It was done, because they could win elections with it, as those policies were genuinly popular and still mostly are. After Fukushima the greens were winning state elections against the CDU. There are also a fairly high number of gay conservative politicans in Germany. Jens Spahn and Alice Weidel come to mind.
Both Spanish and Portugese officals have been talking about the possibility of a cyber attack. The fact that hours later we do not know what happened makes that unforunatly a possibility.
Article 25 3. The coastal State may, without discrimination in form or in fact among foreign ships, suspend temporarily in specified areas of its territorial sea the innocent passage of foreign ships if such suspension is essential for the protection of its security, including weapons exercises. Such suspension shall take effect only after having been duly published.
Temporary and security are not clearly defined.
Also the French need to do some more striking, when you look at the board of for example adidas:
Good very much needed.
Indeed
Is there a more elegant way for the MIC to motivate Europe to create more weapon manufacturing capacities?
These sorts of deals leave out US industrial complex. So they are not interessted. The US military is interessted in cheap weapons as well and scale lowers prices. The MIC wants high European defense spending on US weapons.
If the USA and to an extend the entire West wants to keep their hegemonial power, China has to be contained.
That requires the West to be somewhat united. The way the US deals with Ukraine right now, that is questioned by Europe. The trade war the US started with China, would be a lot easier, if Western “allies” like Europe, Japan and South Korea would help the US by also raising tariffs. However the US actually added tariffs on those “allies”. It is clearly not US strategy.
The US wants Europe to spend more money on US made weapons.
That is honestly not that bad of a problem. Russia used to export a lot of refined products, so they loose the profits of doing the refining. They also have to sell for a lower then market price. Hence much less money for Russia and the global oil market does not have a huge supply problem.
Any order of new fighter jets takes about a decade as well. If you do not have them on order already, then why order new ones, when you could buy FCAS, which is a much better system instead.
FCAS is the answer, not Gripen or for that matter Eurofighter or Rafale.
It was really eye opening to look at the German reaction after the Netanyahu visit to Hungary. Scholz was happy that it happened and Baerbock spoke out against Hungary not arresting Netanyahu. Baerbocks Green Party will not be in the next government, but Scholz SPD will and Merz who is the coalition partner of the Scholz SPD has been even more pro Israel.
German democracy is really dead at this point. They are working hard on bringing in the AFD, with full support of the social democrats and conservatives. The Greens have failed to mount a decent defense and the left has been too divided to do shit.
The current number is about 8 births per 1000 people. It is pretty low, but could be lower.
Puerto Rico is being robbed by the US, so young people leave and the ones who stay are too poor to have children.
The problem is moving to them. The lock in effects of AWS and the like are very real. However it is not going to get easier.
Facotries, houses and even companies can not be easily moved. Even something like a bank needs employees, with certain skills and those have value. You usually can not just move those to another country, unless something really drastic happens.
The other part is to organize. Something like the minimum company tax is a really good starting point. Most large countries have relativly high taxes anyway. The only reason tax heavens work is, because they have a tiny population and the few hundret jobs created by the paperwork are enough to support them. They could easily be bullied into having normal taxes.
Also keep in mind the EU has 1/5 of the global economy by itself.
Their coalition partner was also a far right party. They were monarchist for the most part, but that still made them anti democratic. Hence the German democracy was dead very quickly. The other Finnish parties in the coalition were not even close to as radical and even the Finn Party never seriously tried to destroy democracy.
and the bad part is that it is not just Gaza. The same beat downs happen with climate protests and even anti far right protests. Germany is moving to the right and it sucks badly.
Macron is talking about recognizing Israel, which Spain, Norway and Ireland have done as well in response to the war in Gaza. Nicaragua is suing Germany over weapon deliveries and Namibia has seized a ship to prevent weapon deliveries to Israel. Pretty much every country, which is not a close ally of the US is siding with Palestine on the issue and quite a few US allies have done things, which are rather anti Israel.
When you look at GDP per hour worked then Western Europe is at about the same level as the US. It is just that Europeans work a lot less then Americans, hence they earn more money.
For the three EU citizens this is most likely illegal and they most likely will win in court. For the American Cooper Longbottom the situation is worse though.
That all would change if they get convicted though. The Berlin Senate claims they entered the university breaking open doors and threatening workers with axes. If they can prove that in court, then all of them could be kicked out of Germany. Well after being at least six months in prison that is.
This years budget of the foundation is GBP 651.900,00. So this will help them a lot.
https://osmfoundation.org/w/images/8/89/OpenStreetMap_Foundation_Draft_Budget_2025-Ver_8.pdf