Saturday, December 8, 2018

Europe at the crossroads

12-7-18    If the UK Government loses the vote at the first attempt, ministers are planning to try again a few days later.  The expectation is that market turmoil will spook MPs and make them think again. 
In the intervening period Labour will try and force a general election.  This would be very difficult because of the Fixed Term Parliament Act and would require Conservative MPs to help topple their own government....Vote by Commons currently scheduled for Tuesday 11 December at around 7pm; House of Lords votes later.
The Government appears likely to lose the vote.  Over 90 Conservative MPs are opposed to it.  The DUP and its 10 MPs have made clear they will vote against.  Hardcore Remainers, meanwhile, might vote the deal down in the hope of pushing for a second referendum instead.
That leaves Mrs. May needing Labour votes to succeed.  However the Labour leadership is adamant that it opposes the deal and wants a general election.  Convincing up to 100 opposition members to rebel and vote with the Government is a very tall order.   https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/0/does-parliament-vote-brexit-deal-meaningful-vote-date-next-steps/
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11-21-18    the UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration will be held in Marrakech, Morocco on Dec. 10-11.  The US, Australia, Israel, Hungary and Austria oppose it and have said it would compromise immigration policy.  (Japan, China, N/S Korea, Russia, India, Iran ignore it, most probably.  
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11-12-18   Merkel and Macron often position themselves as defenders of international order against the nationalist tide.   https://www.abcactionnews.com/newsy/for-merkel-and-macron-nationalism-has-a-dark-history
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11-13-18   if we “treat the interests and needs of others as our own.  Solidarity is based on tolerance and this is Europe’s strength.  It is part of our common European DNA and it means overcoming national egoisms”….Nationalism and egoism must never have a chance to flourish again in Europe. Tolerance and solidarity are our future.  And this future is worth fighting for”, she closed.  
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11-30-18   According to Merkel “Nation states must today be prepared to give up their sovereignty” (for "the greater good"of E.U.)  And earlier this month globalist French President Emmanuel Macron alleged “Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism.  Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism.”…  
  last Spring when addressing a joint U.S. Congress Macron said:  “The United States is the one who invented this multilateralism.  You are the one now who has to help to preserve and reinvent it.”…
  George Soros stated:   “the sovereignty of states must be subordinated to international law and international institutions.”  https://www.forsythnews.com/opinion/other-columnists/hank-sullivan-nationalism-vs-globalism-issue/
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12-5-18   Analyst Emily Mansfield told express.co.uk:  “If
Mr. Merz wins we expect him to shift the CDU to the right, making the grand coalition more internally fractious.  “Ms. Merkel would be reluctant to step down but could find that the gap between her views and the position of her party makes her chancellorship untenable.
  Despite eight CDU events in November, many in the party are still undecided, which is contrary to reports that Mr. Merz is already the likely winner.
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12-7-18  The CDU general secretary narrowly beat Friedrich Merz, a millionaire lawyer, in a run-off vote in Hamburg.  Ms. Kramp-Karrenbauer, or AKK as she is also known, received 517 of 999 votes.  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46487246
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  from sociologist
Ulrich Beck in the 1980s:  the “elevator effect ”implied that though social inequality still existed, everyone was rising in the same social “elevator,” meaning that the gap between rich and poor wouldn’t widen.
  Thirty years later this society has vanished.  Average real incomes declined for nearly 20 years beginning in 1993. Germany not only grew more unequal, but the standard of living for the lower strata stagnated or even fell.  The lowest 40 percent of households have faced annual net income losses for around 25 years now, while the kinds of jobs that promised long-term stability dwindled.
  The number of precarious jobs like temp positions has exploded.  At the height of postwar prosperity, almost 90 percent of jobs offered permanent employment with protections.  By 2014, the figure had fallen to 68.3 percent. In other words, nearly one-third of all workers have insecure or short-term jobs….The German middle class is shrinking and no longer functions as a cohesive bloc.  Though the upper-middle class still enjoys a high level of security, the lower middle contends with a very real risk of downward mobility….
  West Germany’s three-party system of the postwar era is now a six-party system, making the formation of stable coalitions much more difficult, a condition exacerbated by the declining vote shares for the major parties.    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/07/opinion/merkel-germany-christian-democrats.html
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12-14-15    "Multiculturalism leads to parallel societies and therefore remains a ‘life lie,’ ” or a sham, Merkel said, before adding that Germany may be reaching its limits in terms of accepting more refugees.  "The challenge is immense," she said.  "We want and we will reduce the number of refugees noticeably."
  Although those remarks may seem uncharacteristic of Merkel, she probably would insist that she was not contradicting herself.  In fact she was only repeating a sentiment she first voiced several years ago when she said multiculturalism in Germany had "utterly failed."
"Of course the tendency had been to say, 'Let's adopt the multicultural concept and live happily side by side, and be happy to be living with each other.'  But this concept has failed, and failed utterly," she said in 2010.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/12/14/angela-merkel-multiculturalism-is-a-sham/
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 4-21-2016      His comments came as one of Mrs Merkel's own MPs proposed banning all foreign funding for German mosques to stop the spread of Islamic State's (ISIS) hate-filled ideology.  In a series of hard-hitting proposals
Mr. Scheuer said in future all Imams must be trained in Germany and said any Muslims who do not accept Western values "cannot stay here". 
  His outburst comes amid an increasingly fractious debate over radical Islamism in Germany, sparked by Mrs Merkel's ill-fated open door asylum policy.  It also exposes the growing cracks in the German chancellor's power base as her approval ratings plummet and members of her own movement begin to openly question her stance on immigration. 

  In an interview with newspaper Die Welt, Mr. Scheuer raged:  "We cannot tolerate a situation in which extremist views are imported from abroad. Europe must cultivate its own Islam.  All imams need to be trained in Germany and share our core values. Those who are not integrated cannot stay here.  We must put an end to this integration romance. Multiculturalism has failed.  Those who are not integrated, must expect departure [from Germany].”   https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/663081/Merkel-ally-admits-multiculturalism-failed-calls-Islamist-eviction
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