Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
“The EU’s executive told member countries they can repurpose hundreds of billions of euros in Covid-19 relief money to fund defense projects, reflecting a radical shift in priorities since the days of the pandemic.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/change-spending-plans-or-risk-losing-billions-brussels-warns-eu-countries/
“Russia is catching up to Ukraine in drone production thanks to greater financial resources, production lines far from the front lines and especially help from China, a senior Ukrainian official told POLITICO.
“Chinese manufacturers provide them with hardware, electronics, navigation, optical and telemetry systems, engines, microcircuits, processor modules, antenna field systems, control boards, navigation. They use so-called shell companies, change names, do everything to avoid being subject to export control and avoid sanctions for their activities,” said Oleh Aleksandrov, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence Service. “Yet officially, China sticks to all the rules. Yet only officially.”
Beijing has repeatedly denied supplying any drones or weapons components to Russia, calling Ukrainian protests “baseless accusations and political manipulation.” But Aleksandrov said Russia has a critical dependency on the supply of Chinese spare parts for both tactical and long-range drones.”
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“Pavlo Palisa, a former top military commander and now deputy head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, said in a statement that so far this year, 80 percent of the damage to Russia’s equipment and personnel has been done with drones. In May alone, Ukrainian drones destroyed 89,000 Russian targets.”
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“Kyiv says that its access to new drones has been curtailed by China, while Beijing has placed no such restrictions on Russia.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/china-russia-lethal-drone-war-race-ukraine-war-invasion-manufacture-putin-tech/
“The commission fined Apple on Tuesday for preventing developers from directly informing users of deals offered outside the App Store, thereby depriving consumers of the benefits of “alternative and cheaper offers.” The commission has ordered the company to remove these restrictions on pain of additional fines. Apple has called the penalty “yet another example of the European Commission unfairly targeting Apple in a series of decisions that are bad for the privacy and security of our users, bad for products, and force us to give away our technology for free,”
On the same day, Meta was fined for offering Facebook and Instagram users a choice between free versions of the apps with personalized advertising and paid ones without advertising—something the commission calls a “pay or consent model.” In a statement, a spokesman for Meta accused the commission of “forcing us to change our business model” said this “effectively imposes a multibillion-dollar tariff on Meta while requiring us to offer an inferior service.””
https://reason.com/2025/04/28/european-commission-fines-apple-and-meta-800-million/
“The EU can apply retaliatory tariffs on nearly €21 billion of U.S. products like soybeans, motorcycles and orange juice after the bloc’s 27 countries assented to the measures on Wednesday, the European Commission announced.
“The EU considers U.S. tariffs unjustified and damaging, causing economic harm to both sides, as well as the global economy. The EU has stated its clear preference to find negotiated outcomes with the U.S., which would be balanced and mutually beneficial,” the EU executive said in a statement.
Hitting back against U.S. President Donald Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs, the European Union’s countermeasures will apply in three rounds. Measures covering €3.9 billion in trade will go into force next week, with a further €13.5 billion from mid-May and a final round of €3.5 billion following in December.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-takes-revenge-on-trumps-metals-tariffs-approved-as-countries-close-ranks/
“The European Union hit back hard as U.S. President Donald Trump imposed 25 percent global steel and aluminum tariffs on Wednesday, announcing a two-stage retaliation covering €26 billion in EU exports that far exceeded a trade fight that blew up in his first term.
The European Commission said it would, from April 1, reimpose tariffs in response to €8 billion in U.S. tariffs — including on iconic American products such as Harley-Davidson motorcycles, bourbon and jeans. And, from mid-April, it will set further countermeasures over €18 billion in new U.S. tariffs, subject to the approval of EU member states.
“We deeply regret this measure,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in an early-morning statement.”
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“The 27-nation bloc — a common market spanning 450 million people — wants to send an unmistakable message that the EU is serious about defending its economic interests should Trump launch a full-scale trade war.”
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“The Commission left the door open to a deal with Trump, saying it “remains ready to work with the U.S. administration to find a negotiated solution” and adding that its measures “can be reversed at any time should such a solution be found.””
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-tariffs-donald-trump-diplomat-eu-war-defending-nation-bloc/
“The trade deficit is huge. It stands at $235.6 billion — a 12.9 percent increase since 2023. EU countries impose an average 5 percent tariff on U.S. goods, while the U.S. imposes an average 3.3 percent tariff on European goods. Even worse, the EU collects a 10 percent tariff on car imports — that’s four times America’s 2.5 percent.”
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“This has to change — and it can — but not through a tit-for-tat race to higher tariffs. Rather, we need to lower tariffs and observe symmetry. Ideally, EU-U.S. trade would be tariff-free. However, if that’s unachievable, tariffs should be, on average, 2 percent on both sides. That would create a huge stimulus for both economies, and it could be the basis and precondition for what is existentially necessary: a common trade strategy on China.”
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“If Trump is serious about “America First,” there’s one thing he should come to terms with — it shouldn’t mean “America Alone.” More leverage at the negotiating table with China, a healthy U.S. economy without inflation, and a prosperous Germany that could turn around a stumbling EU would be in the interest of the American people and Europe.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/03/03/u-s-eu-trade-war-china-00206789
“Twenty-five years ago, the European Union reacted with outrage at the prospect of a far-right politician, Jörg Haider, entering Austria’s government, turning the country into a virtual pariah.
This time? Crickets.
With Herbert Kickl, a right-wing hard-liner who advocates “remigration” for second- and third-generation immigrants, poised to become Austria’s next chancellor, the reaction from EU leaders so far has been to grin, bear it — and hope that Kickl won’t prove as disruptive around the EU leaders’ table as his prior positions suggest he might be.”
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““At this point, which country doesn’t have a right-wing populist in government to reckon with?” asked the first EU diplomat. “It’s really coming down to being pragmatic and practical, not morality.””
https://www.politico.eu/article/austria-far-right-herbert-kickl-europe-populism/
“global warming is now taking a backseat to economic woes and the war in Ukraine. Governments seem not to be in a hurry to start a discussion on new climate targets. While a handful of EU countries, Denmark among them, have endorsed a 90 percent target for 2040, others, including Poland, aren’t yet ready to do so.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-all-but-guaranteed-to-miss-global-deadline-for-climate-targets/
“European countries take a much more precautionary approach to additives in their food, Benesh says. “If there are doubts about whether a chemical is safe or if there’s no data to back up safety, the EU is much more likely to put a restriction on that chemical or just not allow it into the food supply at all.”
In the US, we’re more likely to see action at the state level. California banned four chemicals in 2023: brominated vegetable oil, Red Dye No. 3, propylparaben, and potassium bromate. This year, lawmakers in about a dozen states have introduced legislation banning those same chemicals and, in some states, additional chemicals as well. But federal oversight has been limited, constrained by priorities, authority, and by a lack of resources.”
https://www.vox.com/explain-it-to-me/381121/food-candy-ingredients-coloring-dye-fda
“Migration has been at the forefront for Europe’s politicians since 2015, when more than a million migrants, many of them Syrians fleeing war, made their way to the bloc.
In the ensuing decade, the EU collective has shifted from the “we can do it” stance of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel to trying to shoo new arrivals away from the EU border altogether. In 2023 fewer than 300,000 people made it to the continent; this year the EU’s border agency, Frontex, estimates about 160,000 migrants have reached Europe.
In recent months, nearly a dozen European countries have instituted some form of border restrictions in an attempt to deter migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.
Poland this month announced a temporary halt to processing asylum requests from migrants arriving from neighboring Belarus, invoking a security threat. Germany’s Olaf Scholz instituted border controls this summer to stop undocumented migrants from crossing into Germany after a Syrian man stabbed eleven people, killing three. Six other countries, including Italy, France and Austria, have introduced border checks.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-eu-migration-policy-viktor-orban-muslims-ban/