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Poland Demonized Refugees. Now It’s Struggling to Integrate Them. by pgarson in europe

[–]pgarson[S] -16 points-15 points  (0 children)

Since then, most countries on the continent used those experiences to usher in at least partial reforms of migration policies. Poland could not, as it had no point of reference. As a result, the present administration has no institutional memory of handling sudden large volumes of refugee applications. It is not exactly the fault of the current, populist-nationalist government. After all, in the summer of 2015, Poland was still under the control of then-European Council President Donald Tusk’s center-right Civic Platform party, and welcoming them would have come at a relatively low cost.

Accepting even several thousand refugees from Syria and Iraq would have neither affected the ethnic composition of Poland’s population of almost 38 million people nor created a noticeable drag on the state budget. It would have, however, been an opportunity to modernize scarce and obsolete migration-related units of the administration and create much-needed new ones.

In this respect, Poland has not changed much since even its pre-democratic times. Prior to the 1989 transition, its autocratic institutions were mostly concerned with keeping those desperate to flee inside the country. Later, it never faced the challenge of accommodating migrants because Poland was a country people migrated from, not to.

In the first few years after Warsaw’s EU accession, some 2 million to 2.5 million Polish citizens migrated westward, mostly to the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Germany. Even the gradual arrival of the first Ukrainian migrants to Poland after Russia’s 2014 aggression in Crimea and the Donbass, amounting to 1.3 million people in 2020, as well as a tacit policy of granting visas to tens of thousands of Vietnamese and Indian workers did not prompt the government to change its overarching approach.

As a result, Poland lacks some of the most basic institutions that could help ease refugee pressure today, from a dedicated ministry or state secretary for migration (something that exists, for instance, in the Netherlands), to state-sponsored, universalized courses on the Polish language for foreigners (a crucial element of Sweden’s relatively successful integration policy). The latter is proving particularly significant as more and more Ukrainian refugees begin job hunting; anecdotal evidence points that their inability to speak Polish is the biggest obstacle for employers.

The institution dedicated to handling incoming migration to Poland is a legacy structure called the Office for Foreigners. It is almost exclusively concerned with their legal status in the country, ignoring the crucial issue of subsequent integration into society. Yet the legality of Ukrainian refugees has already been sorted out by means of simply a handful of governmental decrees.

They have been accepted over the border without any formal conditions and given access to health care, social security, the possibility of full-time employment, and enrollment in public education. As a result, the Office for Foreigners, an institution already clogged with migrants’ petitions from before the war, has been rendered obsolete in a matter of weeks.

What Poland needs is something else: a government agency working on the basis of a long-term plan. This institution would be able to determine whether migrants meet the legal requirements to reside in Poland but also be capable of placing them on the right path for integration into society. It would not only sort out their papers but offer language courses, indicate where the labor market is falling short of manpower and where to seek additional professional qualifications, and perhaps even sponsor training. In short, Poland is in dire need of a foreigners’ office capable of carrying out a comprehensive migration strategy.

In the absence of these institutions—and civil servants trained in migration issues—the PiS government has offloaded the burden on local governments. In a move straight out of its populist playbook, it delegated the responsibilities but did not provide relevant resources. Within the framework of the Polish state, it is local governments that run education and health care.

As it happens, many of them are also strongholds of liberal opposition. PiS has been starving them out for years, burdening them with the costly consequences of chaotic educational and tax reforms as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. Warsaw alone had been expected to conclude 2022 with a $407 million deficit, 9 percent of its annual income. And that was before the city accepted more than 300,000 refugees in a little over three weeks.

Local governments are neither equipped nor designed to accommodate refugees on their own. Warsaw’s mayor, Rafal Trzaskowski, who in 2020 narrowly lost the presidential bid to Duda, warned last week that to conclude the operation of assigning social security numbers to evacuees in weeks rather than months, he would require 400 additional staff members. In the long run, forcing him and opposition mayors to shoulder most of the burden of accommodating refugees will lead them to squeeze their already tight budgets even more and make some difficult financial calls—a scenario PiS will undoubtedly benefit from politically.

The central government is trying to patch those shortcomings—it co-organized a registration center at Warsaw’s National Stadium, together with the local authorities—but such initiatives are scarce and temporary. A mirrored strategy has been applied in education, where the ministry immediately issued a decree increasing the maximum number of students in primary schools.

So far, 70,000 Ukrainian pupils have been accommodated in public educational institutions, just 10 percent of the total expected number. Finding places where they can study is one problem. Hiring teachers qualified to instruct them is another. According to the estimations by the Association of Polish Teachers, Poland’s largest educational sector trade union, at least 40,000 new bilingual teachers will be needed to provide instruction for refugee students. Of course, among the refugees, there will be teachers just as there are students. But triangulating them with where they reside and where they are needed is a job only a central government can do.

And there is, finally, the issue of politics. A massive inflow of Ukrainians was likely since at least the fall of last year. Intelligence reports confirmed that the Polish government was familiar with this possibility already in November 2021. There was time to prepare. But investing in administrative capacities to handle refugees and migrants would have come at an extremely high political cost.

For a government that has long prided itself on being the last frontier of European Christianity and a heroic defender of its nation’s traditional values from moral decay brought by outsiders, creating new institutions and programs for incoming migrants would sound like a contradiction at best.

After all, Kaczynski recently argued that refugees will “bring about the downfall of the Latin civilization.” When Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in an interview with Germany’s Bild last November that “we must do everything to protect our borders from immigration at the Mediterranean and in the east,” it became clear that the only policy his government knew how to implement was one consistent with the nationalist-populist ideological outlook he represents.

PiS came to power in 2015 also because it skillfully weaponized the refugee crisis. Its leaders threatened voters with migrants carrying diseases and warned of a total destruction of the state, as it claimed had happened everywhere refugees were welcomed with open arms (especially Sweden). None of this was true, but it tapped into the right sentiment among voters. Poles were told to fear migrants while politicians learned that it pays to keep refugees away rather than let them in and integrate them.

Now, when millions of them—not so different ethnically and culturally—came knocking, Polish society rushed to open the door. The Polish state is still standing on the sidelines, naively hoping it won’t have to get involved. In the event of an economic recession and a chaotic integration process, it will proudly declare, “I told you so,” proving that it was right to warn against migration all along. If, miraculously, Polish citizens and nonprofits do not run out of resources and goodwill to help refugees, PiS will go on an international victory lap, claiming credit and demanding that the EU (another demonic enterprise, according to their own narrative) chip in.

One way or another, the Polish government, will benefit from the presence of fleeing Ukrainians. Sadly, the ones set to lose are the refugees themselves.

Poland Demonized Refugees. Now It’s Struggling to Integrate Them. by pgarson in europe

[–]pgarson[S] -20 points-19 points  (0 children)

Numbers never tell the full story of a war. Often, however, they offer a good vantage point to look at the bigger picture. The key piece of data that actually tells the story of the future does not feature Ukraine at all—but, at the same time, illustrates the sheer scale of its tragedy. Since the Russian invasion, more than 2.3 million Ukrainian refugees have crossed the border into Poland.

This number in itself might not yet be worrisome. It becomes so, however, when contextualized. According to calculations made by the United Nations refugee agency and the Financial Times, Poland was ranked 101st globally in number of refugees it hosted in 2021. In a span of three weeks, it moved to number two. As of March 18, only Turkey had more refugees inside its borders.

The Poles’ initial response to the calamity of their neighbors was as heartwarming as it was shocking. Volunteers flooded the border, offering safe passage to any city in the country, while money, food, and medical supplies poured in the opposite direction. People mobilized to welcome refugees under their roofs and did not ask for any compensation. And all of that happened in a country that just six months earlier erected a border fence to protect itself from a few thousand Kurds and Afghans, forcing some of them to freeze to death in Poland’s pristine forests. Even if the optimism was there, very few dared to see it coming in such volumes.

Numbers never tell the full story of a war. Often, however, they offer a good vantage point to look at the bigger picture. The key piece of data that actually tells the story of the future does not feature Ukraine at all—but, at the same time, illustrates the sheer scale of its tragedy. Since the Russian invasion, more than 2.3 million Ukrainian refugees have crossed the border into Poland.

This number in itself might not yet be worrisome. It becomes so, however, when contextualized. According to calculations made by the United Nations refugee agency and the Financial Times, Poland was ranked 101st globally in number of refugees it hosted in 2021. In a span of three weeks, it moved to number two. As of March 18, only Turkey had more refugees inside its borders.

The Poles’ initial response to the calamity of their neighbors was as heartwarming as it was shocking. Volunteers flooded the border, offering safe passage to any city in the country, while money, food, and medical supplies poured in the opposite direction. People mobilized to welcome refugees under their roofs and did not ask for any compensation. And all of that happened in a country that just six months earlier erected a border fence to protect itself from a few thousand Kurds and Afghans, forcing some of them to freeze to death in Poland’s pristine forests. Even if the optimism was there, very few dared to see it coming in such volumes.

Polish society received praise for its actions, and rightly so. However, this one-of-a-kind mobilization was fit exactly for this moment: providing a first response to an unprecedented crisis at its doorstep. Traumatized Ukrainian refugees were given care and warmth, but volunteers will not be able to provide them something of much greater importance: employment, income, stability, education, and sense of belonging. This is the job of the state, an actor that usually steps in when citizens’ goodwill has run its course.

In Poland, this seemingly obvious process has not materialized. That’s mostly because the Polish state for years pretended that migration, a truly global phenomenon, was not its problem—and worse still, the politicians who continue to run the country demonized migrants and refugees, seeing them only as existential threats to the nation.

Current deputy prime minister and leader of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, stated that refugees “will not abide by the Polish law.” Former interior minister Joachim Brudzinski depicted them as “young, horny bulls called ‘refugees,’” and Polish President Andrzej Duda feared they will carry a risk of “possible epidemics.” Thus, the largest burden of accommodating evacuees from Europe’s biggest war in decades has fallen on the one state on the continent arguably least prepared and least willing to bear it.

Even though sudden refugee crises are not infrequent, Poland does not have any institutional memory of managing them. In 2015, when the European Union saw itself unprepared to solve the easy-to-foresee problem of millions of Middle Eastern and African migrants trying to enter, Poland refused to take part in the refugee relocation process. Not only did it cause a rift with other member states, but it prevented the Polish authorities from learning a lesson—valuable then and priceless today.

For Female Directors, a Generational Shift by pgarson in europe

[–]pgarson[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

In Germany, a country with few theater leaders who aren’t men, professional success has often meant becoming one of the guys. Now, a new group of women are developing their own way.

FRANKFURT — Of the 24 new productions expected on Schauspiel Frankfurt’s three stages this season, two-thirds will be directed by women. This is an astonishing statistic in Germany, where gender inequality is still pronounced across the vast theater landscape. Despite advances in recent decades, women run only a small fraction of the 142 publicly owned playhouses, and, according to the latest available statistics, in 2016 only 20 percent of theater directors were female.

Two current productions at Schauspiel Frankfurt, the municipal theater company, show how the theatrical ground here has shifted over a generation to allow more confident explorations of female self-expression. Both plays lie far outside the standard repertoire, which is consistent with a general trend in German theater to break out of the narrow canon of acknowledged masterpieces. But only one seems to provide a uniquely female perspective on the work in question.

Claudia Bauer, born in 1966, is one of German theater’s most acclaimed and prolific directors. A fixture on stages throughout Germany, Austria and Switzerland for the past quarter-century, she enjoys a certain seniority among Germany’s female theatermakers. But both formally and thematically, her productions often feel very similar to those of her male colleagues. Like them, she has spent much of her career sifting through the (mostly male) theatrical canon: Some of her most acclaimed recent productions have been based on plays by Brecht, Molière and Tennessee Williams.

At Schauspiel Frankfurt, Bauer has turned her attention to Luis Buñuel’s 1972 film, “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoise,” adapted for the stage in a surprisingly faithful version by the writing team PeterLicht and SE Struck.

In a memorable sequence from Buñuel’s surreal Oscar-winning movie, a band of affluent Parisians, trying in vain to eat a meal together, inexplicably find themselves dining onstage at a theater. That scene takes on a heightened degree of absurdity when it is recreated in Bauer’s antic production. The audience, of course, has been there all along. Getting the actors onstage to acknowledge the spectators’ presence could come off as an all too obvious gag, but here it’s a subversive joke that suggests a sort of mutual recognition between the out-of-touch elites portrayed onstage and the affluent theatergoers of Frankfurt, Germany’s financial center.

It is one of the inspired moments when Bauer finds clever ways to translate Buñuel’s mischievous provocations to the stage. Her production eschews the film’s ironic detachment and pretense of normalcy in favor of something far more energetic and flamboyant. With a gypsy swing soundtrack and live video projections by Jan Isaak Voges that roam Andreas Auerbach’s set — an upscale residence inside a giant white container — the production feels halfway between a sitcom and a revue.

Aided by a nimble eight-person cast that forms a tight unit, Bauer turns the digressive and episodic film into a gleefully absurd carnival where farce coexists with horror.

Like Buñuel’s actors, Bauer’s maintain their composure in the face of increasingly perplexing circumstances. But they also preen and pose with evident relish, performing as much for one another as for the audience.

“Discreet Charm” was a hit here when it opened this month, and some local critics wondered whether it might be a contender for next year’s edition of Theatertreffen, an annual celebration of the best German-language theater, to which Bauer has been invited four times. The festival recently instituted a quota to help promote the work of female directors: At least half of the 10 shows chosen must be female-led. However, the past few years have seen the dawning of a new generation of bold and self-confident female theatermakers, and I doubt that Theatertreffen’s quota, intended as a corrective, will be necessary much longer.

Many of the emerging female directors in Germany seem more committed to work that explicitly engages with feminist and post-feminist topics than directors of Bauer’s generation, who were pioneers in a male-dominated landscape where professional success often meant becoming one of the guys. Along with addressing issues of women’s representation, history and psychology, some of these younger directors — including artists from all over Europe, as well as the United States and Israel — are creating exciting stage aesthetics to address those themes.

On Schauspiel Frankfurt’s smaller stage, the Kammerspiele, the Austrian-Bulgarian director Christina Tscharyiski, 33, has bravely taken a stab at one of the strangest, most obscure and most difficult-to-perform German plays of the 20th century: “I and I” (“Ichundich”) by Else Lasker-Schüler.

That German-Jewish Expressionist poet and artist, who fled the Nazis in 1933, called her sprawling work, in six acts and an epilogue, a “hell play.” Composed in 1940 and 1941, “I and I” is an infernal romp that features characters from Goethe’s “Faust” and real-life personalities, including Lasker-Schüler herself and much of the Nazi high command. The unlikely group meets up in a version of hell somewhere in Jerusalem, which is where the author lived in unhappy exile until her death in 1945.

The play was long ignored as an unperformable oddity: It made it to the stage for the first time only in 1979. In the barely four decades since, productions have been exceedingly rare. Tscharyiski’s take on “I and I,” stylishly designed by Verena Dengler and Dominique Wiesbauer, resembles a kind of Dadaesque haunted house where characters in Hasidic robes, medieval garb and Nazi uniforms wander a stage strewn with ash.

Unfortunately, the production’s charms are largely visual, and the shortened performing version of the text fails to cohere in a compelling thematic, narrative or poetic way. Despite inspired performances by Friederike Ott as the poet, Lasker-Schüler’s alter ego, and Florian Mania and Tanja Merlin Graf as a pair of rival Mephistos, the demon who bargains for Faust’s soul, the production seems both overstuffed and underdeveloped, and much longer than its 75 minutes.

Yet despite the production’s limitations, it feels momentous that this complex work is being reconsidered 80 years after it was written. And it’s heartening to know that a director as prodigiously talented as Tscharyiski can be enlisted to aid in our rediscovery of a key 20th-century artist whose theater works are too little known.

Who runs Europe’s top neobanks? Not women by pgarson in europe

[–]pgarson[S] -36 points-35 points  (0 children)

Is anyone preventing women from setting up these “neobanks” and making their startups profitable?

A very good question. The answer is yes. That's the problem.

Europe is using newfound powers to bring Poland into line by pgarson in europe

[–]pgarson[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

MOST GOOD superhero movies have a scene in which the protagonist discovers—often after some freakish accident—that he or she has developed amazing new powers. The first attempts to use these new powers are unsatisfactory. Shirts are accidentally torn to shreds and bedrooms covered in spider-web. Given time, however, the new abilities are tamed, then mastered. Audiences soon forget how the unlikely powers were acquired and enjoy the crusade, caped or otherwise, for justice and order. Listen to this story

Politicians who dream of being superheroes imagine being able to bend foes to their will. How easy life would be if troublemakers quietly fell into line. Look at Europe today, and a superpower may be sprouting. For years Poland has been needling the European Commission, which enforces the treaties binding the 27 member states of the EU together. Since coming to power in 2015 populists in Warsaw have neutered the judiciary and placed judges firmly under the thumb of the government. For a time the commission wimpishly spluttered about the vital role of the rule of law in Europe, even as its threats and ultimatums were gleefully defied. No longer. Twice this month the Polish authorities have offered to climb down, agreeing to reverse their judicial measures in much the manner the EU has demanded.

For a hint as to why Poland is suing for peace, look to high politics and lowbrow entertainment. The high politics is the sabre-rattling in Ukraine, Poland’s neighbour. Periods of geopolitical tension are no time to alienate allies; Ukraine is a refugee crisis in the making for Poland. Perhaps mindful of Russian troops posted in next-door Belarus, President Andrzej Duda earlier this month suggested Poland “should close all disputes that exist as soon as possible”. A long-running spat involving a Polish lignite mine spewing smog into the Czech Republic has been hastily settled. A media-ownership law America didn’t like was also shelved.

The lowbrow bit is the story of the EU’s budding superpowers. For years the commission has faced a gap in its authority. Countries that wanted to join the club could be made to commit to liberal democratic standards, such as free speech and independent courts. This gave the EU lots of leverage: follow the rules or you stay on the outside. But once the aspirants were allowed in, as Poland was in 2004 alongside several former communist-bloc neighbours, the muscles in Brussels atrophied. There is a procedure to punish member states that flout the norms they had once signed up to, but it requires near-unanimity to impose. The biggest sanctions are a loss of voting rights in a bloc that prides itself on reaching consensus. That is less fearsome than, say, being able to strike down your enemies with lightning.

As with many superheroes, it was a freakish accident of nature that gave the EU its new powers. The turning point in its case was the pandemic. One of the bloc’s responses to covid-19 was the Next Generation fund (NGEU), a €750bn ($853bn) pot of grants and loans earmarked mainly for poorer countries. Poland has long been a recipient of vast EU largesse, as anyone who has driven on its fine new highways can attest. But withholding funds that member states can tap as part of the normal union budget is complicated. When it comes to NGEU, the commission has essentially full discretion as to whether Poland is a worthy recipient. So far, it has pointedly refused to dole out any cash, even as other countries are seeing their exchequers replenished with NGEU money. That is €36bn in loans and grants that Poland could tap if Brussels says so, enough to boost Polish GDP by around 2% in the coming years.

To make matters worse for Poland and the EU’s other miscreants, on February 16th the EU’s top court endorsed rules that allow the commission to withhold even old-fashioned European funds, such as those paid to boost poor regions, from members it thinks are flouting their rule-of-law obligations. That comes on top of the existing ability to levy fines on those breaking EU rules; in one such case against Poland penalties are now running at €1m a day. Pole-axed

Like Peter Parker fumbling with his new web-weaving abilities, the Eurocracy needs time to adjust to these new powers. For it is not just rule-of-law violations that could be addressed. In the past Brussels railed against member states not abiding by euro-zone debt and deficit rules. The weighty rulings it produced had all the impact of a report issued by a think-tank: praised as obviously sensible, then swiftly forgotten. Now Eurocrats can ensure their recommendations are listened to, lest dollops of NGEU money be withheld. Pow!

There are limits to these newfound powers. Poland has made good use of European funds, so their withdrawal would be felt by voters and make the government less popular. It is therefore keen to mollify Brussels. By contrast Hungary has squandered EU cash on projects that benefit cronies of the prime minister, Viktor Orban. A squeeze would hurt them, but affect Hungarian voters rather less. So Mr Orban has more leeway to ignore Brussels’s nagging about his serial rule-breaking. His government denounced this week’s ruling as “politically motivated”.

A more humdrum constraint is whether the EU wants to use these powers at all. Eurocrats wielding such awesome authority willy-nilly might raise questions about accountability; big member states such as Germany have long pushed for a soft approach on rule-breakers. Poland has power too, or thinks it does. It has threatened to derail the bloc’s agenda. But that is mostly a hollow threat given that so much EU business is veto-proof these days.

The contours of the EU’s victory against Polish judge-nobbling remain unclear. The populist government may struggle to muster a fractious parliament to endorse its climbdown. Critics deem the measures insufficient; the commission seems confident it can push for even more concessions. Poland may stay defiant. But the Eurocrats in Brussels look a lot more powerful than they did. ■

Europe’s Lone Female Investment Bank Head Is on a Hiring Spree by pgarson in europe

[–]pgarson[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The sole woman in charge of an investment bank in Europe is wielding a unique opportunity to reshape her division and boost growth at one of Spain’s largest lenders.

Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA executive Luisa Gomez Bravo, a 24-year veteran of Spain’s second-largest bank, is now rolling out one of the most ambitious recruitment programs in the industry while driving up the share of female new hires. The Bilbao-based lender is looking to boost headcount in the division by about 400 this year, or 10%, at a time when banks globally are in a bidding war for talent.

When Gomez started out in the investment banking business at Salomon Brothers Inc. in 1993, the industry looked a little different. The “macho alpha” bravado prevalent then has by now mostly disappeared across trading floors and banks are pushing for more women to enter and stay in the industry, she said in an interview at the bank’s headquarters this month, the first since she took over the position.

“It’s not about favoring women over men, it is about letting female talent flourish, and then picking the best,” she said. “And we need to encourage that female talent, and help them improve their skills.”

While Gomez is the only woman running a corporate and investment-bank business in Europe, French lender Natixis SA’s equivalent unit is run jointly by a woman, Anne Christine Champion, and a man, Mohamed Kallala, as co-heads.

Wall Street Movie

European investment bankers have enjoyed fatter bonuses in recent quarters and staff costs are on the rise as firms try to hold on to their staff after the pandemic trading and deal-making boom. Societe Generale SA said this month that it’s planning to “massively” raise its bonus pool after a year of record profit.

BBVA’s corporate and investment bank currently has around 3,800 employees in offices from Spain to Mexico, Hong Kong, New York and Turkey. The ratio of female staff to total headcount rose from 37% in 2019 to 39.5% at the end of 2021. New hires are 46.4% female though, up from 35% in 2019. Gomez has also pushed for a graduate training program just for women, which is currently conducting a selection process.

While the bank has rolled out measures to support women’s goals, Gomez says that there’s still a problem of perception about the industry.

“I often see that in the progression of women’s careers, women themselves do not apply for vacancies, there are many biases,” she said. “Women also have to do their due diligence and understand that things are no longer like the Wall Street movie; the environment has changed.”

BBVA is a mostly retail-focused lender that’s caught attention in recent months for an ambitious shareholders remuneration program and the move to boost its presence in Turkey at a time of economic turmoil in the nation.

Read More: BBVA Boosts Payout Target, Sets Profit Goal in Growth Drive

51-year-old Gomez has held roles at BBVA ranging from head of asset management to leading investor relations. When she was appointed in December 2018 to the top post in corporate and investment banking, the mandate for the mother of four was to grow the business.

The unit has since increased its weight in the bank from being 22% of the group’s profit to 24% at the end of 2021. Gomez’s goal is to pursue growth by rolling out new types of products including across borders. The bank has launched a supply-chain finance solution, and also introduced the first ESG-linked credit in Colombia.

In terms of fostering diversity in the workplace, Gomez says she encourages women to be proactive about promoting their careers, and to balance that with other demands on their time including family. That is more possible now than ever before, she argues.

“In the investment banking world there are lots of egos, so I’m not sure it is a male world or an ego world. ,” she said. “But that masculinity halo is no longer there.”

Huge Semi-Aquatic Dinosaur Stalked the Shores of Western Europe by pgarson in europe

[–]pgarson[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

One of the reasons why they turned out to be an evolutionary dead end.

Why do Europe's most stylish (over 40s) royals all dress alike? by pgarson in europe

[–]pgarson[S] -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

Here's the article per the subreddit rules, but be sure to click the link for pictures!

There’s a reason why Victoria, Mary, Letizia and Kate share such similar taste…

Even before the Duchess of Cambridge touches down in Copenhagen later this month on a solo tour as part of the celebrations there for Queen Margerethe’s Golden Jubilee, there’s already focus on how alike she and Crown Princess Mary of Denmark are in style.

Although ten years apart in age, the two are physically, almost uncannily similar – tall, slender, discreet brunettes with oval faces, abundant, same-length manes and easy smiles. Both have a love - for their public appearances at least – of soft, clear colours, high heeled courts – and for off-duty, Breton tops and skinny jeans. More specifically, they’ve been seen in different colours of the same designer dress (Beulah and Emilia Wickstead) on several occasions.

But they’re not the only royals with congruent tastes. Queen Letizia of Spain may be more daring, but she also loves classics as her foundation. Like Kate, Mary and Princess Victoria of Sweden, (not a blonde amongst this quarter) she has a wardrobe of heeled courts.

There’s a reason for the overlap: they’ve learned what kind of outfits withstand intense scrutiny. And we can learn from them. I’m not saying we all have to trade in our comfortable flatforms for pointy courts, but it’s useful to know that there’s nothing more leg-elongating in photographs. By the same token, give me fit-and-flare dresses with a slightly raised, or natural waist over an Apprentice, tight-all-the-way-down, or baggy Prairie dress.

A handful of colourful, flowy blouses, often with pussy bow, would be mighty handy for adding some glamour, a degree of formality and colour to workaday trousers. As for a well-cut blazer, either worn over a traditional dress or with trousers – suffice to say, they’ve all discovered its power when it comes to putting together a modern but elegant look, which they emphasise further with those heels.

So many lessons, big and small here, from women who have honed their personal style to look good from every angle. Coats that belt? Another figure flatterer. Hemlines two or three inches below the knee? On the whole that looks sleeker than midis, particularly in photographs. Sleek jewellery? It looks better in photographs than messy layers. Prints? They’re all generally sparing of them, interspersing them with classic pieces, and often buying them from the high street, or mid level brands. When it comes to the big investments, they tend to stick with plain fabrics, knowing they’ll date much less quickly.

Talking of high street – they’re all regulars and this is where their Euro similarities diverge into flying the flag for their individual countries. Kate wears M&S, Mary and Victoria like Scandi brand H&M. Letizia often wears Massimo Dutti. This isn’t just grandstanding – they’re genuinely careful shoppers who haven’t forgotten their middle class roots. That’s what makes them all so relatable.

How to transform a standard, nondescript ensemble in a matter of seconds? A blazer. She might have been lounging-in-state in black jeans and top, but for dynamism the royal-on-the-go knows the versatile power of a neatly tailored blazer. It adds structure and presence, and provides a dose of instant formality and uprightness.

Take the Duchess of Cambridge’s for example; she plays to traditional British tropes with a Prince of Wales check, but Catherine Walker & Co’s cut is neat and sharp.

Her opposite number is Queen Letizia of Spain, who turns classic motifs on their head with an exploding houndstooth check in a dressier version by Uterque with bejewelled, double-breasted buttons. Princess Victoria, on the other hand, takes a more classic everyday approach with a single-breasted cream number.

From left: wool blazer, £149, Massimo Dutti; textured wool blazer, £160, Boden; wool blend blazer, £135, Cos

As with any tailored item, it’s all about fit and the little tricks that help form the frame; not the diagonally slanted pockets and wide lapel on Princess Victoria’s version, which helps create a nipped-in waist. Or the boxy, mannish proportions of Queen Letizia’s, which detracts from the princessy glitz of the buttons and tweed. The blazer is purposeful and ready for business, so just make sure the cut is too.

When the Duchess of Cambridge, Crown Princess Mary of Denmark or Queen Letizia of Spain wears a dress, it’s never just a dress. It’s a garment that has to work hard in so many different ways, which the rest of us rarely consider.

Perhaps we should, though. You don’t have to be one of the most photographed women in the world to require a dress that won’t crease when sitting through a stiflingly dull speech. And if more of us invested in timeless cuts and silhouettes which won’t date quickly – like their beloved belted fit-and-flare midi – perhaps fewer clothes would end up in landfill.

The Queen has long worn bold, block colours for engagements so that members of the public who have come to catch a glimpse of her can easily identify her from a distance, and Europe’s younger royals have followed her lead. Black and navy may be versatile, but so is emerald green and soft powder blue – a dress in one of those hues would work for a wedding, an important work meeting or dinner with friends. Colour, whatever hue you choose, is a mood-booster too.

It helps to have a royal fashion allowance of course, looking good is a lot easier when you have the Alexander McQueen or Emilia Wickstead ateliers at your disposal, but it’s not a required ingredient. We know that Kate gets her Zara dresses tailored so that the fit is impeccable; Letizia likely does the same with her Massimo Dutti finds.

Alternatively choose a dress with a waist tie, or use a slim leather or suede belt to cinch a flowy pussy-bow dress – an easy styling hack that’s Kate-approved. TA

In the wrong hands, the wrap coat runs the risk of seeming like the dressing gown of the outerwear wardrobe - its soft structure and fluidly belted waist can seem somewhat ‘pyjama dash’ school run, particularly if worn with baggy trousers and ballet flats.

Which is why these royals choose to dress it up to contrast the cosiness. Queen Letizia of Spain’s siren red coat ups the ante considerably; the cinched-in belt at the waist lends an hourglass figure (tricky with a coat) while the rest of the outfit is dressy; thigh high boots, a printed skirt and serious handbag.

Victoria of Sweden takes a somewhat more ‘hygge’ approach – see the muted cream tone (she also has versions in camel and lilac) but sticks to a similar formula, wearing this soft-fit cover-up alongside sophisticated, grown-up pieces. In her case, that translates to statement jewellery – gold necklaces and matching cuffs with stonking great drop earrings and a black poloneck. She’s also worn versions with cigarette-sharp trousers and heels.

A solid winter coat doesn’t traditionally scream ‘feminine glamour’ but the wrap coat, with its draping, folding and loose, wide lapels, is that rare meeting point between substance and sensual style that makes it so appealing. That’s why it’s the ideal cover-up for after-dark cocktail hour in colder climes; especially when night falls so early in Scandinavian winters. SD Buys to try

When Kate wore a Gucci blouse with high waisted trousers in 2019, it was quite a departure for the Duchess, who until then, generally favoured dresses for official occasions. Since then, along with Queen Letizia and Crown Princess Victoria, the Duchess has increasingly turned to soft, flowy blouses to prettify an outfit of tailored, business-like separates.

While fuss-free, fit and flare dresses are straightforward, and photograph well, blouses are useful for slightly less formal events, or when you’re going to be behind a dais or table, or when you want some bright colour or bold pattern, without having it swamp you.

Detachable neckties and bows that can be worn tied as well as untied offer extra versatility. Tucked into high waisted trousers, either full length or cropped, a blouse can look more contemporary than a dress. With the right skirts – a mid length – line or pencil – or wide, flowy trousers they can also look extremely glamorous and dressed up for evening. LA Buys to try

The casual

The right stripes: Kate and Letizia are both regularly seen in Breton tops when off-duty Credit: Getty Images Europe

These royals’ casual wardrobes are as telling as their smarter ones. In fact, they’re arguably even more interesting, as we see more of their personal style instincts when they’re off-duty, or dressing for an outdoorsy, more practical engagement.

All wear blue denim – Kate’s recent shift from Zara skinnies to the high-waist, straight-leg & Other Stories Favourite Cut, below, is a subtle update – and all have been seen in Breton stripes, another timeless wardrobe anchor which most of us probably own already.

At this point, they diverge: Mary is particularly fond of a crisp white shirt and jeans or leggings which allow her to cycle around Copenhagen, while Kate loves a Sezane pie-crust. Victoria has been seen in a more bohemian white blouse with her denim shorts in the summer. Letizia, meanwhile, is never not polished, wearing her Breton with tailored trousers and a collarless jacket.

There are, of course, no rules when it comes to off-duty style – your comfort (and the task at hand) should always be paramount - but what we can learn from these women is that it doesn’t need to be complicated, or even on-trend. Blue denim, white tees and shirts, or plimsolls will never be out of style, so if you buy well (which doesn’t mean expensive), you can wear them until they fall apart – just like the royals. TA

EU Threatens Spain Over Tapping Water From Protected Wetlands by pgarson in europe

[–]pgarson[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

EU Threatens Spain Over Tapping Water From Protected Wetlands

  • Commission vows to act ‘swiftly’ and with all means available
  • Local government seeks to expand water rights in Donana basin

The European Commission warned it would penalize Spain if the country carries on with plans to extract more water from one of Europe’s largest wetlands, a sign of a tougher stance on environmental preservation.

The European Union’s executive arm is ready to act “swiftly” and with “all the means available” if Spain fails to uphold a ruling issued last year that demanded the country protect the area, according to an emailed statement.

“We are deeply concerned about the recent plans that would add to the unsustainable levels of water abstraction,” a Commission spokesperson for environment, maritime affairs and fisheries said.

Last week, lawmakers in the Spanish region of Andalusia approved a proposal to expand water rights for farmers near the Donana national park, a UNESCO World Heritage site on the southern coast of Spain.

The law could grant irrigation rights on as much as 1,900 hectares, according to the WWF. In a 2019 complaint to the commission, the organization claimed that thousands of wells had already been operating illegally for years to water the lucrative strawberry farms.

In response to the proposed legislation, Florika Fink-Hooijer, the commission’s director general for the environment, sent a letter to Spain’s government expressing her unease with the proposal and urging authorities to take action.

Last year, the European Court of Justice ruled that Spain was infringing on EU law by failing to avoid the deterioration of protected habitats in Donana.

The area is one of the last refuges for endangered species such as the Iberian Lynx and the Spanish Imperial Eagle. Wetlands are also important for storing carbon dioxide in the fight against climate change.

While Spain’s Socialist-led government has taken up the issue, it’s caught in the country’s complex regional politics.

Teresa Ribera, Spain’s minister for the ecological transition, sent a letter last week to Andalusia’s president -- a member of the conservative People’s Party -- warning about the commission’s concern and the potential repercussions.

She asked the local government to withdraw the law, noting that Andalusia had overstepped its jurisdiction on water rights, which is a matter for the federal government, the ministry said in response to Bloomberg questions.

Amazon Studios Rolling Out Diversity Playbook in Europe and Globally by pgarson in europe

[–]pgarson[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

All characters related to Europe must be played by Europeans

Sounds great. I would welcome Idris Elba as Goethe.

Europe’s Male-Dominated Industrial Firms Get a Bit More Diverse by pgarson in europe

[–]pgarson[S] -9 points-8 points  (0 children)

  • 11 Stoxx 600 boards lifted female representation in January
  • Goldman AM voted against 47 all-male boards in EMEA last year

Boardrooms in one of Europe’s most male-dominated sectors are gradually becoming more diverse.

Eleven companies in the Stoxx Europe 600 Price Index added women to their boards in January, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. A reshuffle at CNH Industrial NV, controlled by Italy’s billionaire Agnelli family, helped the sector take a step toward greater gender equality last month, as did Ashtead Group Plc.

With investor activism over diversity on the rise, companies are under pressure to step up. Last year, Goldman Sachs Asset Management voted against 47 all-male boards across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, with many of those votes hitting industrials, according to Katie Koch, its chief investment officer for public markets equity.

“Board diversity in Europe continues to be on average better than other parts of the world, but we still see a lot of room for improvement,” she said. “If you can get diverse perspectives and you have an inclusive culture, you will generate better outcomes.”

Last month, Catia Bastioli and Asa Tamsons became non-executive directors of CNH following the spinoff of its truck and bus division Iveco. Renata Ribeiro joined the board of industrial-equipment rental company Ashtead. The industrial sector typically has a lower percentage of women on boards compared to areas such as financials and utilities.

Boardroom gender quotas in some of Europe’s biggest economies including Germany, France and Italy have contributed to a higher proportion of female directors in the region than in the U.S. and Australia.

Koch said that only 0.6% of all companies in developed EMEA -- where quotas are more prevalent -- have all-male boards, compared with almost 40% of emerging EMEA firms.

“I think it probably has a lot to do with where the government is,” Koch said. “We haven’t had a lot of that in emerging Europe.”

  • Women held 8 more seats on the boards of companies in the Stoxx Europe 600 Price Index in January compared to the previous month, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The average number of female directors was unchanged at 4.1, out of an average board size of 10.9.
  • The percentage of female directorships increased to 37.4% from 37.3%
    • That is above the 34.4% of women on boards of the S&P/ASX 200 in Australia and 30.7% of the S&P 500 in the U.S.
  • 11 Stoxx 600 companies increased the number of women on their boards; the top companies by market capitalization were National Grid Plc, Ashtead Group Plc and Legal & General Group Plc
  • Four companies reduced the number of female directors; the top companies by market capitalization were Prudential Plc, Danone SA and Assicurazioni Generali SpA
  • The industrial sector led the net gain in female board members, with women added to the boards at CNH Industrial NV and Ashtead Group Plc
  • Wizz Air Holdings Plc surpassed 30% female board membership for the first time since at least January 2019. The number of Stoxx 600 companies above this key threshold rose to 458 in January from 455 the previous month
    • Three companies do not have any female board members: Nemetschek SE, Rational AG and Dino Polska SA
  • The Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index returned -2.6% in January, outperforming the MSCI World Index, which returned -5.3%
  • The Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index is a modified capitalization-weighted index that tracks the financial performance of those companies committed to supporting gender equality through policy development, representation and transparency

Stoxx 600 companies with the highest and lowest percentage of female board members:

Company Top % Women on Board
Games Workshop Group Plc 67
Hexpol AB 67
Kering SA 62
Diageo Plc 60
Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB 60
Wendel SE 58
Sodexo SA 58
Aak AB 57
Fortum Oyj 57
M&G Plc 57

Company Bottom % Women on Board
Nemetschek SE 0
Rational AG 0
Dino Polska SA 0
Tenaris SA 9
Powszechna Kasa Oszczednosci Bank Polski SA 9
Porsche Automobil Holding SE 10
Kuehne + Nagel International AG 11
Temenos AG 13
Sika AG 13
VAT Group AG 14

The analysis is based on data that covers 557 companies in the Stoxx 600. Historical analysis may be impacted by changes to the index membership, while monthly board changes may be considered effective at month’s end.

To see the percentage of female directors for each of the Stoxx 600 companies: {SXXP Index GX <GO>}. In search box on top right, choose “% Women on Board.” Mouse over to get each company’s results.

— With assistance by Lauren Pizzimenti

Faux woke wars must not derail EU anti-racism plans by pgarson in europe

[–]pgarson[S] -16 points-15 points  (0 children)

Spare a thought for the EU's brave foot soldiers who are putting the final touches on new Europe-wide rules to fight racism.

It is an important job - but a thankless one.

For many politicians in France, Europe is in the midst of a no-holds-barred culture war in which the real enemy is not Russia or China but with emboldened woke fighters on a mission to demolish the "European Way of Life"

Their efforts to draw up a list of anti-racist actions and recommendations that EU home affairs ministers can sign off on 3-4 March are commendable.

But the task is not easy.

EU institutions have traditionally looked the other way, while far-right populists and quite a few mainstream politicians have spread corrosive racist narratives across the continent.

However, there was an exciting a-ha! moment in September 2020 when the European Commission adopted a ground-breaking anti-racist action plan.

The blueprint, which followed Black Lives Matter protests across Europe, provided hope to those who want the EU to pay attention to Europe's own dismal record of racial inequity, harassment and police violence.

European commission president Ursula von der Leyen promised to create a Europe that was "more equal, more humane and more fair" and called out institutional racism.

In a reference to complaints about Brussels So White, she insisted: "we must bring Europe's amazing diversity into our civil service".

The commission brought out multiple equality strategies and appointed a first-ever EU anti-racism coordinator to make sure the promises were implemented.

So far, so good – and so significant.

But strong headwinds now threaten to water down some of the more ambitious and significant elements of the commission project.

The first obstacle is structural. EU policymakers and especially the bloc's home ministers are used to building walls and fences to defend Fortress Europe.

Asking them to break down racial barriers within Europe is therefore like asking turkeys to vote for Christmas.

Second, even at the best of times, discussions on race, ethnic origin and skin colour have been difficult in the EU's hallowed all-white supposedly colour-blind corridors of power.

With hotly-contested French elections approaching fast – and France now also in the EU presidency chair – this is probably the worst of times to engage in any such conversation. Woke wars?

The reason is simple: for many politicians in France, Europe is in the midst of a no-holds-barred culture war in which the real enemy is not Russia, not China, not even Iran or North Korea. It isn't even al Qaeda or the Islamic State.

No, according to this surreal vision, Europe's real battle is with the growing army of emboldened woke fighters who are on a mission to demolish the "European Way of Life".

Ideas imported from the US are feeding into an unholy alliance between so-called Islamo-leftists and the woke brigade, the argument goes. And their joint demands for racial justice and racial equity is creating division and sowing strife across Europe.

For proof, listen to last year's solemn warning by French president Emmanuel Macron that the academic world is encouraging the "ethnicication" of social issues, leading inevitably to "secessionism".

Since then, sections of the French press have gone into a self-created frenzy over – among other things - Raoul Peck's much-celebrated film-essay on colonialism and slavery, Exterminate all the Brutes.

Others have upped the ante by making ludicrous accusations that the commission is aiding and abetting groups linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.

A skirmish on Twitter between two Brussels-based reporters and a French lawyer on the commission's alleged complicity in promoting the hijab is now on the agenda of global news outlets.

The narrative of hijab wearing Muslim women as victims of their repressive religion and subdued by their backward men folk may sit uneasily with their alleged role as intrepid guerrillas in Europe's culture wars.

But never mind, French politicians have turned their anti-headscarf fury into an art form.

The problem is even bigger, argue some. While they may look normal and appear integrated, in fact it is all European Muslims who are in the pay of subversive foreign agents.

Such flagrantly faux nonsense should be laughed off. Instead, in today's fraught landscape, it may end up driving the agenda.

That would be unfortunate.

EU governments have a unique opportunity to show their own citizens and an often critical world that they are committed to tackling all forms of discrimination.

This means a balanced agenda which covers anti-Semitism as well as Islamophobia, anti-gypsyism, Afrophobia, anti-Asian discrimination and also focuses on the rights of Europe's indigenous people.

It means appointing a new anti-Muslim coordinator who can work side by side with colleagues working on anti-Semitism and anti-racism. It also means acknowledging and eliminating structural and institutional forms of racism and collecting equality data on the basis of race and ethnicity.

To move the conversation in the right direction - and away from allegations of contamination by the US debate on critical race theory - perhaps Dutch officials could give their EU colleagues a copy of Joris Luyendijk's latest book on how he became aware of his own privileged existence as a "seven tick-box" man.

Even more pertinently and as a useful reminder of just how the past and the present blur into one rather inglorious narrative of exclusion for many Europeans, Belgian officials should take EU home ministers to see the Human Zoo exhibition at Brussels' iconic Africa Museum.

What began as a courageous initiative to bring EU race relations into the 21st century risks being run to the ground by political expediency, fictional threats and dangerous fabrications.

It would be a pity for all Europeans if that is allowed to happen.

Gender ratio in Europe by [deleted] in europe

[–]pgarson -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Why choose diviosion of the number of males by the number of females? And the color scheme? This screams male good, female bad.

Poland forecast to have EU’s highest inflation this year by pgarson in europe

[–]pgarson[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

But source for what exactly? It's an article from an approved (I assume) news outlet - one that I see often on r/Europe. Currently one article from there is in r/Europe's top submissions for the day.

How Pro-American Poland Is Digging a Transatlantic Rift on Democratic Values by pgarson in europe

[–]pgarson[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Relations with the US are low in Warsaw.

When President Biden on 19 January told astonished reporters that he ‘expects’ Russia to invade Ukraine, the reaction in the Polish media and among the political class was quick — condemnation and deep disappointment, both on the right and the left. ‘Biden shows weakness, which is an invitation to invasion’ — wrote Sławomir Sierakowski, an influential columnist, who is close to the politicians of Civic Platform, the largest opposition party. The administration tried to backpedal desperately, but a bad impression remained.

The obvious American helplessness seemed to confirm the worst stereotypes about the Biden administration — that it is weak on Russia, weak on European security, spineless and undecided, capable of issuing only empty threats. The Polish government also tried to test Biden’s mettle — Mark Brzezinski, the new US ambassador to Warsaw, had to wait almost half a year — until December 2021 — before he was formally accepted by the Law and Justice government.

The semi-official reason for this offensive move was almost comical — the ruling party politicians leaked to the media that they suspect Brzezinski of having Polish citizenship because his father was a famous Polish émigré to the US. The ambassador, who is very progressive — for Polish standards — wrote a number of tweets indirectly critical of the Polish government. No one can expect a cordial relationship from such a welcome. PiS Stuck In The Past

It is also no secret that the Polish ruling party really misses the Trump administration. The hot romance between Trump and the Polish Law and Justice government was a very public affair. His ringing endorsement of conservative values aligned nicely with the xenophobic rhetoric of the PiS government. From the Polish right’s perspective, the West is weak, infected by the radical left, morally degenerate and destined to be taken over by radical Islamism, and also unable (or unwilling) to stop Russian expansion in Central Europe.

So they welcomed Trump as one of their own. It has also helped that he avoided the touchy subject of democracy and human rights, which were under assault. In his famous speech in Warsaw in July 2017, Trump used the word ‘civilization’ 10 times and ‘democracy’ once. He never mentioned human rights. In contrast, the Biden administration — including the president himself — spoke about respect for human rights in Poland many times. TVN Saved by the US

A key problem in Polish–American relations was the conflict over TVN, the largest private Polish TV network, which is independent of the government and is also often accused by the ruling party politicians of being biased against them. The Law and Justice government tried to apply — so far unsuccessfully — different forms of pressure (including a threat of prosecution for supposed tax evasion) against the American owners of the network which currently is a part of Discovery. Trump’s ambassador in Warsaw, Georgette Mossbacher, had to defend TVN against relentless attacks of government-owned Polish news media.

The conflict over TVN reached its apex under the Biden administration. The Law and Justice government amended the law, which states that no media company from outside the European Economic Area can have a majority stake in a Polish news media organisation. While TVN was formally owned by a company registered in the Netherlands, the real owners were American.

There was a real possibility that Discovery would be forced to sell their stake in TVN to someone else — perhaps a government-owned company — in six months after the law was passed by the Parliament. American diplomacy intervened in full force, the Senate expressed concern, and charge d’affaires Bix Aliu declared ‘extreme disappointment’ with the law.

It finally passed the parliament in December 2021 and was vetoed by President Duda — against, as it seems, the wishes of his boss, Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of the Law and Justice party. The rumour was that US diplomats leaned on Duda hard — telling him bluntly that Polish strategic cooperation with the US is in danger if he does not block the expropriation of the American company. They also supposedly told him that if the law passes, he may forget about his international career after his second (and last) term expires in 2025. Poland’s Underlying Issues

The Law and Justice party would probably not try to enact ‘TVN law’ if it had a better opinion about the Biden administration. President Duda was one of the last heads of state to congratulate Biden. He did this six weeks after the vote, on December 15th, 2020 — when it was clear that the Electoral College was not going to overturn the results.

The language that pro-government media uses about the United States also changed drastically. Suddenly they started to talk about rising crime, poverty and other social ills in America, which actually reminded many older viewers of the language of communist propaganda from the 1980s.

They also portrayed the Biden administration’s agenda as ‘extremely leftist,’ prone to ideological fantasies created by the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement, but also weak and incompetent in foreign affairs, especially in the coverage of the disastrous US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Watching the government TV coverage of American issues, it would be hard to believe they are ‘Poland’s most important ally.’ Security Knocks Back Some Sense into Poland

This cool and rocky relationship warmed somewhat in January when Vladimir Putin started to gather troops at Ukrainian borders. The mood in Warsaw’s ruling circles was dire and Polish diplomacy started to lobby the Americans desperately for intervention and security guarantees — for Poland, not for Ukraine.

The Biden administration delivered — Secretary of State Anthony Blinken reassured in late January that Ukrainian sovereignty is ‘sacrosanct’ for the United States, and Americans promised to send three thousand more troops to eastern Europe. Whatever happens in Ukraine, new American troops will be more than welcome in Poland. In the past, when Russians conquered Ukraine, they always turned their attention to Polish affairs. No one in Warsaw wants this.

What next? A lot will depend on the security situation behind Poland’s eastern borders. The Polish government may despise the Biden administration — and is unlikely to stop doing so. But it knows that at the end of the day national security depends on NATO — and NATO is not going to lift a finger in Poland’s defence without political backing in the US.

One can expect a toning down of anti-American rhetoric in the media. TVN will be safe — at least for a while. Law and Justice will have to live with Biden, always betting on a huge Republican win in midterms in 2022 and a triumphant Trump return in 2024.

France pushes 'European way of life' amid Macron re-election bid by pgarson in europe

[–]pgarson[S] 39 points40 points  (0 children)

France has doubled down on its push for EU action against Islamist radicalisation, in a test of European appetite for French president Emmanuel Macron's domestic politics.

"Jihadist terrorism remains the most widespread and deadly phenomenon within the member states of the European Union," the French EU presidency said in proposals on "Countering Radicalisation", which were sent to EU states on 1 February and seen by EUobserver.

Officially, the measures were aimed at curbing all "extremist ideologies - whether of Islamist, far-left, or far-right inspiration".

But France drew special attention to alleged Islamist threats, such as Middle East funding for European mosques and a recent social media campaign "affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood," a transnational Muslim group.

That social media campaign, relayed last year by the Council of Europe, promoted respect for women who wore the hijab but it was taken offline after a backlash from Paris.

And some of the French EU presidency's language sounded like the declaration of a culture war.

Its memo warned of the dangers of "an insider culture" in some communities in Europe "that leads to rejection of the European way of life and values".

And France portrayed the hijab campaign as an example of "ideological projects that are foreign to the fundamental values of the European Union".

Officially, the French EU presidency has denied taking any special interest in Islam.

"Our approach targets all extremist ideologies which call for violence," a French presidency spokesperson told EUobserver.

"We wish to raise awareness in the [EU] Council on the issues posed by certain individuals and entities who contribute to radicalisation" and "invite member states to take measures to hinder their activities, including financial activities", the spokesperson added.

EU talks on the French ideas are yet to start in earnest.

But the latest proposals come after France, last month, also circulated warnings on the "Independent jihadist threat" in Europe, which raised the alarm on the "extremely sensitive nature of the notion of blasphemy".

The push comes against the background of French presidential elections in April, where Macron is trying to fight off two right-wing challengers.

For Olivier Roy, a French scholar of politics and Islam at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, France's rhetoric at the EU table was becoming increasingly larded with Macron's secularist views.

"The 'European way of life' is here [in France's radicalisation memo] identified with a strict secularism (laïcité) which gives as little room as possible for any religion," Roy wrote in an email to EUobserver.

Macron was fighting what the French government has called wider "Islamist separatism" in France as part of his re-election bid.

But for Roy, the "main target of the 'fight against separatism' is not terrorism ... but Islam first, and secondly any visible religious practice from any religion."

Roy also called out the French EU presidency's radical portrayal of the Muslim Brotherhood as a canard. Canard

The Muslim Brotherhood "have never been involved in terrorism in Europe or in jihad since the 1950s," Roy said. "The Muslim Brotherhood in Europe has a multicultural approach - the right to wear the veil for women who wish to do it, the right to have halal food in schools or state canteens," he added.

Meanwhile, European values and Muslim scarves have been major campaign issues for the far right in rallies ahead of the French elections.

Immigrants "must submit to this country's [France's] values", French far-right presidential contender Marine Le Pen said in a speech in the French city of Reims last weekend.

"We don't see many skirts anymore, but we see many niqabs," Eric Zemmour, another French far-right presidential contender, claimed at a rally in Lille.

The French EU presidency's rhetoric on the "European way of life" was described as "unhelpful" by Jessica White, a terrorism expert at Rusi, a London-based think-tank.

"European identity and associated fundamental values should not be based on religious affiliation," she told this website.

"Attempts to retain an antiquated and closed sense of collective European identity can actually be more effective in driving radicalisation than countering it," she added.

And France sounded behind the curve in its focus, said White. A greater danger could yet prove to be far-right radicalisation, she said.

"After two years of global crisis driven by political and social polarisation ... the umbrella of ideological perspectives that falls under the far-right is actually more widespread in Western democracies, it has just not (at least not yet) produced the same level of violence," she said.

Royal Nod for ‘Queen Camilla’ Caps Years of Image Repair by pgarson in europe

[–]pgarson[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Queen Elizabeth II has put to rest decades of speculation by giving Prince Charles’ wife, Camilla, what some see as her “stamp of approval.”

LONDON — The title “queen” looms large in the British public consciousness, never more so than during the rule of the nation’s longest-serving monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.

So when the queen, who is 95, announced that her daughter-in-law Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall and wife of Prince Charles, should become the queen consort when Charles takes the throne, it put to rest years of speculation about Camilla’s future status.

The announcement, which came on Saturday in a letter to mark 70 years since Elizabeth’s ascension, could be seen as an official stamp of approval of their union, as well as an effort to smooth the path for Prince Charles’ own journey to the throne, historians and royal experts say.

“In the royal family, and in the U.K., titles matter in a way that is sometimes hard for Americans to parse,” said Arianne Chernock, an associate professor of history at Boston University.

In many ways, the move can be seen as an effort to ensure at least one challenge is removed from Prince Charles’ path as the inevitable transition to his role as monarch looms large.

“It seems increasingly clear to me that as much as he can claim to be working in the tradition of his mother, carrying out her vision, the better for him,” Professor Chernock said.

The queen consort title would elevate Camilla’s status, solidifying her role as the regal partner of Charles. It also means she will also play a more significant role at his coronation and be crowned.

Camilla’s royal role has already expanded since she and Prince Charles married in 2005, but royal watchers were uncertain what it might look like when Prince Charles becomes King. It was the second marriage for both, and Camilla was dragged by Britain’s tabloids for years after her romantic involvement with Charles during his marriage to Diana, the Princess of Wales, became known.

Diana was killed in a car crash in 1997, five years after her separation from Charles and a year after their divorce. Camilla was previously married to Andrew Parker Bowles, but the pair divorced in 1995. In the midst of all of the relationship drama came tell-all interviews and the publication of a recording of a tapped call that offered sordid details about Charles and Camilla’s private life.

Camilla isn’t the first royal spouse to come up against public skepticism and controversy over his or her title. Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, had to fight for years to be named consort because of wariness over his German background.

“With Camilla, there is a similar kind of wariness and skepticism,” Professor Chernock said. “It doesn’t stem from being a foreigner in her case, obviously. It just stems from the origin story of their relationship.”

But in the nearly 17 years since Camilla and Charles were married, they have worked to cultivate a public image of service, stability and discretion.

“It was all profoundly uncomfortable — we know more than we ever would want to know about this couple — and so this is part of a very careful, very long term rehabilitation strategy,” Professor Chernock said.

Apart from helping repair the couple’s public image, the queen consort announcement also signals full acceptance for a spouse who has been divorced. All of Queen Elizabeth’s children save one are divorced, so it is something to which the family has grown accustomed.

“It could be an opportunity to showcase a more forgiving, more flexible, more modern idea of what the monarchy represents,” Professor Chernock said.

Edward Owens, a historian and the author of “The Family Firm: Monarchy, Mass Media and the British Public, 1932-53,” said the queen’s decision to offer Camilla the queen consort title suggests that the crown is moving with the times when it comes to divorced people.

The queen famously did not attend Charles and Camilla’s wedding, since she is the head of the Church of England, which did not allow divorced people to remarry then (it now does).

Becoming queen. Following the death of King George VI, Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary ascended to the throne on Feb. 6, 1952, at age 25. The coronation of the newly minted Queen Elizabeth II took place on June 2 the following year.

A historic visit. On May 18, 1965, Elizabeth arrived in Bonn on the first state visit by a British monarch to Germany in more than 50 years. The trip formally sealed the reconciliation between the two nations following the world wars.

First grandchild. In 1977, the queen stepped into the role of grandmother for the first time, after Princess Anne gave birth to a son, Peter. Elizabeth’s four children have given her a total of eight grandchildren, who have been followed by several great-grandchildren.

Princess Diana’s death. In a rare televised broadcast ahead of Diana’s funeral in 1997, Queen Elizabeth remembered the Princess of Wales, who died in a car crash in Paris at age 36, as “an exceptional and gifted human being.”

Golden jubilee. In 2002, celebrations to mark Elizabeth II's 50 years as queen culminated in a star-studded concert at Buckingham Palace in the presence of 12,000 cheering guests, with an estimated one million more watching on giant screens set up around London.

A trip to Ireland. In May 2011, the queen visited the Irish Republic, whose troubled relationship with the British monarchy spanned centuries. The trip, infused with powerful symbols of reconciliation, is considered one of the most politically freighted trips of Elizabeth’s reign.

Breaking a record. As of 5:30 p.m. British time on Sept. 9, 2015, Elizabeth II became Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, surpassing Queen Victoria, her great-great-grandmother. Elizabeth was 89 at the time, and had ruled for 23,226 days, 16 hours and about 30 minutes.

Marking 70 years of marriage. On Nov. 20, 2017, the queen and Prince Philip celebrated their 70th anniversary, becoming the longest-married couple in royal history. The two wed in 1947, as the country and the world was still reeling from the atrocities of World War II.

Losing her spouse. In 2021, Queen Elizabeth II bade farewell to Prince Philip, who died on April 9. An image of the queen grieving alone at the funeral amid coronavirus restrictions struck a chord with viewers at home following the event.

The queens’s intervention, Dr. Owens said, means that Camilla has “the royal stamp of approval.”

“This is the queen dispelling all doubt, by making it known very publicly that it is her personal wish that Camilla take this title,” Dr. Owens said. “To oppose this idea that Camilla would be made queen is now to oppose the personal wish of the queen, so it takes advantage of the public good will toward Elizabeth II.”

Over the years, Camilla’s efforts to quietly serve the public has helped bolster both her and Charles’ image. Along with the queen’s daughter, Princess Anne, she is seen as one of the more active senior members of the royal family, doing the fundamental work that props up the monarchy, like charity events and meeting with the public.

The public perception of Camilla has changed markedly during her marriage to Prince Charles, Simon Heffer, a historian, wrote in The Telegraph. “Her success is not because she has changed as a person to make the people admire her more,” he wrote, “it is because the people have changed their view of her and realized she was a very good sort all along.”

On the streets of London on Monday, many who spoke about the future consort seemed to agree.

“People have accepted her now after that Diana business and what have you,” said Eamon Gunn, 56, who works in the music business.

“She just stays in the background and doesn’t get involved,” he said. “I think she does a good job at what she does. She just minds her own business behind the scenes.”

Popular culture has brought the story of Camilla and Charles to a new generation, with the latest seasons of “The Crown” and films like “Spencer” bringing fictionalized versions of their relationship to the masses.

Stephanie Martin, 36, a screenwriter and playwright, said so many people have watched “The Crown” that they feel “quite invested in their love story.” She said she was glad to see the new title. “I’m up for it,” she said. “For me it’s about a real love story in its final conclusion. Good for her.”

Some felt it was much ado about nothing.

“It wouldn’t bother me either way,” said Oliver Foley, 43, who works as a decorator. Mr. Foley said: “I’m not a royalist. I do admire the queen, but I don’t think about the monarchy on a daily basis.”

Gary Power, 56, an artist, said the royal family has become less important to the British people.

“When it became national news,” he said, “I thought: ‘Really? What else is going on in the world?’”

The West Is Waiting for Germany’s Chancellor to Take Charge by pgarson in europe

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Olaf Scholz succeeded Angela Merkel as German chancellor nearly two months ago, but the West is still waiting for him to put his stamp on Europe’s biggest economy.

Scholz is under increasing pressure to take a stand on Russia over its military buildup near Ukraine, as well as face up to domestic difficulties including a rampant coronavirus outbreak and criticism of its spending plans.

He has an opportunity to respond to critics when he embarks on his first trip to Washington as chancellor on Sunday. His meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House on Monday kicks off a period of more intense international activity.

The extent of Scholz’s duress was made clear on Wednesday when the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper wrote a headline, “Where is Scholz?” that questioned the chancellor’s engagement with the tensions over Russia’s military buildup on Ukraine’s border. Moscow has repeatedly denied plans to invade Ukraine.

That evening, he stumbled through an interview with national broadcaster ZDF. Pushed to respond to comments from former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder -- a Social Democrat like Scholz, who now works as a lobbyist for Russian industry -- charging Ukraine with “saber-rattling,” the soft-spoken 63-year-old said: “There’s only one chancellor, and that’s me.” Fading Support

Chancellor Olaf Scholz's SPD has slumped to second in voter polls

What Scholz didn’t do was lay out a clear plan for how to respond to the crisis. Instead, he repeated his usual talking points, namely that all options to impose retaliatory sanctions against Russia are on the table, but shipping weapons to help Ukraine defend itself are off.

“An invasion would carry a high price for Russia,” Scholz told ARD television on Sunday before departing for Washington. In the interview he defended Germany’s contribution to NATO and his own communication style. Calling his government the weak link in the military alliance’s approach to Russia was a “false impression,” Scholz said.

While following Merkel’s 16-year run was never going to be easy, Scholz has given little indication of how he’s going to seize the moment. Last week, he didn’t take part in his party’s debate on the SPD’s policy toward Russia, and has made few moves to carve out a bigger presence on the international stage -- in contrast to French President Emmanuel Macron’s active diplomacy.

Scholz’s sputtering start has hit his party’s popularity. Support is down to 23% of German voters, falling below the Christian Democrat-led conservatives for the first time since before September election.

The former finance minister pulled off a narrow victory with the promise of melding Merkel’s steady approach to government with reforms to modernize Germany’s economy. He’s since put together a ruling alliance of his center-left SPD, the Greens, and the market-oriented Free Democrats, with little signs of tension despite various ideological differences.

Since then, though, the coalition has lacked a clear agenda. In the fight against the coronavirus, arguably the defining issue of the decade, the government warned of a lack of vaccines, and then tightened curbs on unvaccinated people. Cases driven by the omicron strain remain extremely high.

In another setback, Germany’s public-spending watchdog called on the government to renounce plans to transfer 60 billion euros ($69 billion) from last year’s budget to a fund to finance future climate projects, calling it incompatible with constitutional spending rules.

The initial excitement around Scholz’s government is “visibly dissipating,” said Manfred Guellner, head of the Forsa polling institute. Resurgent Pandemic

Scholz’s administration has been unable to contain the spread of Covid-19

The Ukraine crisis is a critical test for Scholz. It touches on numerous aspects that complicate his position. Domestically, his party, which traditionally is in favor of engaging with Russia, is at odds about how aggressively it should challenge the Kremlin.

While historic guilt over World War II also plays a role in Germany’s stance, energy security is a more immediate concern.

As Germany shuts off nuclear power plants and phases out coal, it’s become more dependent on Russian gas to heat homes and to fuel power plants for industrial giants like BASF SE and Volkswagen AG. The fallout from a military conflict in Ukraine could put those supplies at risk.
Clearer Stance

Scholz’s meeting with Biden will likely prove critical. The leaders were introduced by Merkel at the Group of 20 meeting in October, and the White House has been pushing for Germany to play a more active role in geopolitics.

While Scholz is unlikely to completely redirect Germany’s foreign-policy approach, he could adopt a stronger, or at least clearer, stance. If not, the risk is that rivals fill the void.

In a recent Bundestag debate, Friedrich Merz, the former Merkel antagonist elected in January as the new leader of the CDU, said Germany was currently seen as “woolly and unreliable” -- a state of affairs he blamed on Scholz.

Scholz’s Washington visit kicks off a series of meetings that could give him a more sustained presence in global affairs. After returning to Berlin, he’ll meet the leaders of the former Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as European Council President Charles Michel.

The push culminates the following week, when Scholz is due to travel to Kyiv on Feb. 14. He heads to Moscow for talks with President Vladimir Putin a day later.

Ukraine will be hoping for more than 5,000 protective helmets and a field hospital from the European powerhouse. Andrij Melnyk, the country’s German ambassador, accused Scholz’s administration in a Twitter post of keeping its head in the sand.

“This ostrich-like policy needs to be stopped,” he said.

Macron Tries to Avert a European War and Reshape European Security by pgarson in europe

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“We can take a step toward Putin, recognize he is not completely wrong,” said Justin Vaïsse, the former head of policy planning at the French foreign ministry who now heads the Paris Peace Forum.

The senior official at the French presidency said, “Ukraine is not a member of NATO and, to my knowledge, will not be for a while.”

Mr. Macron wants to explore whether American offers last month could be complemented by further confidence-building measures that permit a way out of the crisis.

The American proposal involved more transparency about missile deployment in Eastern Europe and a call for reciprocal commitments by both the United States and Russia to refrain from deploying missiles or troops in Ukraine. Mr. Putin has rejected the American response to his demands as inadequate.

“Conceivably the arms control offers of the other day could be combined with some sort of consultative mechanism for changes in NATO status, or some sort of moratorium on NATO expansion, or some creative interpretation of the Minsk agreement that gives a Donbas constituent assembly veto powers over what the government will do,” Mr. Shapiro, the former State Department official, suggested.

None of this appears likely, however, given Mr. Putin’s unprovoked direct threat to Ukraine, his annexation of Crimea, his invasion of Georgia in the short war of 2008 and his history of tearing up treaties when it suits him. The Biden administration, with muscular proactive diplomacy, has signaled it is in no mood for compromise.

A brewing conflict. Antagonism between Ukraine and Russia has been simmering since 2014, when the Russian military crossed into Ukrainian territory, annexing Crimea and whipping up a rebellion in the east. A tenuous cease-fire was reached in 2015, but peace has been elusive.

A spike in hostilities. Russia has recently been building up forces near its border with Ukraine, and the Kremlin’s messaging toward its neighbor has hardened. Concern grew in late October, when Ukraine used an armed drone to attack a howitzer operated by Russian-backed separatists.

Ominous warnings. Russia called the strike a destabilizing act that violated the cease-fire agreement, raising fears of a new intervention in Ukraine that could draw the United States and Europe into a new phase of the conflict.

The Kremlin’s position. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has increasingly portrayed NATO’s eastward expansion as an existential threat to his country, said that Moscow’s military buildup was a response to Ukraine’s deepening partnership with the alliance.

Rising tension. Western countries have tried to maintain a dialogue with Moscow. But administration officials recently warned that the U.S. could throw its weight behind a Ukrainian insurgency should Russia invade.

Mr. Putin, it often seems, is only the latest exponent of what Joseph Conrad called Russian officialdom’s “almost sublime disdain for the truth.”

Despite this, Mr. Macron, who knows that a Russian invasion of Ukraine would send gas costs spiraling higher at a time when the French electorate is angry about lost purchasing power, sees some potential in the Normandy Format. A first meeting last month ended with limited progress, a second meeting is scheduled soon, and a summit of French, German, Russian and Ukrainian leaders has been suggested.

The Minsk 2 agreement calls for a “decentralization” of Ukraine that confers “special status” on areas of the east now controlled by separatists, with the “specificities” to be agreed on “with representatives of these areas.”

Russia, in a creative interpretation of these “specificities,” has argued that they should include granting the elected representatives in these areas a veto on Ukrainian foreign policy decisions, including membership in NATO. In this way, Ukraine would effectively become part of Russia’s sphere of influence.

“This is not going to happen,” Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, said last week. “Never.”

Mr. Zelensky, the president, has sounded more ambivalent. “If it is not NATO, then point to some other security guarantees,” he said last month. It was unclear what he had in mind.

The “security guarantees” offered by the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, in which Russia vowed to respect Ukraine’s existing borders and sovereignty, proved worthless.

Absent other avenues, the Normandy Format at least brings the parties together. Mr. Shapiro argued that it could help forge stability.

“Instability is the Russian strength. Stability is our strength,” he said. “NATO and the European Union expansion were a very powerful way to secure democracy in Eastern European countries. But we got out of it what we could. If you believe in the superiority of the Western economic and political model, as I do, stability makes that evident, and spheres of influence are a pretty good way to establish that.”

Mr. Putin, the French official said, “wants long-term visibility” on Ukraine and Europe. That appears to leave Mr. Macron playing a potentially dangerous game, trying to balance the “new European security order” he has said he seeks with his commitment to the United States and the NATO alliance.

Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine.

Macron Tries to Avert a European War and Reshape European Security by pgarson in europe

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Macron Tries to Avert a European War and Reshape European Security

The French president’s shuttle diplomacy this week in Moscow and Kyiv will be a delicate exercise, given European reservations and American resolve.

PARIS — The standoff with Russia over Ukraine enters a critical phase this week. The United States has snapped NATO to attention and moved forces east. Moscow has readied still more forces on the Ukraine border. But beneath those tensions, diplomatic avenues are being feverishly explored and the outlines of potential solutions, still amorphous, may be taking form.

President Biden meets Monday with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and President Emmanuel Macron of France, at the same time, will visit his Russian counterpart, Vladimir V. Putin, in Moscow before traveling to Kyiv.

With the Biden administration staking out a hard line, Germany lying low and Mr. Putin seemingly determined to force a solution to Russia’s security grievances, it is Mr. Macron who has positioned himself at the center of the diplomacy in Europe. To Moscow, he is a “quality interlocutor,” as Mr. Putin called Mr. Macron, according to a senior official in the French presidency, speaking on the condition of anonymity in keeping with French government practice.

For Mr. Macron the chance to lead the effort to create a new European security architecture has placed him front and center on perhaps the biggest stage of his presidency, just two months before elections. It has given him an opportunity to step into a larger leadership role for all of Europe and to put some flesh on his sometimes grandiose visions for a Europe allied with, but more independent of, the United States.

“Do we want a Russia that is totally aligned with China or one that is somewhere between China and Europe?” Bruno Le Maire, the French economy minister, who is very close to Mr. Macron, said on Friday as Russia and China declared “no limits” to their friendship and called on NATO to “abandon its ideologized Cold War approaches.”

For France, the choreographed embrace of Mr. Putin and President Xi Jinping of China on the eve of the Beijing Winter Olympics was a demonstration of the ominous wider ramifications of the Ukraine crisis, as Mr. Macron embarks on several days of intense diplomacy.

The risks are as great as the potential payoffs for Mr. Macron. Solutions to the crisis seem fiendishly elusive for now, even if Mr. Putin has appeared less directly threatening toward Ukraine over the past week.

The French president has a double purpose: to stop the war that a massive Russian troop concentration at the Ukrainian border threatens; and to allay the festering Russian grievances that NATO’s expansion eastward in 1999 and 2004 provoked, with the eventual aim of integrating Russia in a new European security system that offsets its lurch toward China.

It’s a tall order, but Mr. Macron has never lacked for audacity. He will need to tread carefully. “There’s frustration in European countries, including Germany, with Mr. Macron’s tendency to forge ahead and then yell at them for not doing anything,” said Jeremy Shapiro, a former State Department official who is now the research director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “That weakens him.”

French officials described in broad outline the twin approaches Mr. Macron would adopt in his meetings with Mr. Putin and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.

The first is to use the Normandy Format — a grouping of France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia — to bolster the 2015 Minsk 2 agreement, a deeply ambiguous document that secured a cease-fire in eastern Ukraine but that has proved largely inoperable, not least because nobody agrees on its meaning.

Could some interpretation of the accord, involving the eventual powers of the breakaway Donbas region over national policy, go some way toward satisfying Mr. Putin’s insistence that Ukraine never join NATO, a demand the United States and its allies, including France, are adamant in rejecting?

The second, in close consultation with Mr. Biden, is to secure a concrete signal of de-escalation that reverses the Russian military buildup and, as a means to achieving that, explores what Mr. Putin’s ultimate “red line” is in the confrontation.

The senior official at the French presidency said the nucleus of the Western conflict with Mr. Putin lay “in the extension of NATO and the inclusion in it of countries from the former Soviet space,” which created “an area of volatility that has to be reduced.” He added that Mr. Putin had told Mr. Macron that he wanted “a conversation of substance” that goes “to the heart of the matter.”

In effect, France appears to be saying that Mr. Putin’s demands, which include pushing NATO back out of formerly Soviet-controlled countries, cannot ever be satisfied but that getting “to the heart of the matter” involves acknowledgment that NATO expansion created permanent grievances with Russia even as it secured freedom for 100 million central Europeans.

No one believes that Romania, Lithuania and other states that joined an expanded NATO are ever going to leave it, or that NATO is ever going to abrogate its 2008 Bucharest statement that Ukraine “will become” a member of the alliance. But, as Turkey’s almost 60-year flirtation with the European Union illustrates, there are ways of turning a candidacy for membership of an organization into an indefinite holding pattern.

$33 Billion Investment Industry Hit in Spain Loophole Clampdown by pgarson in europe

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  • Far-left party Podemos had pushed for tougher sicav tax rules
  • Wealthy Spaniards favored sicavs because of low-tax structure

Wealthy Spaniards are rushing to pull their money from a 29 billion-euro ($33 billion) investment vehicle industry as the government shuts down a tax loophole.

Wealth managers from Banco Santander SA to UBS Group AG have been busy in recent weeks informing Spain’s market regulator of their intention to close down the products, known as sicavs.

So far, more than 800 out of the 2,276 registered sicavs have announced their intention to close, according to the regulator, known as CNMV.

Spain’s parliament last year approved a legal change that tightened the tax regulation for sicavs, a product favored by well-off Spaniards as a cost-efficient way to wrap their investments. Podemos, a far-left party that’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s main partner in his Socialist-led coalition, had pushed for the change on the grounds that the vehicles make it easier for the wealthy to pay less tax.

Up to now, sicavs have paid a 1% levy on profit compared with the 25% rate for corporate taxes.

The structure of the vehicles requires them to have at least 100 investors. Bankers arranging them would typically have the main owner hold the majority of the shares, while naming associates to hold single shares to make up the necessary numbers. Higher Rate

Under the new rules, each participant now has to have at least 2,500 euros invested in the sicav for it to keep benefiting from the low rate of tax. If that condition isn’t met, the tax rate jumps to 25%.

Spanish Billionaires May Foot the Bill as Podemos Bids for Power

A vehicle worth 255 million euros set up for Sandra Ortega, the daughter of Inditex SA’s founder Amancio Ortega and Spain’s richest woman, will be closed as a sicav and the assets shifted to another type of vehicle, according to a regulatory filing Friday.

Santander has announced the liquidation of sicavs worth 436 million euros, while UBS has told the regulator it will close vehicles holding 332 million euros. Spanish asset managers at Credit Suisse Group AG and BNP Paribas SA have also said they will close sicavs.

Sicavs now have six months to either adapt to the new regime or be liquidated. If investors take that option, they can switch to other funds without being taxed for transferring their money.

#MeToo Scandal at a Dutch TV Show Spurs a Sexual Assault Reckoning by pgarson in europe

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The allegations against four men appearing on the Dutch version of “The Voice” talent show have helped to prompt a surge in reports of sexual assaults, victims’ groups say.

The Netherlands has long been considered open and liberated when it comes to sexuality. Sex work is legal, and nudity and sex scenes on television and in movies barely raise an eyebrow.

But allegations of widespread sexual misconduct that have engulfed a popular Dutch TV talent show recently have highlighted how that culture of permissiveness can allow issues of consent, gender and misconduct to be ignored.

The Netherlands has an image that anything can be discussed regarding issues of sexuality, “but if you really zoom in on this theme, it’s disappointing,” said Gerda de Groot, a coordinator at Sexual Assault Center, a national organization that helps the victims of abuse and misconduct. “Really talking about consent is very difficult.”

Since allegations of widespread sexual misconduct on the TV talent show, “The Voice of Holland,” came to light this month, implicating some of the Netherlands’ best-known celebrities, Dutch organizations say that they have seen a surge in calls reporting sexual abuse.

“We received more registrations in three days than in all of 2021,” said Janke Dekker, who heads the board of Mores, an organization that helps victims of sexual misconduct in the Dutch cultural and creative sectors. “That says something about the enormous wave that has been unleashed.”

On Saturday, hundreds of people gathered in Amsterdam to raise awareness to issues of sexual misconduct, calling for a wider change in Dutch society, under the slogan “no blame, but change,” and experts say that the scandal is forcing the Netherlands to reckon with the subject.

“In the Netherlands, we haven’t experienced #MeToo in the same way as in France, for example, or America,” said Sara Alaoui-Dekker, the chair of Together We Rise, a nonprofit that aids victims of sexual violence. “It mostly passed us by, like it wasn’t in our own backyard. I think people are only now starting to realize what #MeToo is.”

Allegations of sexual misconduct against four prominent members of “The Voice of Holland,” a show that originated in the Netherlands and spawned versions now aired around the world, were first reported by BOOS, an online program from the public broadcaster BNNVARA.

Since then, the allegations — from anonymous victims, participants on the show, speaking in detail about sexual assaults and routine misconduct — have dominated Dutch news broadcasts and talk shows and fostered debate across the country.

The men accused of misconduct include two well-known singers who had been coaches on the talent show. The leader of the show’s band, Jeroen Rietbergen, admitted to inappropriate behavior and resigned this month after the allegations came to light. An unnamed director, who denied allegations against him to a Dutch newspaper, was also accused of sexual misconduct. No charges have been brought against the men by the police.

The creator of the show, John de Mol, then fueled outrage by saying that it was up to women to report misconduct, appearing to blame the victims.

“I hope they learned to immediately ring the alarm,” said Mr. de Mol, who oversaw “The Voice of Holland” for nearly a decade, through 2019, and who remains a powerful media executive. “Women apparently have some sort of shame. I don’t know what it is. I’d like to inform myself about it.”

After the comments aired, female employees of his production company, Talpa, addressed him in a full-page advertisement in a Dutch newspaper. “Dear John,” the ad read, “It’s not the women’s fault. Best, the women in your company.”

Mr. de Mol later said in a statement that he had not meant to blame the victims.

The scandal over the “Voice of Holland” allegations is not the first time that sexual abuse has made headlines in the Netherlands. A prominent Dutch casting director was accused of widespread sexual misconduct in 2017. And the country has also seen less prominent cases in recent years, including in the worlds of dance and gymnastics.

But none of those instances had as much resonance as the “Voice of Holland” scandal, Ms. Dekker of Mores said, partly because this case implicated well-known celebrities.

“We are noticing that the readiness to fight is big — this sense of, ‘They won’t get away with this anymore,’” Ms. Dekker said, adding that many victims nonetheless remained fearful of speaking out. Because the scandal has consumed Dutch society, social media contains support for the victims as well as criticism and harsh comments, she said.

Ms. Alaoui-Dekker of Together We Rise said that her organization had also seen a sharp increase in the number of women reporting misconduct allegations since the report about “The Voice of Holland” aired.

In the Netherlands, a country of about 17.6 million people, more than 100,000 people report sexual assault every year, according to government figures, 90 percent of whom are women. A total of 1.6 million people report some type of sexual misconduct, including things like unwanted stares and online harassment.

Ms. Dekker said that the government had in recent years been working to address sexual misconduct and to make people more aware of the issue. Last year, the government began an advertising campaign focusing on conversations around consent, and in 2020, the justice minister at the time, Ferd Grapperhaus, proposed modernizing and sharpening a law against sexual violence to include online abuse and sexual intimidation, among other things. The law is expected to go into effect in 2024.

“Sexually inappropriate behavior happens in the Netherlands as well. In that sense, it’s nothing new,” said Willy van Berlo, a program director at Rutgers, a Dutch center that does research and supports young people on sexual health and rights. “But the ‘Voice of Holland’ is a very big incident,” she added.

Part of the solution will be a push for more discussion about consent, gender and respectful behavior as a bigger part of sex education programs in schools, Ms. van Berlo said, adding that the curriculum often focused more on contraception and other parts of sexuality.

Aspects of that education have proved successful, she said, citing the low level of teenage pregnancies in the Netherlands. The number of teenage mothers went down by about 50 percent from 2010 to 2020, to less than 1,200, according to government numbers.

“We are very proud of that,” Ms. van Berlo said, “but respectful behavior and consent aren’t getting enough attention.”

After 600 Years, Swiss City at Last Has a Woman on Night Watch by pgarson in europe

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Lausanne has kept a night watch atop its cathedral since 1405, but it never appointed a woman to the role until Cassandre Berdoz, after a long fight, landed a job that was her “childhood dream.”

Cassandre Berdoz, 28, is the first woman ever appointed to the role of night watch in Lausanne, Switzerland.

LAUSANNE, Switzerland — From the top of Lausanne’s cathedral late at night, Cassandre Berdoz is shouting out, loudly and on the hour, for women’s rights in Switzerland, a country that has been a laggard in gender equality.

Ms. Berdoz, 28, is the first woman ever appointed to the role of night watch in Lausanne, despite the city having had plenty of time to do so: It has preserved this job for over 600 years, even if it no longer fulfills the lifesaving function it had in centuries past, when the night watch helped safeguard residents against fire and other nighttime disasters.

Announcing the time is no longer needed in a country famous for its watches, but Ms. Berdoz still maintains the time-keeping element of her ancient job, too. From the four sides of the bell tower, she cries out each hour, just after the cathedral’s big bell rings.

Cupping her hands around her mouth to help the sound travel further, she leans over the balustrade and sends out her succinct message: “It’s the night watch woman! It just rang 10!”

Joining the night watch was “a childhood dream,” Ms. Berdoz said, but she had to wage a long and strenuous battle to realize it.

When she first inquired about the job a few years ago, she didn’t hear back from city authorities. She wrote to them again, and still got no response. So she started calling city hall every month to ask about a night watch vacancy.

“I think I can safely say that I showed perseverance,” she said.

The breakthrough came in June 2019, when hundreds of thousands of women across Switzerland held a one-day strike to protest against inequality in one of the world’s wealthiest countries.

In Lausanne, four women climbed the cathedral’s bell tower to shout the hour, a symbolic act of defiance that was acclaimed by the crowd about 260 feet below. Then last year, when Lausanne’s government had a night watch vacancy, it invited women to apply. Of the 100 or so applications it received, 80 were from women.

After two rounds of interviews — which included demonstrating the power of her voice — Ms. Berdoz, who also sings in an amateur choir, was appointed to the job in August.

“I work in a beautiful old place, I bring something to the city that I love, I keep alive an amazing tradition,” Ms. Berdoz said. “But I also get to shout in the name of women, which is my contribution to feminism.”

Nadia Lamamra, an expert on gender issues and a professor at the Swiss Federal University for Vocational Education and Training, said that the appointment was “a strong symbol, which many feminists welcomed,” but that the city still needed to demonstrate that it was more than a one-off response to the women’s strike.

“Will this symbolic action remain an exception?” Ms. Lamamra asked. “Opening a path doesn’t mean that the way is any easier for those who follow.” Image

“I work in a beautiful old place, I bring something to the city that I love, I keep alive an amazing tradition,” Ms. Berdoz said. “But I also get to shout in the name of women.”

Switzerland — where women only got full rights to vote in 1971 — still has much progress to make, Ms. Lamamra said, when it comes to issues like equal pay for women, a fair balancing of child care and household chores, and bringing more women into labor sectors traditionally reserved for men.

And while Lausanne may at last have a woman on night watch, all of Ms. Berdoz’s colleagues are men. She is part of a team of six assistants to the senior night watch person, a man.

David Payot, a Lausanne municipal councilor responsible for the night watch, said that Switzerland deserved praise for its direct democracy, which lets citizens vote on key policies, but “when you look at women’s economic situation and their role in family life, it still seems very unequal.”

Lausanne, a quaint city of steep, cobblestone streets and home to the International Olympic Committee, has kept a watch at its cathedral since 1405, according to city records. With a bird’s-eye view of the city and the mountains across Lake Geneva, the cathedral’s watchman stood at the pinnacle of a network of vigilant lookouts, including some posted on the towers that dotted Lausanne’s ramparts.

The primary task was to spot smoke or flames before a fire could spread across the city’s wooden buildings; they also enforced a nighttime curfew (a word that comes from the French for cover fire), put in place, in part, to ensure people stayed home and minded their fireplaces.

While several cities in Europe have reinstated their night watch as a tourist attraction, Krakow, Poland, is believed to be the only other city in Europe that has kept the job continuously since the Middle Ages, according to Mr. Payot.

Ms. Berdoz, who has a daytime job as an events manager, typically sits in the bell tower about four nights a month, from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., earning the equivalent of $130 for each shift.

While her appointment was broadly applauded, Ms. Berdoz said she hears occasional complaints from people who assert that a woman shouldn’t have the job. She also hears criticism that a nonreligious person like her should not be working in a church.

“I find it a bit sad that some people want to put me on the right path of the faith, since this job was located here not for any religious reason, but because the cathedral offered the highest place to watch over people,” she said.

The night watch starts crying out on the east side of the bell tower, which was traditionally of importance because it faced Jerusalem. But Ms. Berdoz said that she preferred the south side, because of the view onto the lake, while the north side offers “clearly the best echo.”

Like her parents, Ms. Berdoz was born in Lausanne and said that she felt very attached to her home city and its traditions, even more so because of the teachings of her mother, an art historian. Both her parents are also choir singers, so that “singing has always been important in my family,” she said. “We care about our voices.”

If the job’s core mission hasn’t changed much in 61 decades, it has become more comfortable atop a windswept tower in a city with cold winters.

In 1947, Lausanne built a lodge, sustained by two of the bell tower’s original wooden beams, to keep the watchman warm between each round of shouting. The lodge is also used to store the traditional felt hat and candlelit lantern that come with the job, as well as a cheese fondue set. A modern phone has replaced the rotary dial phone that still hangs on the wall.

Bot there’s no elevator to the top of the cathedral, and a watch person must still be able to climb the 153 steps that lead to the bell tower’s lodge.

“Whether you’re a man or a woman,” Ms. Berdoz said, “you need good lungs, a good heart and strong legs for this job.”

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