The Netherlands: strong Germany is in the Netherlands' best interests, says Dutch foreign minister

Germany must accept its
leadership role in Europe, following Britain’s vote to leave the EU and
Donald Trump’s election as new US president, according to Dutch foreign
minister Bert Koenders.

Both the US and Britain are now likely to put their relationships with
Europe to the test, Koenders told a Leiden University meeting, according
to website Nu.nl.

‘Intensive American involvement in European security is no longer a
certainty and a strong Germany is now, more than ever, in the
Netherlands’ interests,’ Koenders is quoted as saying. ‘I would say the
Netherlands must help Germany accept its leadership role in Europe, now
of all times.’

The interests of Germany and the Netherlands often coincide, the
minister said. ‘From agreements within the EU to a strong euro and open
economy. That is more important than ever given that the UK is going to
leave us.’

Koenders said that US loss of interest in Europe is not new. Europe is
going to play a smaller role in the world economy in the coming decades
and it has irked America for years that only a few European countries
meet Nato targets, he said.

However, despite the increasing need for a strong Germany, the US and
Britain must remain involved, Koenders said. ‘It has always been
important to the Netherlands that Anglo Saxon [countries] contribute to
maintaining the balance of power in Europe,’ he said.


Read more at DutchNews.nl: A strong Germany is in the Netherlands’ best interests, says Dutch foreign minister http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2016/11/a-strong-germany-is-in-the-netherlands-best-interests-says-dutch-foreign-minister/

Germany must accept its leadership role in Europe, following Britain’s vote to leave the EU and Donald Trump’s election as new US president, according to Dutch foreign minister Bert Koenders.

Both the US and Britain are now likely to put their relationships with Europe to the test, Koenders told a Leiden University meeting, according to website Nu.nl. ‘Intensive American involvement in European security is no longer a certainty and a strong Germany is now, more than ever, in the Netherlands’ interests,’ Koenders is quoted as saying.

‘I would say the Netherlands must help Germany accept its leadership role in Europe, now of all times.’ The interests of Germany and the Netherlands often coincide, the minister said. ‘From agreements within the EU to a strong euro and open economy. That is more important than ever given that the UK is going to leave us.’

Koenders said that US loss of interest in Europe is not new. Europe is going to play a smaller role in the world economy in the coming decades and it has irked America for years that only a few European countries meet Nato targets, he said.

However, despite the increasing need for a strong Germany, the US and Britain must remain involved, Koenders said. ‘It has always been important to the Netherlands that Anglo Saxon [countries] contribute to maintaining the balance of power in Europe,’ he said.

Read moreL A strong Germany is in the Netherlands' best interests, says Dutch foreign minister - DutchNews.nl

The Netherlands-Trump: Dutch PM not on list of 30 leaders who called Trump - by Janene Pieters

American President-elect Donald Trump released a list of all the world leaders he's spoken to since winning the U.S. election with the most electoral votes last week, to show how hard he's been working. But he forgot to add Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to the list.

After Trump's victory Rutte released a statement congratulating him. He also personally spoke to the president-elect to convey his congratulations, according to AD. The Prime Minister stressed the historical ties between the Netherlands andAmerica's and assumes that Trump's new government will continue to work with the Nethelrands "on the basis of shared values and principles".

But this conversation seemingly did not make much of an impact on Trump, given that he seems to have forgotten about it. The Netherlands is not mentioned on the list of 29 foreign leaders.

Rutte's motivation to keep working with Trump also lead to criticism in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of parliament. D66 leader Alexander Pechtold in particular would have preferred it if Rutte was more criticial. He wondered whether anything in Rutte's conversation with him, "set Trump thinking". The PvdA and GroenLinks also criticized the Prime Minister's approach.

The Prime Minister countered that it is unwise to immediately start hostilities. "Let's give the guy a chance and not ruin the relationship in advance. Trump was democratically elected." He believes it is of the utmost impmortance that Europe and the United states continue to build a strong relationship, also under Trump. "The Netherlands plays a role here. We are the smallest of the big countries. We have an opportunity and responsibility to help build a bridge between Europe and America."

According to AD, a spokesperson for Trump confirmed that the conversation between the president-elect and Dutch Prime Minister did indeed happen and an updated list, including the Netherlands, will be released this Thursday November 17

Note Almere-Digest : Don't cry Mark, Daddy Trump loves you too.


Read more: Dutch PM not on list of 30 leaders who called Trump | NL Times

EU: Boris Johnson offering 'impossible' Brexit vision, says Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister

Dijsselbloem tells Johnson he doesn't know what he is talking about

Boris Johnson is offering Britain a vision of life outside the EU that is "intellectually impossible", said Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister, who is also a leading European finance minister.

The foreign secretary reportedly told a Czech paper the UK was likely to leave the EU customs union post-Brexit - but still wanted to trade freely after.

However, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister, said such an option "doesn't exist" and was "impossible".

Number 10 said a decision on membership of the customs union had not been made.

Mr Johnson reportedly told the Czech newspaper Hospodarske Noviny he did not believe the UK would remain in the EU customs union after Brexit.

Note Almere-Digest : Bravo Jeroen Dijsselbloem Finally someone in the EU dares to tell Boris Johnson, the British Foreign Minister, that he is all talk and with no substance.

Read more: Boris Johnson offering 'impossible' Brexit vision - BBC News

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