Viral Showbiz Pinay (2024)

23/11/2024

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump tapped Brooke Rollins as his Agriculture secretary, after weeks of intense internal fighting over the role, according to two people familiar with the transition conversations.

Rollins served as director of the Office of American Innovation and acting director of the Domestic Policy Council during the first Trump administration. Since her time in the White House, Rollins has co-founded and helmed the America First Policy Institute think tank, which played an influential role in the transition and has been referred to as Trump’s White House in waiting.

Rollins, who grew up on a farm, is a surprise pick for the role, with less experience in agriculture policy than those on Trump’s shortlist. Trump’s decision to tap her, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, came amid ongoing fighting over the role among his advisers, family members and powerful agriculture groups.

Trump taps loyalist Brooke Rollins for USDA chief in surprise pick

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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump tapped Brooke Rollins as his Agriculture secretary, after weeks of intense internal fighting over the role...

23/11/2024

DUBLIN — Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris was forced to apologize Saturday to a disability services worker for treating her dismissively — a self-destructive campaign moment that could cost him dearly in next week’s election.

Harris, 38, has been criss-crossing the country and shaking hands frenetically in a bid to keep his centrist Fine Gael in power for what could be a party-record fourth straight term in the Nov. 29 vote.

But his brusque treatment of Charlotte Fallon at a supermarket check-out line could mark the moment when, much as happened during the last election in 2020, his party lost its momentum and its early lead in the polls. Caught on video by state broadcaster RTÉ, his Friday night exchange with a distraught Fallon soon surged to the top of social media channels across Ireland.

Led by Sinn Féin, left-wing opposition parties pounced on his performance as a demonstration of Fine Gael’s callousness towards the needy and the marginalized.

Harris had met Fallon near the end of yet another long day and night in the field, having travelled cross-country from Dublin to County Cork and, eventually, the Supervalu grocery store in the town of Kanturk, population 2,800. His social media team produced a disco-inferno video montage of the day’s final campaign pit stop on Tik Tok, but omitted the key damaging bit. RTÉ caught it, though.

Harris initially walked past Fallon near the supermarket exit. The usually sure-footed campaigner turned back when she called after him — and told the Taoiseach his government wasn’t doing enough to fund community-based workers like herself who provide services for the disabled. “You’ve done nothing for us. Our people are suffering,” she said.

Harris responded by rejecting her views in rapid-fire and forthright terms. He offered a rushed handshake, then a brief final attempt to win the argument before heading for a celebratory photo op with Fine Gael loyalists outside.

As the moment turned into the biggest PR own-goal of Fine Gael’s campaign, Harris first issued a contrite but mostly self-justifying statement on his Instagram account.

“I didn’t give her the time that I should have given her, and I feel really bad about that. It’s not who I am,” he said in a statement that stressed his political origin story as the activist sibling of a brother with autism.

He then telephoned Fallon to apologize directly, and committed to meeting her again face-to-face to hear her grievances in detail. After the call, Fallon told the Irish Times that she was still shaken by the “horrible” treatment of her.

“I hope nobody else has to have an interaction like that ever, because it’s not very nice going home crying,” she told the Irish Times.

Harris’ stumble comes at the start of the critical final stretch of a three-week campaign dampened by ice-cold evenings and, this weekend, an Atlantic storm flooding isolated rural communities. This weekend represents the last chance to catch most voters when they’re at home during daylight hours.

Major new polling is about to be published by the Sunday Independent newspaper, followed by more polls Monday and Wednesday. The key three-way TV debate is set for Tuesday night pitting Harris against Foreign Minister Micheál Martin and Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald.

Previous polls have put Fine Gael only narrowly ahead of Martin’s Fianna Fáil, his main coalition partner and rival for center-ground votes, and the Irish republicans of Sinn Féin.

The margin of error in such polls means, in reality, the three parties could potentially be in a dead heat for top position. Typically the party with the most parliamentary seats earns the first right to form a coalition government. However, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil both have dismissed the prospect of forming any governing partnership with Sinn Féin.

Irish leader feels ‘really bad’ over moment that could cost him an election

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DUBLIN — Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris was forced to apologize Saturday to a disability services worker for treating her dismissively — ...

23/11/2024

The EU recalled its ambassador to Niger amid a row with the African country over the handling of €1.3 million in humanitarian aid.

In a sign of deteriorating relations with Niger, Brussels reacted to accusations from the country’s military junta that it handed financial aid to assist flood victims directly to NGOs, therefore bypassing the local authorities.

“The European Union expresses its profound disagreement with the allegations and justifications put forward by the transitional authorities,” the bloc’s foreign affairs arm, the European External Action Service, wrote in a statement on Saturday.

The EU said it will “continue supporting the population” in Niger.

“Humanitarian aid is essential; it is provided neutrally, impartially and independently, and is implemented by United Nations agencies and international organisations and NGOs. Nothing should justify the use of humanitarian aid for political ends,” the EEAS said in the statement.

The EU added that it recalled its ambassador to Niger, Portuguese-French diplomat Salvador Pinto da França, for “consultation in Brussels.”

The developments mark a new high in the escalating tensions between the EU and Niger, where a military junta that is not recognized by Brussels seized power in a coup d’etat in the summer of 2023.

Niger’s military rulers immediately turned against former colonial ruler France, which withdrew its envoy to Niger shortly after the coup.

Brussels recalls envoy to Niger after junta accuses EU of mishandling aid

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The EU recalled its ambassador to Niger amid a row with the African country over the handling of €1.3 million in humanitarian aid. In a sig...

23/11/2024

Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski will be the presidential candidate for Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition following his victory in the party’s primary vote.

Trzaskowski will lead the party’s election campaign in early 2025 after out-polling Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski by 74.75 percent to 25.25 percent in Friday’s primary.

Trzaskowski will most likely face off with a candidate from the former ruling party, Law and Justice (P*S), now in opposition. P*S is due to announce its candidate on Sunday.

“I would like to thank you all so much. I’ve got a very strong mandate, courage and determination to defeat P*S,” Trzaskowski said after the results were announced Saturday just before noon. He is expected to present a detailed campaign platform on Dec. 7.

Five years ago, Trzaskowski led a campaign for the Polish presidency against incumbent President Andrzej Duda, narrowly losing to the conservative politician after a race heavily skewed to the incumbent due to P*S’s total control of public media.

Now that Duda cannot run for a third term, Trzaskowski may have a better chance of winning Poland’s highest office.

Trzaskowski’s other rivals are Szymon Hołownia, leader of the centrist Poland 2050 party that is also part of Tusk’s ruling coalition, who announced his presidential bid earlier this month; and Sławomir Mentzen from the far-right Confederation alliance. Poland’s divided Left is yet to announce their candidate or candidates.

Prime Minister Tusk has not actively campaigned for either candidate, but this week he indicated who, according to a poll, might have a better chance of winning the presidency.

“Rafał Trzaskowski beats the P*S candidate 40 to 28 in the first round and 57 to 43 in the second. Radek Sikorski loses to the P*S candidate 28 to 30 in the first round, but wins 54 to 46 in the second. The result of the poll is clear, but it is only an indication. Your vote has the power to decide!,” Tusk said on his social media.

The presidential campaign officially starts on Jan. 8, Hołownia said at a rally on Friday. He is the parliamentary speaker and therefore in charge of some organizational aspects of the election. In reality, however, both Trzaskowski and the P*S candidate will hit the campaign trail by the end of the weekend.

As for the actual date of the election, Hołownia said he hasn’t fixed a date yet but the vote will “certainly take place in May.”

Replacing Duda with a government-friendly head of state would mark a turnaround for the Tusk administration, struggling to get its agenda done against Duda, who has wielded, or threatened to wield, his veto power to stop legislation he doesn’t like. Tusk doesn’t have a majority in the parliament to override Duda’s vetoes.

Trzaskowski, 52, has long been close to Tusk’s party as an adviser and analyst, which gave him enough credit with the leadership to be asked to run in the European elections in 2009. Trzaskowski won a seat, which he gave up in 2013 to join the second Tusk government and then — after Tusk had left to take over the presidency of the European Council — in the short-lived government of Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz that eventually lost power to P*S in 2015.

Trzaskowski won a seat in the Polish parliament in 2015 but swapped being in opposition to P*S to run successfully for the Warsaw town hall three years later. After narrowly losing to Duda in the presidential contest five years ago, he was reelected as mayor again in 2023.

Warsaw Mayor Trzaskowski wins Tusk party’s presidential primary

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Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski will be the presidential candidate for Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition following his vict...

23/11/2024

Donald Trump threatened to slap huge tariffs on the EU to rid Manhattan of German cars, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel claims.

“Donald Trump was obsessed by the fact that, in his view, there were too many German cars in New York,” Merkel said in an interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera to launch her upcoming memoir.

“He had always said that, if he were to become president, he would have imposed such high tariffs that they [German cars] would have disappeared from the streets of Manhattan,” Merkel told the newspaper.

As the EU’s most-powerful leader when she was chancellor, Merkel repeatedly clashed with Trump during his first term in the White House, from 2017 to 2021, which was marked by trade tensions and an aggressive rhetoric against Europe.

Merkel denied that her U.S. counterpart had a personal grudge against her.

“No, in his eyes I embodied Germany,” she told the Italian daily.

In the interview, Merkel also pushed back against lingering speculations that she played a role in former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s demise during at the height of the eurozone crisis in 2011.

“No, I deny it categorically,” she said. “I have never meddled in the internal affairs of a friendly country.”

She instead praised Berlusconi’s efforts to “reach common European compromises,” while conceding that cooperation with him “became more difficult” during the financial crisis.

Merkel did not weigh in directly on the upcoming German elections, where her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is expected to emerge as the biggest party, according to polls.

She suggested that Germany’s controversial debt brake — which limits the structural budget deficit to 0.35 percent of gross domestic product — should be overhauled.

“I believe that in the current situation, in the face of many new challenges, it should be reformed — not to sustain social expenditure, but investments,” Merkel said.

Trump was ‘obsessed’ by too many German cars in New York, Merkel claims

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Donald Trump threatened to slap huge tariffs on the EU to rid Manhattan of German cars, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel claims. “...

23/11/2024

BRUSSELS — Romania’s ultranationalist wannabe president, George Simion, has two role models he hopes offer a winning formula: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

“We are sort of a Trumpist party,” the 38-year-old leader of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) party said, but “it is not by chance that I am happy for my party being in the same political family as Meloni.”

Italy’s hard-right prime minister restored “hope for Italians … in the European project,” Simion told POLITICO in an interview. “What we have seen is … a Melonization” of Europe, he said.

And now, he added, “believe me, there will be a Simionization as well.”

Romanians head to the polls Sunday for the first round of the country’s presidential elections pitting 13 candidates against each other. It comes at a critical time for the southeastern EU nation as it faces a yawning deficit and Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine raging at its border.

At stake is Romania’s positioning in the EU, with a win for Simion tilting the balance of power in the bloc further to the right and cementing a broader trend of democracies pivoting sharply toward hard-right politics. Despite its checkered history of corruption, Bucharest has long been viewed as a reliable NATO partner and EU bastion in the region.

Simion, who cut his political teeth agitating for unification between Romania and Moldova and is currently polling second behind the country’s center-left Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, has vowed to remain loyal to NATO and work to reform the EU from the inside if elected. That’s a similar tactic adopted by Meloni after her election victory last year.

But other candidates, including Elena Lasconi, a reformist candidate polling neck-and-neck with Simion, have branded him an “extremist.” AUR rose to prominence during the Covid-19 pandemic on an anti-vaccine platform, while the party also drew criticism in 2022 after calling mandatory Holocaust education in Romanian schools a “minor topic.”

Party leadership is undeterred, however, as global political winds gust to the right.

“Even if we are conservative, which is not to the liking of the establishment in Brussels, even if we believe in many of the values President Trump believes in,” Simion said, “we also believe that we need a strong, united Europe.”

The politician insisted he would “work together” with the EU’s mainstream parties if elected, with Romania’s full accession to the visa-free Schengen zone, pushing for a directly elected EU executive and boosting industrial production in the bloc at the top of his list of priorities.

But unlike Meloni, Simion has openly vowed he would push back against Brussels even if that means breaking EU rules in a move more reminiscent of the populist leaders of Hungary and Slovakia, Viktor Orbán and Robert Fico.

“I would be a liar to say we would respect EU law,” he said. “If tomorrow [there is] a new law that we didn’t vote for … or laws that are not good for Romania,” he said, “I will try to use all my powers to stop what is doing harm for my people.”

At stake is Romania’s positioning in the EU, with a win for George Simion tilting the balance of power in the bloc further to the right. | Robert Ghement/EPA-EFE

Meanwhile, Simion has pledged to suspend military aid to Ukraine, whose government has banned the hard-right leader from visiting the country over his promotion of “unionist ideology,” like neighboring Moldova.

He has also faced accusations of meeting with Russian spies, charges he has repeatedly denied. Speaking to foreign journalists on Wednesday, he branded Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal.”

Still, the AUR party chief said he wants a cease-fire in Ukraine “as soon as possible” and called for a peace agreement brokered by Trump — even if that means Kyiv giving up land currently controlled by Russia.

“I cannot say … to Ukrainians give up your national territory,” he said, “but it’s hard to believe that they won’t be obliged to.”

Romanian hard-right chief pitches himself as Europe’s next Meloni

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BRUSSELS — Romania’s ultranationalist wannabe president, George Simion, has two role models he hopes offer a winning formula: Italian Prime ...

23/11/2024

First published on CagleCartoons.com, The Netherlands, November 21, 2024 | By Joep Bertrams

First published on PoliticalCartoons.com, November 18, 2024 | By Plop and KanKr

First published in De Volkskrant, The Netherlands, November 19, 2024 | By Schot

First published on CagleCartoons.com, The Netherlands, November 22, 2024 | By Tom Janssen

First published on CagleCartoons.com, Austria, November 17, 2024 | By Marian Kamensky

World’s cartoonists on this week’s events

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First published on CagleCartoons.com, The Netherlands, November 21, 2024 | By Joep Bertrams First published on PoliticalCartoons.com, No...

22/11/2024

Welcome to Declassified, a weekly humor column.

I say we’ve waited long enough.

Those among us who are passionate about the topic have followed every twist and turn of this epic drama — all the names whispered in the corridors, the not-so-secret backdoor deals leaked by insiders and the bold public statements.

Is the moment here, at last? Will we finally get the answer we’ve been looking for, whether we like it or not?

It might not be the sequel that Brussels deserves, but it is the sequel it needs right now, despite long delays and accusations of ignoring factual truths …

Gladiator II hit the cinemas last week.

It only took director Ridley Scott a little over 20 years to release his second historical(-ish) drama set in ancient Rome, complete with gladiators riding rhinos and sharks swimming in the Coliseum. And if you — like some historians — doubt the film’s accuracy, the Oscar-nominated director has explained his logical approach to writing the script: “‘Excuse me, mate, were you there?’ No? Well, shut the f**k up then.”

If Scott can so eloquently convince Hollywood to make Gladiator 2.0 happen, surely Ursula von der Leyen can get the European Parliament to approve her new class of commissioners.

After yet another closed-door meeting where the leaders of the European Parliament’s political groups discussed the fate of the six executive vice president nominees (plus Hungary’s candidate), we know … roughly as much as we did before.

The real journalists — as opposed to yours truly, filling in this column temporarily and undeservingly — at POLITICO Towers are hopeful that next week’s Parliament vote will be the last. Cooler heads seem to be prevailing: If that’s true, we could soon go home with a glass of mulled wine and be done with it already. If it isn’t and those cooler heads get heated, they might decide to send VDL back to the drawing board and force her to start from scratch. 26 live blogs covering each commissioner’s grilling and all. Christmas ruined for the Brussels bubble!

Whether my esteemed colleagues’ hopes of a peaceful approval of commissioners on Nov. 27 by the European Parliament will be met or not, we can all agree the last six months have been quite a ride: from the European election, followed by a surprise French parliamentary election, to incumbent commissioners dropped unceremoniously and nominees with an athletic mindset ushered in.

Brussels, are you not entertained?

CAPTION COMPETITION

“Welcome to our TED talk, today we’re gonna talk about our favorite craft beers.”

Can you do better? Email us at [email protected] or get in touch on X .

Last week we gave you this photo:

Thanks for all the entries. Here’s the best from our postbag — there’s no prize except for the gift of laughter, which I think we can all agree is far more valuable than cash or booze.

“Snog, Marry, Avoid.” by Anonymous

The EU bubble’s longest-awaited sequel is here … maybe

Source: Viral Showbiz Pinay

Welcome to Declassified, a weekly humor column. I say we’ve waited long enough. Those among us who are passionate about the topic have fol...

21/11/2024

Ukraine’s former military Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny said that the direct involvement of Russia’s autocratic allies in its war on Ukraine means that World War III has started.

“I believe that in 2024 we can absolutely believe that the Third World War has begun,” said Zaluzhny, who is now Ukraine’s envoy to the United Kingdom, during a speech at Ukrainska Pravda’s UP100 award ceremony.

“Because in 2024, Ukraine is no longer facing Russia. Soldiers from North Korea are standing in front of Ukraine. Let’s be honest. Already in Ukraine, the Iranian ‘Shahedis’ are killing civilians absolutely openly, without any shame,” said Zaluzhny, adding that North Korean and Chinese weapons are flying into Ukraine.

Zaluzhny urged Ukraine’s allies to draw the right conclusions.

“It is still possible to stop it here, on the territory of Ukraine. But for some reason our partners do not want to understand this. It is obvious that Ukraine already has too many enemies. Ukraine will survive with technology, but it is not clear whether it can win this battle alone,” he said.

Zaluzhny’s speech at the ceremony is in line with his grim outlook of the war. In similar comments in his essay for The Economist last year that infuriated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Zaluzhny compared the state of the conflict to a stalemate like World War I.

Zelenskyy fired Zaluzhny in February after rising tensions between the two on how the war in Ukraine should be fought — as well as Zaluzhny’s growing popularity, which made him a potential political threat.

Zaluzhny was credited for successfully halting and pushing back Russia’s initial attack launched on Feb. 24, 2022, which was later tarnished by the failure of last year’s counteroffensive. His role was taken over by General Oleksandr Syrskyi, who is seen as closer to the president.

World War III has officially begun, Ukraine’s ex-top general says

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Ukraine’s former military Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny said that the direct involvement of Russia’s autocratic allies in its war on Uk...

21/11/2024

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said a United States anti-missile base in Redzikowo, Poland “is a priority target for potential neutralization.”

The warning comes days after U.S. President Joe Biden authorized the use of long-range American missiles against Russian targets by Ukraine, the reported deployment of British Storm Shadow missiles by Kyiv against Russia, and the Kremlin’s own expansion of the conditions under which Moscow may use its nuclear weapons.

The developments — along with Moscow’s recent use of North Korean troops on the battlefield against Ukraine — have heightened global fears Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s war is escalating to a new phase.

“Given the level of threats posed by such Western military facilities, the missile defense base in Poland has long been included among the priority targets for potential neutralization. If necessary, this can be achieved using a wide range of advanced weaponry,” Zakharova claimed, according to an article by Russian state-owned news agency TASS.

Referring to the American installation, “this inevitably heightens strategic risks and, consequently, raises the overall level of nuclear danger,” she said.

The military base opened Nov. 13, after being originally commissioned by former U.S. President Barack Obama in 2009. Part of an American anti-missile shield, it is the first permanent installation of the U.S. armed forces in Poland.

The Kremlin also interrupted a live press conference on potential peace negotiations to order Zakharova not to comment on Kyiv reporting that a Russian intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) struck Dnipro earlier that morning.

“Masha, don’t comment at all on the ballistic missile strike on Yuzhmash, as the Westerners started talking about it,” was heard through the receiver. Yuzhmash may be in reference to a factory in Dnipro.

If confirmed, the attack would be Moscow’s first use of an ICBM against Ukraine.

US military base in Poland is ‘priority target,’ Russia warns

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Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said a United States anti-missile base in Redzikowo, Poland “is a priority target for ...

20/11/2024

European politicians preparing for United States President-elect Donald Trump’s second term in the White House have so far made a point of not saying anything that could upset him.

But Angela Merkel, who was Germany’s chancellor for 16 years, until 2021 — since which she has largely stayed out of the public eye — has no need to play the flattery game.

In her upcoming memoir, excerpts of which have been published by German weekly Die Zeit, she details her interactions with Trump during his first four-year term, including her take on the former president’s relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

“He judged everything from the perspective of the property entrepreneur he had been before politics,” she wrote of Trump. “Each property could only be allocated once. If he didn’t get it, someone else did. That was also how he looked at the world.”

“For him, all countries were in competition with each other, in which the success of one was the failure of the other; he did not believe that the prosperity of all could be increased through co-operation.”

Merkel’s comments are notable because of the high level of respect she commanded among European political leaders, even as her reign over Germany ended. Her thoughts on how best to treat with the ex-president will be of note to politicians preparing for a second Trump term.

The former Christian Democratic Union leader found the Trump relationship so challenging, she even sought advice from Pope Francis on how to deal with him.

Angela Merkel also wrote that during the March 2017 meeting, Donald Trump was keen to get her opinion on Vladimir Putin. | John Macdougall/AFP via Getty Images

“Without naming names, I asked him how he would deal with fundamentally differing opinions in a group of important personalities,” Merkel wrote, referring to a conversation around the time Trump was threatening to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement. “He understood me immediately and answered me straightforwardly: ‘Bend, bend, bend, but make sure it doesn’t break.’”

“I liked this image. I repeated it to him. ‘Bend, bend, bend, but make sure it doesn’t break.’ In this spirit, I would try to solve my problem with the Paris Agreement and Trump in Hamburg.”

Much of her writing about Trump concerns her meeting with him in the White House in March 2017.

“We spoke on two different levels. Trump on an emotional level, me on a factual one,” Merkel wrote of the meeting. “When he did pay attention to my arguments, it was usually only in order to construct new accusations from them.”

“When I flew home, I didn’t have a good feeling,” she said. “I concluded from my conversations: There would be no joint work for a networked world with Trump.”

Just a few months later, after Trump had thumbed his nose at Europe during a tour of the continent and a fractious G7 meeting in Italy, she famously declared, against the backdrop of Trump’s leadership and Brexit the year before, that Europe must to a greater extent than before stand on its own, unable to fully rely on others.

She also wrote that during the March 2017 meeting, Trump was keen to get her opinion on Putin.

“Donald Trump asked me a number of questions, including about my East German origins and my relationship with Putin.”

“He was obviously very fascinated by the Russian president,” she wrote. “In the years that followed, I had the impression that politicians with autocratic and dictatorial traits captivated him.“

Nette Nöstlinger contributed to this report.

Merkel eviscerates ‘emotional’ Trump in upcoming memoir

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European politicians preparing for United States President-elect Donald Trump’s second term in the White House have so far made a point of ...

20/11/2024

The European Parliament unblocked the European Commission’s Dec. 1 kickoff after the center-right European People’s Party, the Socialists and Democrats and liberal Renew signed an agreement committing to work together for the next five years. Check out the document here.

But with the Commission greenlit, the EPP now is free to swing to both the left and right to find majorities, keeping the right-wing members of the European Parliament on side.

Renew lawmakers introduced the agreement as a way to break the deadlock and ease tensions between S&D and the EPP.

In exchange for supporting Italy’s hard-right commissioner nominee Raffaele Fitto, which the socialists initially refused to do, S&D and Renew demanded that the EPP commit to sticking with the centrist mainstream majority, rather than turning to a right-wing majority in the Parliament.

But the agreement falls short of that, and does not add a new dynamic to the relationship among the three groups.

The watered-down declaration merely focuses on broad objectives for the coming five years, drawing from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s June investiture speech.

The three groups “agree to cooperate,” and “reaffirm” their “pledge to work together with a constructive approach.”

There are no formal coalitions in the European Parliament, as the government — in this case the Commission — does not depend on the support of a majority of lawmakers to stay afloat.

While the three centrist groups have kept the EU stable in recent years, often coming together to pass legislation, majorities in the Parliament are decided on a case-by-case basis, depending on the issue at hand.

Document: Right-wing majorities in European Parliament will still be allowed

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The European Parliament unblocked the European Commission’s Dec. 1 kickoff after the center-right European People’s Party, the Socialists an...

Viral Showbiz Pinay

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