Europe & EU June 2024-

Europe & EU January-June 2024

2 September
AfD leaders demand inclusion in state coalition talks after election success
(The Guardian) Voters want AfD taking part in government, German far-right party insists after results in Thuringia and Saxony
5 takeaways from Germany’s eastern elections
The far-right Alternative for Germany just keeps rising despite efforts to stop it.
(Politico Eu) The Alternative for Germany (AfD) on Sunday scored a stunning win in an eastern German state election, amid rising voter discontent at Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left national government.
The AfD’s victory in Thuringia and strong second place in Saxony has prompted a new round of soul searching in Berlin, a year out from national elections which could see EU powerhouse Germany tilt to the right.
In Thuringia, the AfD — which has been classified as extremist in some German states — gained a clear victory with nearly 33 percent of the vote. In the more populous state of Saxony, the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) eked out a victory with around 32 percent of the vote, with the AfD trailing close behind.
Here are the five things you need to know about the election outcome, as Germany’s far right claimed its biggest electoral success since World War II. …
4. The AfD has turned into a ‘people’s party’ in Germany’s East
Far-right parties across Europe often benefit from protest voters who simply want to broadcast their dissatisfaction with mainstream parties. But in Germany’s East, it seems, voters are increasingly embracing the AfD not out of protest, but out of earnest political conviction.

Franz Baumann
Ignoring problems does not solve them. It makes them worse. Like Climate Change, Putin or the Palestinians‘ situation in Gaza or the West Bank.
If governments ignore problems, or do not have plausible strategies to deal with them, and if they fail to communicate clearly the challenges and responses, many voters will switch to radicals, populists and lunatics.
This will be on display tomorrow when the citizens of Thuringia and Saxony go to the polls to elect their state (Bundesländer) parliaments. The extremist right-wing AfD and the nationalist left-wing BSW (Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht), peculiarly named after its founder and leader, will do very well. Although they are at opposite poles of the political spectrum, many of their positions are identical. Both are pro-Putin, anti-immigrant, anti-diversity and consider climate change a hoax.

Overtourism and the climate crisis
31 August
Influencers hyped the Amalfi Coast for years. Now it’s a ‘theme park.’
In southern Italy, TikTok vs. reality pits a cliffside paradise against endless climbs, bus lines and traffic jams.
(WaPo) The causes of overtourism are complex, but affected destinations can point to at least one overriding factor. Santorini, Greece, has a crush of cruise ships; Dubrovnik, Croatia, attracts rabid “Game of Throne” fans. The Amalfi Coast suffers from overexposure on social media. Search “Amalfi Coast” on TikTok, and you will be bombarded with serene videos of pastel-colored villages wedged into the cliffside like Jenga pieces. …
“Salerno, which is very popular among Italians, is not popular abroad,” said Margherita Chiaramonte, the commercial director of aviation at the Naples and Salerno airports for GESAC, the airports management company. “But it really deserves to be, because it has stunning, unspoiled villages and well-preserved traditional places.”
[Jonathon Day, a sustainable tourism expert and associate professor in Purdue’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management] doesn’t blame influencers for the chaos that overtourism has wrought. He faults government officials for being blindsided by the surge in visitors. He said legislators should have proactively created a tourism management plan. Instead, they are scrambling to fix the problems with regulations that locals say aren’t working.
20 October 2023
Far off the tourist track, Molise offers the best parts of Italy
The forgotten region feels like finding the buried heart of why travelers fell for Italy in the first place

13 August
Drunk visitors, rocketing rents and homogenised cafes: living in Europe’s tourist hotspots
Locals say swelling visitor numbers are distorting housing markets and have changed their area’s character
(The Guardian) In July, protesters took to the streets of Palma, the Mallorcan capital, carrying placards with slogans such as “no to mass tourism” and “tourism, but not like this”.
… The swelling numbers of visitors are intensifying the pressure on climate-stretched resources: in some areas of the island, restrictions on water use were announced in July.
The roads are clogged with rental cars, and public transport is unable to support the ever-rising number of tourists, he said; Mallorca, which has a population of just under a million, expects to host about 20 million visitors this year.
Mallorca is not alone in hosting protests against overtourism: thousands of people from across southern Spain took to the streets of Málaga on 29 July, while UNESCO recently warned this wave of opposition could spread across Europe.
9 August
Protests over mass tourism could spread beyond Spain, says UNESCO official
Situation ‘out of balance’ as local people are priced out of housing and frustrated by hordes of selfie-seekers
(The Guardian) … What was needed was a paradigm shift, he [Peter DeBrine, UNESCO’s senior project officer for sustainable tourism] said, whereby decision-makers started to ask how things could be made better for residents. “It’s a bit of a cliché, but I always say better places to live are better places to visit.”
It was a shift already visible in many places, he said, pointing to Denmark’s push to encourage climate-friendly, sustainable behaviour and Venice’s entry fee. In Barcelona, the mayor recently vowed to curb apartment rentals to tourists by 2028, while Mallorca and Dubrovnik have taken action to limit cruise ship arrivals.

22 July
Top EU diplomat calls rival meeting in response to Hungary’s rogue diplomacy
Meeting of bloc’s foreign ministers organised by Josep Borrell is in effect a boycott of a gathering in Budapest
Borrell announced that he had decided to convene informal meetings of EU foreign affairs and defence ministers in Brussels after the summer break, meaning the same participants will not gather in Budapest as originally planned.
At Monday’s foreign ministers’ meeting “EU member states overwhelmingly criticised Hungary’s lack of sincere and loyal cooperation”, Borrell wrote on X, as he announced the decision.
Hungary, which took over the EU’s rotating presidency on 1 July, has infuriated other EU leaders, with prime minister Viktor Orbán’s self-styled “peace missions” to Moscow and Beijing and talks with the Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

15 July
Copenhagen offers tourist rewards as other EU nations clamp down
The Danish capital hopes to lure climate-friendly and well-behaved travellers with perks such as free drinks and skiing
(The Guardian) The Danish capital appears to be bucking the trend of other travel hotspots struggling under the burden of too many tourists, by attempting to lure only the well-behaved, socially and environmentally conscious traveller.
The national tourist board has introduced a programme to encourage climate-friendly, sustainable behaviour. From Monday, it will reward those who choose to ride a bike, take public transport or undergo a bit of work like gardening or rubbish collection at the harbour or in the city’s parks.
People who turn up with their own reusable coffee cups can expect to receive a free brew at selected venues, while other perks for good behaviour include a complimentary cocktail on a rooftop bar, or extra time spent on the city’s artificial ski slope complex.
14 July
Venice nets $2.2 million in day-tripper tax pilot. Opponents say it failed to deter visitors
(AP) — Venice on Sunday wrapped up a pilot program charging day-trippers an entrance fee, more than 2 million euros ($2.2 million) richer and determined to extend the levy, but opponents in the fragile lagoon city called the experiment a failure.
Over the first 11 days of the trial period, an average of 75,000 visitors were recorded in the city. Martini said that is 10,000 more each day than on three indicative holidays in 2023, citing figures provided by the city based on cell phone data that tracks arrivals in the city.

24 July
Good vibes only: Can Starmer make the European Political Community work?
Elizabeth Ames
Europe’s newest strategic forum has the chance to rally regional leaders around common defence and security challenges
(Lowy Institute) After a cold and wet start to the summer, the United Kingdom basked in glorious sunshine last week as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed European leaders to Blenheim Palace for the fourth Summit of the European Political Community (EPC). Following almost immediately on from the NATO summit in Washington, where the newly elected Starmer was mobbed by centre-left leaders wanting to know the secret to a landslide victory, the British PM would be forgiven for being in a sunny mood, despite England’s loss in the Euros final.
He would have been further cheered by the feedback from the UK media and civil service. One senior foreign policy official described the EPC meeting to me as “the most successful UK-hosted foreign policy summit since Blair”. And, aided by a free ice cream truck for attending journalists, the coverage of the summit outcomes was broadly positive.

19 July
Next European Political Community summit to be held in Hungary
Next EPC meeting to take place four months from now in Budapest, Keir Starmer says.
(Politico Eu) The next meeting of the European Political Community (EPC) will take place Nov. 7 in Budapest, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced Thursday.
The British head of government hosted this week’s EPC summit, where 47 leaders of European Union countries and other nations on the periphery of the bloc gathered.
Starmer used the summit to meet and greet dozens of European leaders in an effort to improve relations with them. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán could also use that opportunity, particularly since Hungary’s helming of the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU has taken a rogue path with Orbán’s self-organized “peace mission.”

Can Ursula von der Leyen save Europe?
The European Commission chief is secretive, controlling, and faces an in-tray from hell over the next five years.
(Politico Eu) Centrist Europe has punched back.
After the far right rattled the political establishment in a Continent-wide election last month, those same, bruised mainstream party leaders dusted themselves down and delivered a resounding rebuke, reappointing their own veteran centrist to the most powerful position in the European Union.
Ursula von der Leyen, a 65-year-old former German defense minister, has been rewarded for steering the EU through a tumultuous period of pandemic and war with another five-year term at the head of the bloc’s executive arm, the European Commission.

18 July
Meeting of the European Political Community
The fourth meeting of the European Political Community brought together leaders from across the continent at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, the United Kingdom.
43 heads of state and government took part in this fourth meeting of the European Political Community
The leaders reaffirmed their continued support for Ukraine and discussed the topics of energy and connectivity, security and democracy, and migration.
The EU was represented by the President of the European Council, Charles Michel.
The Guardian view on the European Political Community summit: at last, Britain is back in the diplomatic room
Keir Starmer has seized the opportunity of the meeting at Blenheim Palace to announce a much-needed reset in relations
(Politico Eu) The European Political Community is not a decision-making body like the European Union or the NATO alliance. It issues no summit communiques, deploys no armies and enforces no treaties or laws. But it is a pan-European body all the same, and more than 40 European heads of government came to Blenheim Palace. This therefore provided Sir Keir with an ideal platform to highlight what he described as Labour’s “reset” on Britain’s relations with Europe.

4 July
Landmark political declaration reaffirms importance of European Social Charter
The high-level conference on the European Social Charter in Vilnius, Lithuania, has adopted a landmark political declaration, reinforcing the commitment of Council of Europe member states to social justice and the protection of social rights. The event, held under the auspices of the Presidency of Lithuania of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers, brought together ministers and high-level officials from the fields of social rights and social policy, Council of Europe leaders, representatives of the European Union, the United Nations, the International Labour Organization, civil society, social partners, academia, and national human rights and equality bodies.
Addressing the participants, Council of Europe Deputy Secretary General Bjørn Berge underlined that “The European Social Charter guarantees our rights to health and education, to work, housing and social security among so many other things. These rights are designed to ensure that we can all live decent and dignified lives and participate fully in our democratic societies.”

27 June
EU leaders pick von der Leyen for second term as Commission chief
Portuguese ex-PM and Estonian leader also tapped for top posts
Italy’s Meloni withholds backing from trio
EU also signs security pact with Ukraine at summit
(Reuters) – European Union leaders agreed on Friday to nominate Ursula von der Leyen of Germany for a second five-year term as president of the European Commission, the EU’s powerful executive body.
At a summit in Brussels, the bloc’s 27 national leaders also picked former Portuguese premier Antonio Costa as the future chair of their European Council meetings and selected Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas as the next EU foreign policy chief.
The trio won broad backing from leaders but diplomats said right-wing Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni abstained from the vote on von der Leyen and voted against Costa and Kallas.
Von der Leyen’s nomination still needs approval from the European Parliament in a secret ballot – widely seen as a trickier proposition than her endorsement by EU leaders.
At the summit, the EU also signed a security agreement with Ukraine, debated how to bolster EU defences against Russia and agreed bloc’s strategic priorities for the next five years.
The security deal underlines EU support for Kyiv fighting off Moscow’s invasion for a third year, despite gains by the far-right in European elections, uncertainty created by French snap elections and the U.S. presidential vote in November.

26 June
Carl Bildt: How Ukraine’s EU membership would change Europe
(GZERO media) Will the start of the talks about the accession of Ukraine to the European Union impact upon the conduct of the war?
CB I don’t think it will immediately, but we should not underestimate the historic nature of this particular decision. A couple of years ago, the entire thought about Ukraine ever being a member of the European Union was absolutely unthinkable in Brussels among the member states. Now it’s become a strategically imperative. And negotiations started this Tuesday with Moldova as well. They will take their time, but it’s a sign that the 27 member states of the European Union see the future of Ukraine as an essential part of the future of a democratic Europe. And that is going to have its long term impact.
8 September 2023
Carl Bildt EU support for Ukraine holding up better than anyone expected

21 June
Ukraine and Moldova to start EU membership talks on Tuesday
(Politico Eu) The EU will launch accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova on Tuesday, prompting gratitude in Kyiv and Chișinău.
… The accession talks are set to start in Luxembourg on Tuesday afternoon via two intergovernmental conferences that the EU will hold separately with Ukraine and Moldova.
The opening of negotiations is the next step in what is likely to be a tough, years-long journey toward membership. Ukraine and neighboring Moldova both applied to join the EU in 2022, after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

20 June
Jeremy Kinsman: Incumbents on the run in Europe….in the US? Canada?
Elections in Europe… Down with the Status Quo! (Open Canada Red Passport podcast)
The Year of the Election is turning into The Year of Living Dangerously for incumbent governments around the world. What is going on? Louise, Jeremy and Peter look at the votes in Europe – the recent EU Parliamentary elections and the upcoming general election in the UK, and France’s snap parliamentary elections. Are there common threads? And what do they mean for Canada?