The Netherlands -Dutch referendum on Ukraine is being ignored by "waffeling" PM Rutte

Dutch PM Rutte and Perosenko of Ukraine

The EUobserver reports:"some may remember, the Netherlands had their own mini-Brexit in April, when a majority of Dutch voted against the EU-Ukraine Treaty, in a non-binding referendum, triggered by campaigners eager to give the establishment a good drubbing.

Since then, Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, has scrambled to find a way to avoid vetoing ratifying the treaty.

Rutte's plan is to secure a 'legally binding declaration' to the Treaty at the EU Summit in December, which should stress that it doesn't lead to EU membership for Ukraine, or the Netherlands providing any extra funds to the country, beyond those already committed, or oblige Dutch military cooperation with Ukraine.

Such declarations are a well-established practice at EU level and have been applied to deal with the Irish no-vote against the Lisbon Treaty, or more recently, Wallonia's opposition to the EU-Canada trade deal.

How do politicians vote, when the people already voted?

There always are differences as to how “binding” such declarations are, sometimes under national law, sometimes at the EU level, sometimes only according to “international law”, giving lawyers a field day, helpfully confusing any critics.

The EU 27 seem happy to give Rutte whatever declaration he needs and Ukraine isn't needed to sign anything.

But Rutte's particular problem is that the coalition of the centre-right VVD with the centre-left PvdA doesn't hold a majority in the Dutch Senate, needed to pass the EU-Ukraine Treaty.

Only the centrist, EU-federalist, D66 party has suggested it will support Rutte's solution, while the Christian-democratic CDA hasn’t committed to supporting it just yet".

Almere-Digest

European Politics & populism: Marine Le Pen, Beppe Grillo, Geert Wilders, Frauke Petry: has their big moment arrived? - by Toby Helm

Populism and the media

Dogged by the migration crisis and the traumatic business of Brexit – to name just two current, existential challenges to their project – those who run the European Union felt they had enough on their plates before Donald Trump seized the White House.

News of his triumph broke on Europe, as had that of the British vote to leave the European Union on 23 June, in defiance of opinion pollsters and the assumptions of political elites that maintained that the world’s most advanced democracy could never deliver such a blow to the established order. Then it did.

In EU capitals, where they had preferred to dismiss Brexit as a one-off revolt by the union’s most difficult member, Trump’s election prompted the same elites to question their easy assumptions and entertain, for the first time, the impossible.

For the European Union such an outcome – Le Pen winning – would be far, far worse than Brexit. Brexit is containable. A France conquered by an anti-EU presidential candidate is not.

Everyone agreed last week that her winning would destroy the EU. “It would be cataclysmic, existential, the end,” said one EU diplomat.

In Berlin, Stephan Mayer, a Christian Social Union (CSU) MP in the Bundestag and his party’s home affairs spokesman, declared that, if Le Pen took France out of the euro and the EU, the European project would be done for.

Norbert Röttgen, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the Bundestag, and one not prone to dramatic overstatement, said countries at the heart of the EU integration process could no longer regard themselves as necessarily immune from populist movements. “What we have to take into account is that disruptive things can happen and the unthinkable can happen, so we should not take it for granted that Le Pen cannot win,” he said.

Note EU-Digest: Yes indeed everything is now possible, given the "average stupidity of the voter", who usually votes with his or her emotions rather than their head. 

Yes it will bring change, but eventually also chaos. The perspective is that globalism is at fault here. Initiated and expanded by a tiny group of banking interests, globalism has also been consolidating worldwide power with a group of massive corporations, governments and technocratic leaders. 

The danger is that populism could also be their plan B, giving them even more power, but in a different way. Time will tell , but it is so much resembling the mood of Europe when the Treaty of Versaille was signed on the twenty eighth of June 1919 that set conditions for drastic change throughout Europe. 

Many of the war reperations imposed on the defeated nations of the Central Powers were too much to be ever repaid. The economies of European nations were in turmoil after the war and many nations were politically unstable. This political instability had pathed the way for new reforms in many countries in Europe during this period. The early years of the twentieth century ushered in new radical ideologies that presented new challenges in inter-state relations. Mass uprisings and government reforms were on the main agenda. 

It resulted in the birth of two also populist based ideologies - Fascism and Nazism.

Are we going back to that scenario ?

Read more: Marine Le Pen, Beppe Grillo, Geert Wilders, Frauke Petry: has their big moment arrived? | World news | The Guardian

EU Privacy Laws: EU questions U.S. over Yahoo email scanning, amid privacy concerns - by Julia Fioretti

Big Brother In The USA Watching Us 

The European Commission has asked the United States about a secret court order Yahoo (YHOO.O) used to scan thousands of customer emails for possible terrorism links, following concerns that may have violated a new data transfer pact.

Under the Privacy Shield agreement that came into force in August, the United States agreed to limit the collection of and access to Europeans' data stored on U.S. servers because of EU concerns about data privacy and mass U.S. surveillance.

The previous deal was thrown out by the EU's top court in October 2015, leaving thousands of firms scrambling for legal ways to provide data on transactions ranging from credit cards to travel and e-commerce that underpin billions of dollars of transatlantic trade.

Reuters reported last month that Yahoo had scanned all incoming customer emails in 2015 for a digital signature linked to a foreign state sponsor of terrorism, at the behest of a secret court order. That raised fresh questions about the scope of U.S. spying.

"The Commission services have contacted the U.S. authorities to ask for a number of clarifications," Commission spokesman Christian Wigand said.

The United States had pledged not to engage in mass, indiscriminate espionage, assuaging Commission concerns about the privacy of Europeans' data stored on U.S. servers following disclosures of intrusive U.S. surveillance programs in 2013 by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

Two people familiar with the matter said the Commission had now asked the United States to explain how the Yahoo order fitted with its commitments, even if the program ran before the Privacy Shield was in place.

The Commission was seeking clarifications on the nature of the court order itself and how targeted it was, said one person familiar with the matter. Another said it had also asked if the program was continuing.

"The U.S. will be held accountable to these commitments both through review mechanisms and through redress possibilities, including the newly established Ombudsperson mechanism in the U.S. State Department," Wigand said.

Privacy Shield, which Yahoo has not signed up to, provides for a joint annual review to ensure the United States is respecting its commitment to limit the amount of data hoovered up by U.S. agents.

A senior U.S. government official said he could not confirm or deny the reports about Yahoo, but said if true the surveillance would have been targeted at identifying terrorists while protecting the privacy of others.

That would be "good intelligence work," he said.

Reuters

The Moon: Tonight Is A Record-Breaking Supermoon - The Biggest In 68 Years

The Supermoon as it was seen above Almere, The Netherlands

There will be an amazing spectacle tonight as the first supermoon in almost 70 years appears in the night sky. In fact, if you’re younger than 68 you have never witnessed this record-breaking supermoon in your lifetime.

Tomorrow morning, November 14th, the moon will be the closest it has been to Earth since 1948. It will appear 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than the average monthly full moon. Of course that’s dependent on hopefully viewing the supermoon without the obstruction of a cloudy night. Thankfully it appears most of the United States will remain mostly clear for tonight’s supermoon.

If you happen to miss the moon tonight, you’ll have to wait until November 25, 2034 so take some time to go outside tonight and witness the impressive moon.

A supermoon typically refers to the concurrence of two phenomena. One is when the moon is within 90% of its closest position to Earth in its orbit. Since the moon’s orbit is elliptical the moon during perigee is about 30,000 miles closer to the Earth than the apogee.

The other phenomenon is syzygy, which is when the Earth, sun and moon all line up as the moon orbits Earth. When both a perigee and syzygy occur and the moon is located on the opposite side of the Earth from the sun we get a supermoon.

Photo credit: Almere-Digest

Read more: onight Is A Record-Breaking Supermoon - The Biggest In 68 Years

USA: Trump-Led Thaw Between Russia, US to Undermine EU Unanimity Over Sanctions

United States President-elect Donald Trump said he would consider the possibility of lifting anti-Russian sanctions, but provided no further details.

 At the same time, Morgan Stanley estimated a 35 percent chance of Washington lifting sanctions against Moscow in the coming two years.

According to the bank, Trump’s presidency will result in easing sanctions against Russian companies and individuals. Meanwhile, the European Union is now concerned over a possible thaw between Russia and the US because this will create obstacles for Brussels’ policy of sanctions.

During his campaign, Trump repeatedly said he wanted to normalize ties with Russia. After the election, he confirmed he wants a "good relationship" with Moscow. Russian markets reacted to Trump’s victory more positively than other global stocks, on expectations of an improvement in bilateral economic ties between Russia and the US.

Read more: Sputnik

US - EU relations: Europe forced off the US lap and Alone in Trump’s World

Will Trump signal the end of the Trans=Atlantic Alliance

Alone again. Since World War II’s end, Europe has looked at the world through a transatlantic lens.

There have been ups and downs in the alliance with the United States, but it was a family relationship built on a sense that we would be there for each other in a crisis and that we are fundamentally like-minded.

Donald Trump’s election as US president threatens to bring this to an end – at least for now. He believes more in walls and oceans than solidarity with allies, and has made it clear that he will put America not just first, but second and third as well. “We will no longer surrender this country, or its people,” he declared in his one major foreign-policy speech, “to the false song of globalism.”

Europeans will not only have to get used to Trump; they will have to look at the world through different eyes. There are four reasons to expect that Trump’s America will be the single biggest source of global disorder.

First, American guarantees are no longer reliable. Trump has questioned whether he would defend Eastern European NATO members if they do not do more to defend themselves. He has said that Saudi Arabia should pay for American security. He has encouraged Japan and South Korea to obtain nuclear weapons. In Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, Trump has made it clear that America will no longer play the role of policeman; instead, it will be a private security company open for hire.

Second, global institutions will come under attack. Trump fundamentally rejects the view that the liberal world order that the US built after WWII (and expanded after the Cold War) is the cheapest way of defending American values and interests. Like George W. Bush after September 11, 2001, he views global institutions as placing intolerable constraints on US freedom of action. He has a revisionist agenda for almost all of these bodies, from the World Trade Organization to NATO and the United Nations.

The fact that he wants to put the “Art of the Deal” into practice in all international relationships – renegotiating the terms of every agreement – is likely to provoke a similar backlash among America’s partners.

Third, Trump will turn all US relationships on their head. The crude fear is that he will be kinder to America’s foes than to its allies. Most challenging for Europeans is his admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Should Trump, cozying up to Putin in search of a grand bargain, recognize Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, the EU would be placed in a near-impossible role.

Fourth, there is Trump’s unpredictability. Even during the 18 months of the presidential campaign, Trump has been on both sides of almost every issue. The fact that he will say the opposite today of what he said yesterday, without admitting that he has changed his mind, shows the extent to which capriciousness is his method.

One of the benefits the US political system is that it provides a two-month grace period to prepare for Trump’s world. So what should Europeans do about it?

First, we need to try to increase leverage over the US. We know from Trump’s writings and behavior that he is likely to resemble other strongmen presidents and treat weakness as an invitation to aggression. We saw from the Iraq experience that a divided Europe has little ability to influence the US. But where Europe has worked together – on privacy, competition policy, and taxation – it has dealt with the US from a position of strength.

The same was true with the so-called E3+3 policy on Iran – when the big EU member states shifted the US stance by standing together. To get on the front foot, the EU now needs to launch a process to agree on common policies on security, foreign policy, migration, and the economy. This will be difficult, as Europe is deeply divided, with France fearing terrorism, Poland dreading Russia, Germany inflamed by the refugee issue, and the United Kingdom determined to go it alone.

Second, Europeans should show that they are able to hedge their bets and build alliances with others. The EU must reach out to other powers to help shore up global institutions against Trumpian revisionism. And it also needs to diversify its foreign-policy relationships. Rather than waiting for Trump to marginalize the EU over Russia and China, Europeans should fly some kites of their own. Should they, for example, begin consulting with the Chinese on the EU arms embargo to remind the US of the value of the transatlantic alliance? Could the EU develop a different relationship with Japan? And if Trump wants to cozy up to Russia, maybe he should take over the Normandy process on Ukraine?

Third, Europeans need to start to invest in their own security. From Ukraine to Syria, from cyber attacks to terror attacks, Europe’s security is being probed in different ways. Despite an intellectual understanding that 500 million Europeans can no longer contract out their security to 300 million Americans, the EU has done little to close the gap between its security needs and its capabilities. It is time to put meat on the bones of the Franco-German plan for European defense. And it will be important to find institutionalized ways of binding the UK into Europe’s new security architecture.

In all of these areas, Europeans must keep the door to transatlantic cooperation open. This alliance – which has so often saved Europe from itself – is bigger than any individual. And, in any case, Trump will not last forever. But the transatlantic relationship will be more likely to survive if it is built on two pillars that understand and defend their own interests.

This will be a tough agenda to adopt – not least because Europe is facing its own brand of populist nationalism. France’s far-right National Front leader, Marine Le Pen, was among the first to congratulate Trump on his victory, and Trump has said that he would put the UK at the front of the queue after Brexit. But even Europe’s most Trump-like leaders will find it harder to defend their national interest if they try to go it alone. To survive in Trump’s world, they should try to make Europe great again.

Read more: Europe, Alone in Trump’s World | European Council on Foreign Relations

Donald Trump: The US has elected its most dangerous leader. We all have plenty to fear - by Jonathan Freedland

''The American Dream Is Dead"

The thought the United States would step back from the abyss. We believed, and the polls led us to feel sure, that Americans would not, in the end, hand the most powerful office on earth to an unstable bigot, sexual predator and compulsive liar.

People all around the world had watched and waited, through the consecutive horrors of the 2016 election campaign, believing the Trump nightmare would eventually pass. But today the United States – the country that had, from its birth, seen itself as a beacon that would inspire the world, a society that praised itself as “the last best hope of earth”, the nation that had seemed to be bending the arc of history towards justice, as Barack Obama so memorably put it on this same morning eight years ago – has stepped into the abyss.

Today the United States stands not as a source of inspiration to the rest of the world but as a source of fear. Instead of hailing its first female president, it seems poised to hand the awesome power of its highest office to a man who revels in his own ignorance, racism and misogyny. One who knows him well describes him as a dangerous “sociopath”.

And what awesome power he will soon have. Republicans did not just defy almost every projection, prediction and data-rich computer model to win the presidency. They also won the House of Representatives and much of the Senate. Trump will face few checks on his whims. A man with no control of his impulses will be unrestrained, the might of a superpower at the service of his ego and his id.

The most obvious impact will be on the country he will soon rule. Just think of what he has promised. A deportation force to round up and expel the 11 million undocumented migrants who make up 6% of the US workforce. A ban on all Muslims entering the country, later downgraded to a pledge to impose “extreme vetting” on anyone coming from a suspect land. A giant wall to seal off the Mexican border. “Some form of punishment” for women who seek an abortion. And prison for the woman he just defeated.

People will say that all that was just talk. But they said that throughout the campaign, insisting that Trump would “pivot” to a more moderate stance, that he would become more “presidential”. He never did. And surely he will see this victory as proof that he was always right, that his instincts are perfect and never to be challenged. There is no reason for him to moderate at all. The office of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and John F Kennedy is now his playpen. He can do what he likes.

This will be America’s ordeal primarily. But it will affect all of us. A reality TV star with no experience of either politics or the military will have the nuclear button as his toy. This, remember, is the man who reportedly asked several times, during a military briefing, why the US didn’t use nuclear weapons since it had them. This is the man who has said “I love war”. Whose proposed solution to Isis is “to bomb the shit out of them” and steal the oil.

Think of the anxiety this morning in Riga, Vilnius or Tallinn. In the summer, Trump told the New York Times he did not believe in Nato’s core principle: that an attack on one member should be met by a response from all. He seemed to see Nato as a mafia protection racket: unless the little guys paid up, they should be left undefended. Vladimir Putin – Trump’s hero, admired as the very model of a leader by the president-elect of the United States – will not need more of a hint than that. The Russian dictator will surely see his opportunity to invade one or more Baltic states and expand his empire. President Trump would only admire the macho swagger of such a move.

A trade war looms with China, the imposition of tariffs that could imperil the entire global trading system. America is about to turn inward, towards protectionism. The markets have already delivered their verdict on that. They plunged.

And what about our planet? Trump believes climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. He will do nothing to reduce emissions: he does not believe they exist.

But beyond all that, there is another consequence of this terrifying decision, no less dark. Trump’s success has delighted white nationalists and racists in his own country and beyond. His victories in the key battleground states were hailed by David Duke, a former luminary of the Ku Klux Klan: “God Bless Donald Trump,” he tweeted. “It’s TIME TO TAKE AMERICA BACK.” The Dutch nationalist Geert Wilders was in similarly cheery mood: “The people are taking their country back,” he said, “So will we.” Marine Le Pen will feel the same jubilation, as will every other populist or nationalist who traffics in hate.

For they have seen the power of a message built on fear and loathing. It’s not good enough to say this is all about the economic anxiety of those who have been left behind, though that clearly played a part in winning rustbelt states for Trump. But it’s an incomplete explanation because Trump did not only win those voters. He won 63% of white men and 52% of white women. Not all of those were the left behind. A lot of them were people drawn to a message that was, in part and however thinly coded, about reinstating white privilege.

Who is to blame? The list is so long, from the Republican party to the media, from the pollsters and data nerds who got it so wrong to the Clinton campaign team that took onetime Democratic bastions for granted, including Clinton herself, who for all her strengths was a flawed candidate. You can condemn all of them, but on a day like this who really cares about blame? The most powerful country in the world is to be led by its most dangerous ever leader, a figure who could have walked out of a school textbook narrating the darkest history of the 20th century. The wartime holder of the office that in January will be Trump’s once told Americans they had “nothing to fear but fear itself”. That is not true today. America and the rest of us have plenty to fear – starting with the man who now stands on top of the world.

Note Almere-Digest: Maybe also time to give Trump the benefit of the doubt. Donald Trump - Amazing, and shocking for many, but not unexpected. First Brexit and now Trump. Get ready for Marie Le Pen in France and Geert Wilders in Holland. It will certainly create a chain reaction of popular movements around the world against a totally corrupt political, and corporite establishment who slowly dug their own grave. It will be either the beginning of a new era or the beginning of the end. Will Trump be able to deliver and satisfy this popular movement? One thing is certain, the status-quo has been hit by an earthquake. "Business as usual" is no more. QUE SERA SERA!  

Read more: The US has elected its most dangerous leader. We all have plenty to fear | Jonathan Freedland | Opinion | The Guardian