Life in the EU

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/02/catalans-independence-revolt-spain-independence-flags

Anticipating more unhappy nations and regions who are tired of being ruled from afar.

For the whole day voting was slow, because the websites were being jammed, said election officials. But it still happened. That’s why, amid the baton slaps and rubber bullets, two million people managed to cast a countable vote, with 90% voting Yes to independence. And as they voted, it looked to me like a modern cosmopolitan nation was being born. That’s a rare event in the era of globalisation, but it might not be the last.

The trouble with such a thread is that there are (still) 28 independent countries in the EU.
Each of this country has one to several problems with parts of its country - states, counties, provinces, whatever they are called.

Just to give you an idea: we recently had had our state elections, the prime minister changed from Social-Democrat to conservative, the government from from a coalition of Social-Democrats and Greens to a coalition of Conservatives with the Liberals.
Thus, our relation to neighbour states and neighbour countries might or will change as well as that to the federation and the EU.

Who knows, since we had had federal elections as well and will have EU-elections in two years.

Life might change then again.

What about the other trouble within the EU and between member states? Value-added tax, for instance, actually just now.
Tickets for using motorways?
Borders open or not?
Voting of EU-citizens in local, regional country-wide elections in every member state when living there?

... ... ...

Your certainly opened Pandora's box. And I'm sure, you'll not only find 28 different national opinions, 10 different political opinions (there are ten different political groups [plus a couple of non-group lawmakers] in the EU-Parliament) but thousands more focusing on backgrounds of ethnic or history or culture or religion or ...

Coming back to my state: since we got a different secretary of state as leader of our diplomatic delegation to the EU, we are not only representated there differently but with a different (more capitalism-related) focus.

Our region (South Westphalia [the historic Dukedom Westphalia], part of North Rhine-Westphalia, had widely benefited from the EU's former LEADER programs. Since these are now enlarged to coastal and urban regions as well, some fear, we might be left behind.

Oh, and than sugar bees ...

I empathize with your comment. The EU is enormous and definitely not monolithic in relationships with so many varied, affiliated political entities.

Since so few news stories about EU countries are easily accessible to me—aside from what might be considered the sensational—I started this thread in hopes that those who live in the EU, supporters and detractors—would share informational articles.

I’ll be caching some here and welcoming discussion, insight, opinions, etc.

I was reading a couple of interesting articles on Twitter, posted by Nimh. Here:

https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2017/09/viktor-orban-campaign-against-journalists/


http://www.coe.int/en/web/media-freedom/all-alerts/-/soj/alert/29265782

Do government officials have the right to return criticism to journalists, or must they silently accept what is put in print about them?

I had to laugh, but interested in what’s happening. Going to Bing sugar bees...

I just know a bit (academically mostly outdated, since I had those seminars at university in the 70's) about the relevant law in Germany (the related constitutional law, criminal law, the civil code and the journalistic principles [aka "press codex"].

That might be similar or different in the other 27 EU-countries. (Different certainly in those, where there is a different legal system.)

Laughing is understandable since it is sugar beets. Sorry for the typo!

(You should look for "abolition of EU sugar production quotas". And the search, how it influences local and regional [farm] economy - we got maize [corn] instead of sugar beets here ... and hundreds of bio gas installations instead of sugar factories.)

Today, the European Commission proposed a far-reaching reform of the EU VAT system. I think that won't work with e.g. Luxembourg, Ireland and the UK (all 28 countries have to agree).

That's life in the EU you asked about: EU regulators were interfering with national sovereignty is said by those, who like it. Local businesses say, companies in e.g. Luxembourg and Ireland are paying four times less tax than local companies.

Wasn’t sure where this jarring interview with Ai Weiwei would best fit.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/dec/10/ai-weiwei-interview-un-declaration-human-rights-70th-anniversary?CMP=twt_gu&__twitter_impression=true

Interview
Ai Weiwei: 'The mood in Germany is like the 1930s'
Kate Connolly
The artist has battled surveillance, underground exile and even irate Berlin taxi drivers. He thinks the world has forgotten what human rights mean, which is why he has designed a new flag

The tag line got my attention.

—————————
Ai believes that the effects of globalisation have eroded a common understanding of human rights. “Less and less people now talk about human rights since the end of the cold war. They use words like common values instead, so as not to offend the Chinese authorities with whom they want to do business. Increasingly, people are even viewing human rights in a negative way.”

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“People in Britain and elsewhere in the better-off world fail to grasp that the way they live can affect the way people elsewhere in the world live,” he continues. “iPhones are made in China because that country joined the capitalism game and plays it very well. But those who make the phones have no basic rights and are modern slaves who end up jumping out of factory windows. People who buy the phones have to have more of a sense of responsibility and engagement.”

Ai took his nine-year-old son with him on a recent trip to Bangladesh – about which he is making a film – just as he has to other investigations, such as to Mexico, to investigate the 43 students who disappeared in a single day in 2014.

“He’s been with me to visit most refugee camps I’ve been to, as well as the poorest ghettos in Mexico, and cartel areas, the island of Lesbos in Greece. I don’t want to teach him anything, but by being exposed to this kind of information he has developed a basic sensitivity of what’s right or wrong. And he sees me arguing a lot with people.”

That morning, the argument was with a Berlin taxi driver on the way to taking his son to school, who told Ai to shut off his mobile phone – he was listening to a message from his mother – because it interfered with the music he was playing on his radio. “He told me to get out of the car, and when I said I wouldn’t he slammed on the brakes and we all fell forward. My son hit his head. He used his vehicle on a public street to express his anger”.

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“So you see I am fighting battles wherever I go – including with German people who say I should be grateful to them because I am a refugee, and they paid for my life. This is the mood in Germany right now, the posters I see in the streets saying: ‘We can make our own babies, we don’t need foreigners.’ It’s the mood in much of Europe, including the UK. It’s very scary because this kind of moment is a reflection of the 1930s.”

He is angry and confused about experiencing this sort of hostility in Germany, the country that gave him refuge. He took the first available opportunity to thank its chancellor, Angela Merkel, for her involvement in his release.

“I met her by chance in the Chinese restaurant I go to, which is very close to her flat and where we’ve seen each other several times since. I shook her hand and as it was my birthday she congratulated me. I thanked her for all the effort her government made to bring me out. They were really very supportive.”

Ai’s 4,000m2 studio is 46 steps, or 10 metres, below ground in a former brewery in the north of Berlin. The decision to be subterranean is a very deliberate one, he says. “In my New York studio, I’m also underground. I feel like I have special protection. I have spent years being discriminated against, under surveillance, followed by people undercover, which makes you feel you’re not part of society and you need your own corner. Having once been a way of suppressing my family, being underground has become something positive to me. I need the solitude to work. I need to be separated. It’s a form of self-protection.”

It depends on how you look at it - I'd posted it on the thread about the far-right - it's not just EU but Europe-related:

Yes, that’s definitely one opinion. I think since his experiences are happening in Germany, and the anti-immigrant feeling may be magnified by E.U. directives, it’s largely an E.U. story.

He also thanked Merkel... 😊

This quote was sad:


“So you see I am fighting battles wherever I go – including with German people who say I should be grateful to them because I am a refugee, and they paid for my life.”

Your opinion, not his (see my above post with his quote).

Besides that: to what EU-directives are you referring?

Another point: you are actually using the same arguments as the European far-right pointed at by Ai Weiwei (who has got asylum in Germany, btw - he is not an immigrant)