I suppose this is karma for me getting too excited about European unity getting a massive boost as a silver lining to the state of the world. My own country is joining Hungary in attempting to sabotage it.
This is not the time to make an ideological show to your populist national electorate. If this doesn’t get implemented properly and the newfound unity is not credible, the continent and the EU will be faced with war. Which, if that on its own is not convincing enough, also tends to be somewhat suboptimal for fiscal stability and the economy.
Which war does the EU face? The military of the EU is already bigger than the Russian military. European air superiority will destroy any Russian attack.
One caused by counting on internal division in the EU, the probability of which increases when we fail to have a unified response right now. Basically just gambling that countries like the Netherlands won’t be willing to defend, e.g., a Baltic country. Russia could certainly beat the militaries of small Baltic states one by one, if it is breaking even with Ukraine. No joint response would mean selling out member states and effectively disabling the whole concept of the EU. Joint response would mean war for everyone.
I would prefer a future that minimises the probability of this gamble being made, and nobody gets invaded.
an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power
Article 42 leaves no space for selling out.
The promise of the EU is mutual support while remaining independent. There are enough citizens who don’t want to become another united states. With too much push for unity, there is a risk that the EU breaks apart.
The joint investment response is not necessary since the EU is stronger than Russia. Given van der Leyen’s vaccine history, there is a big risk that the money will not be spent wisely.
I disagree with automatically assuming Russia will be stupid enough to actually attack the EU, so I agree with your comment.
It may be strategically smart to assume so anyway, but I still find it hard to believe Russia would actually wage war against the EU: with their midget economy they’ll lose, unless they’re willing to use nuclear weapons, and then they lose as well.
The day i am ashamed to be Dutch has finally arrived.
And here we are laughing over America as the world’s biggest clown club. Well our own government makes a good second :(
It’s not our government this time, it’s parliament. The government parties have a majority in that, obviously.
The insane thing is that the parties that form the governement opposed their own prime minister, that’s what makes this extra crazy.
Nu pas? Anyway it’s still America first, Netherlands second.
The motion against the Dutch participation in ReArm Europe was passed by a 73-71 majority of those voting, out of 150 people serving in the Tweede Kamer. While Schoof is in favor of ReArm Europe, as is coalition party VVD, coalition partners PVV, BBB and NSC voted to support the motion opposing their own Cabinet.
The coalition partners voted against a proposal of their own cabinet? What kind of clowns are in Dutch government right now? Are these Putin’s shills?
Mostly, yes.
I wouldn’t call NSC and BBB ‘Putin’s shills’. PVV definitely; Wilders went on a nice trip to Russia after MH17.
NSC party leader Omtzigt made a declaration saying that, despite being a staunch supporter to Ukraine, ‘NSC remains fundamentally opposed to eurobonds and fundamentally opposed to the increase of budget norms.’.
Schoof can ignore this motion, but he’d ignore the wishes of three of four coalition partners, and most notably those of the largest party in the coalition (PVV).
EDIT: To answer atro_city’s question: NSC is a party formally founded to improve government accountability after a terrible scandal which involved the tax office using a shitty algorithm which marked innocent welfare receivers as frauds. This lead to them being treated terribly, of some the children were taken and some also took their own lives. Omtzigt, their leader, genuinely did a lot to make this issue politically important. A new party, they won an insane amount of seats during last elections, essentially meaning they were kingmakers for a new coalition. They’re pretty much just conservative, though, and they don’t really seem to know what the hell they’re doing.
BBB is a farmers’ party. They’re trying to make it so that large farming corporations can go on depositing way too much nitrogen, but this is an impossible task, so their leader, Caroline van der Plas, has shifted to simping for Israel.
Thank you. I don’t understand why a farmer’s union aligned with Israel would be against defence spending though. Very weird.
They’re also sort of trying to be a PVV light. It’s all very confused.
Welcome to today’s episode of ‘How to screw over your own prime minister and lose your credibility as a country on the EU stage’. Disclaimer: I’m Dutch.
Don’t worry, you didn’t have any credibility to begin with.
Poor Schoof. Our ambtenaar-in-chief.
I don’t envy the man at all. Horrible limbo position he’s in with no mandate of his own.
I don’t really feel for him at all. He could have seen coming it’s a bad idea to agree to, as someone from outside politics, lead a cabinet with four parties who hate eachothers’ guts, with a party that has called for ethnic cleansing as the largest participant.
Unsurprising, as the biggest party in the government is populist, autocratic and pro-Putin.
And its leader was an Israeli colonist on the West Bank 🥳
Didn’t even know that. Makes the recent news how his secret trip to Israeli-occupied territories got leaked all the more revealing of his true allegiances.
