Europe

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/47607910

Unrest broke out before and after the Ajax-Maccabi Tel Aviv football match in Amsterdam on November 7. In the following days, international media coverage of the riots was criticised. Many outlets focused on anti-Semitic attacks, while overlooking anti-Arab or anti-Muslim behaviour by Maccabi supporters. Part of this was because a video filmed by Dutch photographer Annet de Graaf was widely circulated and often misrepresented. Our guest in this edition of Scoop is professor and disinformation expert Marc Owen Jones.

An extensive Russian offensive on European satellites was behind several disruptions to the children’s channel BabyTV, in which Russian propaganda played on the channel multiple times in the spring, Nieuwsuur discovered. The disruption to the Dutch children’s programming was a side effect of a larger sabotage action against European satellites. Russia has attacked at least six European satellites in recent months, the current affairs program reported.

The Russian sabotage affected the Netherlands for the first time on March 16. KPN broadcast an hour of interference instead of children’s television. No one noticed at the time. At the same time, the Ukrainian television channel FreedomTV was interrupted, showing a Russian propaganda video instead of the normal programming.

[…]

Russia was likely targeting Ukrainian television, Dutch, French, Swedish, and Ukrainian government services told Nieuwsuur. The interruptions of BabyTV were likely collateral damage. 

In recent months, Russia disrupted at least four more Eutelsat satellites and one satellite managed by the Luxembourg company SES, according to investigations by the satellite companies in Nieuwsuur’s possession. Some of these satellites not only carry TV signals but also government communications and possibly even military communications, according to brochures from the companies.

Pact hailed as EU migration breakthrough in tatters after judges rule asylum seekers must be transferred to Italy

A multimillion-dollar migration deal between Italy and Albania aimed at curbing arrivals was presented by the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, as a new model for how to establish processing and detention centres for asylum seekers outside the EU.

But it seems neither von der Leyen nor Italy’s far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, had taken existing law into account.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/22537360

The Europeans Podcast is a fully independent podcast on Europe and the EU, which I've found to be a great source to keep up to date on whatever is going on in the continent (in addition to this wonderful community, obviously).

This week they announced a fundraiser for a new mini-series — Who Does it Best — studying various policy fields across European countries, comparing best (and worst) practices in national solutions to common problems across the continent. They plan to start out with podcasts on housing, childcare, and drugs.

Basically, the question is how these policies are solved nationally across the continent. What are the solutions that work well, what are the solutions that work less well, and how can we learn from each other. So I guess it's something for the policy nerds.

They talk about the mini-series in their latest episode, or in this thread on Mastodon for those who prefer that.

Check it out! :)

I take the time to promote their effort because I like what they're doing with their podcast. It's completely independent, being funded almost entirely by their listeners. They've been going like this for seven years now, so they are clearly committed to the gig.

They also seem to have their principles in the right place. This is evident when they speak about tricky subjects — I find they tend to have well-researched an nuanced coverage — but also in their actions: I discovered them through their decision to have an active presence on the fediverse (@europeanspodcast), and they have been speaking favourably about Mastodon several times on their podcast since I started listening. So they're seem to be walking the walk, not only talking the talk, and taking their independence seriously.

Anyone interested in helping can find the fundraiser here. They're currently at just under €5k.

If you're not interested, I nevertheless recommend checking out the podcast! It's usually a great listen.

I hope this doesn't go under rule 2 of the community - it's a small independent undertaking that I think is of some interest to anyone interested in building a pan-European information landscape, so I feel like it doesn't fall under commercial advertising. But if the moderators disagree that's of course their decision - if so, sorry about that!

France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen faces the prospect of being banned from running in the 2027 presidential election if found guilty of embezzling EU funds. But a guilty verdict, if it comes, could be a blessing for Le Pen’s photogenic protégé Jordan Bardella, leaving the 29-year-old with a clear path to the Elysée Palace.

Archived link

European leaders should have started preparing for another Trump presidency long ago. They had been warned.

Now, leaders should envisage a world where NATO no longer exists—or where the United States is no longer the leading force in the alliance, writes Phillips Payson O’Brien, Professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, in Scotland. He is the author of The Strategists: Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Mussolini, and Hitler—How War Made Them, and How They Made War.

"In some ways, this is more scary psychologically than in practice. Europe—which is to say, the democratic countries enmeshed in institutions such as NATO and the European Union—has the economic and technological resources to underwrite a serious defense effort. It has a large and educated enough population to staff modern armed forces. It also has some strong and growing military capabilities. For instance, European states either have received or will receive in the coming years as many as 600 F-35 fighters—the most advanced and capable aircraft in the world. Such a force could dominate the skies against a clearly inferior Russian opponent."

[Edit to include the link.]

Ireland: Cork City Council first to pass motion committing to "using factual and accurate information in council discussion and debate"

The motion commits all local representatives to using factual information in their contributions to the Council and in debates.

It was brought forward by Councillor Pádraig Rice, following an election pledge as part of the CheckTheFacts campaign by Belong To', a non-profit dedicated to the LGBTQ+ Youth Ireland, which the organisation had developed in response to the increase in misinformation and disinformation both in Ireland and internationally.

**Increase in Hate Crimes in Ireland **

In May 2024, Ireland's An Garda Síochána published its annual figures on hate crimes in Ireland showing a 12% increase in the number of reported hate crimes and hate-related incidents, while the European Digital Media Observatory reported in 2023 that the LGBTQ+ community is one of the most consistent victims of mis- and disinformation in the European Union.

Commenting on the motion, Cllr Rice said: “We are in an age of misinformation, and Cork City Council is not immune to that. For my part, I intend to call out misinformation, and I have called on my Council colleagues to do the same.”

Also commenting was Moninne Griffith, CEO of Belong To, who said: “I wish to express my gratitude to Cllr Rice for bringing forward this motion as he committed to doing in the local election campaign. We know that misinformation impacts heavily on marginalised communities in particular and the circulation of misinformation has real-life consequences.

“The Being LGBTQI+ in Ireland research from Trinity College Dublin, published this year found that 1 in 4 members of Ireland’s LGBTQI+ community have been punched, hit or physically attacked due to being LGBTQI+, and 72% experienced verbal abuse due to being LGBTQI+. These incidents do not happen in isolation. They are fostered in an environment of misinformation and disinformation. So we thank Cllr Rice and all counsellors who voted to pass this motion for their commitment to facts.”

It says upcoming transparency rules are too vague.

The EU executive’s proposal to postpone the implementation of the regulation on imported deforestation for one year was approved by the Brussels hemicycle with 371 votes in favour, 240 against, and 30 abstentions. On the final vote, socialists, greens and leftists opposed it, with the same compactness with which the popular and far-right supported the text, while the liberals split.

The EPP, which had tabled 15 controversial amendments to the Commission’s new text, announced before the vote that it was withdrawing some of the most significant ones: the proposal for a two-year delay and several exemptions for traders on supply chain control charges. According to a statement on the sidelines of the vote by Christine Schneider, a People’s Party MEP who signed all of the amendments, the EPP withdrew the amendments because it got reassurances from the European Commission in return, particularly the commitment to review the guidelines for companies and make sure to avoid an overlap of bureaucratic burdens between companies.

While the first march on Wednesday evening brought together the usual supporters of the Palestinian cause, the second brought together left-wing Jewish organizations opposed to the war. Some were demonstrating for the first time since October 7, 2023.

The planned visit of Smotrich, who openly advocates ethnic cleansing and the annexation of the West Bank, was a catalyst to the pro-Palestinian movement in France, but also to the most liberal and peace-loving elements of the Jewish community. Despite the cancellation of the far-right Israeli minister's visit, against whom several organizations and lawyers intended to file a complaint for complicity in torture or genocide, the two demonstrations against the gala organized by Israel is Forever were maintained.

Archive link

Archived link

The choices, and the stakes, would remain very similar to what they were in February 2022, says Historian Anne Applebaum, senior fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and the School of Advanced International Studies.

"Either we [the Western democracies] inflict enough economic pressure and military pain to convince Russia that the war can never be won, or we deal with the far more ominous, and far more expensive, consequences of Ukraine’s loss."

“Land for peace” sounds nice, but the president of Russia isn’t fighting for land. Putin is fighting not to conquer Pokrovsk but to destroy Ukraine as a nation. He wants to show his own people that Ukraine’s democratic aspirations are hopeless. He wants to prove that a whole host of international laws and norms, including the United Nations Charter and the Geneva conventions, no longer matter. His goal is not to have peace but to build concentration camps, torture civilians, kidnap 20,000 Ukrainian children, and get away with it—which, so far, he has.

Putin will truly stop fighting only if he loses the war, loses power, or loses control of his economy. And there is plenty of evidence that he fears all three, despite his troops’ slow movement forward. He would not have imported thousands of North Korean soldiers if he had an infinite number of Russians to replace the more than 600,000 soldiers whom he has lost to injury or death. He would not have paid American YouTubers to promote anti-Ukrainian propaganda if he wasn’t worried by the American public’s continued support for Ukraine. His economy is in trouble: Russian inflation is rising fast; Russian interest rates are now at 21 percent; Russian industries particularly vulnerable to sanctions, such as liquefied natural gas, are suffering. The Russian navy was humiliated in the Black Sea. The Russian military has still not recaptured territory lost in Russia’s Kursk province, conquered by the Ukrainians last summer.

The Capitals brings you the latest news from across Europe, through on-the-ground reporting by Euractiv’s media network.

In today’s edition of the Capitals, find out more about the minimum wage in Romania being on its way to increase, the Polish ruling splitting ahead of the presidential vote, and so much more.