Tag: eu

EU to Scrap 2035 Combustion-Engine Cars Prohibition, as Even Brussels Establishment Begins to Covertly Adopt Rightwing Policies

EU Commission walks back some suicidal ‘green’ policies.

The measure of the success by the right-wingers in Europe expresses itself not only by the high popularity numbers that the anti-Globalist parties are showing – leading in Germany, France and the UK.

There’s also the fact that leftist-liberal-Globalist politicians all over the continent are rushing to present some semblance of policy changes that mimic the successful right-wing ideas that deeply resonate with the voters.

The two most relevant examples deal with unchecked mass migration and ‘climate change/Net zero’ lunatic policies.

This basically demonstrates that patriotic forces come armed with better ideas and more effective policies.

To see the EU now defending the creation of ‘return hubs’ for illegal migrants – a clear copy of UK’s former PM Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda plan – is very significant.

And then, we have the promised EU ban on new combustion-engine cars starting in 2035, which has just been ditched, in one of the EU’s biggest walk-backs from its ‘green’ policies in recent years.

Reuters reported:

“The move, which still needs approval from EU governments and the European Parliament, would allow continued sales of some non-electric vehicles. Carmakers in regional industrial powerhouse Germany and in Italy had sought easing of the rules.”

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Privacy For The Powerful, Surveillance For The Rest: EU’s Proposed Tech Regulation Goes Too Far

Last month, we lamented California’s Frontier AI Act of 2025. The Act favors compliance over risk management, while shielding bureaucrats and lawmakers from responsibility. Mostly, it imposes top-down regulatory norms, instead of letting civil society and industry experts experiment and develop ethical standards from the bottom up.

Perhaps we could dismiss the Act as just another example of California’s interventionist penchant. But some American politicians and regulators are already calling for the Act to be a “template for harmonizing federal and state oversight.” The other source for that template would be the European Union (EU), so it’s worth keeping an eye on the regulations spewed out of Brussels.

The EU is already way ahead of California in imposing troubling, top-down regulation. Indeed, the EU Artificial Intelligence Act of 2024 follows the EU’s overall precautionary principle. As the EU Parliament’s internal think tank explains, “the precautionary principle enables decision-makers to adopt precautionary measures when scientific evidence about an environmental or human health hazard is uncertain and the stakes are high.” The precautionary principle gives immense power to the EU when it comes to regulating in the face of uncertainty — rather than allowing for experimentation with the guardrails of fines and tort law (as in the US). It stifles ethical learning and innovation. Because of the precautionary principle and associated regulation, the EU economy suffers from greater market concentration, higher regulatory compliance costs, and diminished innovation — compared to an environment that allows for experimentation and sensible risk management. It is small wonder that only four of the world’s top 50 tech companies are European.

From Stifled Innovation to Stifled Privacy

Along with the precautionary principle, the second driving force behind EU regulation is the advancement of rights — but cherry-picking from the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights of rights that often conflict with others. For example, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of 2016 was imposed with the idea of protecting a fundamental right to personal data protection (this is technically separate from the right to privacy, and gives the EU much more power to intervene — but that is the stuff of academic journals). The GDPR ended up curtailing the right to economic freedom.

This time, fundamental rights are being deployed to justify the EU’s fight against child sexual abuse. We all love fundamental rights, and we all hate child abuse. But, over the years, fundamental rights have been deployed as a blunt and powerful weapon to expand the EU’s regulatory powers. The proposed Child Sex Abuse regulation (CSA) is no exception. What is exceptional, is the extent of the intrusion: the EU is proposing to monitor communications among European citizens, lumping them all together as potential threats rather than as protected speech that enjoys a prima facie right to privacy.

As of 26 November 2025, the EU bureaucratic machine has been negotiating the details of the CSA. In the latest draft, mandatory scanning of private communications has thankfully been removed, at least formally. But there is a catch. Providers of hosting and interpersonal communication services must identify, analyze, and assess how their services might be used for online child sexual abuse, and then take “all reasonable mitigation measures.” Faced with such an open-ended mandate and the threat of liability, many providers may conclude that the safest — and most legally prudent — way to show they have complied with the EU directive is to deploy large-scale scanning of private communications.

The draft CSA insists that mitigation measures should, where possible, be limited to specific parts of the service or specific groups of users. But the incentive structure points in one direction. Widespread monitoring may end up as the only viable option for regulatory compliance. What is presented as voluntary today risks becoming a de facto obligation tomorrow.

In the words of Peter Hummelgaard, the Danish Minister of Justice: “Every year, millions of files are shared that depict the sexual abuse of children. And behind every single image and video, there is a child who has been subjected to the most horrific and terrible abuse. This is completely unacceptable.” No one disputes the gravity or turpitude of the problem. And yet, under this narrative, the telecommunications industry and European citizens are expected to absorb dangerous risk-mitigation measures that are likely to involve lost privacy for citizens and widespread monitoring powers for the state.

The cost, we are told, is nothing compared to the benefit.

After all, who wouldn’t want to fight child sexual abuse? It’s high time to take a deep breath. Child abusers should be punished severely. This does not dispense a free society from respecting other core values.

But, wait. There’s more…

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Why Is Europe Feverishly Preparing For World War III?

If there is going to be peace, why are we witnessing the largest military buildup in Europe since the end of the Cold War?  When it comes to the major players on the geopolitical stage, it is far more important to watch what they do than it is to listen to what they say.  And right now the actions that the major European powers are taking are telling us that they are preparing for a huge war with Russia.

Ukraine was supposed to be the final piece of the puzzle for the European Union.

It is an enormous chunk of territory, and it is absolutely teeming with natural resources.

For most European leaders, it is unthinkable that Ukraine could be allowed to fall back into Russian hands, but at the moment more Ukrainian territory is being taken by the Russians with each passing day.

In fact, it is being reported that the city of Seversk has just fallen…

Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, said that the “Southern” group of troops had taken control of the city of Seversk in the DPR.

“The city of Seversk has been liberated,” Gerasimov said during a report to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Every time the Russians move forward, European leaders feel even more pressure to send troops into Ukraine.

Apparently the British already have at least some soldiers in Ukraine, because one of them just died…

The British soldier who died in Ukraine on Tuesday has been named as L/Cpl George Hooley, 28, of the Parachute regiment.

Keir Starmer told the Commons on Wednesday that Hooley had died in a “tragic accident” away from the frontlines while watching a test of “a new defensive capability” with members of the Ukrainian military.

“His life was full of courage and determination,” Starmer said. “He served our country with honour and distinction around the world in the cause of freedom and democracy, including as part of the small number of British personnel in Ukraine.”

Did you notice that Starmer was purposely vague about how many British troops are in Ukraine?

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The EU Insists Its X Fine Isn’t About Censorship. Here’s Why It Is.

When the European Commission fined X €120 million on December 5, officials could not have been clearer. This, they said, was not about censorship. It was just about “transparency.”

They repeat it so often you start to wonder why.

The fine marks the first major enforcement of the Digital Services Act, Europe’s new censorship-driven internet rulebook.

It was sold as a consumer protection measure, designed to make online platforms safer and more accountable, and included a whole list of censorship requirements, fining platforms that don’t comply.

The first target is Elon Musk’s X, and the list of alleged violations look less like user safety concerns and more like a blueprint for controlling who gets heard, who gets trusted, and who gets to talk back.

The Commission charged X with three violations: the paid blue checkmark system, the lack of advertising data, and restricted data access for researchers.

None of these touches direct content censorship. But all of them shape visibility, credibility, and surveillance, just in more polite language.

Musk’s decision to turn blue checks into a subscription feature ended the old system where establishment figures, journalists, politicians, and legacy celebrities got verification.

The EU called Musk’s decision “deceptive design.” The old version, apparently, was honesty itself. Before, a blue badge meant you were important. After, it meant you paid. Brussels prefers the former, where approved institutions get algorithmic priority, and the rest of the population stays in the queue.

The new system threatened that hierarchy. Now, anyone could buy verification, diluting the aura of authority once reserved for anointed voices.

However, that’s not the full story. Under the old Twitter system, verification was sold as a public service, but in reality it worked more like a back-room favor and a status purchase.

The main application process was shut down in 2010, so unless you were already famous, the only way to get a blue check was to spend enough money on advertising or to be important enough to trigger impersonation problems.

Ad Age reported that advertisers who spent at least fifteen thousand dollars over three months could get verified, and Twitter sales reps told clients the same thing. That meant verification was effectively a perk reserved for major media brands, public figures, and anyone willing to pay. It was a symbol of influence rationed through informal criteria and private deals, creating a hierarchy shaped by cronyism rather than transparency.

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“The Days Of Censoring Americans Online Are Over”: Senior US Diplomats Slam EU’s “Attack” On American Tech Platform X

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and several other senior U.S. officials have criticized the internet policies of the European Union (EU), likening them to censorship, after the governing bloc last week levied Elon Musk’s social media platform X with a $140 million fine for breaching its online content rules.

On Dec. 5, EU tech regulators fined X 120 million euros (about $140 million) following a two-year investigation under the Digital Services Act, concluding that the social platform had breached multiple transparency obligations, including the “deceptive design of its ‘blue checkmark,’ the lack of transparency of its advertising repository, and the failure to provide access to public data for researchers.”

The EU accused X of converting its verified badges into a paid feature without sufficient identity checks, arguing that this deceived users into believing the accounts were authentic and exposed them to fraud, manipulation, and impersonation.

This meant the platform had failed to meet the Digital Services Act’s accessibility and detail standards, leaving out key information that prevented efforts to track coordinated disinformation, illicit activities, and election interference, according to the EU.

Even before the EU’s fine was announced, U.S. Vice President JD Vance suggested it amounted to punishing X for “not engaging in censorship.”

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‘Fourth Reich’: Musk Strikes Back At EU ‘Tyrants’ After X Fine

Elon Musk is not taking the outrageous fine from Brussels bureaucrats lying down, lashing out at EU officialdom for taking on Nazi characteristics and oppressing their own citizens’ best interests…

As Catherine Salgado reports for PJMedia.com, Musk also re-shared a post about Irish teacher Enoch Burke, who was jailed for refusing to use transgender pronouns, and later replied to another user, “So many politicians in Europe who are traitors to their own people.”

And Musk highlighted the fact that Meta has a verification program similar to X’s, yet the EU hasn’t onerously fined the more censorship-prone Meta.

Musk reposted and reiterated his previous explanation of why he bought X (then Twitter) in the first place.

“I didn’t do the Twitter purchase because I thought it was a great way to make money. I knew that there would be a zillion slings and arrows coming in my direction.

It really felt like, there was a civilizational danger that unless one of the major online platforms broke ranks, then, because they’re all just behaving in lockstep along with the legacy media.

Literally there was no place to actually get the truth. It was almost impossible. So everything was just getting censored. The power of the censorship apparatus was incredible,” Musk said.

The EU seems to be borrowing ideas from 20th century Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler… 

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EU Pokes Russia Again with “Reparation Loans” to Ukraine

The European Commission proposed a “Reparations Loan” to Ukraine on Wednesday. Some of the funding would come from European financial institutions that hold frozen Russian funds.

They would issue loans backed by their budget. However, they would also give Ukraine loans backed by Russian assets.

The Tin Gods of the EU

It would allocate about 90 billion Euros to Ukraine to aid in its effort to repel Moscow’s invasion. They would just give money without a plan.

France, Spain, and Italy spent almost no money on Ukraine. UK doesn’t have much and Germany has already planned how they will spend their 11 billion. They want to keep the war going without contributing.

President Trump wants to establish peace and Europe wants to take funds from Russians that are in European banks to continue the war. Some of the money belongs to the Russian government, but much of it belongs to Russian investors.

Commissioner von der Leyen said it would cover Ukraine’s expenses and their “defense.”

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EU targets platforms that refuse to censor free speech – Telegram founder

The EU is unfairly targeting social media platforms that allow dissenting or critical speech, Telegram founder Pavel Durov has said.

He was responding to a 2024 post by Elon Musk, the owner of X, who claimed that the European Commission had offered the platform a secret deal to avoid fines in return for censoring certain statements. The EU fined X €120 million ($140 million) the day before.

According to Durov, the EU imposes strict and unrealistic rules on tech companies as a way to punish those that do not comply with quiet censorship demands.

“The EU imposes impossible rules so it can punish tech firms that refuse to silently censor free speech,” Durov wrote on X on Saturday.

He also referred to his detention in France last year, which he called politically motivated. He claimed that during that time, the head of France’s DGSE asked him to “ban conservative voices in Romania” ahead of an election, an allegation French officials denied. He also said intelligence agents offered help with his case if Telegram quietly removed channels tied to Moldova’s election.

Durov repeated both claims in his recent post, describing the case as “a baseless criminal investigation” followed by pressure to censor speech in Romania and Moldova.

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US accuses EU of ‘attack on American people’ after fine on X

The US has accused Brussels of an “attack” on Americans after the EU fined Elon Musk’s social media platform X €120 million ($140 million) for violating the bloc’s content-moderation rules.

The European Commission announced the decision on Friday, noting that it is the first time a formal non-compliance ruling has been issued under the Digital Services Act.

The move comes amid a broader wave of enforcement against major American tech companies. Brussels previously imposed multibillion-euro penalties on Google for abuses in search and advertising, fined Apple under both the Digital Markets Act and national antitrust rules, and penalized Meta for its “pay-or-consent” ad model. Such actions have sharpened disagreements between the US and the EU over digital regulation.

According to the Commission, X’s violations include the deceptive design of its blue checkmark system, which “exposes users to scams,” insufficient transparency in its advertising library, and its failure to provide required access to public data for researchers.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio slammed the decision, writing on X that it is not just an attack on the platform, but “an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments.” 

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Top ex-EU diplomat Federica Mogherini accused of corruption and fraud

The EU’s former chief diplomat Federica Mogherini and two other people have been formally accused of fraud and corruption, the European prosecutor’s office has said.

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) did not refer to Mogherini by name, but said the rector of the College of Europe in Bruges – her role – had been formally notified of the accusations. A senior staff member of the college and a senior official from the European Commission were also indicted, the EPPO said, after all three were questioned by Belgian police.

The investigation, which led to police raids on the headquarters of the EU foreign service in Brussels and the elite College of Europe postgraduate school, as well as Mogherini’s home, has deeply shocked EU insiders. Prosecutors suspect fraud in the tender for a contract to run a training academy for young diplomats, which was awarded to the College of Europe by the EU foreign service.

The EPPO, the EU agency in charge of prosecuting fraud involving European funds, said the accusations concerned “procurement fraud, corruption, conflict of interest and violation of professional secrecy”. It added: “All persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty by the competent Belgian courts of law.”

All three have been released “as they are not considered a flight risk”, the EPPO said.

On Wednesday, Mogherini issued a statement via the College of Europe. “In its long tradition, the College has always applied and will continue to apply the highest standards of integrity and fairness,” she said. “I have full confidence in the justice system and I trust that the correctness of the College’s actions will be ascertained.”

The College of Europe has said it would cooperate fully with the authorities “in the interest of transparency and respect for the investigative process”.

In a letter to staff seen by the Guardian, the EU’s current foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said the allegations were “deeply shocking but should in no way tarnish the good work that the vast majority of you are doing every day”.

Kallas, who is one year into a five year mandate, said integrity and accountability “will only improve under my watch” and that the current process showed “safeguards are in place and working”.

One of the accused is understood to be Stefano Sannino, a senior commission official, who was secretary general of the European External Action Service from 2021 to 2024. A request for comment sent to him was referred to the commission, which declined beyond saying it was co-operating with an investigation into activities that took place before the term of the current EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas.

Mogherini was the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs from 2014 to 2019, after a brief stint as Italy’s foreign minister. She went on to become rector of the College of Europe, a training ground for European officials and politicians. Her appointment in 2020 proved controversial, with some alumni arguing she lacked academic credentials and experience of running a major academic institution.

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