EU Parliament warns Poland on rule of law

In the vote, the Parliament decided by 438 votes to 152 to prepare a formal request that the Council activate the preventive mechanism provided for in Article 7.1.of the Treaty. If the risk persists and the Polish authorities refuse to comply with the EU recommendations, the procedure might lead to the suspension of Poland's voting rights in the Council.

Specific concerns were voiced about the separation of powers, the independence of the judiciary and fundamental rights.

The resolution calls on the Polish authorities to uphold the common European values listed in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union and in the Polish Constitution. It urges Poland:

    not to proceed the new laws unless they fully guarantee the independence of the judiciary to implement all EU Commission and Venice Commission recommendations in full,
    to comply with the EU Court of Justice order to "immediately suspend large-scale logging" in the ancient Bialowieza forest,
    to respect the right of freedom of assembly,
    to strongly condemn the "xenophobic and fascist march that took place in Warsaw" on Saturday,11    November 2017, and
    to take a firm stand on women's rights, by providing free and accessible contraception without discrimination and making emergency contraception available without medical prescription.

Under Parliament's Rules of Procedure (Rule 83), its Civil Liberties Committee now needs to draw up a "reasoned proposal", the document required to call on the Council to trigger the rule of law mechanism in response to a "clear risk of a serious breach" of European values by the Polish authorities.

This is only the second time that the European Parliament has taken formal steps to call on the Council to start the Article 7 procedure. The first was taken in May 2017 with respect to Hungary. The procedure is still under way.

The dialogue between the Commission and the Polish authorities is conducted under the "rule of law" procedure initiated in January 2016.

Read more: EU Parliament warns Poland on rule of law — EUbusiness.com | EU news, business and politics

The Rich and Poor Gap: Societies Are Headed Toward Revolution, Suggests Inequality Study

There’s a common thread tying together the most disruptive revolutions of human history, and it has some scientists worried about the United States. In those revolutions, conflict largely boiled down to pervasive economic inequality. On Wednesday, a study in Nature, showing how and when those first divisions between rich and poor began, suggests not only that history has always repeated itself but also that it’s bound to do so again — and perhaps sooner than we think.

In the largest study of its kind, a team of scientists from Washington State University and 13 other institutions examined the factors leading to economic inequality throughout all of human history and noticed some worrying trends. Using a well-established score of inequality called the Gini coefficient, which gives perfect, egalitarian societies a score of 0 and high-inequality societies a 1, they showed that civilization tends to move toward inequality as some people gain the means to make others relatively poor — and employ it. Coupled with what researchers already know about inequality leading to social instability, the study does not bode well for the state of the world today.

“We could be concerned in the United States, that if Ginis get too high, we could be inviting revolution, or we could be inviting state collapse. There’s only a few things that are going to decrease our Ginis dramatically,” said Tim Kohler, Ph.D., the study’s lead author and a professor of archaeology and evolutionary anthropology in a statement.

Currently, the United States Gini score is around .81, one of the highest in the world, according to the 2016 Allianz Global Wealth Report.

Kohler and his team had their work cut out for them, as studying inequality before the age of global wealth reports is not a straightforward task. It’s one thing to measure modern day economic inequality using measures of individual net worth, but those kind of metrics aren’t available for, say, hunter-gatherers chasing buffalo during the Paleolithic. To surmount this obstacle, the researchers decided to use house size as a catch-all proxy for wealth, then examined the makeup of societies from prehistoric times to modern day using data from 63 archaeological digs

Overall, they found that human societies started off fairly equal, with the hunter-gatherer societies consistently getting Gini scores around .17. The divide between rich and poor really began once humans started to domesticate plants and animals and switch to farming-based societies. Learning to till the land meant introducing the concept of land ownership, and inevitably, some people ended up as landless peasants. Furthermore, because these societies no longer lived as nomads, it became easier to accumulate wealth (like land) and pass it down from generation to generation.

The Gini scores got higher as farming societies got bigger. The small scale “horticultural” farmers had a median Gini of .27, and larger-scale “agricultural” societies moved up to .35. This pattern continued until, oddly, humans moved into the New World — the Americas. Then, over time, the researchers saw that Gini scores kept rising in Old World Eurasia but actually hit a plateau in the Americas. The researchers think this plateau happened because there were fewer draft animals, like horse and water buffalo, in the New World, making it harder for new agricultural societies to expand and cultivate more land.

Overall, the highest-ever historical Gini the researchers found was that of the ancient Old World (think Patrician Rome), which got a score of .59. While the degrees of inequality experienced by historical societies are quite high, the researchers note, they’re nowhere near as high as the Gini scores we’re seeing now.  

A global report from Credit Suisse showed that modern humans are continuing the trends set by our predecessors: Now, the report showed, half of the world’s wealth really does belong to a super-rich one percent, and the gap is only growing. Historically, Kohler says in his statement, there’s only so much inequality a society can sustain before it reaches a tipping point. Among the many known effects of inequality on a society are social unrest, a decrease in health, increased violence, and decreased solidarity. Unfortunately, Kohler points out, humans have never been especially good at decreasing inequality peacefully — historically, the only effective methods for doing so are plague, massive warfare, or revolution.

Read more: Societies Are Headed Toward Revolution, Suggests Inequality Study | Inver

Spain-Catalonia: Puigdemont, the doomed architect (who is now also wating Belgian Taxpayers money)– by Jorge Valer

For some, ousted "president" Carles Puigdemont is the architect of a new independent Catalan Republic.

For others, he is just a coward who led his citizens to chaos and ruin, and fled to Belgium. Today, he got his day in court.

At two o’clock, Puigdemont rolled up to the scaffolding-enshrined Justice Palace in Brussels to put his fate in a Belgian judge’s hands.

But history tells us that builders have a dubious reputation in the neighbourhood. The land exportation required to construct the Justice Palace, arguably the largest building of the 19th century, was so massive that ‘architect’ one of the worst insults you could hear in Brussels at that time.

The Belgian judge would not rule on Puigdemont’s skills and vision as a builder of a new nation. But whether he should be sent back to Spain to face trial on five charges, including rebellion and sedition, as the Spanish authorities requested.

The first hearing concluded with little progress. The judge scheduled another session for 4 December to decide whether Puigdemont and the four member of his dismissed government who escaped with  him should be extradited to Spain.

One charge, corruption, was dismissed, which was seen as a victory by the defence, given that it would have triggered an automatic repatriation to Spain.

The decision could come in mid-December but the two-appeal system in Belgium would postpone the final verdict to early next year.

The defence argued that Puigdemont cannot return to Spain because his fundamental rights would not be respected. But the European Arrest Warrant would make it very hard for the Catalan and his former team to escape extradition.

Still, the Belgian prosecutor did his homework and asked his Spanish colleagues last week how the sacked Catalan government’s rights would be ensured.

He reminded them that the principle of “mutual trust”, the bedrock of the EAW, is not enough for a Belgian judge to comply with Madrid’s request.

Note EU-Digest: The fact of the matter is that Mr. Puigdemont did not comply with the constitutional law of Spain, caused public unrest, hurt the Spanish economy in doing so, and now, not only wasting the Spanish taxpayers money for the trouble he created - but in addition also that of the Belgian taxpayer, who have in fact been saddled up paying for Puigdemont's court case, and consequently, thereby also financing his Catalonia "pipe dream" propaganda from Belgium. It is high time for Belgium to stop this nonsense and waste of money. Mr. Puidemont and his cohorts should be extradited to Spain as soon as possible, where they can be prosecuted under Spanish law - as they should.     

Read more: The Brief: Puigdemont, the doomed architect – EURACTIV.com

European Social Rights: EU to proclaim 'pillar' of social rights in Gothenburg- by Nikolaj Nielsen

European leaders are meeting in Sweden to discuss social issues as part of an effort to boost jobs and growth.

The half-day summit on Friday (17 November) in Gothenburg will bring together heads of state and government, as well as the EU institutions.

Billed as an event to "strengthen the EU's social dimension", the leaders will discuss, among other things, the future of education and culture.

The European Parliament, the EU Council representing member states, and the European Commission will also proclaim a European Pillar of Social Rights, whose first preamble calls for a Europe with full employment, balanced economic growth, social progress, and a quality environment.

In a statement on Thursday, Sweden's prime minister Stefan Loefven said the event would broadly focus on how to improve people's lives.

 Read more: EU to proclaim 'pillar' of social rights in Gothenburg

EU - Tribalism: Back to the past? 98 European Union Member States? - by Jordi Angusto

Scotland, Veneto, Lombardy, Catalonia… these are all EU regions demanding greater self-government, in some cases including independence from their home states but never from the EU. An apparent paradox given that their demands have increased along with the EU’s own growth in power. But there is no contradiction.

The EU has super-imposed a new order that sits uneasily with the previous settlements between regions and nation states, both in political and economic terms. An incompatibility requiring an adjustment at EU level rather than at states’ level if we still want “an ever closer union”. Both in Italy and Spain, North to South fiscal transfers were designed as a stabilising mechanism to recycle trade imbalances. It meant the North’s trade surplus financing the South’s trade deficit fiscally: a closed mechanism that made sense while trade and fiscal flows were symmetrical, as was the case before the EU single market and the euro; but hard to justify once the flows are asymmetrical. As a case in point: before the euro, Catalonia used to have a trade deficit with the rest of the world and a huge trade surplus with the rest of Spain; nowadays, it enjoys a 6% GDP trade surplus with the rest of the world while that with the rest of Spain has been halved. But fiscal transfers to the rest of Spain remain untouched, at 8% of GDP.

Both in Italy and Spain, North to South fiscal transfers were designed as a stabilising mechanism to recycle trade imbalances. It meant the North’s trade surplus financing the South’s trade deficit fiscally: a closed mechanism that made sense while trade and fiscal flows were symmetrical, as was the case before the EU single market and the euro; but hard to justify once the flows are asymmetrical. As a case in point: before the euro, Catalonia used to have a trade deficit with the rest of the world and a huge trade surplus with the rest of Spain; nowadays, it enjoys a 6% GDP trade surplus with the rest of the world while that with the rest of Spain has been halved. But fiscal transfers to the rest of Spain remain untouched, at 8% of GDP.

As the Catalonia/North Italy demands for lower fiscal transfers have given the impression that they are selfish and opposed to the solidarity required in any society, it’s worth analysing those fiscal transfers both under moral and efficiency principles.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker expressed recently his fears around an unmanageable EU of 98 states. However, with 28 members holding veto rights for main questions, the EU is already unmanageable. The question is not the number of states but the institutional architecture. For policy reasons, the EC is used to working with the 272 existing regions in the EU and only few of those are ready to assume full self-government. Finding a satisfactory solution for those regions that are ready and willing to do so and reforming the EU’s architecture to make it more social, democratic and manageable is a daunting challenge that must be tackled. Anybody willing to take it up?

 Read more: 98 European Union Member States?

Status of the Globe: Scientists say the future for Earth is even more bleak than originally thought - by Richard Hartley-Parkinson

Is the party over ?

A prophetic ‘Warning to Humanity’ giving notice of perils facing the Earth has been issued by more than 15,000 scientists from around the world.

The message, posted online, updates an original Warning from the Union of Concerned Scientists and around 1,700 signatories delivered in 1992.

Today, the global scientific community’s view of the future is even more bleak.

Apart from the hole in the ozone layer, which has now been stabilised, every one of the major threats identified in 1992 has worsened.

Runaway consumption of precious resources by an exploding population remains the biggest danger facing humankind, say the scientists.

They urge ‘scientists, media influencers and lay citizens’ to put pressure on governments to reverse the trend.

A host of environmental calamities are highlighted in the warning notice, including catastrophic climate change, deforestation, mass species extinction, ocean ‘dead zones’, and lack of access to fresh water.

Writing in the online international journal BioScience, the scientists led by top US ecologist Professor William Ripple, from Oregon State University, said: ‘Humanity is now being given a second notice …
We are jeopardising our future by not reining in our intense but geographically and demographically uneven material consumption and by not perceiving continued rapid population growth as a primary driver behind many ecological and even societal threats.

‘By failing to adequately limit population growth, reassess the role of an economy rooted in growth, reduce greenhouse gases, incentivise renewable energy, protect habitat, restore ecosystems, curb pollution, halt defaunation, and constrain invasive alien species, humanity is not taking the urgent steps needed to safeguard our imperilled biosphere.’

In their original warning, scientists including most of the world’s Nobel Laureates argued that human impacts on the natural world were likely to lead to ‘vast human misery’.

The new notice, written as an open-letter ‘viewpoint’ article, won the support of 15,364 scientists from 184 countries who agreed to offer their names as signatories.

The authors drew on data from government agencies, non-profit organisations and individual researchers to set out their case that environmental impacts were likely to inflict ‘substantial and irreversible harm’ to the Earth.

Prof Ripple said: ‘Those who signed this second warning aren’t just raising a false alarm. They are acknowledging the obvious signs that we are heading down an unsustainable path.

‘We are hoping that our paper will ignite a widespread public debate about the global environment and climate.’

Progress had been made in some areas – such as cutting ozone-depleting chemicals, and increasing energy generated from renewable sources – but this was far outweighed by the damaging trends, said the scientists.

They pointed out that in the past 25 years:

•     The amount of fresh water available per head of population worldwide has reduced by 26%.
•     The number of ocean ‘dead zones’ – places where little can live because of pollution and oxygen starvation – has increased by 75%.
•     Nearly 300 million acres of forest have been lost, mostly to make way for agricultural land.
•     Global carbon emissions and average temperatures have shown continued significant increases.
•     Human population has risen by 35 per cent.
•     Collectively the number of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and fish in the world has fallen by 29 per cent.

Prof Ripple and his colleagues have formed a new independent organisation called the Alliance of World Scientists to voice concerns about environmental sustainability and the fate of humanity.

Source: : Scientists say the future for Earth is even more bleak than originally thought | Metro News

Soccer Powerhouse Italy Copes With The 'Indelible Stain' Of Missing The World Cup - by Colin Dwyer

This is the way World Cup hopes end — not with a bang, but with a whimper.

With their tournament dreams on the line against Sweden on Monday night, the Italian men's national team — the four-time World Cup champion Italian men's national team — simply could not get the win they needed. They didn't even demonstrate the knack for tragedy that might have made for a dramatic defeat, à la the U.S. men.

Instead, Italians watched their opportunity to play in the 2018 World Cup wither slowly as the scoreboard stayed empty, drifting to a scoreless tie with the Swedes in Milan. With the 0-0 draw, Sweden booked their own ticket to Russia to play in one of the world's most watched events.

Not since 1958 has the World Cup lacked an Italian team.

Luckily, though, it appears Italians are taking it in stride: "Italy, this is the apocalypse," declared the Italian sports publication La Gazzetta dello Sport.

Read more: Powerhouse Italy Copes With The 'Indelible Stain' Of Missing The World Cup : The Two-Way : NPR