eu – Page 31 – Hellbound and Down

Here’s Why Capital is Fleeing Europe… And Why the Climate Scam is to Blame

We did promise it after Putin blew up his own pipeline supplying cheap energy to Europe, but the implosion of European auto companies is really something to behold. The effects of Capital flight in the industry are stark and widespread.

Consider this:

VW’s profits dropped by 64%. Audi’s profits dropped by 91%. BMW’s profits dropped by 84%. And Mercedes-Benz’s profits dropped by 54%.

German carmakers are in trouble. Their business model was based on two things: cheap Russian energy powering the German engineering coupled with sales in China subsidizing antiquated, overblown unions protecting their cost structure at home. The first pillar collapsed and the second is now under severe pressure.

China now builds its own decent cars. There’s no need for the Chinese to buy anything other than Chinese cars which accelerates capital flight.

Now, let me show you something else. The flow of trade, of course, is seen in the currency markets.

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Volodymyr Zelenskyy: Ukraine’s president calls for creation of ‘armed forces of Europe’ amid fears of reduction in US support

Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he believes it is time for the creation of an “armed forces of Europe”, adding his army was “not enough”.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, the Ukrainian president said Europe cannot rule out the possibility that “America might say no to Europe on issues that threaten it”.

Ukraine has been defending itself from Russia‘s full-scale invasion for nearly three years.

Mr Zelenskyy noted that many leaders have long spoken about how Europe needs its own military.

“I really believe that time has come,” he told the gathering in Germany.

“The armed forces of Europe must be created.”

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Is Trump Getting Ready To Cut Ukraine—and Europe—Loose?

President Donald Trump started peace negotiations over Ukraine with dramatic flair. Although he had been expected to send his envoy Keith Kellogg to present a peace plan at the Munich Security Conference this week, Trump instead had a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, announcing on Wednesday morning that they “agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately.” Along with the peace talks, the two countries announced a surprise prisoner exchange. And Trump snubbed Kellogg, leaving him out of the announced negotiating team.

European governments panicked at the notion that they would be left out of any final deal. “Peace can only be achieved together. And that means with Ukraine, and with the Europeans,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told reporters. “There will be no just and lasting peace in Ukraine without the participation of Europeans,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said to France’s cabinet. Leaders across Europe made similar statements.

The talks about Ukraine are about more than Ukraine, and everybody on both sides of the Atlantic knows it. The new Trump administration seems eager to draw back from America’s post-World War II role as Europe’s military protector. In a speech on Wednesday, a few hours before Trump’s announcement, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called on the other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to pick up the tab for defending Ukraine and Europe.

“Our transatlantic alliance has endured for decades. And we fully expect that it will be sustained for generations to come. But this won’t just happen. It will require our European allies to step into the arena and take ownership of conventional security on the continent,” Hegseth said. “The United States remains committed to the NATO alliance and to the defense partnership with Europe. Full stop. But the United States will no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship that encourages dependency. Rather, our relationship will prioritize empowering Europe to own responsibility for its own security.”

Of course, Trump talked about having European countries pay a bigger share of defense in his first term, too. He also built up U.S. forces close to Russia’s borders, and sent the first lethal military aid to Ukraine, mocking former President Barack Obama for giving Ukrainian troops only “pillows and sheets.”

The stakes, however, are different now. During Trump’s first term, the conflict was a war between the Ukrainian government and pro-Russia rebels. Since then, Russia has launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, leading to the most intense combat in Europe since World War II—and burning through U.S. resources. The threat of a direct U.S.-Russian war has loomed in the background.

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EU/NATO Freak Out Over Trump Position On Ukraine – Zelenskiy Says Trump ‘Not Nice’

Since Ukrainian “President” Volodymyr Zelenskiy is not a legitimately elected leader at this point, we find these statements humorous.

Zelensky: The question of the elections is not at issue at the moment, it’s really not very nice that Trump called Putin first. I did not discuss joining NATO with Trump, but I know that Washington does not want us to be a member of the alliance.

We will not accept any deal between Moscow and Washington without Kyiv.

Hegseth: There is no betrayal of Ukraine. The world and the U.S. are investing in peace—through negotiations. Russian aggression was a wake-up call for NATO that it must be stronger.

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EU Launches “Democracy Shield” Initiative to Tighten Controls on Tech Giants and Enforce “Hate Speech” Compliance

EU’s new “European Union Democracy Shield (EUDS)” committee, which aims to impose more control over tech giants now perceived as aligned with US President Trump, and promote their compliance with “hate speech” laws while imposing more “fact-checking” has gained its chair – French member of European Parliament (MEP) and French President Macron-allied politician Nathalie Loiseau.

The EUDS initiative was first unveiled by EU Commission’s Executive VP Henna Virkkunen, and Loiseau appears to have been given the job in true unelected-Brussels-bureaucracy fashion: this was known before a vote on her nomination took place.

“Nathalie Loiseau will be elected this evening at 6 pm,” it was announced early on Monday by La Lettre (this effective appointment has in the meantime been confirmed).

And it gets worse – another French MEP, Virginie Joron, said that Loiseau had announced she would be elected “the weekend before” those electing her had a chance to vote.

Stalin could never.

However – given the role that “Democracy Shield” is expected to play, namely, control speech/opinions, this odd process is seen by some as basically symbolic of the body’s purpose – albeit it happens to be one that is “denying democracy.”

Loiseau is a member of the European Parliament’s Renew group, whereas Joron is from the Patriots for Europe (PfE); the manner in which the EUDS selected its chief was particularly offensive to the latter since the PfE had hoped to have its own candidate, Antonio Tanger Correa – but that was rendered pointless by the manner in which Loiseau was appointed.

Correa denounced it as a “sham democracy” while Joron slammed the European Parliament’s “theater” where one can get “elected” before the vote.

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EU AI Act Effectively Legalizes Biometric Mass Surveillance

On February 2, the EU AI Act, which came into force in August, reached the first compliance deadline. These are provisions that contain rules that allow the bloc to legalize biometric mass surveillance.

This is happening via Article 5, that on the face of it seeks to introduce protections against using AI systems that represent “unacceptable risk.” But, there are also exceptions to this, defined in the act as the “strictly necessary” cases when those same systems are allowed to be used.

It is this that gave rise to the fear that one of the consequences of the AI Act is to in fact legalize some highly contentious deployments of biometric data-fueled mass surveillance.

Article 5 prohibits real-time remote biometric ID systems from being used by law enforcement in public spaces – but only “unless and in so far as such use is strictly necessary.”

The “strictly necessary” instances are described as those when law enforcement is searching for “specific victims” of crimes like abduction, trafficking, and sexual exploitation, but also when they look for missing persons.

The second definition gets less precise in scope as it allows for AI surveillance systems to be used to prevent crime. This includes a threat to life or physical safety of individuals that is deemed to be “specific, substantial, and imminent” – or threat of a terrorist attack that law enforcement decides is “genuine and present” but also – “genuine and foreseeable.”

Lastly, the AI Act treats as “strictly necessary” to exempt from prohibited AI activities the following: “Localization or identification of a person suspected of having committed a criminal offense, for the purpose of conducting a criminal investigation or prosecution or executing a criminal penalty for offenses.”

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EU’s “Disinformation” Code Becomes Mandatory Under Censorship Law, Platforms Preemptively Enforce Rules Ahead of German Elections

The inevitable slide of the EU’s voluntary — at least in name — disinformation code (the 2022 version) into mandatory rules integrated into the Digital Services Act (DSA) censorship law will become enforceable this July.

But just in time for Germany’s early elections, scheduled for the last week of February, large platforms – Google, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, TikTok, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and X – participated in a “stress test” of their readiness to investigate risks to “civic discourse and electoral process” related to that vote.

This is taken by some reports to mean that although the voluntary code will become obligatory in the summer, the integration before February 23 in Germany means that platforms with more than 45 million users in the EU will implement “disinformation” rules, acting a “voluntary” basis one last time – in a bid “to avoid future legal risks.”

The election campaign in Germany has been marred by contentious attempts by those still in power to discredit and even censor the rising opposition. This is happening both through domestic institutions and by “delegating” some of such efforts to the EU.

The “stress test” done in late January and the reports around code integration timeline fit well in the overall trend. It was conducted by the European Commission and Germany’s digital services coordinator.

The code’s main purpose is to get signatories to step up content “moderation” – which critics see as code word for censorship, but which the EU, along with the DSA, explains as a way to combat illegal content and “protect users.”

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Sweden leads the offensive in the EU to curb financial support for the Cuban Regime.

The Swedish Government’s has taken the decision to review the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement with the Cuban regime and cut funding to Havana.

The Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement (PDCA) between the European Union (EU) and Cuba was signed in 2016 and aimed to normalize and strengthen diplomatic and economic relations between the two parties. Its main objectives were to promote dialogue on political issues, human rights, and economic development while enhancing cooperation in areas like trade, investment, sustainable development, and governance.

However, Sweden insists that it is not a good idea to have European funds diverted to support a regime that tramples on human rights.

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PANIC IN BRUSSELS: Trump and Secretary Rubio Reportedly Ignoring the European Union, Focusing on Bilateral Relations with the Countries

US President Donald J. Trump and his Secretary of State Marco Rubio are reportedly focusing on bilateral relations with some European countries, and totally ignoring the European Union in their early diplomatic moves.

But, come to think of it – why wouldn’t they?

The EU is pushing every losing, crippling Globalist agenda under the sun – from unchecked mass migration to the Net-zero obsession of the ‘Church of Global Warming’; from DEI nonsense to Transgenderism for children, to advancing a ‘forever war’ in Ukraine… Brussels is destroying their nations to obey the orders of the Globalist overlords.

In the words of old-time Trump ally, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán: ‘The EU is a contemporary parody of the Soviet Union’.

The most prominent point of tension – but far from the only one – is the unfairness of the trade imbalance.

From Trump’s speech at the Davos WEF conference:

“From the standpoint of America, the EU treats us very, very unfairly, very badly.

They make it very difficult to bring products into Europe, and yet they expect to be selling and they do sell their products in the United States. So, we have, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars of deficits with the EU, and nobody’s happy with it. And we’re going to do something about it.

They essentially don’t take our farm products and they don’t take our cars, yet they send cars to us by the millions. They put tariffs on things that we want to do … We have some very big complaints with the EU.”

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