do you think, if there was real oppression people could even vote democratically and change their government?
I think you don't know what is oppression then.
(not downplaying how bad Vucic had been to Serbia, but the fact that people replaced him without violence and democratically means something still was in place)
> do you think, if there was real oppression people could even vote democratically and change their government?
Sorry, they get no bonus point for accepting the elections’ results. It’s the bare minimum if they want to pretend to be in a democracy. It does not make them any less oppressive. See also Orban and the PiS.
Now they have some time in the opposition to build something credible to get back into power if they really want it.
Ronald Reagan in 1987, while speaking to the Bicentennial of the Constitution Essay Competition winners, discussed reading the constitutions of other nations like the Soviet Union and noting their stated guarantees of freedom, emphasizing that the true difference lies in the concept of "We the People".
I always took this as warning that "We the People", can also be the cause of why those freedoms are taken. Cue the US electing convicted rapists and Brazil almost electing an US agent...
Bad take. These kind of hybrid regimes or "electoral autocracies" are kind of the flavor du jour of modern attempts towards authoritarian governments. You take control democratically, and then build a system where you control as much of the apparatus of democracy as possible: you change rules or laws to ensure opposition parties cannot gain an advantage in elections; you take control of or ally with the owners of media institutions to push your agenda; you concentrate powers under offices that are easy to control, such as an executive or judicial body. When these regimes topple, as with Orban earlier this year and Vucic now, it is because the autocrats overestimated their control. Orban didn't think it was possible for the usually fractious opposition to get the votes to defeat him, but Magyar managed it. Pressure from outside helps, too; when Orban took power, he did so as a center-right figure aligned with the largest political block in the EU (and got support from many of his counterparts, especially Merkel). By the time he lost power, much of Europe had distanced itself from Hungary and that pressure was being felt internally.
I think the important takeaway here is not that "a lack of violence means that there wasn't real oppression," but rather that modern autocrats are trying to execute a playbook whereby they retain the appearance of democracy to legitimize their rule as a mandate from the people while stacking the deck as much in their favor as possible. Indeed, trying to violently retain power kind of defeats the purpose of the charade; by relinquishing control, the autocrats can treat defeat as a temporary setback, not a permanent loss. Expect this playbook to evolve as more hybrid regimes fall out of favor.
Indeed, the democracy -> dictatorship pathway is well documented by now. The reverse is a lot harder, though it is good to see that when the people show they are not going to be cowed that there is a way back out. It takes a lot of bravery though and the people of Serbia are to be commended for what they have done here. Vucic is already laying the ground for discrediting them so the fight isn't over yet (watch is 'concession speech' to see how).
Definitely. As someone who's been living in Serbia for quite some time, I'd say Vučić's regime has been relatively mild. I haven't personally heard of people being jailed, killed, or even forced out of the country for political reasons. Turkey is much more repressive, while Russia, Belarus, and North Korea are in a completely different league.
Now both of these movements need to prove that they can lead their people better than the previous regime or the backlash will be enormous.
Ngl joining the EuroZone (what Magyar did) is precisely the myopic decision that allows future fascist to rise to power. Joining EuroZone only makes sense iff EU becomes a federation.
Thing is there is a sort of regression to the mean. Even if you free all the media and do some great progressive moves, if people's lives don't get easier and future shocks make your living worse, blaming past governments only helps to a point.
Hence why going to EZ for Hungary is so worrying. Nothing helped fascist thrive more in Greece than austerity. With Drahma, you have some control over fiscal policies. Not so much with Euro. You'll do what Troika says, or else!
Yes, it is a problem. But barring an actual centralized EU government this is what we have right now, a federation that is 'loosely coupled'. It has advantages, but as you correctly note also some massive disadvantages.
Joining the Eurozone makes sense if your country does most of the business in euros. Which Hungary does. Czechia and I guess Poland do too and should have switched long time ago. Worth mentioning also that all of them legally committed to that on accession to the EU back in 2004; of the new EU members from CE, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and the Baltic countries adopted the Euro and I don't identify a fascist streak there.
> Joining the Eurozone makes sense if your country does most of the business in euros.
It doesn't. As Yanis Varoufakis put it nicely[0] you can't have fixed exchange with Germany (or other EU countries), shared customs and exchange union, balanced budget and a functioning society.
When you have two different economical and political policies it's a design guaranteed to generate problems.
> I don't identify a fascist streak there.
> Croatia
You might need to get your fascist detector recalibrated.
Croatia has a *strong* nostalgia for the good old times of Nazi Collaborations (Nazis were less thrilled and found their handling of lesser races both brutal[1] and lax[2]).
I don't agree with Varoufakis regarding more or less anything he says; he's been consistently wrong for a long time.
You picked one state from seven, while not mentioning fascist elements in Hungary or Poland (before Tusk). Great calibration on your side.
So some other things you failed to mention:
- most CE economies are very open and so big businesses already do internal accounting and/or facturation in euros anyway
- a move to euros would save transaction costs for companies and individuals
- in Hungary at least this would also probably lower mortagage costs (they had some issues with mortgages in Swiss francs in the past as far as I remember)
> You picked one state from seven, while not mentioning fascist elements in Hungary or Poland (before Tusk). Great calibration on your side.
Because I know how off mark you are about Croatian politics. Not going to wade in Bulgarian or Romanian politics that are way less on my radar. But each of them has their own flavour of - if not straight fascist then some far-right tumour.
Also, I didn't state that having your own currency is enough. It's a necessary but not sufficient condition.
What I do know all major Euro economies are experiencing constant crises that never end (Greece, Italy, Spain, France, ...). And that is excellent breeding ground for the populist movement.
Far-right appearing more business friendly is what pushes the scale in its favor.
> he's been consistently wrong for a long time.
He's also been right where it matters. Euro as a whole just produces more and more crises.
> Because I know how off mark you are about Croatian politics.
I am sorry, but what are you on about? Your thesis is that Eurozone accession enables future fascism ("Ngl joining the EuroZone (what Magyar did) is precisely the myopic decision that allows future fascist to rise to power."). What does that have to do with Croatian fascist leanings, which existed long before they joined the EU? Precisely nothing. So why are you mentioning them in connection with the euro?
> What I do know all major Euro economies are experiencing constant crises that never end
Compared to what?
> And that is excellent breeding ground for the populist movement.
Compared to what?
> Euro as a whole just produces more and more crises.
Compared to what?
There is no serious analysis, only talking points about perpetual EU crisis which are exactly what the fascist movements are pushing, so yeah.
> Your thesis is that Eurozone accession enables future fascism ("Ngl joining the EuroZone (what Magyar did) is precisely the myopic decision that allows future fascist to rise to power.").
Not really. I said it creates future crisis that then fasicst are usually best poised to seize.
> What does that have to do with Croatian fascist leanings
It was a response to your quote:
> of the new EU members from CE, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and the Baltic countries adopted the Euro and I don't identify a fascist streak there.
You obviously are not good at identifying fascist streak.
> Compared to what?
Stable EU states that aren't in the EZ. Like say Norway or Switzerland.
> only talking points about perpetual EU crisis which are exactly what the fascist movements are pushing, so yeah.
Fascist can also talk about massive poverty. That doesn't auto-disqualify it. Their approach does to solving it does.
This is slightly different from mine: Either tighter EU integration or disband the Euro.
> I hope you can see how this will cause losers to be more spiteful, while making winners more arrogant.
These are again fact-free arguments based on feelings. Who are the winners and who are the losers? Germany as a big exporter certainly doesn't look like a winner now, does it? Spain is doing better than Germany since Covid in GDP growth.
And of course we need the EU markets to be converging and you can't really do that with 27 currencies and monetary policies. Why do we need them converging? Because businesses like the US or China greatly benefit from having huge economies of scale in their internal markets, which makes it much easier to expand after that. The EU has to come as close as possible to that too, otherwise we have no chance and will suffer much greater economic pain. But I guess Varoufakis doesn't tell you that. He just makes you long for the great times where you had to pay for each currency exchange and every bank transaction to other EU countries.
As for far-right monsters, the nazis are currently the most powerful parties in Italy, France, Germany, Austria among others. So your thesis still doesn't make sense.
> You obviously are not good at identifying a fascist streak.
You still don't understand what I wrote. There is no fascist streak that would distinguish countries that adopted the euro from those that didn't.
> Stable EU states that aren't in the EZ. Like, say Norway or Switzerland.
> These are again fact-free arguments based on feelings. Who are the winners and who are the losers? Germany as a big exporter certainly doesn't look like a winner now, does it? Spain is doing better than Germany since Covid in GDP growth.
You can't just weld two different time periods while ignoring what changed in-between.
Germany around 2008 was an exporter that benefited indirectly (devalued Euro) and directly (rescuing German banks) from Greek crisis. Germany today is basically deindustrialising at a rapid pace. It's exports can't compete with Chinese nor do they have access to cheap materials, and that's disregarding tariffs on their exports.
> You still don't understand what I wrote. There is no fascist streak that would distinguish countries that adopted the euro from those that didn't.
And you don't understand what I'm conveying. Far-right and fascist voices always exist. And no, Euro isn't the only possible crisis that can happen.
But those that happen are spread and amplified.
Want example of this happening? It's happening right now. France crisis turned into a France+Italy+Greece+Belgium crisis.
> And of course we need the EU markets to be converging and you can't really do that with 27 currencies and monetary policies.
You can't have them converge (also converging to what?) even with same currency! If say Gambia adopted the US dollar it wouldn't help Gambia at all. In fact quite the opposite. Only once there is a political union of US and Gambia can we talk about possibility of convergence.
> But those that happen are spread and amplified.
> France crisis turned into a France+Italy+Greece+Belgium crisis.
So first of all what crisis are we talking about here, a fiscal crisis (there is definitely one in France) or the sometimes violent protests? And can you spell out the exact connection to eurozone in this 'spreading'? Also why did it spread only to 4 Eurozone countries and not the rest?
> You can't have them converge even with same currency!
why?
> If say Gambia
We don't have a Gambia here and you understand a common currency is only one part of the project. What we have are many different countries that are indeed converging - for example we've got car factories in countries that never had them before on this scale. Can you without looking it up say which EU member produces the most cars per capita? But we have to do more of that convergence.
And yeah, a political union would help, but then we both know it's not possible currently, so an ever tighter federation has to suffice for now.
> (also converging to what?)
to freely (as freely as possible) doing business across internal EU borders, in this case
> I am sorry, but what are you on about? Your thesis is that Eurozone accession enables future fascism
No, I already explained the mechanism. The EuroZone enables and amplifies crises, and the crises are exploited by the left/right populist (usually right, because they are more "business friendly").
> What does that have to do with Croatian fascist leanings
You used them as example. I'm refuting the example.
> tpm: of the new EU members from CE, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and the Baltic countries adopted the Euro and I don't identify a fascist streak there.
> Compared to what?
Compared to a stable non-EZ country, like Norway or Switzerland. I mean having a fiat currency helps, but having a fixed exchange currency is
> which are exactly what the fascist movements are pushing, so yeah.
Just because they are fascist doesn't mean they are physically incapable of identifying an obvious problem.
Where I would differ is that I am for more EU integrations -XOR- abandoning Euro if integrations are impossible.
Meanwhile, in Bulgaria there was the presidential election that no one cared about so the turnout is in the %20 and the pro-Russian candidate severely underperformed. It was expected to be %47 vs %30, ended up being in the %30 for both the pro-Russian and the pro-western candidates.
I mean those are extremists, not just right wing. I think if we had left wing extremists winning elections all over Europe there would be the same type of reactions.
These folks aren't "the right", they're people dishing out lazy answers to complicated problems. They are, like Donald Trump, unserious and will undertake a state level smash and grab as soon as they're put into power, at levels previously unknown in the EU (like DJT here).
Le Pen is more or less dead politically. The RN is currently twisting itself into knots because they want to capitalise on the anti-government protests but are still supposed to be about law and order.
Wait, is that true? I try to ignore the prediction markets as they appear to be very well funded efforts at the tail wagging the dog, but can you provide the links to the biggest positions on this?
Polymarket is very unreliable. People believe it because of survivor bias: they heard about all times when it turned out to be right, often associated with insider trading. You never hear about the thousands times it was wrong.
Please understand that none of that stuff matters. Trump/AfD etc is about being maladaptive and antisocial. Trump voters aren't reading emails and they don't care about the Epstein files either. The sooner people understand this, the sooner maybe we'll be able to get out from under this.
So? Mark Carney is to the right of the centre by the standards of the G7. Just slashed corporate taxes, environmental regulations, doing privatization, federal service layoffs, and slashing labour rights. Only looks "left wing" to culture warriors. Sits right in the centre of European politics, same vibe as the CDU in Germany or Macron in France.
There's nothing "far left" about the provincial NDP parties. They're centrist neo-Keynesians, pretty pragmatic, they don't even call themselves socialists. Again, it's only smelling "far left" if you're obsessed with cultural politics or "woke" stuff and are frankly politically illiterate and never taken a basic political science intro course? I didn't seeing Eby nationalizing/socializing industries and crap. "Far left" is such a bizarre characterization that it boggles the mind.
The federal party goes through phases of more old school NDP/CCF social democracy. But never governs, so.
It is not really a party — it's a nomination list by the protest-organising students — and the people really voted against the ruling party.
The idea is for this to enable true democracy to re-appear, and then actual parties would battle it out in the next elections.
I'd say the risk to political stability in Serbia remains, but just like in any functioning democracy, what matters is that there is regular change and politicians understand that they are soon to be replaced (this avoids the levels of corruption that is multiples of base government project costs and actually cost lives).
I hope that everyone reads your comment. This is how far-gone it was in Serbia, and now there is hope of recovery. This is not some USA left/right party discourse, this is recovery from pure corruption. This is what happened in Hungary, where a center-right party took over, and everyone cheered.
I'm just afraid Elon will invite the Russian but operators onto xAI servers in time for the midterms. Or they find another home in Kasachstan. I'm guessing they are quite mobile.
My pocket theory is that tech advanced so much that more people reverted to the natural state of magical thinking. Yandex bots living in small electronic boxes = evil spirits living in old tree trunks or ugly rocks. Both can lead honest people astray and do sinful things
He already invited the Israeli bots onto Twitter and they're everywhere. This is also why they removed the ability to see who likes a post. All propaganda approved by Musk handlers is highly inflated. Also why blue checks are the only tweets you see for like the first 100 replies to everything.
The replacement party isn't any better though. It will not change anything in Serbia. Just like Hungary which might look like it's changed , but it's not. The political layer isn't remotely controlling those countries. Powerful institutions are. And they are not chosen.
I'm Hungarian and there have been countless positive changes in only half a year. The people in charge are also way more competent than the last lot who all got promoted based on loyalty.
* Billions in EU funds restored
* State funded propaganda shut down
* European prosecutor's office joined and anti corruption agency established with real power, crooks already going to jail
There are many political factions in Serbia. Some (mainly older people) still harbor negative feelings towards EU and NATO countries for bombing them in 1999 and recognizing Kosovo as an independent state. So an alliance with Russia seems like a better option to them even though it's an economic dead end.
Great win for democracy. Now the students will
have to show that they can do better than Vucic.
This won't be too hard, but there is an economic
recession in the whole Euro-zone right now.
Overcoming that is a challenge for many countries
right now.
>but there is an economic recession in the whole Euro-zone
Eurozone growth is about 1% this year and projected to be 1.5% next year. Sluggish but far from a recession. This isn't to nitpick or to ignore real, challenging issues but there's a distorted media view on economic growth in Europe.
And a lot of these anti-democratic movements benefit from this purely vibes based information space politics.
Well, first of all, Serbia is not in the eurozone.
However, also. Whichever news source told you the eurozone was in recession, you should be a bit more sceptical of that news source. It’s just not correct. The eurozone had two short (< 1 year) technical recessions earlier in the decade caused by shocks from Covid and the invasion of Ukraine; beyond those it hasn’t been in recession since the financial crisis.
I looked into Vučić's past and came across a phenomenon known as 'war tourism,' specifically the alleged 'Sarajevo Safari.' Supposedly, foreigners—mostly from Italy—paid large sums of money to travel to Sarajevo and shoot at civilians and children with sniper rifles. What evidence is there that he was involved, aside from that one video where it looks like he’s carrying a camera tripod rather than a sniper rifle
1. Were there snipers targeting civilians from the top of the hill south of Sarajevo? Undeniable, that was never debatable.
2. Was he present at that hill around the time snipers were shooting at civilians? Yes, he never denied being present there and that's where that one grainy video originates.
3. Were there rich foreigners on that hill doing "war tourism" or were all of the civilians shot by Serb forces exclusively? Up for debate, enough evidence to start some investigations, highly unlikely that those investigations will be able to say anything conclusive over 3 decades after.
4. Did he play any role in making those deals with rich foreigners? No evidence of that that's more concrete than putting him at the right place at roughly the right time.
So, him saying that he heard any sort of foreign language around him would be the evidence of #3, but him legitimately not witnessing any such thing (and everyone believing him) wouldn't really be the evidence of the contrary, as #3 could've happened before or (more likely) after his time on that hill.
This is extremely good news. I know quite a few people in Serbia and elsewhere of Serbian extraction and this is going to make them so happy. Hungary showed the way, though in Serbia they were fighting at least as hard.
It is glorious. They seem to have spent so much time on Frace and Germany, that they forgot about Serbia.
Who will they blame it on this time? Maybe those of us in previously forced "Soviet Bloc" countries can now be allowed to have agency?
This is the problem with the USA now openly supporting Moscow. The entire Moscow imperialist mirage is collapsing. There is no one else to blame now. In fact, forget Moscow, it's not a factor. It's just that none of us want pure corruption.
I have hope that at some point Russia too will begin to understand that the days of empire are behind us and that it is better to create than destroy. Trump is an asshole, no mistake there, but he has done us collectively a huge favor: it's very clear that America is for sale and that we should no longer let the good parts from the past cloud our vision in the present.
I wonder how 'MAGA' would behave if I took them on a walk through the allied cemeteries in France, Belgium or the Netherlands. If they would understand that their grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought precisely against the same mentality that they have brought back into play.
Those cemeteries look so immaculate they could have been laid yesterday. There is huge respect for the United States, Canada and the countries of the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and to some extent even for Russia to have put a stop to the Nazi's. But that does not give a country the right to go and misbehave on the world stage to the degree that the United States has done in recent memory.
What I do not know: how much of this is because of Russian influence in America. That could well have been a much larger factor than we know at the moment, maybe this will come to light at some point in the future and if and when it does I suspect that a reconnection between the USA and its - former? - allies may be closer than we think. But it will first take a lot of introspection for that to happen.
But if you look at the path of Hungary, now maybe Serbia, and hopefully the USA skips all of this quickly... it's just that low-trust, aka corruption, is bad for business.
On this website, I read the most succinct comment I have ever seen on the Internet:
> Trust is efficient
Eventually, low-trust fails. It feels like we have all be getting dragged into a low-trust environment lately. But, as long as the high-trust option seems possible, we will progress towards it and efficiency, right?
> I have hope that at some point Russia too will begin to understand that the days of empire are behind us and that it is better to create than destroy.
I don't have that hope but if there is any path to that, it leads through many many coffins.
> how much of this is because of Russian influence in America. That could well have been a much larger factor than we know at the moment
There is some influence but it's not the largest part. It's just the robber barons of the world form natural coalitions and help each other.
No. English is my 2nd language, and even though I started really early I still suffer from the curse of limited idiom. Feel free to correct me at any time. I think in this case it was in part because the people that I know that live here were refugees from the war (kids at the time).
Don’t worry, it’s a pretty common expression used precisely as you did. Haven’t heard it that much in the US in recent times though, which is probably why the parent post complained.
You suffer from more than the "curse of limited idiom", you lecture native English speakers on how to speak their own language, and snitchjacket them according to your own prejudices.
All three are in common use, although I think "heritage" is probably the most iffy. I tend to associate heritage with tangible culture and historical artefacts.
But you are replying to someone who speaks reasonable but not native English. Certainly not as good as he thinks he does. He was trying to claim he knows better English than the BBC earlier.
Look this is just a start, but it is great that dissatisfaction that is expressed throughout the Europe, can be expressed in such constructive and clear way in Serbia.
Very good news. I thought it was interesting how the EU was more cozy with Vucic. My guess would be that despite this new movement being closer in ideals with what the EU should stand for, they are nervous about the idea of people taking control into their own hands instead of delegating to established parties.
What we've accomplished here strikes fear into the hearts of that so-called democratic Europe. This is a brand new level of democracy they’ve never even witnessed. Their politicians are just as much careerists as ours used to be. They are terrified that if we’ve proven this is possible, why couldn't the exact same thing happen to them? They’d prefer that no one hears about this anywhere at all—imagine, picking people straight from the people, without a political career, uncorrupted people with no baggage! God willing, everyone will rise up just like we did and wreck the political elite everywhere.
125 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 25.3 ms ] threadI think you don't know what is oppression then.
(not downplaying how bad Vucic had been to Serbia, but the fact that people replaced him without violence and democratically means something still was in place)
But you are, though.
Sorry, they get no bonus point for accepting the elections’ results. It’s the bare minimum if they want to pretend to be in a democracy. It does not make them any less oppressive. See also Orban and the PiS.
Now they have some time in the opposition to build something credible to get back into power if they really want it.
I always took this as warning that "We the People", can also be the cause of why those freedoms are taken. Cue the US electing convicted rapists and Brazil almost electing an US agent...
You could replace the constitution of North Korea with that of the United States without a single thing changing in practice.
I think the important takeaway here is not that "a lack of violence means that there wasn't real oppression," but rather that modern autocrats are trying to execute a playbook whereby they retain the appearance of democracy to legitimize their rule as a mandate from the people while stacking the deck as much in their favor as possible. Indeed, trying to violently retain power kind of defeats the purpose of the charade; by relinquishing control, the autocrats can treat defeat as a temporary setback, not a permanent loss. Expect this playbook to evolve as more hybrid regimes fall out of favor.
Ngl joining the EuroZone (what Magyar did) is precisely the myopic decision that allows future fascist to rise to power. Joining EuroZone only makes sense iff EU becomes a federation.
Hence why going to EZ for Hungary is so worrying. Nothing helped fascist thrive more in Greece than austerity. With Drahma, you have some control over fiscal policies. Not so much with Euro. You'll do what Troika says, or else!
It doesn't. As Yanis Varoufakis put it nicely[0] you can't have fixed exchange with Germany (or other EU countries), shared customs and exchange union, balanced budget and a functioning society.
When you have two different economical and political policies it's a design guaranteed to generate problems.
> I don't identify a fascist streak there. > Croatia
You might need to get your fascist detector recalibrated.
Croatia has a *strong* nostalgia for the good old times of Nazi Collaborations (Nazis were less thrilled and found their handling of lesser races both brutal[1] and lax[2]).
[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgW81-Yi4F8&t=70s
[1]https://greekreporter.com/2026/02/28/ustase-fascists-eastern... It takes *a lot* to make Nazis complain about your barbaric methods.
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usta%C5%A1e#cite_ref-fischer_2... See "Honorary Croats".
You picked one state from seven, while not mentioning fascist elements in Hungary or Poland (before Tusk). Great calibration on your side.
So some other things you failed to mention:
- most CE economies are very open and so big businesses already do internal accounting and/or facturation in euros anyway
- a move to euros would save transaction costs for companies and individuals
- in Hungary at least this would also probably lower mortagage costs (they had some issues with mortgages in Swiss francs in the past as far as I remember)
Because I know how off mark you are about Croatian politics. Not going to wade in Bulgarian or Romanian politics that are way less on my radar. But each of them has their own flavour of - if not straight fascist then some far-right tumour.
Also, I didn't state that having your own currency is enough. It's a necessary but not sufficient condition.
What I do know all major Euro economies are experiencing constant crises that never end (Greece, Italy, Spain, France, ...). And that is excellent breeding ground for the populist movement.
Far-right appearing more business friendly is what pushes the scale in its favor.
> he's been consistently wrong for a long time.
He's also been right where it matters. Euro as a whole just produces more and more crises.
I am sorry, but what are you on about? Your thesis is that Eurozone accession enables future fascism ("Ngl joining the EuroZone (what Magyar did) is precisely the myopic decision that allows future fascist to rise to power."). What does that have to do with Croatian fascist leanings, which existed long before they joined the EU? Precisely nothing. So why are you mentioning them in connection with the euro?
> What I do know all major Euro economies are experiencing constant crises that never end
Compared to what?
> And that is excellent breeding ground for the populist movement.
Compared to what?
> Euro as a whole just produces more and more crises.
Compared to what?
There is no serious analysis, only talking points about perpetual EU crisis which are exactly what the fascist movements are pushing, so yeah.
Not really. I said it creates future crisis that then fasicst are usually best poised to seize.
> What does that have to do with Croatian fascist leanings
It was a response to your quote:
> of the new EU members from CE, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and the Baltic countries adopted the Euro and I don't identify a fascist streak there.
You obviously are not good at identifying fascist streak.
> Compared to what?
Stable EU states that aren't in the EZ. Like say Norway or Switzerland.
> only talking points about perpetual EU crisis which are exactly what the fascist movements are pushing, so yeah.
Fascist can also talk about massive poverty. That doesn't auto-disqualify it. Their approach does to solving it does.
This is slightly different from mine: Either tighter EU integration or disband the Euro.
These are again fact-free arguments based on feelings. Who are the winners and who are the losers? Germany as a big exporter certainly doesn't look like a winner now, does it? Spain is doing better than Germany since Covid in GDP growth.
And of course we need the EU markets to be converging and you can't really do that with 27 currencies and monetary policies. Why do we need them converging? Because businesses like the US or China greatly benefit from having huge economies of scale in their internal markets, which makes it much easier to expand after that. The EU has to come as close as possible to that too, otherwise we have no chance and will suffer much greater economic pain. But I guess Varoufakis doesn't tell you that. He just makes you long for the great times where you had to pay for each currency exchange and every bank transaction to other EU countries.
As for far-right monsters, the nazis are currently the most powerful parties in Italy, France, Germany, Austria among others. So your thesis still doesn't make sense.
> You obviously are not good at identifying a fascist streak.
You still don't understand what I wrote. There is no fascist streak that would distinguish countries that adopted the euro from those that didn't.
> Stable EU states that aren't in the EZ. Like, say Norway or Switzerland.
Let's at least try being serious.
You can't just weld two different time periods while ignoring what changed in-between.
Germany around 2008 was an exporter that benefited indirectly (devalued Euro) and directly (rescuing German banks) from Greek crisis. Germany today is basically deindustrialising at a rapid pace. It's exports can't compete with Chinese nor do they have access to cheap materials, and that's disregarding tariffs on their exports.
> You still don't understand what I wrote. There is no fascist streak that would distinguish countries that adopted the euro from those that didn't.
And you don't understand what I'm conveying. Far-right and fascist voices always exist. And no, Euro isn't the only possible crisis that can happen.
But those that happen are spread and amplified. Want example of this happening? It's happening right now. France crisis turned into a France+Italy+Greece+Belgium crisis.
> And of course we need the EU markets to be converging and you can't really do that with 27 currencies and monetary policies.
You can't have them converge (also converging to what?) even with same currency! If say Gambia adopted the US dollar it wouldn't help Gambia at all. In fact quite the opposite. Only once there is a political union of US and Gambia can we talk about possibility of convergence.
So first of all what crisis are we talking about here, a fiscal crisis (there is definitely one in France) or the sometimes violent protests? And can you spell out the exact connection to eurozone in this 'spreading'? Also why did it spread only to 4 Eurozone countries and not the rest?
> You can't have them converge even with same currency!
why?
> If say Gambia
We don't have a Gambia here and you understand a common currency is only one part of the project. What we have are many different countries that are indeed converging - for example we've got car factories in countries that never had them before on this scale. Can you without looking it up say which EU member produces the most cars per capita? But we have to do more of that convergence.
And yeah, a political union would help, but then we both know it's not possible currently, so an ever tighter federation has to suffice for now.
> (also converging to what?)
to freely (as freely as possible) doing business across internal EU borders, in this case
No, I already explained the mechanism. The EuroZone enables and amplifies crises, and the crises are exploited by the left/right populist (usually right, because they are more "business friendly").
> What does that have to do with Croatian fascist leanings
You used them as example. I'm refuting the example.
> tpm: of the new EU members from CE, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and the Baltic countries adopted the Euro and I don't identify a fascist streak there.
> Compared to what?
Compared to a stable non-EZ country, like Norway or Switzerland. I mean having a fiat currency helps, but having a fixed exchange currency is
> which are exactly what the fascist movements are pushing, so yeah.
Just because they are fascist doesn't mean they are physically incapable of identifying an obvious problem.
Where I would differ is that I am for more EU integrations -XOR- abandoning Euro if integrations are impossible.
> Polymarket and Kalshi had Vučić as the clear winner, giving him a 75%+ probability of victory last night.
> That is down to 55% now and falling rapidly as incredible turnout data suggest the Student List could be in with a real chance of an upset.
Seems true. Was at 70% before
OMG. Peak hackernews.
There's nothing "far left" about the provincial NDP parties. They're centrist neo-Keynesians, pretty pragmatic, they don't even call themselves socialists. Again, it's only smelling "far left" if you're obsessed with cultural politics or "woke" stuff and are frankly politically illiterate and never taken a basic political science intro course? I didn't seeing Eby nationalizing/socializing industries and crap. "Far left" is such a bizarre characterization that it boggles the mind.
The federal party goes through phases of more old school NDP/CCF social democracy. But never governs, so.
The idea is for this to enable true democracy to re-appear, and then actual parties would battle it out in the next elections.
I'd say the risk to political stability in Serbia remains, but just like in any functioning democracy, what matters is that there is regular change and politicians understand that they are soon to be replaced (this avoids the levels of corruption that is multiples of base government project costs and actually cost lives).
FWIW some of the most crazy, hyperbolic stuff comes from the oldest accounts. Maybe they've gone senile.
* Billions in EU funds restored
* State funded propaganda shut down
* European prosecutor's office joined and anti corruption agency established with real power, crooks already going to jail
* Forint 363 to the euro compared to 400 in 2023
* Homophobic law repealed
* Term limit introduced for MPs and PMs
(2) The most important thing is that power was handed over peacefully. New guy, new team, new ideas and approaches.
https://www.reuters.com/live/brazil-election-live-lula-bolso...
Hopefully, wounds are healing, and more productive friends can be found.
This won't be too hard, but there is an economic recession in the whole Euro-zone right now. Overcoming that is a challenge for many countries right now.
Most of Eastern Europe and the Balkans see decent economic growth currently.
Eurozone growth is about 1% this year and projected to be 1.5% next year. Sluggish but far from a recession. This isn't to nitpick or to ignore real, challenging issues but there's a distorted media view on economic growth in Europe.
And a lot of these anti-democratic movements benefit from this purely vibes based information space politics.
However, also. Whichever news source told you the eurozone was in recession, you should be a bit more sceptical of that news source. It’s just not correct. The eurozone had two short (< 1 year) technical recessions earlier in the decade caused by shocks from Covid and the invasion of Ukraine; beyond those it hasn’t been in recession since the financial crisis.
I looked into Vučić's past and came across a phenomenon known as 'war tourism,' specifically the alleged 'Sarajevo Safari.' Supposedly, foreigners—mostly from Italy—paid large sums of money to travel to Sarajevo and shoot at civilians and children with sniper rifles. What evidence is there that he was involved, aside from that one video where it looks like he’s carrying a camera tripod rather than a sniper rifle
1. Were there snipers targeting civilians from the top of the hill south of Sarajevo? Undeniable, that was never debatable.
2. Was he present at that hill around the time snipers were shooting at civilians? Yes, he never denied being present there and that's where that one grainy video originates.
3. Were there rich foreigners on that hill doing "war tourism" or were all of the civilians shot by Serb forces exclusively? Up for debate, enough evidence to start some investigations, highly unlikely that those investigations will be able to say anything conclusive over 3 decades after.
4. Did he play any role in making those deals with rich foreigners? No evidence of that that's more concrete than putting him at the right place at roughly the right time.
So, him saying that he heard any sort of foreign language around him would be the evidence of #3, but him legitimately not witnessing any such thing (and everyone believing him) wouldn't really be the evidence of the contrary, as #3 could've happened before or (more likely) after his time on that hill.
Who will they blame it on this time? Maybe those of us in previously forced "Soviet Bloc" countries can now be allowed to have agency?
This is the problem with the USA now openly supporting Moscow. The entire Moscow imperialist mirage is collapsing. There is no one else to blame now. In fact, forget Moscow, it's not a factor. It's just that none of us want pure corruption.
I wonder how 'MAGA' would behave if I took them on a walk through the allied cemeteries in France, Belgium or the Netherlands. If they would understand that their grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought precisely against the same mentality that they have brought back into play.
Those cemeteries look so immaculate they could have been laid yesterday. There is huge respect for the United States, Canada and the countries of the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and to some extent even for Russia to have put a stop to the Nazi's. But that does not give a country the right to go and misbehave on the world stage to the degree that the United States has done in recent memory.
What I do not know: how much of this is because of Russian influence in America. That could well have been a much larger factor than we know at the moment, maybe this will come to light at some point in the future and if and when it does I suspect that a reconnection between the USA and its - former? - allies may be closer than we think. But it will first take a lot of introspection for that to happen.
On this website, I read the most succinct comment I have ever seen on the Internet:
> Trust is efficient
Eventually, low-trust fails. It feels like we have all be getting dragged into a low-trust environment lately. But, as long as the high-trust option seems possible, we will progress towards it and efficiency, right?
I don't have that hope but if there is any path to that, it leads through many many coffins.
> how much of this is because of Russian influence in America. That could well have been a much larger factor than we know at the moment
There is some influence but it's not the largest part. It's just the robber barons of the world form natural coalitions and help each other.
Your English is fine.
Don't worry, I have and I will.
You suffer from more than the "curse of limited idiom", you lecture native English speakers on how to speak their own language, and snitchjacket them according to your own prejudices.
But you are replying to someone who speaks reasonable but not native English. Certainly not as good as he thinks he does. He was trying to claim he knows better English than the BBC earlier.
[with adjective] the ethnic origin of someone's family: a worker of Polish extraction.
Look this is just a start, but it is great that dissatisfaction that is expressed throughout the Europe, can be expressed in such constructive and clear way in Serbia.
No.
Eruption of celebration, people screaming from windows, playing music, blocking the streets - overall a night long frenzy throughout whole Belgrade.