The law and politics of a hypothetical application by a country geographically outside of Europe

[…] a European state does not mean one limited to the continent of Europe. Before 1985, Greenland was—via Denmark—part of the European Union’s predecessor the European Economic Community (EEC) despite being on the North American continental shelf […] Indeed, the European Union expressly recognises nine “outermost regions”—some as far away as the Indian Ocean—as part of the European Union. And in addition to this there are 13 overseas territories with a special relationship with the EU, including Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, which is just off the coast of, well, Canada […]

In essence, a European state need not, from a geographic perspective, be confined to Europe or even part of Europe. It would appear being European is state of mind […]

The real answer is not formal, but political. If Canada really wanted to join, and the member states and the European institutions wanted Canada to join, then a way would be found. The definition of “European state” could be fudged […]

What could […] evolve [as an alernative to Canada’s EU membership] is an entity that joins together the European Union with Canada and other non-members such as the UK, Norway and Iceland—and perhaps even Greenland—and that this entity could be placed on a formal footing. This would be outwith the EU treaties but would complement the EU bloc. And it would not then matter if the “Europe” label applied or not.

Yeah, don’t know how to remove this text, unfortunately. Is there a way?

Whatever we call it, it’s an alleged criminal act by Huawei which is backed by a dictatorship. But, yes, I would even say the article misses the point completely. It’s cheap whataboutery trying to distract from China.

[Edit for clarity.]

There’s no substance. This article contains not a single number, not fact, nothing but an opinion out of the blue and supposedly aiming to sow division between Western allies.

What an absurdly derailed op-ed. It follows the same whataboutism that is so widespread among Chinese propagandists. Just because there is one traitor in Hungary does not mean that the traitors from China are better. Huawei should have been banned from Europe long time ago, and this ‘incident’ is yet another reason to not trust this company and the totalitarian regime behind it.

Addition: I hope the bribery nvestigations regarding the corrupt MEPs and Huawei managers will also take into account the relations between Huawei’s lobby office in Brussels and the offices in EU member states like Germany, Italy, France, and all the others. For national member states are important lobbying centers for China.

[Edit typo.]

Ukraine won’t recognize occupied territories as Russian as part of any peace deal, Zelensky says

Ukraine will not recognize any occupied territories as part of Russia under a potential future peace agreement with Moscow, President Volodymyr Zelensky told journalists on March 12.

“We are fighting for our independence. Therefore, we will not recognize any occupied territories as Russia’s. This is a fact,” Zelensky said.

Russia doesn’t want Ukraine to be the staging ground for an invasion.

The same Russian propaganda rubbish over and again. No one wants (and wanted) to invade Russia, this is completely out of touch. Russia isn’t afraid of an invasion but of a country like Ukraine (or Georgia, Moldova, the Baltics, and many others) near its borders that strive in a free society. If Russians see there is an alternative state model that gives people a say and hold politicians accountable, it would threaten Russian current dictatorial government. Democracy is Putin’s only enemy.

This is, however, not likely to benefit Ukraine in the long term. Ukrainian government agencies have in recent years purged Chinese telecoms equipment like Huawei from their networks since the start of the war.

Chinese companies routinely provide Russia with high-tech services and equipment that the U.S. and EU ban. In January, [Chinese rival to Starlink] SpaceSail set up a subsidiary in Kazakhstan, a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States and a long-time eager intermediary for Russian sanctions evasion.

SpaceSail’s ongoing launches are consequently more likely to give Russian soldiers in Ukraine internet services that Ukrainian soldiers have long enjoyed than they are to help Ukraine move beyond Starlink.

Addition: The headline could easily be misinterpreted imho. What is meant is that China has more satellites in space at the moment which makes it technologically more competitive to Starlink as of now. It would be not a good idea for Ukraine to turn to choose China given the Chinese governments support for Russia in its aggression, however, and this is also what the article eventually suggests.

@Fleur_@hilariouschaos.com

People with this attitude of policing “off topic discussion” can go fuck themselves.

Thank you for your opinion, Elon.

@Fleur_

I would have 0 problems if my government were to vastly increase its investment in housing even at the expense of the environment.

!?

The environmental problems in China due to ghost cities have nothing to do with homelessness in China nor in the US.

Downvote for whataboutery.

there are between 20 million and 65 million empty houses in China, enough to house entire countries. This is a big problem, both economically and environmentally

The sheer size of it is a problem apparently. You can’t just quote something out of context.

Does Putin’s Russia want peace? The Russian Federation has violated about 400 international treaties since 2014

[Edit broken link.]

If someone had told me ten years ago that in 2025 the UK would have long left the EU and we were talking about a membership of Canada, I would have declared them bewildered. LOL.

Yeah, and not only the Budapest Memorandum. The Russian Federation has violated about 400 international treaties since 2014

Windfall for European arms makers as Brussels ramps up defence spending

Weapons manufacturers across Europe are rushing to secure contracts after EU countries announced plans to dramatically increase defence spending. Share prices of European arms companies had already risen sharply following the US decision to suspend military aid to Ukraine […] Some deals are already in motion […]

[After Starlink satellite network-owner Elon Musk has raised concerns about the network being used for military purposes] Europe is looking at alternatives. Paris-based Eutelsat, the world’s third-largest satellite operator by revenue, is in talks to replace Starlink in Ukraine […]

On 6 March, Italian company Leonardo signed a deal with Turkey’s Baykar for a joint venture to produce drones as defence companies rush to respond to the surge in European military spending […]

Increased demand may revive the EU’s Eurodrone project, a four-nation development programme involving Germany, France, Italy and Spain […]

Meanwhile, the Czech Republic announced it will extend its Czech ammunitions initiative with Denmark, Canada, Portugal and Latvia, which already supplied Kyiv with 1.6 million rounds of large-calibre ammunition last year […]

Overall, the biggest winners from the increase in EU defence spending are likely to be Germany’s Rheinmetall, France’s Thales and Saab of Sweden, while BAE systems of the UK is well-positioned to benefit from increased military budgets across EU nations […]

This is somewhat related:

Sweden says Russia is greatest threat to its security

Russia poses the greatest threat to Sweden due to its aggressive attitude towards the West, the Scandinavian nation’s security service Sapo has said.

How do I know who my MEP is?

This may help: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/home

No, they’ve tried this before, it raised inflation as prices went up on everything not in the cap, and the stuff in the cap ran out in days.

Didn’t know that they tried this before, but the effect is absolutely predictable. This is neither a ‘price cap’ nor a ‘profit-margin cap’ imo.