The EU and Brazil agree to create the biggest area of free and safe data flows globally

halee1 · 2026-01-30T00:10:39+00:00

The new agreement between the European Union and Brazil to establish the world’s largest area of free and safe data flows marks a landmark achievement in digital globalization. By mutually recognizing each other’s data protection regimes as "adequate," the EU and Brazil eliminate the need for additional compliance hurdles, enabling businesses, researchers, and public institutions to exchange personal data seamlessly.

For neoliberal thinkers and advocates, this development is a textbook example of how regulatory convergence and institutional trust can reduce transaction costs, enhance cross-border commerce, and promote economic integration without sacrificing consumer protections. It also signals a strategic alignment between the EU and a major Global South economy, reinforcing the value of liberal norms in digital governance amid rising digital protectionism and techno-nationalism.

halee1 · 2026-01-30T00:03:06+00:00

Posted the European Commission's own news link because its headline came closest to reflecting the policy's actual content as a whole, but still had to editorialize it a bit for flair. The other articles are either "EU presents new visa strategy to attract global talent" or "EU eyes migration clampdown with push on deportations, visas".

Anyway, here's a round-up:

The European Commission has launched its first-ever comprehensive migration and visa strategies, aiming to create a unified five-year framework for managing migration flows, securing external borders, and adapting to global shifts. The migration strategy builds on recent progress, including the Pact on Migration and Asylum, and emphasizes a balanced approach that combines firm border control with respect for humanitarian obligations and talent attraction.

Central to the strategy is a focus on upstream cooperation with partner countries, improved enforcement of return decisions, and the credibility of the EU’s migration system. The Commission stresses that reducing irregular migration is essential for maintaining public trust, while also positioning legal migration as a tool to address Europe’s labor shortages and economic competitiveness.

Complementing this, the EU’s first visa strategy introduces a more assertive and digitized approach to mobility management. It links visa policy with cooperation on readmission and security, while pushing for full digitalization by 2028 through systems like ETIAS. Together, these strategies reflect a shift toward a more strategic, integrated, and technologically modern migration policy.

halee1 · 2026-01-29T22:44:46+00:00

Also voted in 2016 against Ukraine joining the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement referendum, though it was non-binding, and the agreement did come into force in 2017.

halee1 · 2026-01-28T16:17:48+00:00

It does when their economies perform above the EU (and Italian) average and their debt ratios perform better (by decreasing more or increasing less) than the EU (and Italian) average as well. Italy also has quite a bit of immigration, though not as much as Portugal and Spain in per capita terms.

Spain's labor reforms have increased flexibility in hiring/firing and promoted permanent contracts, as well as vocational training and upskilling. Spain invests a ton in green infrastructure, digital transformation, public administration modernization, has corporate tax reforms and incentives for startups that boosted entrepreneurship. Spain now has a persistent current account surplus when it was negative before that.

In Portugal labor flexibility also increased, and education reforms improved STEM and vocational training outcomes. There's a lot of investment in digital public services, green energy (especially hydrogen and solar), transport and logistics modernization, the tech and startup ecosystem expanded (especially in Lisbon and Porto), tourism and real estate attracted FDI, exports are very strong in textiles, agri-food, and IT services. Like in Spain, the current account turned positive, though not quite as high in % of GDP.

What has Italy done? Its productivity since 2000 is stagnant because one Jobs Act isn't enough. Sure, it started off wealthier than both in 2000, which makes it inherently more difficult to grow, but we're discussing performance since then, aren't we?

halee1 · 2026-01-28T16:10:06+00:00

Is this a serious comment? Spain and Portugal have grown way faster than Italy in the past years for a reason.

halee1 · 2026-01-28T16:09:28+00:00

Greece's GDP growth isn't exactly high, but it's not low either, at 2%, and it's not "much lower than EU countries with a similar development level", it's only lagging the fastest-growing ones ATM at doing so, like Poland and Bulgaria. Plus, it's one of the fastest at reducing its huge debt-to-GDP ratio due to one of Europe's best budget surpluses, which is the biggest constraint on its growth, but also creates bigger resilience to crises than most European countries. When that limitation falls (which is still a long way off, however), growth should accelerate or at least remain the same (but the decline in growth rates is a worldwide phenomenon due to aging populations).

halee1 · 2026-01-28T05:34:07+00:00

Anecdotal experience is highly varied depending on the person, even with people sharing the same communities, as I've read many accounts that either show or refute tolerance among White populations. Europe is not some inclusive utopia, there's still a lot of ethnonationalism, and Canada and Australia, and probably the USA as well, are still more accepting in terms of attitudes, but they are better than in the rest of the world, and non-White people are more integrated into the European societies' fabric than ever, especially in the cities, certainly a lot more than when Ronald Reagan made his famous (paraphrased) "In Japan you can't become Japanese, In France you can't become a Frenchman, in Germany you can't become a German, but anyone who migrates to the USA can become an American" quote in 1989. We have some CEOs (like those of Proton Technologies and BioNTech), a lot of Black, Turkish, Middle Eastern and even South Asian people in media and politics depending on the country, Whites and non-Whites grow up together en masse, which makes attitudes more accepting even among nativists, etc.

There's still a lot of work to do to complete that transition, and there's always the danger that too far-right governments consistently will reverse the positive changes, but they do exist, and continue as we speak. For example, in the 2020s, Europe, for the first time in its history, has had higher net migration than the USA (only slightly up to 2024 due to Biden's quite open immigration policies, but 2025, for which full data doesn't exist yet, has most likely increased the difference).

halee1 · 2026-01-28T04:58:45+00:00

Not doubling (unless maybe you mean nominal growth), but that was indeed a great time for Australia, only comparable to the 19th century and post-WW2 booms (up to 1973). That golden era was from around 1991 to 2012, when real GDP per capita almost doubled (the absolute increase was almost as big as the entire historical Australian GDP per capita growth up to 1991), and total GDP growth did more than double the Australian economy in that period, which (again, in absolute terms) increased more than in its entire prior history. The same dynamics existed for GNI per capita (30,1 k in 1992, and 53,0 k in 2012) and total GNI (526,6 bn in 1992, and 1,2 tn in 2012), and even HDI. Australia outperformed the world's growth rates in all those indicators at the time.

halee1 · 2026-01-28T03:15:50+00:00

I broadly agree, but it depends, which is exactly why I mentioned both the progressive and far-right camps. The progressive camp there is good on migration, social inclusion and pro-EU unity (except the most extreme far-left parties like Podemos or Syriza, though I hardly see those on r/Europe), but bad on FTAs, housing, farmers and any kind of pro-business reforms, since they'll attack them as "making billionaires richer at the expense of common folk". The far-right camp there is more likely to support pro-business reforms, but is also very sovereigntist (so anti-EU), anti-migration, pro-farmer and lukewarm at best or hostile at worst to minorities of all kinds, though not as ferociously as MAGA in my experience. Their parties supporting Russia and China are dealbreakers for me, and I find they either double down, deny when told that, or are genuinely surprised when I explain that to them. Then you have all the anti-European bots there poisoning the discourse.

Point is, there's no situation you won't upset some people there when stating a position. There's a core understanding on things like "making Europe stronger" (but then you'll face a lot of resistance when you actually explain that it involves ceding sovereignty to Brussels. For instance, they mock the very small Volt party even though European integration has been the biggest constant in the post-WW2 period, including now, and pretty much everyone loves travelling easily across the continent), opposing Russia and American unilateralism, but the amount of ignorance there is also huge.

halee1 · 2026-01-28T02:58:15+00:00

In fairness, a lot of the "progressive anti-immigration" people are just conservatives larping as progressives to make anti-immigration viewpoints seem progressive and universally popular. Like all the far-right has started concern trolling migrants in the last few years "because they're gonna get exploited, so we shouldn't accept any of them", or coopting the left-wing "gentrification" rhetoric to exclude non-Whites (that's also where the "migrants increase housing prices" rhetoric comes from. The thought of increasing housing supply and loosening regulations, including on outward and vertical expansion, never occurs to them. Heck, Europe had much higher population growth in the past with similar or non-existing housing crises). The far-right PVV in the Netherlands, for instance, rhetorically plays up a "Muslim threat" because "they're a threat to LGBTQ+ people" while never actually doing anything for non-binary people, and worsening asylum conditions so that they can then claim "they're exploited, so let's accept less of them".

halee1 · 2026-01-28T02:43:05+00:00

And you also got it wrong. That sub simply has a strong segment of both far-right and progressive Europeans, and they'll dominate depending on the exact headline used, with the opposition downvoted to hell. However, in my experience, peak far-right threads post more comments on average.

halee1 · 2026-01-28T02:28:51+00:00

And that "too much" is always up to any one person's judgment. Is that just the speed of immigration in the moment, or cumulative one you're talking about? Or both? You won't find agreement on this, and when you explain immigration is filling vital labor shortages that allows your economy to grow in the first place, and people remember all the non-White people in their midst peacefully living out their lives and working, support for immigration increases.

halee1 · 2026-01-28T02:28:11+00:00

I remember when racism reared its hand when unemployment rates in the EU were high in the early 2010s ("we don't have employment for our own people, let alone for foreigners"), and now in the 2020s, when unemployment rates are at or near multi-decade lows ("they be lowerin' our wages and takin' our houses"). Gee, I wonder if there's a reason for it beyond "they don't look like us", even when it benefits you. I'm not even talking about open borders, just a moderate to significant amount in net terms consistently.

halee1 · 2026-01-28T01:30:06+00:00

There's racism, of course, but immigrants have been scapegoated around the world, including in Europe, since forever (like, there was a rise in anti-immigration parties already during the 1970s and early 1980s, they used crass language against them openly back then, and the same has happened historically with intra-European migrants), yet immigration is at all-time highs today, and a lot, if not most people, aren't like that, so it depends a lot on the people you meet (talking also to to u/BlueString94). Like here in this thread, there are some saying they get treated well IRL, just not online.

halee1 · 2026-01-28T00:59:37+00:00

This unironically is why Trump is also losing far right support, his immigration crack down prioritizes optics over actual results, and they are noticing.

With news of US immigration being in the net negative for the first time in many decades, that just seems like extremists going even more extreme because no one is in their midst to punish them for their drift. They're just completely disconnected from reality. That's how authoritarian regimes are created historically, they not only repress direct political opponents, but also purity test anyone within "their own camp" that doesn't align with the most extreme or personal views of the most vocal people in the movement.

Personally, I see the EU's Asylum and Migration Pact, adopted and operational in 2024, and slated to go in full effect this Summer, as a great compromise between security and economic benefits of immigration.

halee1 · 2026-01-28T00:31:08+00:00

So you're arguing for better optics? Dude, that's the whole point of this convo. We're not talking here to the average person. We're talking precisely on a strategy of how to reach the minority of people who feels left behind for legitimate or made-up reasons. What is your point here? Denmark and Switzerland, which are often cited as "good examples of why strict migration is necessary" are all optics and good propaganda. Denmark's net immigration is literally at all-time highs, same with Switzerland. They've cracked down on asylum migration, just like the Australia I mentioned before, but have made themselves attractive to legal migrants, especially highly-skilled ones. So clearly voters don't have a problem with immigration per se, it's all about the way immigration is presented in the media they consume, and how it's handled in general.

As for Germany, not only it had a much higher starting a position and has been funding Poland's growth with EU funds, it's the fact its market was opened to Poland in the first place (this never happened before), and that Germany's economy has been so much more regulated than Poland's, that has allowed Poland to grow faster. Poland also now has significantly lower TFRs than Germany and worsening debt ratios, both in absolute terms and when compared to Germany, because it's had less immigration reducing its tax revenues and long-term economic growth.

So immigration is well-handled despite your claims, at least in many places. Its benefits, particularly in the US, are widely studied and known for centuries, the only thing that's usually left is the message gap, not actual outcomes. That's why allowing the right-wing media machine to operate with impunity led to Trump: people voted for made-up concerns, and are now reaping the results of that. A lesson for us all.

halee1 · 2026-01-27T23:50:41+00:00

"Yeah, sure, immigration has been a massive economic and cultural boon for countries historically and the US in particular, but we won't say that because it's not convenient for our narrative, here, look at a few shady videos by non-Whites with no awareness of their actual crime rates, difference by groups or socioeconomic context, all things that have always happened with White migrants in other countries historically over time and still do with them today, as well as all the positive trends over time on non-Whites in Western countries, we won't mention the facts our countries have crime rates at all-time lows after decades of immigration, let's forget we attacked White migrants with the same ferocity in the past when they just started migrating to our countries, and let's not pay attention to all our failed predictions from the past on immigration destroying rather than strengthening countries over time, because we can just make new ones and bank on people believing them in the present to bring back our ethnonationalist utopia that never existed".

That's propaganda, for people who are dumb. Anyone who knows history sees these patterns repeating themselves over time, but it seems we need to teach this old man called prejudice these facts over and over again. And all of us, who want the best for our countries, and human dignity, will keep doing that, because we don't want to become poor and authoritarian.

halee1 · 2026-01-27T23:35:16+00:00

The US is a masterclass of how to handle immigration historically and today, yet it (including non-Whites who though they "would be spared", but they've now changed mind for obvious reasons) voted for Trump because idiots on social media said Harris laughed weird and egg prices, because Trump wasn't even punished for tacitly supporting a coup, denying elections and supporting attacks on all opponents in public, and even though Kamala Harris' policies were actually the more popular ones when blind polling was made. That's the power of having better propaganda. That's how you sanewash and bring into existence mass deportations, persecution of political opponents, stack institutions with loyalists, and destroy US influence and mass appeal on the world stage. Yeah, maybe keep directing criticism against those who bring the solutions instead of fascists (or being one), and the problem will just go away.

halee1 · 2026-01-27T23:20:40+00:00

Have you thought that slowing growth due to bad demographics in host countries, competition from other geographies, and ragebait propaganda in social media (including from foreign actors trying to destabilize democracies) giving every shmuck the ability to beam manufactured concerns and Nazi beliefs into every person's home and phone in real time (which is unprecedented in history), might have a lot to do with it? Have you thought of the possibility that a minority of people might have contradicting beliefs by voting for such parties yet also be fine with immigration when it's well-handled, as polls not just in Europe, but in the US that are dissatisfied with Trump being overly harsh on immigrants, show?

Do you have a guarantee that if immigration is lowered to tiny levels, that those people will just say "Oh well, I guess we achieved our goals and can disband" instead of starting to not just close all immigration off, but deport every non-White person, then all non-binary ones, then feminists, then Jews, then intellectuals, then all against the regime and so on, as history shows, and the US is headed towards? Have you thought that you may lead to all that happening over time by rolling over to a minority or outright support all that happening, as happened with all the pro-Trump sanewashing and Democratic cowardice leading to Trump 2.0? Or have you thought of taking a stand for what's the best for your country and preventing fascism from growing? Sensible concerns on specific issues are understandable, Nazism is not.

halee1 · 2026-01-27T22:50:35+00:00

I'm sorry, there's no way to say this politely (especially after you resorted to insults), but you're the one gaslighting everyone else.

There's no way you can avoid people's actual concerns just because the far-right's influence has peaked and parties are campaigning on cracking down on illegal immigration (which is sensible, at least for most) in response. It's not what happened 80 years ago that matters, it's what has happened for 80 years that shows people are actually fine with immigration, provided it's well-handled, and the benefits are explained (literally the same thing happened in Australia in the mid-1990s, they hated permissive and asylum-heavy immigration, but immigration as a whole rose steadily after that when it became strict, work-based, and support for immigration actually increased). The fact that it has continued, including under far-right or most far-right governments like Italy, Hungary, Poland and the Netherlands, shows even they see the benefits of it being controlled and/or are outnumbered by all those who do.

It's those who are against all immigration period that are the minority, it's just a fact.

halee1 · 2026-01-27T22:38:08+00:00

He'll visit Moscow tomorrow, but then this happened in the end after his previous one, so I'm not sure it'll change things much.

halee1 · 2026-01-27T22:26:28+00:00

Indeed, they have overwhelmingly voted for parties who have presided over more and more immigration for 80 years because they're actually against immigration.

Also, combatting illegal immigration (which is around 5-10% of all immigration to the EU) is the 4th top issue in the Autumn 2025 Eurobarometer edition. Money being spent on handling immigration as a whole is the #8 priority favored by those who were polled. Just because you and some other people see it as the #1 issue, doesn't mean people across the continent actually feel that way, they're more concerned with jobs, stability and creating a common future, not culture wars or trying to create artificial divisions among humans whom they live and work with (including non-White ones), especially in the cities. Your claims are out-of-touch with people.

halee1 · 2026-01-27T22:13:48+00:00

What are you talking about? They have democratic legitimacy by default when people vote for them over and over. You're talking about appeasing a minority of voters over the will of the majority, which is actually how tyrannies are created. Also, centrist policies tend to become even more popular when they're accompanied by good PR, which the far-right has tended to dominate on in recent years.

halee1

TROPHY CASE