The European Political Newspaper

The outgoing president of Poland’s highest constitutional court has warned that the country’s ruling rightwing Law and Justice party (PiS) is making a systematic attempt to destroy oversight of government activity. He described the country as being “on the road to autocracy”.

As reported by the Guardian, the departure of Andrzej Rzepliński, whose term expired on December 18, is expected to pave the way for PiS appointees to assume control of Poland’s most important institutional check on executive power.

The expiration of Rzepliński’s term comes amid signs of the most serious political crisis in Poland since PiS won presidential and parliamentary elections in 2015.

On December 16, a group of demonstrators attempted to barricade MPs in the parliament building after the government sought to restrict media access to parliamentary proceedings.

Opposition MPs accuse PiS deputies of holding illegal votes outside the parliamentary chamber after an opposition MP was expelled for protesting against the media restrictions and opposition leaders occupied the parliamentary podium in protest.

Speaking to the Guardian, Rzepliński defended his attempts to uphold the independence of the tribunal, which rules on the constitutionality of legislation and decisions taken by state authorities.

He said the government’s refusal to recognise the legitimacy of a number of the court’s rulings threatened to “create a double legal system, with some courts upholding our rulings, and others not. Judges really don’t know what the law is, and without that, in a continental system, courts cannot operate.”

Meanwhile, Julia Przyłębska is tipped by some observers to be appointed as Rzepliński’s successor.

The post Andrzej Rzepliński: Poland is ‘on road to autocracy’ appeared first on New Europe.

The U.S. Electoral College is expected to officially confirm Donald Trump as the next President of the United States on Monday.

The election of Donald Trump will be formalized when 538 electors cast their ballots in every state. In each state, voters elects a body of electors who are supposed to confirm their vote. Electors have never produced any surprises and the process is expected to be a mere formality, verifying the November 8 result.

Trump won 306 electors and 30 states, needing 270 to secure election. The mass defection of electors does not have a precedent.

However, as the CIA reports that Russia intervened to favour President-elect Trump, there is a last minute campaign asking electors not to vote for Trump, defying the popular vote. The Trump campaign dismisses the claim that Russian state-backed hackers had a bearing on Trump’s victory. But Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, said that the question of whether the Trump campaign cooperated with Russia is still open.

Speaking to CNN on Sunday, Republican Senator John McCain calls for a select committee that is “time-limited, cross-jurisdictional, and purpose-driven” to address the allegations and confirmed he is worried that Donald Trump has never been heard being critical of Russia.

At this point, there are two ways of looking at the Electoral College system.

First, there are those who are looking at the election of Donald Trump as a failure of the electoral system. Since the election, the system of the Electoral College has come under criticism since Hillary Clinton has in fact won the popular vote but secured fewer electors. A CBS poll suggests 54% of Americans want their President to be directly elected.

Secondly, there are those why see in this specific electoral system an opportunity to prevent Trump’s election that is in line with the spirit of the Constitution. There is still a campaign to prevent Trump from being formally confirmed, trying to dissuade electors to go rogue. Among them, there are electors who believe their role in the Constitution is to ensure that a demagogue does not come to power. Apparently, some electors are considering a rogue vote, with one of them coming out openly.

29 out of 50 states have laws binding electors to vote in line with the electorate. But, if they don’t, they either pay a small fine or nothing happens. But, what is theoretically possible is not likely.

The post Campaign to convince the Electoral College not to vote Trump likely to fail appeared first on New Europe.

Germany’s Justice Minister Heiko Maas has called on the country’s judges and prosecutors need to crack down on fake news disseminated through social media platforms like Facebook.

According to the Reuters news agency, Maas, who is a Social Democrat in conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel‘s coalition, has repeatedly warned the US technology company to respect laws against defamation in Germany that are more rigid than in the US.

In an interview with Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper on December 18, he said the principle of free speech did not protect against slander.

“Defamation and malicious gossip are not covered under freedom of speech,” Maas said, just days after other top government officials called for legislation to tackle ‘hate speech’ and fake news on Facebook and other social media platforms,” he said. “Justice authorities must prosecute that, even on the internet,” he said, noting that offenders could face up to five years in jail. Anyone who tries to manipulate the political discussion with lies needs to be aware [of the consequences].”

Fears of fake news ahead of the election have increased after the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, Hans-Georg Maassen, reported a rise in Russian propaganda and disinformation campaigns aimed at destabilising German society, reported Reuters.

In a separate report, Deutsche Welle (DW), Germany’s international broadcaster, noted that European Union parliamentary leader Martin Schulz has called for hard, Europe-wide laws to stem the spread of harmful fake news stories. The German government is already looking to draft its own law.

Schulz proposed that Facebook set up a 24-hour hotline to report fake news and harmful bots, and face penalties if the problems were not dealt with in a timely manner. He slammed the idea put forward by some tech companies that they were merely conduits.

The post Germany to take on fake posts on Facebook ahead of election appeared first on New Europe.

The situation in Syria would have gone from bad to worse if Nato had intervened, according to the alliance’s head, Jens Stoltenberg. He warned of the dangers of military escalation in warzones such as Syria.

One the same day the UN Security Council planned to meet to discuss the worsening crisis in the city of Aleppo, Stoltenberg told the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag that a military mission in the country, which has been embroiled in an increasingly brutal civil war for more than six years, could have made an already bad situation worse.

“Sometimes it’s right to use military means – such as in Afghanistan. But sometimes the costs of military missions are greater than their benefits,” he said. “If every problem, every humanitarian catastrophe were answered with military force, we would end up in a world with even more war and suffering,” he said.

Meanwhile, Deutsche Welle (DW), Germany’s international broadcaster, quoted German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen has saying: “Neither the Syrian people nor the international community will forget the merciliness of [their actions in] Aleppo, which is unjustifiable. Whoever is responsible for the deployment of poison gas and bombs on hospitals and children can’t simply go back to normal.”

According to the Reuters news agency, the UN Security Council agreed on a French draft resolution aimed at ensuring that UN officials can monitor evacuations from the Syrian city of Aleppo. They were slated to vote on the text on December 18.

But DW noted that Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said he would examine the draft. It was unclear whether the council would pass it.

According to the UN, some 40,000 civilians and rebels remain trapped in opposition-held parts of Aleppo, which recently has seen some of the worst violence of the entire war.

In a separate report, Turkey’s Anadolu news agency noted Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests – which erupted as part of the “Arab Spring” uprisings.

More than a quarter of a million people have been killed and more than 10m displaced across the war-battered country, according to the UN.

The post Nato chief defends decision not to intervene in Syria appeared first on New Europe.

The United Nations atomic energy watchdog chief, Yukiya Amano, told reporters in Tehran on December 18 that Iran has shown full commitment to an internationally-backed deal on its nuclear programme. His statement follows Iran’s decision to start working on nuclear-powered vessels and complaints over the US disrespect for the deal.

“We are satisfied with the implementation of the [agreement] and hope that this process will continue,” he said, Iran’s IRNA news agency.

“Iran has been committed to its engagement so far and this is important,” Amano was quoted as saying after a meeting with Iran’s nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi.

As reported by Tehran Times, Amano arrived at Tehran on December 18 for “high-level consultation with between Iran and the [International Atomic Energy Agency] IAEA”.

Tehran has complained that the recent US Congress vote to a bill which extends sanctions against Iran for another ten years infringes on the terms of the nuclear deal.

“We are satisfied with the implementation of the [agreement] and hope that this process will continue,” Yukiya Amano says.

But Washington says the Iran Sanctions Act would not affect the overall implementation of the nuclear agreement.

Under the deal reached in 2015, Iran rolled back its nuclear programme in exchange for relief from economic sanctions, mainly imposed by the US and European countries.

In a separate report, The Associated Press (AP) noted that the IAEA in November said Iran exceeded its heavy water limit by 100kg over the 130 metric tonnes allowed under the agreement. Heavy water is used to cool reactors that produce plutonium, which can be used in atomic bombs.

Iran later said it transferred 11 tonnes of heavy water to Oman.

The post UN says Iran committed to nuclear deal appeared first on New Europe.

To avoid a state bailout, Italy’s troubled bank Monte deiPaschi di Siena is trying to raise €5bn by the end of the year. The troubled bank will offer new shares for sales between December 19 and 22.

As reported by the Reuters news agency, the European Central Bank told Italy’s third-largest bank to raise capital this year and offload €28bn in bad loans. Finding investors, however, has proved difficult amid political turmoil and this month’s change of government.

Monte deiPaschi said on December 18 its share offer for institutional investors, which accounts for 65% of the total, would run until 1300 GMT on December 22.

The offer aimed at current shareholders and retail investors will end at 1300 GMT on December 21.

Monte deiPaschi said in a document on its website that, if successful, the share issue could raise up to €3.2bn.

The rest of the capital needed would come from a voluntary debt-to-equity conversion offer on the bank’s junior debt which has already raised around €1bn.

In a separate report, The Wall Street Journal noted that the Italian government has been readying a rescue plan, should the bank fail to raise the funds it needs from private investors.

According to people familiar with the matter, it could step in and, among other things, inject capital into Monte deiPaschi, if it became evident that private investors are unwilling to shore up the bank.

According to European rules, losses to shareholders and bondholders will likely be imposed if the Italian government rescues the lender.

The post Italy’s Monte deiPaschi sells shares to raise 5bn appeared first on New Europe.

MOSCOW – US President-elect Donald Trump seems determined to revive a forgotten Hollywood genre: the paranoid melodrama. Perhaps the greatest film in this genre, The Manchurian Candidate, concerns a communist plot to use the brainwashed son of a leading right-wing family to upend the American political system. Given the fondness that Trump and so many of his appointees seem to have for Russian President Vladimir Putin, life may be about to imitate – if not exceed – art.

To be sure, the attraction for Putin that Trump, Secretary of State-designate Rex Tillerson, and National Security Adviser General Michael Flynn share is not the result of brainwashing, unless you consider the love of money (and of the people who can funnel it to you) a form of brainwashing. Nonetheless, such Kremlinophilia is – to resurrect a word redolent of Cold War paranoia – decidedly un-American.

Consider the derision shown by Trump and his posse for CIA reports that Kremlin-directed hackers intervened in last month’s election to benefit Trump. In typical fashion, Trump let loose a barrage of tweets blasting the CIA as somehow under the thumb of his defeated opponent, Hillary Clinton. His nominee for Deputy Secretary of State, John Bolton, went even further, suggesting that the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, was a “false flag” operation designed to smear an innocent Kremlin.

The idea that a US president-elect would take the word of the Kremlin over that of CIA officials and even the most senior members of his own party is already bizarre and dangerous. But the simultaneous nomination of Tillerson – the long-time CEO of ExxonMobil, America’s most powerful energy company, which has tens of billions of dollars invested in Russia – to be America’s top diplomat takes this love affair with a major adversary to a level unprecedented in US history.

For Tillerson, taking Russia’s side against the US is nothing new. Consider the sanctions that the US and Europe imposed on Russia in response to the country’s annexation of Crimea – a blatantly illegal act – in 2014. Instead of supporting US policy, Tillerson belittled it. Instead of fully honoring President Barack Obama’s call for ExxonMobil not to send a representative to the annual Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum after the annexation, Tillerson cynically sent the head of one of ExxonMobil’s international operations. And instead of returning the Order of Friendship that he received from Putin months before the invasion of Crimea, Tillerson continues to celebrate his status as a “friend of Vladimir.”

Flynn, like Tillerson, has also been feasting at the Kremlin trough. After being fired by Obama for his incompetent management of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Flynn immediately began to cultivate Russian business contacts. And Putin seems to have been more than happy to see that commercial doors were opened to Flynn. There is a now-infamous photograph of Flynn seated next to Putin at a banquet for RT (Russia Today), the Kremlin-backed cable news network that was a prime source of the slanted, and even fake, news that inundated the US during the recent election campaign.

As for Trump, statements made by his sons suggest that, if the American public ever got a look at his tax returns and business loans, they would find that he has also been feathering his nest with Kremlin gold for some time. He has undoubtedly taken money from countless Russian oligarchs. In 2008, he unloaded one of his Palm Beach mansions on Dmitry Rybolovlev, a fertilizer oligarch, for $95 million. Sergei Millian, who heads the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce, is said to have facilitated countless investments from Russians into Trump projects. For Trump, no money is too tainted to pocket.

Trump’s adoration of Russia – or, more accurately, Russian riches – was apparent well before Americans went to the polls, as was his habit of surrounding himself with likeminded advisers. For months, Trump’s presidential campaign was run by Paul Manafort, a political operative who had worked to secure the disgraced President Viktor Yanukovych’s victory in Ukraine’s 2010 presidential election. Trump severed public ties with Manafort only after Ukraine’s current democratic government revealed documents that hinted at the millions of dollars that Yanukovych had paid Manafort, in cash. As Trump’s inauguration draws near, Americans must confront three big questions. One, in a sense, is a take on a question that Trump raised about Clinton during the campaign: what happens if the FBI finds evidence of criminal conduct by the president? Or, perhaps more likely in Trump’s case, what happens if the president tries to shut down FBI investigations into his commercial activities involving Russia, or into the actions of cronies like Manafort?

The second question, which the US Senate should ask before confirming Tillerson as Secretary of State, concerns the extent of his and ExxonMobil’s financial interests in Russia. The Senate should also probe how closely Tillerson has cooperated with Igor Sechin, the chairman of Rosneft and a notorious ex-KGB operative, particularly in renationalizing much of the Russian oil industry and placing it under Sechin’s personal control. (Similar questions should be asked about Flynn, though, because the National Security Adviser doesn’t need to be confirmed by the Senate, little can be done about his appointment.)

The biggest question of all concerns the American people. Are they really willing to accept a president who denounces men and women who risk their lives to defend the US, and equally quick to praise and defend Putin and his cronies when their reckless, even criminal, conduct is exposed?

At the end of The Manchurian Candidate, another brainwashed character – Frank Sinatra’s Marco – escapes his programming to foil the communist plot. But that was Cold War Hollywood: of course the good guys won. Trump the Movie is unlikely to end so well.

© Project Syndicate 1995–2016

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TOKYO – December will be a month of reconciliation for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, as he meets with leaders from two countries that fought Japan in World War II: the United States and Russia.

It might seem promising that Abe is hosting Russian President Vladimir Putin and then being hosted by US President Barack Obama in such short order. But these events actually presage an uncomfortable, potentially destabilizing time for Japan – and all of East Asia.

On December 26, Abe will shake hands with Obama at Pearl Harbor – weeks after the US marked the 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack there – to reciprocate Obama’s visit to Hiroshima’s atomic bomb sites last May. The mutual demonstration of forgiveness is meant to emphasize the values that Japan and the US now share.

But this gesture will come just ten days after Abe hosts Putin in his Yamaguchi prefecture hometown; and theirs will be a rather different sort of reconciliation. Russia is one of the few countries with which Japan never signed a peace treaty after 1945, because in the war’s final days, the Soviet Union occupied four then-Japanese islands just north of Hokkaido, the country’s northernmost main island.

The four islands sit at the southern tip of the Kuril Islands chain that separates the Sea of Okhotsk from the Pacific Ocean. While they are not of any particular economic value beyond providing some fishing grounds, they do have sentimental significance for Japan – as is often the case with lost territories. And for Russia, which is never keen to cede territory anyway, the islands are strategically valuable; the Kremlin recently decided to install missile-defense systems on two of them.  While the dispute over the islands has prevented Japan and Russia from ever formalizing a peace agreement, both countries now seem to want to cuddle somewhat closer. Putin’s trip will be his first official visit to Japan in a decade; and Abe plans to honor him with personalized treatment; their discussions will take place in the manly environment of an onsen (hot spring), rather than in dull offices.

These overtures reflect Russia and Japan’s respective concerns about China. While Russia has warmed to China in recent years, not least by entering into a big natural gas deal and engaging in joint military exercises, it has largely done so as a gesture of defiance against the US and the European Union. In the long term, Russia does not want to look as though it is dependent on its increasingly powerful southern neighbor. Japan, for its part, fears Chinese domination of East Asia, and is more than happy to be Russia’s new Asian friend.

Previously, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for Japan to invest in Russia’s Far East, owing to its participation in Western sanctions against Russia, imposed in response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. But now that Donald Trump has been elected to the US presidency, those sanctions might be eased or eliminated. Indeed, this could explain why Abe broke protocol to become the first foreign leader to meet President-elect Trump in New York, on November 17.

Had Hillary Clinton won the election, Abe would have been forced to downplay expectations for his summit with Putin. Now, Putin and Abe will have more room to negotiate the contested islands’ status, and to develop a future framework for economic cooperation, which will likely include regular bilateral summits.

But this will only be a consolation prize for Abe. Trump’s victory has sounded a death knell for the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Obama had made the centerpiece of his Asia strategy. Abe supported the TPP, and saw it as a means to prevent China from becoming the rule-setter in Asian trade. Without the TPP, it is now increasingly likely that China will step into that role.

That will be a big loss for Japan, and the country will lose out even more if Trump follows through on his campaign promise to make allies such as Japan and South Korea pay more for their own defense. And if Trump continues to provoke China by communicating with Taiwan and questioning America’s “One China” policy, regional tensions will escalate. This, in turn, will only increase Japan’s defense needs, especially with respect to the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, which China claims as its own.

So, Abe faces political danger, but he also has an opportunity. Trump’s election and escalating regional tensions have created the perfect pretext for Abe to push for his ultimate political goal: to abolish Article 9 – the pacifist clause in Japan’s post-war, US-imposed constitution, which limits the Japanese military to a “self-defense force,” and has generally kept Japanese defense spending at 1% of GDP.

Abe already has enough parliamentary backing to achieve this, and he could garner more with a snap election for the lower house in early 2017. But, beyond a two-thirds majority in both parliamentary bodies, constitutional reforms also require a simple majority in a national referendum. Achieving that could be harder, because pacifism runs deep in the only country to have been attacked with atomic bombs.

By shaking Obama’s hand in Hawaii, Abe will give a nod to the country’s modern pacifist creed, and signal that, despite his reputation as a nationalist, he also harbors deep feelings about the dangers of war. Such peaceful assurances, against the backdrop of growing tensions in East Asia, may or may not be enough to persuade Japanese voters that it is time to expand their country’s armed forces – 75 years after their great but fateful triumph in Pearl Harbor. This will be one of the central questions in Asian politics over the next few turbulent years.

© Project Syndicate 1995–2016

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WASHINGTON, DC – Planning. It is the key to successful military action – and, in many ways, to success in general – and United States Marines like me pride ourselves on it. But if you’ve spent 30 years in the military, as I have, you know that an effective plan cannot be static; operating environments change, often in surprising or unexpected ways. Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election earlier this month constitutes just such a change.

It may be a long time before we fully understand the new operating environment. But we must begin adjusting – and continue adjusting as new facts come to light. Otherwise, we risk becoming vulnerable to serious strategic threats – the gravest of which is likely to be climate change.

The increase in the Earth’s surface temperature represents a fundamental shift in the global operating environment, both economically and militarily. It is not just that some so-called “elites” think that the weather is going to warm up a bit. Climate change is not trivial; nor are its security implications.

Climate change is what we in the military call a “threat multiplier.” Its connection to conflict is not linear. Rather, it intensifies and complicates existing security risks, increasing the frequency, scale, and complexity of future missions.

The urgency of the climate threat is growing quickly. Climate change is already expanding the scope of military operations, with the US Navy and Coast Guard assessing new missions in the Arctic. More intense hurricanes, typhoons, and droughts are increasing the demand for military-assisted humanitarian responses, most notably in the Pacific.

As increasingly extreme weather reshapes migration patterns, the number of displaced people (already at record highs worldwide) will rise, and competition for essential resources (such as water, food, and energy) will increase. These effects will be particularly destabilizing in already-volatile situations, exacerbating challenges like weak governance, economic inequality, and social tensions – and producing truly toxic conflicts. That is why we call climate change “an accelerant of instability.”

Don’t take my word for it. America’s entire national security establishment is clear on this. In fact, the US military has recognized climate change as a major security risk for more than a decade, making it a world leader on this front. Last year’s National Security Strategy reiterated this view, identifying climate change as a top-level strategic risk to US interests, alongside factors like terrorism, economic crisis, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

These are not empty words. The US military has long been integrating climate change into our planning. After all, the worst security failures – for example, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which dragged the US into World War II, and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks – tend to arise from inadequate preparation.

Reflecting this lesson, during President George W. Bush’s administration, legislation was enacted to require all US defense agencies to consider the effects of climate change in future strategic policy development. In the last four years, the Department of Defense has released a series of directives that put climate-change preparedness at the center of how we do business.

It is too early to say what the Trump administration will do when it comes to climate change. On the campaign trail, he promised to undo some key climate policies, even threatening to back out of the Paris climate agreement. It is critically important that he and his cabinet recognize that to follow through on his promise would be extremely shortsighted.

The truth is that it is in America’s best interest, in terms of both security and the economy, to remain on the path toward a cleaner future. Already, the clean-energy revolution has brought jobs, money, and industry to rural America. It is a source of untold opportunities. And isn’t identifying opportunity one of America’s great strengths?

The shifting economic operating environment bolsters these opportunities. China, India, and other emerging economies are racing to be the global clean-energy superpower; it would not be in America’s interest to be left behind. If America is to be great, as Trump has promised, it needs to build more future-oriented industries that can compete globally – and that can provide jobs to American workers.

Moreover, Trump’s administration will need to continue the US military’s work and create a more resilient national security strategy. The American Security Project, of which I am CEO, looks forward to providing the Trump administration with relevant advice and solutions. We will also call the administration to account if it fails to protect US interests adequately.

Ignoring  threats might work in politics, but it does not work in security. Denying the reality of climate change will not make it go away; rather, it will erode the economy and expose the US to serious risks. That would amount to a failure by Trump to fulfill one of his most important responsibilities as president: ensuring the security of the American people.

Serious strategic risks cannot be a political plaything. The threat of climate change does not sit neatly on either side of the left-right divide; it is – and must remain – part of US strategic planning. Anyone who has been involved in such planning knows that we cannot prepare only for the wars we want to fight; we must prepare for the wars that will come, whether we like it or not.

© Project Syndicate 1995–2016

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The rise of far-right and populist parties in Europe has alarmed politicians. There are some who believe this is the result of the migration waves that hit EU member states over the past few years. And there are those who think European countries have more Muslims than their populations can tolerate.
Despite the fact that authoritative institutions publish surveys showing the exact opposite, the general belief in Europe is that refugees, migrants and Muslims are to blame for the threat faced by...

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STRASBOURG – The new administration of President-elect Donald Trump should continue cooperating with the European Union and stand up for their common values, Ambassador of the United States to the EU, Anthony Luzzato Gardner, said in a briefing/interview in Strasbourg on December 14.
The ambassador, who was on his seventh and last trip as ambassador to the European Parliament, said he believes in the EU-US relationship. “I hope that the works continue on the foundations that we have laid and I ...

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One year following the coming to power of the Law and Justice administration (PiS), Poland is in a parliamentary crisis.

Poles took to the streets for a second day on Saturday, following government plans to restrict journalist’s access to the Parliament (Sejm). Journalists are not normally allowed in the assembly room, but they are allowed to be in the corridors.

The government is proposing to restrict journalists’ access to a building outside the parliament. The government also intends to ban recordings of parliamentary sessions, limiting the right to state television channels alone.

The rules will enter into effect on January 1st.

On Friday, opposition MPs blocked the state budget vote by surrounding the Speakers podium, obstructing the process. The PiS MPs then moved to another room, where they voted without the opposition. The opposition does not recognize the validity of the vote.

The leader of the ruling party, Kaczynski, denounced the obstruction of the 2017 budget vote as “hooliganism” and threatened with consequences, Al Jazeera reports.

The consequences are already visible. The parliamentary Speaker, Marek Kuchciński, moved on Saturday to cancel all press passes for all journalists. Meanwhile, Kaczynski has called for an urgent meeting on Monday to discuss future media measures.

The opposition has been calling people to protest to preserve the transparency of the Parliament. Among the protestors is the former foreign minister, Marek Kuchciński,

The President of Poland, supported by the ruling PiS, appealed for calm and offered to mediate between majority and minority MPs.

The post Parliamentary crisis in Poland appeared first on New Europe.

Thirteen soldiers were killed and 56 wounded when a suicide car bomb targeted a public bus in the Kayseri province, Turkey, on Saturday.

The terrorist attack took place early on Saturday morning, outside the local university campus of Erciyas University. The bus was carrying off-duty soldiers.

Seven suspects thought to be linked to the attack have been arrested, Anadolu Agency reports. There is a manhunt for a five more suspects.

Turkey imposed a temporary ban on coverage of the incident, which includes TV footage and images.

Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told local media that all signs point towards PKK involvement in the incident. Kurtulmus said that behind these attacks there was support by “several countries.”

Later on Saturday, a mob stormed the Kayseri offices of HDP, a left-leaning pro-Kurdish party the BBC reports. HDP condemned the bombing.

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Following an intense night of press conferences held after the European Council, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on December 16.

In the days leading up to the European Council, Merkel had vehemently criticised how Greece was handling the immigration crisis. She criticised Greece before an astonished audience at the European People’s Party pre-summit meeting in Brussels. Together with her Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, Merkel scolded Greek officials for not keeping tabs on a 17-year-old convicted Afghan who managed to make his way to Germany where he has since been arrested on suspicion of rape and murder.

Meanwhile, Tsipras arrived in Berlin ready to emphasise Greece’s progress on reforms. He also aimed to make a clear point to Germany about the importance of the second review of the third bailout programme.

It has been a week since Tsipras surprised the EU institutions and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by announcing he would pass legislation to give pensioners a one-off Christmas bonus and to lower VAT on migration-hit islands.

Tsipras’ announcement triggered a week-long rant that resulted in the EU institutions’ common assessment on Greece’s measurements.

“According to a preliminary assessment by the institutions, which was distributed to the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) members, the proposed measures by the Greek government raise significant concerns on both process and substance as regards MoU commitments, especially regarding pensions,” said the ESM’s spokesperson.

“While those measures reduce the safety margin around the 2016 fiscal target, they are not expected to change significantly the projected fiscal outcomes in 2017 and 2018, although they raise risks regarding the targets, should the measures be extended in the future. Euro area member states will decide how to proceed with the short-term debt measures agreed in the Eurogroup meeting on 5 December,” concludes the joint assessment of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the ESM.

At the same time, Greece’s Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos admitted that the Greek government did not inform the above EU institutions about the measures before these were announced by Tsipras. This was confirmed by several MPs in the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel. Tsakalotos, however, insisted that Greece has the right to decide on pension and tax policies.

During the high-level meeting, Tsipras said: “the projections for the Greek economy are extremely positive for next year”.

“We want it to heal the wounds of the crisis and to alleviate all those who have over these difficult years made huge sacrifices in the name of Europe,” added Tsipras.

Since the European Council, Merkel made clear that she is unwilling to take a position in the dispute over whether Athens’ initiative to hand out Christmas bonuses is compatible with its bailout obligations. Instead, Merkel passed the issue to the Eurozone’s finance ministers and mainly to the three institutions handling negotiations with Greece (European Commission, European Central Bank and the IMF).

“I am not a finance minister,” Merkel said.

“Don’t take initiatives without asking,” Merkel added, explaining that these actions can have negative effects on trust between institutions and the Greek government. Furthermore, Merkel made her discomfort about Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble, more than evident.

According to Berlin sources, the Greek programme will not survive without the presence of the IMF.

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Over a late dinner in Brussels on December 15, the 27 European Union leaders (not including British Prime Minister Theresa May) discussed their plan of action for when the UK activates Brexit.

According to the conclusions adopted by the informal EU Council meeting, the guidelines for Brexit negotiations will initially be agreed by the heads of state and government. These guidelines will aim to define the framework for negotiations and will be dependent on the format that the UK government will use to trigger the Article 50 – the formal mechanism for leaving the EU – in accordance with the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). This will be subjected to all changes needed, within the negotiations process.

The General Affairs Council will then authorise the official opening of the negotiations, adopting the corresponding a recommendation by the European Commission and its chief negotiator, Michel Barnier. Following the EU Council’s endorsement, Barnier will have the first word as negotiations chief on behalf of the EU, after a decision that was strongly criticised by outgoing European Parliament President Martin Schulz during his last European Council press conference.

Schulz warned the EU member states that the European Parliament needs to be fully involved throughout the Brexit negotiation process. “If we are not adequately involved, we may not be able to give our consent. And in this situation the UK would face the hardest Brexit possible,” he said.

A role in the Brexit negotiations will be given to the Council’s forthcoming presidencies, while a representative of the rotating Presidency of the Council will stand alongside the Berlaymont team.

The Council and Coreper (the permanent representatives from each member state, who, in effect, are their country’s ambassadors to the EU) will keep a close eye on Barnier’s team, along with representatives of the 27 member states on a highly technocratic level, via their Sherpas (advisors and technocrats) and Permanent Representatives. Representatives of the

Even though European Parliament will only be actively involved in the European Council’s preparatory meetings, Barnier will keep the European Parliament “closely and regularly informed”. The entire negotiation is expected to remain at an “exchange of views” level.

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My family and friends claim that I am rather outspoken. As if it were a negative trait, to call things by their name.

Some time ago, I engaged in a rather animated discussion over the character assassination(s) using media against political personalities. Although the latest of these ‘hits’ was the #2 of the commission, Martin Selmayr, the discussion was sparked by the remarks of Gunther Oettinger against the backdrop of the Donald Trump election.

During this discussion, I was reminded by my colleagues on the editorial team (once again) that when I speak, I must be careful to be “politically correct.”

Otherwise, I was warned, “society” will denounce me.

Which “society” would denounce me, however, we could not agree upon.

My friends, you seen, posit that the “society” legitimised to judge what one says, is the lumpenintelligentsia. It is a small group, or rather a grupuscolo, from within the Brussels bubble of bubbles, the “Sublime Porte” functionaries and their media satellites.

The purpose of their noble existence is to invent ways to “channel” to citizens, the way of life they consider would facilitate the rule of their patrons. They want citizens obedient, happy in their consumerist nirvana, all employees of a big employer and free of any embarrassing thinking.

The essence, as graphic as it may seem, is to destroy the power to imagine and the will to create of individuals and, in turn to characterise those resisting to “surrender” as politically “incorrect”. We are not talking in political terms here; this is not about the ‘right’ or the ‘left’, but about the elements of society that seek its evolution.

However, this small lumpenintelligentsia grupuscolo, is far from connected to the mainstream of society, and is even further from representing or commanding it.

The term “lumpenintelligentsia,” meaning pseudointellectuals, is a modified loan-word from Carl Marx definition of “lumpenproletariat,” deriving from the German word “lumpenproletarier.” Lumpen literally means “miscreant.” In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Luis Napoleon” (1852), Marx describes lumpenproletariat as decayed bourgeois, vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mountebanks, lazzaroni, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, maquereaux (pimps), brothel keepers, porters, literati, organ grinders, ragpickers, knife grinders, tinkers and beggars.

In one word, what the French call “la bohème”.

With lumpenintelligentsia, we are not quite there, but metaphorically, we are close enough.

The “society” I have come to know is the real thing; and its mainstream component is the ordinary people of our lives. It includes those waiting for the bus or driving their car in the morning to go to work or open their small shop; and they number in the tens and hundreds of millions.

This society couldn’t care less about being politically correct or “racist” as it is intended by the lumpenintelligentsia; it is simply not in their vocabulary. This society simply and unquestionably obeys to the rules of the state, but as far as that. For this society, whatever is not explicitly prohibited by the law, is permitted. After all, this is the essence of our political civilisation.

In civilized societies, there are laws which define the relation among citizens. Unwritten laws are dictated only by the God and in this case, although I am a deep believer, I am an atheist.

The French law, penalizes the denial of the Holocaust. This law did not come out of the blue. It came as a necessity to confront a post World War II reality, because there are a few extremists, some now hidden within the 30% of the Front National, who were using the denial of the Holocaust as a political argument to serve domestic expediencies. In reality most of them not even know what the term “Holocaust” really means. Whether you like or dislike the Jewish people, is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the Holocaust is a historical reality and no one has the right to distort history for reasons of political propaganda.

From that point of departure, however, to the point of calling someone racist and homophobic, because they are opposed to calling the unity of a homosexual couple ‘marriage’, is a vast distance.

Our people that make up our societies are more resilient. The fad of political correctness has over-sensitized us, and in many cases acts as a shield, which does not allow us to discuss certain issues openly and at their core. I have read that in the US, some school districts are offering counselling services to students and staff upset about the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, and that universities have organised ‘cry-ins’.

Our next generation of leaders needs to be grounded, pragmatic, and needs to be tougher than that. God forbid they travel to China or Russia. Circa 50 countries in the world are run by dictatorial regimes, much worse than the worst incarnation of the many words of Donald Trump (even when we group them all together and give an entirely new context to them to create a MechaTrump); who mourns, cries, gets counselling or even complains about these leaders that represent about than half the entire world? Very few.

Political correctness is about not calling someone a ‘fag’, or a ‘nigger’, or not speaking openly against gay marriage or adoption; in the case of politicians, it can be as rudimentary as not calling Chinese people ‘slant-eyes’. And while the media have denounced these sorts of expressions, they aren’t only not extinct, but commonplace in our European societies.

Express yourselves to the fullest. It’s the only way to have real dialogue, engage honestly, and facilitate real change, development, and the evolution of our society.

If people are to understand why using toxic characterisations is damaging, that can only happen through dialogue. If they are to comprehend how issues such as adoption or marriage affect gay couples, and if/how that affects society, that too can only happen through dialogue.

Political correctness should not remain in our societies as a norm of social censorship, for it only manages to bury the issues that cause tension in societies under the rug, to the short-term benefit of the few who experience a numb calmness.

Evolution of society requires a clash of ideas and minds; the alternative is (often misplaced) hibernating resentment and brewing populism.

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It is worth noting that immediately after his election, President-elect Donald Trump received in his headquarters, at Trump Tower in New York, MEP Nigel Farage. Farage was the first European politician to meet Trump after his election. And yes, the UK is still part of the European Union.

While Kassandra has no idea what the two men really spoke about, it would not be surprising if, among other issues, the two men discussed the architecture of the European Union and how it can be weakened to the advantage of the USA (and of course directly and indirectly to the advantage of Farage himself).

We’ve watched enough episodes of West Wing and House of Cards to know that unless the EU breaks the Farage-Trump bond, winter will be coming to the EU-US relationship.

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François Fillon, 62, has come first in the center-right Les Républicains primaries on Sunday, November 20. He is to face Alain Juppé, 71, in a runoff election on November 27. The Former President Nicolas Sarkozy, 61, conceded defeat coming third and has pledged his support to Fillon.

Over three million people went to the polls in France to vote in the primaries of the center-right Les Républicains.

Seven candidates were seeking the nomination. The outsiders to the contest were Bruno Le Maire, 47, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, 43, Jean-Francois Cope, 52, and Jean-Frederic Poisson.

These were the first open primaries of the centre-right party.

Anyone willing to pay €2 could vote. The result could very much determine who will be the next President of the Republic. Voting was not restricted to party members.

Former French Prime Minister Francois Fillon votes during the first round of the French right wing party ‘Les Republicains’ (LR) primaries in Paris,  EPA/JEREMY LEMPIN

Pollsters believe that Socialists have no chance of renewing their hold on the Élysée Palace. The Socialist Party introduced open primaries in 2011, but no one is watching the contest closely – if there is a contest rather than a coronation in January – since they look too divided politically to make a serious bid for The Elysée Palace.

For over a year, the favourite to win the first round of the French Presidential elections is the far-right leader Marine Le Pen. The Front National took 27% in regional elections in December 2015. The Economist estimates Ms. Le Pen has a 40% chance of becoming France’s next president. Recent polls suggest Le Pen could easily reach 30% in the first round of the French Presidential elections.

In theory, she would lose in the second round, as whoever comes second is likely to benefit from the pro-European vote across the board. However, the Brexit and Trump effect have largely discredited similar projections.

French Former President Nicolas Sarkozy in La Baule, France, 04 September 2016. EPA/EDDY LEMAISTRE EPA/EDDY LEMAISTRE

All candidates were running as “the opponent to Le Pen.”

Nicolas Sarkozy run a campaign as “Le Pen light.” He was seeking to return to the Élysée on a hard security and vehement anti-immigration and anti-Islamic agenda. That line of campaigning was echoed by Jean-Frederic Poisson, who emphasized the Christian identity of France, and Jean-Francois Cope, who wanted the right wing identity to be “uninhibited.”

Sarkozy was not merely polarizing but also tainted with scandals, most recently accused of taking money from Muammar Gaddafi for his 2007 Presidential campaign.

Alain Juppe submitted his candidacy as a unifying figure, willing to defend the notion of a multicultural albeit Republican France. Juppe emphasizes the private nature of religious belief and remains committed to multiculturalism. Pollsters considered him the front-runner, but he carried much of the “establishment luggage” that is unpopular. Juppe has been convicted of illegal party financing and he is not perceived as charismatic.

Francois Fillon, 62, is offering “blood and tears.” He wants deep market reforms, of the kind compared to Margaret Thatcher. He found his constituency crowded with both the “technocrat” Bruno Le Maire and the “liberal” Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet.

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