Almere-Digest

February 9, 2019

EU: European experience with migration shows that border walls don't stop migration

Aging Europe needs immigration, but in order to achieve this in an organized and orderly way it needs unity of purpose, better planning, and certainly no border walls

February 7, 2019

Global Warming - The Netherlands and Belgium: Thousands of students join climate protests in the Netherlands - by Michael Staines

At least 10,000 students have skipped class in the Netherlands to join a major protest demanding greater action on climate change.

It comes as thousands of teenagers in Belgium skipped school for the fourth Thursday in a row to join the protests.

Similar marches have been held in Sweden, Germany and Switzerland.

It comes as scientists yesterday confirmed that the last five years have been the warmest on record.

Organisers of this afternoon's protest in The Hague in the Netherlands said they were aiming to send a wake-up call to politicians.

It comes after the Dutch Environmental Assessment Agency said the national target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by next year - when compared to 1990 levels - was out of reach.

Feeling proud: an estimated 10,000 students marching through The Hague to protest climate change. #klimaatspijbelaars #KlimaatSpijbelen pic.twitter.com/kH6lcyxtdX

Organizers say the movement is gathering momentum with a global protest scheduled for March

Read more: Thousands of students join climate protests in the

The Netherlands and US Big Pharma Clash: US "Big Pharma" lashes out at Dutch Government for wanting to control pricing

Note Almere-Digest: It looks like the US Pharmaceutical Industry is also trying to use the same heavy handed political tactics and arguments in the Netherlands like they are used to doing in America. In the Netherlands they are doing their lobbying through their membership in the local chapter of the American Chamber of Commerce, which even has a specific Pharmaceutical Committee within that organization. US Big Pharma and Chemical Industry Lobbyists are also swarming all over the EU parliament to promote their products and influence the European decision makers.Hopefully the Dutch Government and the EU Commission will continue to resist these devious attempts to influence the government decision makers

Read more at:
https://www.statnews.com/pharmalot/2019/02/06/netherlands-novartis-vertex-drug-prices/

February 6, 2019

The Netherlands: Food waste - the Netherlands throws away 5 million KG of food every day

February 5, 2019

EU-US Relations: Europeans fear Trump may threaten not just the transatlantic bond, but the state of their union - by Dan Balz and Griff Witte

As President Trump prepares to deliver his second State of the Union address, the leaders of the United States’ closest allies in Europe are filled with anxiety
.

They are unsure of whom to talk to in Washington. They can’t tell whether Trump considers them friends or foes. They dig through his Twitter feed for indications of whether the president intends to wreck the European Union and NATO or merely hobble the continent’s core institutions.

Officials say Trump, by design or indifference, has already badly weakened the foundation of the transatlantic relationship that American presidents have nurtured for seven decades. As Sigmar Gabriel, a former German foreign minister, put it: “He has done damage that the Soviets would have dreamt of.”

European leaders worry that the next two years could bring even more instability, as Trump feels emboldened, and they are filled with fear at the prospect that Trump could be reelected. The situation has left the continent facing a strategic paradox no one has managed to crack.

“We can’t live with Trump,” Gabriel said. “And we can’t live without the United States.”

In more than two dozen interviews in London, Paris and Berlin — the three European capitals at the heart of the Western alliance — government officials, former officials and independent analysts described a partnership with Washington that, while still working smoothly at some levels, has become deeply dysfunctional at others.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron have tried different strategies, but all have struggled to develop consistent and reliable relationships with Trump. Lacking a better alternative, the dominant European approach has been to wait him out and hope the damage can be contained.

In all three capitals, there is talk about somehow trying to go it alone, if necessary — to chart Europe’s course. Merkel stated it as bluntly as anyone when she said in a Munich beer hall that Europe must “take our destiny into our own hands.”

That was two years ago this spring, and since then, Europe has taken only cautious steps in that direction — proposals for a European army being one example. Despite modest increases in European defense spending, the United States continues to account for over two-thirds of military spending among NATO members. Europe struggles to keep big, multilateral initiatives alive without American support.

European officials continue to work as hard as ever to preserve relationships with the president and the administration, despite fears and frustrations.

“We manage,” said a senior European politician, who like others in government spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss a sensitive relationship. “Governing by tweets is not the same as governing by diplomatic engagement. It’s a different process. But it’s something we accept and adapt to. I don’t think that our surprise on a daily basis is any greater than that of his own administration.”

Others, often those who are no longer in government, express a less sanguine view. They see a president ticking through his campaign promises and notice uncomfortably that Europe is on the wrong end of many of them.

Littered among the wreckage, as seen by the Europeans: an all-but-ruined Iran nuclear deal, tit-for-tat tariffs, a global climate accord that is missing the world’s largest economy, a possible arms race triggered by the cancellation of a key nuclear treaty, and a unilateral retreat from Syria without even a courtesy call to allies that work alongside U.S. forces.

More than any one issue, however, there is the sense that Trump and Europe are fundamentally at odds.

Note EU-Digest: Hopefully the EU will be able to defend itself over the coming two years or less against this loud-mouth, uncouth ego-maniac, spoiled bully, before he is either locked-up, or impeached.

February 4, 2019

EU: A European Army ? Not without a real Europen Federation

February 3, 2019

EU Economy: Netherlands' Central Bank President Knot: "European economy 'very much okay'

Netherlands Parliament and offices of the PM in the Hague

Klaas Knot, the president of the Netherlands’ Central Bank, said Europe’s economy was “very much okay” despite worries over trade wars, slowing growth and uncertainty over Brexit.

Speaking on Dutch television last Sunday, Knot, who also sits on the European Central Bank’s governing council, said subdued inflation was troubling, but it was “premature” to talk about a possible recession.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi acknowledged on Thursday that economic growth in the euro zone was likely to be weaker than earlier expected due to the fall-out from factors ranging from China’s slowdown to Brexit.

Knot, usually viewed as one of the more hawkish members of the governing board, said the bloc would see “a few quarters of slightly lower growth, and that’s mostly due to foreign trade.”
Internal demand remained “very good”, he said.

A Reuters report by by Toby Sterling; editing by John Stonestreet