Tag: eu

EU nations seek mandatory social media age checks

France, Spain, and Greece are advocating for mandatory age verification on social media platforms such as Meta’s Facebook and Elon Musk’s X, Bloomberg reported on Friday.

The proposed rules would require all internet-connected devices to be equipped with age verification technology. Digital services ministers from the three EU member states are coordinating the initiative ahead of a meeting with their counterparts from the bloc on June 6, a document cited by Bloomberg said.

The three nations reportedly argue that the “lack of proper and widespread age-verification mechanisms” makes it difficult to effectively enforce age limits. They aim to leverage the economic power of the EU’s 450 million consumers to compel tech companies to implement robust verification systems, according to the report.

French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed on Tuesday his support for mandatory age verification for teenagers registering on social media platforms, stating that online networks have contributed to suffering and mental health issues among young people.

“We must protect our children,” he told TF1, adding that age verification on social networks should be imposed.

According to Bloomberg, the European Commission, along with several bloc members, is already developing pilot projects to boost parental controls and age verification. However, their efforts are being hindered by regulatory differences across EU countries and the ease with which users can access social networks from outside the bloc.

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The EU plot to crush free speech in Ireland

The European Commission in Brussels threatened to bring legal proceedings against Ireland last week. The Commission is demanding Ireland impose draconian restrictions on the right of its people to speak their minds. Yes, you read that right: according to the EU, Ireland has too much free speech.

The problem, as the EU sees it, is ‘hate speech’. In 2008, the EU hammered out a ‘framework decision’ on xenophobia, which requires all member states to forbid incitement to violence or hatred on the basis of race, religion or nationality. It also criminalises Holocaust denial, or ‘trivialisation’ of the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity.

Ireland, however, has not complied with the 2008 diktat. It hardly needed to, since it has had hate-speech laws of its own since 1989, which nearly go as far as what Brussels is demanding anyway. These laws ban speech likely to stir up hatred on grounds of race, religion, sexual orientation or membership of the Traveller community. Last year, the Irish government even imposed a new law that increases the length of prison sentences for crimes that are proven to be motivated by ‘hatred’ on the basis of any of those characteristics.

Yet according to the EU, none of this is good enough. In a communiqué released on 7 May, the Commission gave Ireland two months to enact the EU’s provisions on incitement to violence and Holocaust denial. If Ireland fails to do this, it faces punitive fines and a date at the European Court of Justice.

This threat should worry anyone who cares about free speech and democracy. For one thing, the laws demanded by the EU are a frontal attack on vital aspects of free speech. Of course Holocaust denial is appallingly offensive. It’s also very stupid, since there is no respectable argument that the Holocaust didn’t happen. But criminalising it is not the answer. Offensiveness doesn’t justify dragging people through the courts for what they say.

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Pfizergate: Top European Court Slams Corrupt Globalist EU Chief Von der Leyen in Bombshell Ruling Over Secret Covid-19 Vaccine Procurement Texts

In a ruling that’s shaken the corrupt foundations of the European Union, the EU’s top court has declared that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen broke transparency rules by hiding secret text messages she exchanged with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla—just as the EU was locking itself into the biggest vaccine deal in its history.

The judgment, handed down by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), exposes a damning breach of public trust and fuels the growing outcry over what critics have dubbed “Pfizergate”—a scandal that underscores everything wrong with the unaccountable EU bureaucracy, Big Pharma’s grip on policy, and von der Leyen’s corrupt, authoritarian style of rule.

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Hungarian PM Orbán: Ukraine’s EU Membership Would Mean War in Europe

Hungary is standing its ground as the European Union’s globalist ‘leaders’ push forward with plans to fast-track Ukraine’s membership.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, perhaps President Trump’s closest allies in Europe, and key figures in the Hungarian government have issued their clearest and most urgent warning yet: admitting a war-torn Ukraine into the EU isn’t just reckless—it’s a one-way ticket to economic ruin, societal upheaval, and potentially full-blown war on European soil.

Hungary’s position isn’t new, but the stakes have never been higher. Prime Minister Orbán told public radio last Friday that Ukraine’s accession would amount to “economic suicide” for Europe. Speaking bluntly, he said the EU’s liberal leadership—led by corrupt, unelected Brussels bureaucrats like Ursula von der Leyen—is hurtling toward a catastrophe without consulting the people of Europe.

“As a neighboring country, we believe that if Ukraine is admitted to the European Union, it will mean war,” Orbán declared earlier this week at a conference of EU parliamentary speakers in Budapest. He reminded attendees that the EU has never accepted a country at war—and for good reason.

Hungary rejects Brussels’ obsession with endless military aid, calling instead for peace and realism. “The longer the war lasts, the more lives will be lost,” Orbán emphasized.

The prime minister’s sentiment was echoed by Máté Kocsis, leader of the Fidesz faction in Hungary’s National Assembly. “This will be an irreversible decision,” he said, adding: “One that will shape the fate of Hungarians for the next 100 to 150 years.”

Kocsis made it clear that Ukraine, as a country without a functioning democratic process, cannot be a legitimate candidate. “The minimum condition for accession talks is a democratic election,” he said. That requires peace—not more war.

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Eccentric Polish Presidential Candidate Sets EU Flag Alight; Says “Down With Eurocommunism”

Eurocrats were thrown into an uproar last week after Polish presidential candidate and European Parliament member Grzegorz Braun—known for his provocative theatrical stunts—set fire to the European Union flag, condemning what he called the EU’s ‘ideological occupation’ of Poland by a globalist elite.

Braun, a Polish ultranationalist known for his bombastic style and unapologetic, unfiltered rhetoric, carried out the act at the historic Wujek coal mine in Katowice—a symbolic site tied to Poland’s anti-communist resistance.

First, he stormed into the Ministry of Industry, tore down the EU flag, wiped his shoes on it, and then burned it outside the building. “This is Poland—down with Euro-Communism,” he proclaimed in the video posted to his social media accounts.

“This organization has led to Poland’s liquidation,” Braun declared, referring to the European Union. “We will not tolerate symbols from hostile structures. In Poland, we do not show the signs of enemy organizations. These emblems carry no legal protection here.”

The action was part of Braun’s EU critical, to put it lightly, campaign ahead of Poland’s upcoming presidential election. He’s positioning himself as the uncompromising defender of Polish sovereignty against what he sees as the EU’s overreach, particularly in energy and environmental policy, which he claims threatens the heart of Polish industry.

“This is Poland, not Brussels!” Braun shouted during the protest, as coal miners cheered him on in solidarity.

Braun’s presidential campaign has centered around opposing EU mandates, defending traditional Polish values, and fighting what he calls “globalist totalitarianism.”

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ECB Partners With Big Tech to Launch Controversial Digital Euro Amid Privacy Concerns and US Opposition

The European Central Bank (ECB) – an institution of the European Union (EU) – is working to engineer the digital euro, the EU’s own central bank digital currency (CBDC).

In doing so, ECB is partnering with those skeptical observers might expect in this club: multinationals and multi-billion dollar companies, like Ireland-headquartered Accenture, and Germany’s largest semiconductor maker Infineon Technologies – but also 70 others from the financial, fintech, business, and payment services sectors.

This is happening via a project framed as as an “innovation platform” that was announced just this week, for the purpose of looking into the ways of introducing a centralized form of digital currency – which is merely a highly “controllable” version of fiat money, but also one with strong potential of facilitating “next level” mass surveillance of citizens.

Many things coming out of the EU these days seem like they are crafted not by leaders or even politicians, but by PR teams, for immediate “feelgood” impact, either to obscure the substance of various initiatives and policies – or to obscure the fact there is no substance to them.

Here, ECB has presented its project as an effort carried out by two groups: “Pioneers,” and “Visionaries.”

The first is supposed to deal with developing the technical infrastructure and doing the testing, whereas “Visionaries” are tasked with implementing – and promoting – those solutions.

Here’s an example of what that may involve: “(Exploring) enabling digital euro wallet access via post offices, potentially benefiting those without traditional bank accounts.”

The big picture, the sum total of CBDCs is the role of these currencies in the ongoing “war on cash” as a form of “disfavored” privacy and anonymity.

But naturally, the likes of Piero Cipollone, who sits on ECB’s Executive Board, will talk about the digital euro as “a potential catalyst for financial innovation” and other purely positive and difficult-to-contest goals.

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European Union Continues Sabotaging Trump’s Ukraine Peace Efforts

The European Union at this point seems much more open about its willingness to sabotage Trump efforts toward achieving peace in Ukraine. 

The EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas has told the Financial Times in a fresh interview this week that the bloc will not recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea under any circumstances. Really, this should be the most obvious and ‘easiest’ concession to make, but alas Brussels is saying no!

The White House is seeking to pressure the Zelensky government to get to the negotiating table fast, and the quickest and easiest concession would be expected to center on letting go of Crimea, which Moscow declared part of the Russian Federation after a 2014 popular referendum.

“I can’t see that we are accepting these kind of things. But we can’t speak for America, of course, and what they will do,” Kallas said. “On the European side, we have said this over and over again… Crimea is Ukraine.”

“There are tools in the Americans’ hands that they can use to put the pressure on Russia to really stop this war,” Kallas continued. “President Trump has said that he wants the killing to stop. He should put the pressure on the one who is doing the killing.”

This has basically been the Ukrainian government’s position all along as well. For this reason, she said Brussels and other European capitals are still focused on “working with the Americans and trying to convince them why the outcome of this war is also in their interest, that Russia doesn’t really get everything that it wants.” But again, Crimea should be the easiest issue.

On the question of the scenario where Washington successfully resets relations with Moscow and eventually withdraws arms and intelligence support for Kiev, she said:

“It is clear that these types of discussions are going on in certain member states and maybe hopes that we don’t really have to support [Ukraine] any more,” said Kallas, the former Estonian prime minister. “But it’s also a false hope, because if you look at Russia, that is investing more than 9 per cent of its GDP on the military, they will want to use it again.”

Currently the US is reportedly seeking to convince Kiev and Europe of a de jure recognition of Russia’s control over Crimea and de facto recognition of Russian areas of control in eastern Ukraine, based on a ‘freeze’ of battle lines.

Trump presidential special envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg told Fox News this week that Ukraine is ready to make territorial concessions, but wouldn’t consider any ceded territory as a permanent situation. 

“Not de jure forever, but de facto, because the Russians actually occupy that and they’ve agreed to that. They know that if they have a ceasefire in place, which means you sit on the ground that you currently hold, that’s what they’re willing to go to,” Kellog said. “You have your line set, and they’re willing to go there,” Kellogg emphasized. 

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Radio Liberty Let The Cat Out Of The Bag Regarding The EU’s Game Plan For Ukraine

Russia can expect nothing in return from the EU if Putin concedes to allow their troops and aircraft to deploy in and patrol over Western Ukraine…

Russia has long warned that any unconditional ceasefire in Ukraine of the 30-day sort that Zelensky has proposed could create an opening for NATO to expand its military influence in that country. Hitherto dismissed as a conspiracy theory by the West, Radio Liberty just let the cat out of the bag. The unnamed officials who they cited in their recent article confirmed that they envisage this “buy[ing] the Europeans time to assemble a ‘reassurance force’ in the Western part of Ukraine” and organize “air patrols” there.

Their reported game plan is “keeping the Americans onboard” the peace process, “sequencing” the conflict by clinching a ceasefire that’ll later lead to a lasting peace, and using the aforesaid interim period to carry out the abovementioned military moves for pressuring Russia into more concessions. 

What’s omitted from Radio Liberty’s article is that Russia has threatened to target Western troops in Ukraine, who Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth earlier said wouldn’t enjoy Article 5 guarantees from the US.

Even if Putin agrees to this concession that’s assessed to be among one of the five significant differences between him and Trump that prompted Trump’s angry post against Putin, Radio Liberty reported that this still wouldn’t lead to de jure European recognition of Russia’s territorial gains. 

The same goes for them lifting sanctions or returning any of its €200 billion of seized assets. More sanctions might even soon be imposed and the windfall profits from those assets will “bankroll Ukraine’s military needs”.

Given what Radio Liberty revealed, Russia can therefore expect nothing in return from the EU if Putin concedes to allow their troops and aircraft to deploy in and patrol over Western Ukraine. Any hopes of restoring Ukraine’s antebellum buffer state status would be crushed, and it can’t be ruled out that the EU’s zone of military activity could later expand to the Dnieper or beyond. One of the special operation’s goals was to prevent the West’s eastward military expansion so that would be another major concession.

Putin’s decades-long close friend and influential senior aide Nikolay Patrushev just told TASS earlier this week that “For the second year in a row, NATO is holding the largest exercises in decades near our borders, where it is practicing scenarios of offensive actions over a large area – from Vilnius to Odessa, the seizure of the Kaliningrad region, the blocking of shipping in the Baltic and Black Seas, and preventive strikes on the permanent bases of Russian nuclear deterrent forces.”

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Europe Just Proved Trump Right About NATO

In a shocking-not-shocking exclusive report in The (UK) Times, Europe “would struggle to put 25,000 troops on the ground in Ukraine” as part of a postwar peacekeeping force. Defense Editor Larisa Brown “was given a rare insight into conversations between Europe’s defence ministers and military chiefs as they thrashed out plans for a ‘coalition of the willing’ force,” and the results are as disappointing as they are sobering. 

And you know how much I hate sobering.

British defense chief Admiral Sir Tony Radakin asked European defense ministers “if they could put together a 64,000-strong force to send to [Ukraine] in the event of a peace deal.” Britain offered up to 10,000 personnel, but even then, “defence ministers across Europe said there was ‘no chance’ they could reach that number and that even 25,000 would ‘be a push for a joint effort.'”

This is not your father’s NATO.

During the Cold War, the British Army of the Rhine stood watch in West Germany for half a century with a force of 50,000 men — and the promise of swift reinforcements almost as quickly as the balloon went up.

Today, all of European NATO couldn’t put a peacekeeping force in Ukraine of half that size without wheezing like an asthmatic with a sinus infection hiking up Kilimanjaro.

NATO was always a little fractured and weaker than it should have been. Unlike the Warsaw Pact on the other side of the Iron Curtain, NATO members were independent nations, each with its own priorities and needs.

Paris could complain about American “hyperpower” all it liked, but we didn’t send in the tanks — like Moscow would have — when France withdrew its forces from NATO command and ordered NATO troops out of France in 1966. We just made do. 

And while Washington was correct to ask for more “burden-sharing” from our allies during the Cold War, it wasn’t as though they didn’t take the Soviet threat seriously. The West German Bundeswehr consisted of 10 battle-ready heavy Panzer and Panzergrenadier divisions, plus another division each of airborne and mountain forces — for a total of 38 combat brigades. That was just the Field Army. The Territorial forces consisted of reserve troops — older men called up to defend their cities, towns, and homes — amounting to another 450,000 soldiers. 

But here’s the rub.

West Germany raised those forces from a population of 60 million with a GDP of $1.6 trillion in today’s dollars. Unified Germany has 80 million people, a GDP of $4.7 trillion, and a military of three divisions that are understaffed, under-trained, and unfit for combat.

The balloon went up more than three years ago in Ukraine, and yet the only substantial-sized NATO member seriously rearming is Poland.

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WEF Launches Connected Future Initiative to Promote Global Digital Public Infrastructure with Backing from UN, EU, and Bill Gates

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has announced the launch of the Connected Future Initiative, the latest among its efforts to promote what is known as Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI).

The global scheme, aiming to introduce digital IDs, digital payments, and data exchange platforms by 2030, counts the UN, the EU, and Bill Gates among its major supporters.

The WEF presents its new initiative as a way to establish the parameters for public-private cooperation, and “unlock the full potential of globally scaled, interoperable and future-ready digital public infrastructure.”

Those behind the initiative suggest their goal is to essentially strengthen DPI by incorporating technologies like extended reality (XR) and quantum computing, in addition to AI and biometrics, while pushing for global standards and DPI interoperability.

WEF also promises that the new initiative is supposed to secure “ethical and responsible” innovation, and lumps in issues like governance, data privacy concerns (as the second on the list), and equitable access while deploying “next-gen DPI.”

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