The seven European super political news | 12.06–18.06
House of Cards in Europe
The Dutch have no government since March
To elect a government in the Netherlands, there has to be a majority in the Parliament. To be a majority, a party or a coalition has to gather 76 seats. In March 2017, the legislative elections didn’t allow to form this majority. Therefore, it’s been three months that the Netherlands don’t have a government. Mark Rutte’s (PM) party, the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD, Right liberal) is the major one with 33 seats. It tries to form a coalition with the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA, christian & conservatism, 19 seats), the Democrats 66 (D66, social liberal & progressive, 19 seats) and the GroenLinks (green & progressive, 14 seats) who gained 10 seats at March’s elections.
Unfortunately, the negotiations to form the coalition still fail because of disagreements over immigration policies. In the opposition, G. Wilder’s nationalist party is the second major party, with 20 seats in the Parliament.
Finland majority takes back its full potential
In 2011, the Finns party (populist & nationalist) became the third biggest party in Finland. In 2015, heir growing success lead the government to include them in its coalition composed of The Centre Party (liberal & agrarian) and the National Coalition party (liberal & conservative). The dilution softened the Finns which became more moderate. Mechanically, they lost popularity, and had to come back to a more radical approach to get their political identity back. That strategy has been held by J. Halla-aho’s, winner of the party’s leadership election on June 10, 2017.
But that wasn’t everyone’s choice in the party, so it split into two after the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance threatened to break the coalition with the Finns’ Party if Halla-alo was elected. One half left the party to form a new parliamentary group called the New Alternative aiming to support the government. The second half stayed as The Finns but has been ejected from the coalition to the opposition.
That situation strengthened the government, giving it more freedom to push through its program. Some say it could also be the chance for Halla-aho to organise a strong opposition. Link.
Stranded roaming — yeah but not for sharing selfies
Since Thursday 15, Europe gets the freedom for speech circulation. That means you can call or text anyone in the EU at the same cost as what you pay in your country. But that’s not the case for data. No.
For data, here’s the computation :
If you have an “unlimited data” contract: take the duty free price of your contract. Divide it by 7.7. Multiply the result by 2. Tada! You get the number of Go you can get for free.
For example : I pay 20. Minus taxes, it gets to 16.7.
16.7/7.7*2=33.4/7.7=4.338 Go per month (Head computation).
Yes, but I have 25 Go per month, ’cause my operator is just nice.
If you have a “limited data” contract, it’s should be the same data quantity as in your own country. Except if you have a particularly sneaky operator, then you’ll have to do the same maths as previously. Link.
I’ve heard there are talks over 5G: to compute the number you’ll have to get to exponential equations.
Greece got more funds but no debt relief — 15.06
Today, Greece’s debt amounts €226.36bn. It increased by €2.65bn on the previous quarter. There’s a portfolio of €86bn held by European countries aiming to bail Greece out. The Eurogroup, the collective composed of the financial ministers of the EU member states, can decide to unlock parts of that portfolio to help Greece. On the 15th, the Eurogroup then decided to grant a €8.5bn loan to the country, allowing it to handle the refund of its debt in July.
However, the government promised to reinforce its austerity measures. Above all, Aléxis Tsípras didn’t get what he mainly required: to be part of the ECB quantitative easing program and a debt relief. Here’s how quantitative easing works and why the Greek government wanted to be part of the program:
The question of a debt relief has been postponed until 2018. One of the reason of that half solution hides in the upcoming legislative elections in Germany: Greece bailout is an unpopular subject there; this solution allows to give Greece some time while making everybody forget about the topic for some times. Link.
A highway for E.Macron — 18.06
The President elected party earned 43% of the votes, bringing its coalition with the Modem party (center) to 49%. It’s a first in the 5th Republic (since 1958): in the French Parliament, l’Assemblée Nationale, the biggest room for exceptional party meeting is not even big enough to welcome the 350 deputies of the majority. Some see a good hope for Europe in this victory.
However, it also scares others. Only 42% of the population went to vote on Sunday, therefore only 18% of the total population voted for La Republique En Marche, the president’s party. The biggest opposition, a right wing coalition, gathered 27% of the votes. On the third position, the Front National earned 8.8% of the votes, followed by the Socialist Party, the previous party of the majority. Link1. Link2.
EuroBasket Women 2017
The 2017 European Women Basketball Championship is happening right now in Prague. The top 5 winning nations will be qualified for the 2018 FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup in Spain. As to now, Spain, Turkey, Belgium and France have won their place for the Quarters-Finals. The four remaining spots are to still to be earned; Slovenia-Latvia, Italy-Hungary, Ukraine-Slovak Republic and Russia-Greece will strive tomorrow to get them.
Brexit talks seem to spell danger for Brexit
UK’s government has been weakened by last week’s General Elections. See how in the link below :
On Monday 19, Brexit negotiations will start in Brussels. Here’s T. May situation:
- She has to have a hard Brexit line to satisfy the Brexiteers: moving to a midler Brexit direction could get her out.
- To keep the majority, she had to form a coalition with the Irish Democratic Unionist Party from Northern Ireland. Though this party is for Brexit, they’d like to stay in the customs union to prevent a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
- Because of last week Labour party’s success, T. May also has to deal with them. But they don’t have any clear direction about Brexit.
Therefore, it’s going to be quite an odd to both please everybody and face a Europe which looks stronger for weeks. Link.
