The Iranian regime, largely thanks to the backing of a powerful ally, the European Union, has managed to sustain and even increase its revenue streams.
The continued funding of Iran’s regime by the EU is crucial in bolstering Iran’s ability to attack its neighbors and US troops in the region, both directly and through its proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Houthis — and to accelerate enriching uranium to complete its nuclear weapons program.
The results of this month’s European Parliament elections have prompted two reactions from political analysts in the old continent.
One reaction could be described as the ostrich option, burying one’s head in the sand and praying that the storm will blow over. The other could be labeled apocalyptic, pointing at the four terrible horsemen riding across the horizon.
The ostrich party points out that despite the successes scored by radical right parties, the next European Parliament will still be dominated by right-of-center and social-democratic outfits stuck in the past and determined to maintain the status quo.
Millions of Europeans have not suddenly turned into fascists. We need a new political language.
As the EU establishment struggles to make sense of last week’s revolt in the European elections, one thing is clear: our outdated vocabulary is not up to the task of describing today’s political landscape.
Gains for France’s National Rally, Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) have been described as a ‘far-right surge’ in newspapers and TV reports, not just across Europe but around the world. Even before the election results came in, labels like far right and extreme right were bouncing off commentators’ keyboards. All agree that the far right is on the rise and ordinary people need to worry. This is Europe’s ‘Trump moment’, explained Politico. Some go further. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is described as ‘neo-fascist’, while academics calmly ask if the AfD is the new Nazi Party. ‘Fascism has arrived’, declared French author Emilia Roig when the election results became clear. Yet with almost a quarter of Europe’s voters having backed a party branded ‘far right’, it is worth asking how accurate this label is and what purpose it now serves.
An Afghan knifeman tried to assassinate a leading anti-Islamist campaigner at a rally in the German city of Mannheim on Friday, and murdered a young policeman in the attack. The stabbing, carried out by a failed asylum-seeker who had been living in Germany illegally for years, was a searing indictment of successive German governments’ mass migration policies.
A week before the elections to the European Parliament, this attempted assassination of a critic of political Islam provided a graphic illustration of why support for the right-wing, anti-migration Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) has soared in recent times.
Since at least as far back as 1917, when the U.S. unwisely intervened in World War I to rescue the Western Allies, the major European nations have grown accustomed to American largesse. Americans have played the role of overindulgent parents, and the Europeans have responded as would entitled children who both demand handouts and then resent the parents who supply them.
A large proportion of Europeans have negative opinions of the U.S. They consider us arrogant and selfish. As a result, we have been labeled as “the Ugly Americans” for decades.
Right-wing parties have cottoned on to voter rejection of green policies
In hindsight, 2024 may well be remembered as the year of the Great Reversal on EU climate policy. That many of the most ambitious emissions goals will not be achievable has been common knowledge for a while now, but until recently the policies themselves had not been questioned. There was a widespread consensus that the European Union was in position to be a global leader for emissions reductions and the green transition away from fossil fuels.
Sparking intense criticism from conservatives, the left-leaning majority of the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for the extension of the EU crime list to include hate speech and hate crimes, which would allow the European Commission to introduce binding minimum penalties for all member states.
The vote, that took place on Thursday, January 18th, passed with 397 for and 121 against, with only 26 abstentions—the latter mainly coming from a handful of dissident leftists concerned that the law may be used to silence anti-Israel voices. As always, only the two conservative blocs, ECR and ID, voted against it while all leftist parties and the center-right EPP supported the report.
European Commissioner Thierry Breton announced an investigation into Elon Musk’s ‘free speech’ social media platform X for failure to combat ‘illicit content and disinformation.’ This is the first major probe the EU has opened up on X since last year’s passing of a new law called the “Digital Services Act.”
h/t Mauser
In spite of the Iran’s increasing involvement in the war against Ukraine and against Israel and Jews, the European Union, as well as the US, appear more than happy to continue appeasing the Iran’s ruling mullahs. Shouldn’t this make them considered accomplices?
Iran and Russia are fast making headway constructing a plant based in Russia that will mass-produce Iranian-designed kamikaze drones, presumably to help Moscow attack Ukrainian targets.
If logic worked in politics, the question to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan should have been: Why has your country had so passionately sought out, in vain, membership in the European Union?
Erdoğan talks about an “evil West” but wants to become part of it — perhaps to “improve” it? Why did Turkey send its 15,000 sons, only to greet with honor 700 dead soldiers in a war that took place 8,000 km away on the Korean Peninsula? Turkey has been a full member candidate for the EU since 1987, but the Korean military campaign earned it NATO membership in 1952.
REMEMBER when Australia entered the Eurovision Song Contest a few years back? That was not merely a gimmick. Influential figures in the European arm of Western-orientated globalisation want to change the world to their progressive design, and that entails branding the EU as a global venture. Indeed, Timothy Garton Ash, Professor of European Studies at the University of Oxford, pushes the preposterous notion of a ‘post-imperial empire’.
Before the 2016 EU referendum, leading Remainers insisted that we Brexiteers were ‘dangerous fantasists’ when we warned about the rise of a European Union army. But as the EU accelerates its drive towards a militarised supra-state, we are surely entitled to ask: who are the dangerous fantasists now?
When European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called for a Europe-wide security force in 2015, Leave campaigners led by then-UKIP leader Nigel Farage MEP seized upon it as proof that they had been right all along. Top Brussels bureaucrats openly wanted an EU military machine that could command the forces of member states.
BRUSSELS — European leaders are suddenly falling over each other to get to China.
Amid growing concern that Chinese leader Xi Jinping is hardening his support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced on Thursday he will fly to Beijing for talks next week. Emmanuel Macron, the French president, will follow on a longer-planned trip on April 4.
A succession of European Union leaders used a summit in Brussels to raise the alarm about China’s ostentatious backing for Vladimir Putin this week, warning that they could not stand by while Beijing and Moscow cement an alliance that risks tipping the world deeper into crisis.
China is supporting Russia in its war with Ukraine did the EURO’s not get the message?
It’s bad enough the Liberal Party and our Corporate elite has sold Canada out to Communist China but it appears the majority of our NATO allies are also turncoats.
The European Union is calling on member states to do more to deport illegal immigrants and those without valid reasons for being in their countries, noting a low rate of deportations that are actually carried out.
European Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson highlighted the dismal number of deportations among European Union members saying, “Last year, we had a return rate of only 21% of those who are not eligible to stay.”
European Union Special Representative for the Middle East Peace Process Sven Koopmans stated on February 17: “The EU wants build stronger ties with Israel, yet relations sadly remain burdened by the construction of illegal settlements on Palestinian land.”
What Koopmans forgot to mention that it is the Palestinians who have built literally tens of thousands of illegal structures in the West Bank, especially in Area C, which, according to the Oslo Accords, is under full Israeli security and civilian jurisdiction.
Koopmans also forgot to mention that the EU is helping the Palestinian Authority (PA) with the mass-scale illegal construction, paving the way for the de facto annexation of the territory.
