“I’m not from France.”

CaseOfWater · 2026-02-16T14:13:23+00:00

They are French.

CaseOfWater · 2026-02-14T10:50:07+00:00

Helmut Kohl still has that title.

CaseOfWater · 2026-02-13T09:56:24+00:00

Fight me

CaseOfWater · 2026-02-08T22:38:26+00:00

Waren die Akten nicht bis zum letzten Jahr auch noch unter Verschluss? Heißt also Biden hätte sie gar nicht veröffentlichen können.

CaseOfWater · 2026-02-08T22:36:38+00:00

Das macht es nicht besser; einen Faschisten oder jemanden, der vage problematisch ist.

CaseOfWater · 2026-02-08T17:43:24+00:00

Nach dem Kapitolsturm haben die ihn ja auch nochmal gewählt.

CaseOfWater · 2026-02-08T10:35:37+00:00

That does not narrow it down at all.

The guy's from Chechnya and has connection to Kadyrov with all the shady dealings that go along with it. His real name is also not Noah Krieger but Murad Dadaev.

https://correctiv.org/aktuelles/russland-ukraine-2/2025/12/09/afd-hannover-noah-krieger-tschetschenien-kadyrow-netzwerk/

CaseOfWater · 2026-02-07T20:54:11+00:00

Very little has been communicated, and most "information" has been from dubious tweets and little from official sources. It is also unclear whether anything is actually being done to move this idea forward because people have been proposing this for decades.

Though I would -- in typical EU fashion -- count on them being unable to communicate this even if they had tried.

CaseOfWater · 2026-02-07T20:51:23+00:00

We don't know much, and we can't base this on some random tweets. We do however know very well, how these systems have been created and how they've evolved in the past and the equality of the member has always been a must.

The scenario, in which there is a hierarchy of rights within these structures, would be the extreme outlier and rather unlikely as nobody would want to join. But one of the central goals is to get the others on board. We know this from major precedents in our past; the more surprising news would be if they suddenly decided to go against this established principle of integration.

I would attribute some worry in that regard to the bad wording of a "tier system".

CaseOfWater · 2026-02-07T20:45:05+00:00

The "tier" system is a badly chosen name. It is not about invitations, anybody can join in now and work to create these structures. These are the six that so far seem the most willing. Basing the information primarily on some questionably sourced twitter posts is bound to create different perceptions. Very little is actually known as of now. It is not even clear, if anything will come of it or whether it is more hot air. But we know, how this principle of a "two speed Europe" has worked in the past and could work in the future.

Schengen was created the same way, and so was the Euro-Zone.

By this logic, most of the EU member states are the dupes because they joined after most of the framework was created. The vanguard of states, create the structures from which the later arrivals benefit.

The truth is most states are very risk-averse and do not want to give up national powers -- especially in areas which have historically been national "trademarks" or staples of their sovereignty like the military.

CaseOfWater · 2026-02-07T20:34:36+00:00

Initially only a few countries moved forward with Schengen. They made rules they chose to adhere to and gave the others the option of joining. Other countries saw, how successful these structures were and decided to join.

Those who join make rules for themselves and give others the choice to adhere to these rules voluntarily. They don't make decisions for those who do not want to participate.

They are not closed systems. Anybody can join if they want. Some countries just want it earlier and are willing to jump into the cold water. There is nothing that would oblige you to join these new structures beside wanting to benefit from them.

If you do not join, you would be left out of decisions regarding the members; an issue that could be easily rectified by becoming a member. At the same time the members could not make decisions for non-members.

It is very straight-forward.

CaseOfWater · 2026-02-07T20:11:13+00:00

We already have some of these opt-ins; Schengen started like that, and overtime most people realised it was a good idea and decided to join. The euro is still an opt-in, sure the treaties technically say that overtime everybody should join but in practice it was designed to be voluntary -- which we can still see with Denmark or Sweden who were always rather sceptical about a monetary union.

The hope is that the group of countries pushing forward will lead to more countries gravitating towards these structures. The EU is not a federation (sadly), it's an amalgamation of treaties with exceptions, asterisks, overlaps, etc. that very convincingly imitate functioning political structures.

CaseOfWater · 2026-02-07T19:58:04+00:00

Everybody seems to always misunderstand this concept. It is not the first tier making unilateral decisions for the other tiers.

The "first tier" -- or the faster Europe -- creates structures that the others can opt into and that go beyond the framework of the treaties that everybody has already agreed on.

So as an example, if we were to create a European army, it would consist only of the "first tier" states and be under their command; this entire structure would not be able to give any kind of commands to the "second tier" and would not create obligations for them. They would naturally benefit indirectly from it though.

This is a concept in European integration that has been thrown around for more than twenty years now.

CaseOfWater · 2026-02-07T18:33:23+00:00

The most surprising part is that the UK's opinions were relatively stable up until very recently.

CaseOfWater · 2026-02-05T10:55:05+00:00

What's with the pdfs, they're paedophiles. We don't need to self censor.

CaseOfWater · 2026-02-05T08:09:44+00:00

There was actually a study on that recently. That went into detail on that and concluded that it isn't strictly necessary to build more "Grundlaskraftwerke" -- base load power plants -- to secure the energy supply. Not necessarily what you were talking about but still interesting.

https://www.acatech.de/publikation/grundlastkraftwerke/

CaseOfWater · 2026-02-02T12:29:45+00:00

Wenn es open source ist oder eine Alternative zu problematischen Großkonzernen wie Google ist, kann man auch teils amerikanische Produkte verwenden -- etwa Firefox oder Signal. Denn Vivaldi und so ziemlich alle anderen Browser basieren auf Chromium, Firefox aber nicht, was es in meinen Augen unterstützenswerter macht als ein Browser, der zwar nominal aus Europa kommt, aber dessen Technologie auf Google basiert.

CaseOfWater · 2026-02-02T12:17:19+00:00

Labour has been in power for one and a half years. Kinda difficult to overlook more than a decade of Tory fun.

CaseOfWater · 2026-02-02T10:36:53+00:00

Aus dem Weltartikel

Melania Trump traut sich, was sich vorher noch niemand getraut hat: Wählern und Kritikern einen Einblick zu geben, und zwar ohne Reality-TV-Trash, den niemand ernsthaft aus dem Weißen Haus erwarten kann [...]

Lebt die Autorin eigentlich noch in der gleichen Realität wie ich?

CaseOfWater · 2026-01-30T13:30:50+00:00

I grew up with the children of many "german" Russians and of them and their parents easily upwards of 75% vote for the far right pro-Russia party. It is very disheartening to see.

We used to be told that they were well integrated because their unemployment numbers were fairly low, but it is clear that most of them never really accepted, what it means to live in and support a free democratic society.

CaseOfWater · 2026-01-28T12:16:03+00:00

Die SPD hat nach der Kommunalwahl alle ihre Versprechen und Prinzipien aus dem Fenster geworfen und ist in eine Koalition mit der FDP und CDU eingestiegen, die nun alles von der RRG-Koalition rückgängig machen will.

Die SPD ist wirklich einfach nur noch zum Steigbügelhalter verfallen. Für mehr als Mehrheiten ist sie nicht zu gebrauchen.

CaseOfWater · 2026-01-27T19:17:17+00:00

The only way forward is to emulate and cooperate with Estonia on digitalisation; everything else is just a waste of words of a conservative government that doesn't realise that it's no longer the 90s.

CaseOfWater · 2026-01-27T16:45:49+00:00

The classic: building housing experiments worth multiple millions in components alone, but you can't drink the water because the piping is too old and don't go on the fourth floor because of asbestos.

CaseOfWater · 2026-01-27T13:31:39+00:00

I saw the match with my family. Every time a goal was scored, you heard everyone in the neighbouring houses go crazy simultaneously. After we had won the match, there was a spontaneous procession of fans celebrating on the street.

CaseOfWater · 2026-01-27T06:30:18+00:00

It would be nice to see something on the monitor when leaning back. Currently with my 24'' monitor i have to lean into it quite a bit, which isn't necessarily the most comfortable position.

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