-right government which he said would “restore order”, crack
down on misbehaviour in schools, and change the law to make it easier to deport
people from abroad convicted of crimes.
He said that
in the short term, he would reduce VAT on fuel, tax and electricity.
In the
longer term, he said, a priority was to “put France back on its feet” by
introducing what he called “a necessary law against Islamist ideologies”. The
details of this project were not spelled out.
In her 2022
presidential election campaign, Marine Le Pen said she wanted to ban the Muslim
headscarf from all public places, including the streets, calling it a “uniform
of totalitarian ideology”. A party official said on Monday there were no
immediate plans to act on the headscarf.
Bardella
also announced a “big bang” in education, which he said would restore authority
in schools. Children would have to use the formal “vous” form of address to
teachers, tests of school uniforms would be rolled out (already put in place by
Macron’s government) and there would be tougher sanctions on misbehaviour.
These would include welfare benefits being scrapped for the families of
children who were repeatedly disruptive. Special centres would be created for
“disruptive students or bullies”, he said.
On foreign
policy, the RN would continue to provide logistical and material support to
Ukraine, but opposed troops on the ground and long-range weapons. Bardella said
his party, which had close ties to Russia before its invasion of Ukraine, would
be “extremely vigilant” in the face of Moscow’s attempts to interfere in French
affairs.
The result
of the snap two-round parliament vote, on 30 June and 7 July, is hard to
accurately predict. Current polling shows the RN would take the biggest share
of the vote at about 35%–36%, with a leftwing alliance at about 27%–29.5% and
Macron’s centrists on 19.5%–22%. For the National Rally to win an absolute
majority it would have to make a large leap from its current 88 seats to 289.
If no party wins a majority, there could be gridlock in parliament.
Le Pen, who
one party official said hopes to use this election as a “stepping stone” to
winning the presidency for the far right in 2027, sat in the front row of
Bardella’s manifesto launch, next to Éric Ciotti, the leader of France’s
mainstream rightwing party, who recently announced a crucial alliance with the
far right, a move that was greeted with fury and rebellion by key members of
his party.
Macron
reiterated this weekend in a letter to French people published in regional
newspapers that he would stay on as head of state whatever the parliamentary
result. In calling an election in just three weeks, Macron hoped to trip up his
opponents and catch them unprepared. But if another party wins a majority, he
would be forced to share power with a prime minister from the opposition, a
phenomenon known in French as cohabitation.
“The goal
cannot be to just continue as things were,” Macron said in his letter on
Monday. He urged French people not to make the election a referendum on his
leadership, saying it is not “a vote of confidence in the president of the
republic”.
segunda-feira, 24 de junho de 2024
France’s Far-Right Leader Says the National Rally Is Ready to Govern
France’s
Far-Right Leader Says the National Rally Is Ready to Govern
If he
becomes prime minister after snap elections, Jordan Bardella, the party’s
president, said he would represent all. But he also said dual citizens should
not hold some “sensitive” jobs.
Aurelien
Breeden
By Aurelien
Breeden
Reporting
from Paris
June 24,
2024
Jordan
Bardella, the president of France’s far-right National Rally, insisted at a
news conference on Monday that he would be a prime minister for all French
people if his party won the country’s upcoming snap elections, even as he
defended his party’s proposal to bar French citizens with dual nationalities
from certain “sensitive” jobs.
Mr. Bardella
spent much of the event focusing on his priorities should he become prime
minister — drastically reducing immigration, toughening sentences for those
convicted of certain crimes and lowering energy prices — if his nationalist
party won a snap election for France’s lower house of Parliament. The election
was called this month by President Emmanuel Macron and is being held in two
rounds, on June 30 and July 7.
“We are
ready,” Mr. Bardella told journalists at a marble-adorned venue in a plush
neighborhood of Paris, as he sought to dispel criticism from Mr. Macron and
from a new alliance of left-wing parties that the National Rally is unfit and
unworthy to govern.
While the
National Rally is leading in the latest polls, ahead of the left-wing alliance
and of Mr. Macron’s centrist alliance, it is unclear if the party will win
enough of the lower house’s 577 seats to secure an absolute majority and form a
government.
Mr. Macron,
who has three years left in office, has the power to appoint the prime
minister. But the lower house could override his choice — making it all but
certain he would have to appoint Mr. Bardella if the National Rally won the
elections. That, in turn, would enable Mr. Bardella to form a cabinet and to
govern France, blocking Mr. Macron’s domestic agenda and potentially disrupting
his defense and foreign policies, which are traditionally but not exclusively
presidential prerogatives.
But a hung
Parliament with no clear majority could lead to months of instability or
gridlock, as Mr. Macron cannot call new legislative elections for another year
and has ruled out resigning.
Mr. Bardella
dismissed the centrist coalition’s chances of mustering a majority. But he also
said he would agree to become prime minister only if his party and its allies
had an absolute majority.
“I won’t go
to Matignon for personal glory, to say I spent 15 days there, and then be
toppled by a no-confidence vote,” Mr. Bardella said, referring to the prime
minister’s residence. “I want power that I can exercise.”
But his
acknowledgment that his government would single out people with dual
citizenship and bar them from certain jobs — even if only in niche situations —
raised worries. Critics are concerned that a nationalist government could
potentially target some citizens and restrict their rights based on their
origins, breaking with France’s universalist promise to treat all equally.
In a letter
published by France’s regional press on Sunday, Mr. Macron said the far right
“divides the nation” by making a distinction between “those it calls real
French people” and those it deems French only because of their “papers.”
In 2022,
Marine Le Pen, the National Rally’s perennial presidential candidate, dropped a
pledge to make it illegal for French people to hold another citizenship. But
the concept of “national preference” — giving French citizens favored treatment
over foreigners for certain government jobs, benefits or subsidies — is still
central to the party’s platform.
Mr.
Bardella, who insisted that “not a single French person will see their rights
removed,” argued that the latest proposal would apply only to a very small
number of jobs in “strategic” defense or security, although he did not say
which ones. He called it a common-sense measure to prevent foreign interference
and noted that a similar rule already applies to foreigners.
In the
current climate, he asked, “Could you imagine a Franco-Russian working at the
defense ministry?”
Under Ms. Le
Pen, who was president of the National Rally from 2011 to 2021, the party was
close to the Russia of President Vladimir V. Putin. It has since condemned
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but has repeatedly opposed sanctions
on some Russian imports and rejected the possibility of Ukraine’s joining the
European Union or NATO.
On Monday,
Mr. Bardella called Russia a “multidimensional” threat for France and said he
would be “extremely vigilant” about Russian interference.
“I have no
intention of calling into question France’s commitments, which would be likely
to weaken France’s voice and the credibility of our country on the
international stage,” he said when asked about support for Ukraine.
But he also
staked out “red lines” — sending Western troops to Ukraine and giving Ukraine
weapons with the ability to strike inside Russia — that set him apart from Mr.
Macron. Mr. Bardella’s stance might herald a foreign policy clash with Mr.
Macron if he becomes prime minister. Mr. Bardella has said he would be
“respectful” but “uncompromising” in his attitude toward the president.
Mr. Bardella
also rejected accusations that he had backtracked on key campaign pledges,
although he acknowledged that emergencies would take precedence and other
promises would be postponed.
He promised
to lower a sales tax on energy, like fuel and gas, and to negotiate a French
exemption from rules governing the European Union’s joint electricity market.
He vowed to reinstate minimum sentencing for offenses, eliminate hurdles to
deporting illegal immigrants and abolish the right for children born in France
to foreign parents to automatically become French citizens when they turn 18.
Mr. Bardella
said he would work on overhauling Mr. Macron’s pension reform, which last year
raised the legal age of retirement to 64, from 62. That, he cautioned, would
take time, but he said that those who started working before they turned 20
would under certain conditions be able to retire with a full pension at 60 as
soon as next fall.
How he would
accomplish his plans was sometimes murky. Asked repeatedly how he would make up
for a shortfall of seven billion euros ($7.5 billion) in revenue created by
lowering energy sales taxes, he mentioned possibilities, like renegotiating
France’s contribution to the European Union budget, but did not say how much
any of them would yield.
Whether
voters will worry about those details is unclear, after a frantic campaign that
has rocked French politics. After seven years in office, Mr. Macron is a
polarizing figure whose centrist coalition is fraying, as major politicians who
have been close to him suggest that they need to chart a new, more independent
course for the 2027 presidential election, in which Mr. Macron cannot run.
Gérald
Darmanin, Mr. Macron’s longtime interior minister, has already said that he
would resign if the National Rally or the New Popular Front won. Édouard
Philippe, Mr. Macron’s former prime minister, said bluntly last week that the
French president had “killed” their existing majority — a significant but not
absolute one — by dissolving the lower house.
“I’ve known
Édouard Philippe for an extremely long time, and we said to each other that we
needed to build something else tomorrow,” Mr. Darmanin told LCI television on
Sunday when asked about a recent meeting between the two. “We need to build
what will undoubtedly enable us to win in 2027.”
Aurelien
Breeden is a reporter for The Times in Paris, covering news from France. More
about Aurelien Breeden
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