@HowRu68@lemmy.world

HowRu68

@HowRu68@lemmy.world

European🇪🇺

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Espionage in the EU: Is the bloc ready to ward off spies? (www.dw.com)

Russia has systematically maintained contacts with far-right and far-left parties, and other personalities and movements to gain support from institutional actors within the union in order to legitimize its illegal and criminal actions," the draft statement, set to go to the vote on Thursday and subject to change or rejection,...

HowRu68, (edited )

Afaik, some important events will coincide in 2024:

● Resurgence of far-right parties on European level due to new elections later this year, and the 2024 US presidential elections.

● Per second half 2024 (July 1 to the end of 2024) Hungary will hold the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, putting it in charge of the EU’s policy-making process for six months.

● Recently, there are many new developments: there have been multiple indictments & arrests of members of EP and local members of Parliaments across memberstates for spying charges [ Add: new polls suggest that this has lead to a decrease in the popularity of the far-right ].

In Hungary a new political opposition leader is rising ; Mr Magyar.

The EU is passing a new disinformation bill, to stop anti-democratic players and institutions.

Also, there are many discussions whether Hungary [Orbán], should or could hold the position of being President of The Council, considering its anti-democratic, anti-EU, and pro-CCP and pro-Putin stance [ Hungary has signed a “security contract” with China recently, enabling the surveillance in Hungary, by Chinese police officers]

link balkaninsight

U.S. Secretly Shipped New Long-Range Missiles to Ukraine (www.nytimes.com)

The United States last week secretly shipped a new long-range missile system to Ukraine, and Ukrainian forces immediately used the weapons to attack a Russian military airfield in Crimea last Wednesday and Russian troops in the country’s southeast overnight on Tuesday, according to a senior U.S. official....

HowRu68, (edited )

If this forces the Germans into delivering Taurus it becomes an even bigger deal.

Exactly.And the UK will or are supplying, and German politics won’t have an argument not to send the Taurus anymore.

HowRu68,

Ah yes , I forgot that bit. These men on the ground are usually called instructors & maintenance crew. Germany ( Rheinmetall) and other facilititators are building factories with some self defense systems in U.A. They are called the construction crew, I reckon. Political correctness, just use the “correct” names.^^.

HowRu68, (edited )

Afaik, there ECB was and is trying to lower /cap inflation. The logic being that the (pandemic) inflation ( and interest) rate was too high , and to avoid a living cost/ wage spiral.

There will be many more expendirures to come due to, the energy transition, failing international trade, political instability, wars, climate catastrophe, migration, new virus problems, etc. If I were them, I’d up my budget reservation for " unforseen costs " to a 20% to be safe. It doesn’t hurt to build some fat before difficult years.

But, how do modern economics see this?

HowRu68, (edited )

Tbx for sharing MMT economics, sounds reasonable enough. I’m no economic expert btw ;)

For sure I agree that in these time, major Investments are the only reasonable way forward, especially now. And, like you said, it’s now or never.

Add NB: The viewpoint of more domestic spending is also adhered by Mario Draghi, as seen per his speech recently. (Link Speech multilingual )

At the same time, as long as we remain critical to these gvement expenditures, thus procurement, methods and goals, and watch out for corruption, mismanagement, incorrect allocations etc, we should be ok.

Besides our own immediate motives, we don’t live in an isolated world; problem being that in our strategic choices as EU & memberstates we must consider the times & geopolitical tides. We must consider the actions of surrounding superpowers ( superstates and superconglomerates) ; which aren’t in free-trade; are being creative by falsifying economic data, or stealing IP, have been influencing the market malevolently; are extremely subsidising their own products, but issuing tariffs to imports. Also, unlike the US ,which can issue extra" free "money, we as EU cannot. I surely hope, that the EU guidelines, offer more choices and leeway then the old ones. For example, there’s been the internal discussion of issuing EU bonds for specific goals. They are establishing and expanding funds, for future investments. How that will workout as to membership loan/GDP ratio, depends on then chosen configuration, I reckon.

HowRu68,

Energy dependency ( and competitiveness) paragraph P 62.:

True, energy costs in Europe remain higher than those of its major competitors. During the energy crisis, the EU, as other regions relying on imported fossil gas (UK, Japan, South Korea) has witnessed a trend of increased price differentials with other parts of the world. Gas prices were 3 to 6 times higher than those in the U.S, compared to 2-3 times historically and are still significantly higher today. EU electricity industrial retail prices are close to 2 times the US prices and are becoming progressively higher than in China. Such a situation will persist until the marginal price is predominantly determined by renewable and low-carbon electricity sources rather than gas. The continent’s limited self-sufficiency in energy also heightens its vulnerability to sudden price shocks. In 2021, the EU’s dependency on energy imports was high: 91.7% for oil, 83.4% for gas, and 37.5% for solid fossil fuels, contributing to an overall energy dependency rate of approximately 55.5%. In 2022 alone, Europe’s bill for importing fossil fuels amounted to €640 billion, approximately 4.1% of its GDP. In 2023, even with lower prices, it remained close to 2.4% of the EU’s GDP.

Chinese spies targeting semiconductor, aerospace, maritime industries in the Netherlands to strengthen China’s armed forces, Dutch military intelligence agency claims (www.europeaninterest.eu)

"China tries to get hold of technology in the Netherlands in various ways, using a combination of (cyber) espionage, company insiders, acquisitions, circumvention of export restrictions and reverse engineering of technology for which no licenses are required,” the Dutch intelligence agency said....

HowRu68, (edited )

“It also suggests that Chinese universities play a vital intelligence-gathering role, noting that [Chinese] scientists employed by western companies often work for China’s security services and state companies.”

Unfortunately, academics whom work in collaboration with China scientists in projects, have claimed similar experiences as to IP theft etc.

You can leave the CCP, but the CCP never leaves you, it seems.

Kremlin spy suspect arrests may be tip of iceberg, says former German agency chief (www.theguardian.com)

He said espionage and sabotage were an integral part of the “standard toolbox of Russian geopolitics”. The secret service activities in Germany exposed by this week’s arrests, he said, were “from that point of view no surprise. Rather, it’s the tip of the iceberg.”He said espionage and sabotage were an integral part...

HowRu68, (edited )

really hope this will be taken more seriously from now on…

There’s been imo much news lately about this stuff. Sometimes it feels as if it keeps "hanging " for a long time, and then there is an investigation , and suddenly, arrests.

If this news has been only " the tip of the iceberg " (in Germany and probably all of Europe), like what this expert is saying, then how big is the iceberg?

HowRu68,

update:

Leaders of Denmark, Czechia and The Netherlands “will be looking in what ways we can support the German initiative,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said.

“We know we have air defence systems in Europe; some have to be delivered,” Fredriksen added.

euroactiv

Secret Russian foreign policy document urges action to weaken the U.S. (www.washingtonpost.com)

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has been drawing up plans to try to weaken its Western adversaries, including the United States, and leverage the Ukraine war to forge a global order free from what it sees as American dominance, according to a secret Foreign Ministry document....

HowRu68,

Good to know that it’s official now. Whether something will change; we’ll see…

HowRu68, (edited )

“Official Chinese figures show 12,000 repatriation cases from more than 120 countries as a result of the two main repatriation campaigns. These are often touted by Beijing as a major success. It is not clear exactly how much of this is propaganda and how much is real data. To give a sense of the scale, a few years ago China managed to persuade 230,000 people to return to China in just one year as part of a special campaign in which the threat of collective punishment was also used as a means of persuasion.”

So basically Chinese refuges or expats resident have never been safe. Its not something recent .And apperantly the Chinese Gvement isn’t respecting the sovereignty of other countries at all. It’s a wakeupcall, our territories are “infiltrated and not safe”, and now with the upcoming collaboration between Hungary and China, it will only get worse; if we don’t change our ways soon.

HowRu68, (edited )

iirc: then Chinese mafia occasionally works with the CCP, this was hearsay some 20 years ago though, when I came across some several personal experiences. So I’m not sure .

HowRu68, (edited )

holy , that’s pretty weird. Also getting a 404 now. good you’ve it on archive. will add it to OP.

HowRu68,

The resolution states that the Russian State financial assets already frozen by several countries – approximately US$300 billion – must be made available for the reconstruction of Ukraine, pointing out that the documented damages to Ukraine’s infrastructure and economy caused by the Russian Federation’s aggression had reached US$416 billion in June) 2023.(link pace

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