E U

[barkingmad]

Here is an interesting proposition which will raise some blood pressures in the shires and elsewhere;

https://dailysceptic.org/2023/07/03/wil ... ing-cause/

Hopefully the proposed timescale will endure as by then it won't bother me or many here...

The comments which follow give a clue as to the possible reactions.

[barkingmad]

Gosh, what a dreadful mistake was made by the UK electorate by choosing to leave this well-respected paragon of justice and democracy?!

Don’tya just wish we in what’s left of the Disunited Kingdom were back being enveloped by thesuffocating cuddles of the EUssr?

https://dailysceptic.org/2023/09/01/eu- ... t-allowed/

Now why do I think of the Roman and other empires who rose spectacularly and fell to earth just as quickly as has the British Empire.

[OFSO]

Belgium’s on-again, off-again hunt for the men accused of corrupting the European Parliament...

First they were sought under arrest warrants, but when it was realised how many senior members of the EU Commission they would incriminate, the warrants were rescinded...

That’s the question at the heart of the scandal known as Qatargate — the most serious corruption allegations to hit European Union institutions in decades. In a sprawling Belgian police and intelligence investigation, major diplomatic and government figures have been accused of funneling payments to members of the European Parliament in exchange for influencing decisions in favor of Qatar and Morocco.

In January, Belgian authorities issued a national notification for the arrest of Qatari Labor Minister Ali Bin Samikh Al Marri, his aide Bettahar Boudjellal and Morocco’s ambassador to Poland, Abderrahim Atmoun, according to Belgian police reports seen by POLITICO.


Later that month, Michel Claise, then the lead investigative judge in the case, ordered the notifications for arrest to be rescinded.

At a later date, new notifications for the arrest were issued for the two representatives of the Qatari government, only for one of them to be lifted once again.

If that sounds confusing, it’s because it is. Experts consulted by POLITICO said the abrupt issuing and rescinding of notifications for arrest is not common practice.

“It’s quite unusual to issue a national notification for the arrest of someone and then lift it only a week later, unless in the meantime the person has been found by the police or if something in the investigation completely extinguishes the lead,” said Anthony Rizzo, a lawyer and a law professor at Brussels’ ULB university who has sometimes faced off against Claise.

‘Criminal activity’
In Atmoun’s case, Claise first drew up a request to French authorities on January 5 to freeze the Moroccan diplomat’s assets in France, including a three-star hotel and apartment and any bank accounts he might have, the documents showed.

He followed up the next day with a national notification for Atmoun’s arrest. The notifications for the arrests of Boudjellal and Al Marri were issued on January 11.

Claise then drew up the paperwork to request European arrest warrants and Interpol red notices for Atmoun on January 12, according to the documents seen by POLITICO.

Claise’s requests allege that “as part of his activity in a criminal organization, Mr. Atmoun as a corrupter received funds from Moroccan authorities to proceed to various corruption acts toward public servants (members of the European Parliament) or their assistants in order to influence decisions at the Parliament in favor of Morocco’s kingdom.” [Parentheses in original.]

The notifications of arrest for all three men were lifted on January 18. But that doesn’t mean they were no longer wanted.

In January, Belgian authorities issued a national notification for the arrest of Qatari Labor Minister Ali Bin Samikh Al Marri | Hatim Kaghat/Belga Mag via Getty Images
Still wanted?
That same day, formal Belgian arrest warrants were issued for Boudjellal and Al Marri, according to documents seen by POLITICO. Arrest warrants are distinct from notifications for arrest because they mean the subject can be jailed, as opposed to being held in preventive detention for up to 48 hours.

Two months later, the prosecutors sought help from police overseas. They requested European arrest warrants and Interpol red notices for Al Marri and Boudjellal on charges of corruption, money laundering and participation in a criminal organization. The request specified that Qatar and Morocco should not be made aware of the red notice.

By this point, the authorities had also issued new national notifications for the arrest of Boudjellal and Al Marri in Belgium, according to the documents seen by POLITICO.

But the back and forth didn’t end there. On May 16 this year, Claise temporarily lifted both national and international notifications for the arrest of Al Marri. It’s unclear from the documents whether these were later reimposed.

The big question is why the prosecutors kept changing their minds. Various rumours are circulating but nothing has been confirmed.

On Friday, Belgian media claimed Al Marri’s warrant had been lifted in exchange for Qatar’s help in negotiating the release of Olivier Vandecasteele, a Belgian humanitarian worker who has been detained in Iran for more than a year.

Later that day, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said there had “never been any connection with any other case to secure the release of Olivier Vandecasteele” or the three other European citizens released by Iran shortly afterward. He added that it was Oman, not Qatar, that facilitated the negotiations.

Diplomatic immunity
Further complicating any potential arrest is the fact that both Al Marri and Atmoun could claim diplomatic immunity. The Qatari labor minister would potentially be protected from arrest if he traveled abroad on behalf of his country, while Atmoun would be exempt from prosecution as an ambassador if he was found in Poland, where he was officially based.

A European arrest warrant for Atmoun, however, could “be executed without reservation in any European Union country, except in Poland,” according to Jessica Finelle, a French criminal lawyer.

Since the scandal broke last December, Al Marri has not officially set foot in the European Union. He has, however, traveled to Jordan to meet with his Palestinian counterpart; visited Morocco; and also traveled to Geneva, Switzerland in July, when he acted as president of a conference at the 111th International Labour Organization — a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labor standards.

Atmoun, for his part, “passed a lot of time in his residence” after news of the corruption scandal broke, according to a declassified report by the Belgian secret services, included in the police documents seen by POLITICO. He had planned to spend the New Year holidays in Morocco but left early, keeping the date of his flight a secret. He attributed his haste, the report adds, to his mother’s poor health.

Interpol declined to comment on whether red notices had been issued for the three men. Europol and Eurojust, the agencies responsible for European arrest warrants, referred questions to the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office, which did not respond to a request for comment.

The French interior ministry also declined to comment. Atmoun, Boudjellal, Al Marri and the embassies of Qatar and Morocco did not reply to requests for comment. Morocco’s foreign affairs minister has denied the country’s involvement in the Qatargate scandal. Qatar has rejected allegations it interfered in EU democracy.

[OFSO]

Amazing. The EU Parliament currently in Strasbourg today is debating whether to allow the Spanish government to permit an amnesty for the Catalan politicians. An internal matter of a Member State taken over, so to speak, by the EU

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Indeed, well spotted.
It's especially interesting since the politicians have been hiding out in another EU State, and, as far as I can tell, the Spanish judgment was illegal under EU Law in the first place!

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Trouble at (Wind)Mill...

The Dutch appear to have just elected Wilders' PVV as the largest party. He is strongly anti-Islam, and previous coalitions have refused to include the party.
The new leader of the VVD, the right wing party which led the last government but this time appears will place 3rd, has said (unlike her predecessor), that she will work with the PVV but not with Wilders as PM.
She was a Kurdish refugee who arrived in the Netherlands aged 8, but I do not know her religion. Judging from her campaigns and style of dress, she's not Islamic.
The Greens are the second largest party.
We await the ruckus to form a coalition government.

Oh, and Wilders is keen on Nexit!

Wilders has been under heavy police protection since 2004 when Islamists tried to kill him.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Wilders' PVV confirmed with 35 seats.
Despite the top late-night talk show on Dutch TV not having anyone from the PVV on in the 4 months since the election became necessary, unlike the dozens of times the other parties have been on*.
They also gained 35% more seats than any polls predicted.

Bear in mind that the Netherlands has had legal asylum seekers amounting to 2.5% of the population this year.

The US has had an estimated 2.8 million illegal border crossers this year, but it would need to be 3x that, 7.8 million, to equal the Netherlands in percentage terms.

*Except, of course, the other 'Far Right' party, who haven't been on either.

[OFSO]

As the threat from the COVID pandemic has diminished and people opt to miss their boosters, countries have been unable to use up their Covid vaccines fast enough. As of last year, at least 215 million expired doses were binned at an estimated cost to the taxpayer of €4 billion. Most of these orders were brokered by - ahem - Ursula van der Lying.

[OFSO]

PARIS — French farmers have attacked foreign trucks transporting imported produce in the southern Drôme department and destroyed their cargoes, local media reported on Thursday, as countrywide protests escalated.

Farmers held up at least a dozen trucks and dumped shipments of Belgian cauliflower, Polish chicken and Spanish wine on a route nationale at Malataverne, France Bleu radio reported, quoting one of the farmers.

A photo from the scene showed the smoldering remains of food shipments that appeared to have been burned, strewn across a highway. Traffic edged past on the one lane still open.

[PHXPhlyer]

French farmers aim to put Paris ‘under siege’ in tractor protest
The French government on Friday dropped plans that fueled the protests, but farmers’ organizations said that was not enough and pledged to step up the pressure.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/fren ... rcna136116

France said it would push to ease European Union environmental regulations on fallow farmland this week, as tractors blocked major highways out of Paris on Monday and nationwide farmers’ protests intensified.

The French government on Friday dropped plans to gradually reduce state subsidies on agricultural diesel and promised a reduction in red tape and an easing of environmental regulations, but farmers’ organizations said that was not enough and pledged to step up the pressure.

The head of France’s biggest farming organization said farmers would block all major highways out of Paris at about 18 miles from the center. In Brussels too, traffic on the ring road around the capital was disrupted by angry farmers.

“What we have understood is that as long as the protest is far from Paris, the message is not getting through,” Arnaud Rousseau, head of the FNSEA union, said on RTL radio.

France’s two biggest farmers unions said in a statement that their members based in areas surrounding the Paris region would seek to block all major roads to the capital, with the aim of putting the city “under siege,” starting Monday afternoon.

Taxi drivers were also protesting in several French cities over new tariffs for medical transport, which could add to traffic chaos in Paris.

France's main farmers' unions decided to continue their mobilization, after roadblocks and protests across the country, deeming the French Prime Minister's announcements insufficient.
French farmers block a highway near Nimes, southern France, on Jan. 29, 2024.Sylvain Thomas / AFP - Getty Images
Rousseau said farmers would continue their action everywhere in France “with the aim to get emergency measures about the core of our business.”

Rousseau said he was scheduled to meet French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal on Monday.

Farming Minister Marc Fesneau said on Monday that, at a European Union leaders’ summit in Brussels this week, President Emmanuel Macron would make a push for more pro-farming policies to address grievances shares by many farmers in the bloc.

Fesenau added he would himself travel to Brussels this week in his bid to soften E.U. regulations regarding agricultural land that has to remain fallow under new green rules.

Asked when he wanted to reach an agreement with the European Commission on how to revisit the rules, Fesneau said “this week.”

The E.U.’s 2023 nature restoration law requires countries to introduce environmental measures on a fifth of their land and sea by 2030. To reach this goal, a chunk of around 4% of farmland has to remain fallow.

French farmers have complained this could hurt their businesses, and the government in Paris pledged to lobby on their behalf in Brussels.

PP

[OFSO]

BBC News - National Conservatism Conference: Police told to shut down right-wing Brussels event
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68826577

So much for freedom of speech.