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Javier E

How Nations Are Losing a Global Race to Tackle A.I.'s Harms - The New York Times - 0 views

  • When European Union leaders introduced a 125-page draft law to regulate artificial intelligence in April 2021, they hailed it as a global model for handling the technology.
  • E.U. lawmakers had gotten input from thousands of experts for three years about A.I., when the topic was not even on the table in other countries. The result was a “landmark” policy that was “future proof,” declared Margrethe Vestager, the head of digital policy for the 27-nation bloc.
  • Then came ChatGPT.
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  • The eerily humanlike chatbot, which went viral last year by generating its own answers to prompts, blindsided E.U. policymakers. The type of A.I. that powered ChatGPT was not mentioned in the draft law and was not a major focus of discussions about the policy. Lawmakers and their aides peppered one another with calls and texts to address the gap, as tech executives warned that overly aggressive regulations could put Europe at an economic disadvantage.
  • Even now, E.U. lawmakers are arguing over what to do, putting the law at risk. “We will always be lagging behind the speed of technology,” said Svenja Hahn, a member of the European Parliament who was involved in writing the A.I. law.
  • Lawmakers and regulators in Brussels, in Washington and elsewhere are losing a battle to regulate A.I. and are racing to catch up, as concerns grow that the powerful technology will automate away jobs, turbocharge the spread of disinformation and eventually develop its own kind of intelligence.
  • Nations have moved swiftly to tackle A.I.’s potential perils, but European officials have been caught off guard by the technology’s evolution, while U.S. lawmakers openly concede that they barely understand how it works.
  • The absence of rules has left a vacuum. Google, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, have been left to police themselves as they race to create and profit from advanced A.I. systems
  • At the root of the fragmented actions is a fundamental mismatch. A.I. systems are advancing so rapidly and unpredictably that lawmakers and regulators can’t keep pace
  • That gap has been compounded by an A.I. knowledge deficit in governments, labyrinthine bureaucracies and fears that too many rules may inadvertently limit the technology’s benefits.
  • Even in Europe, perhaps the world’s most aggressive tech regulator, A.I. has befuddled policymakers.
  • The European Union has plowed ahead with its new law, the A.I. Act, despite disputes over how to handle the makers of the latest A.I. systems.
  • The result has been a sprawl of responses. President Biden issued an executive order in October about A.I.’s national security effects as lawmakers debate what, if any, measures to pass. Japan is drafting nonbinding guidelines for the technology, while China has imposed restrictions on certain types of A.I. Britain has said existing laws are adequate for regulating the technology. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are pouring government money into A.I. research.
  • A final agreement, expected as soon as Wednesday, could restrict certain risky uses of the technology and create transparency requirements about how the underlying systems work. But even if it passes, it is not expected to take effect for at least 18 months — a lifetime in A.I. development — and how it will be enforced is unclear.
  • Many companies, preferring nonbinding codes of conduct that provide latitude to speed up development, are lobbying to soften proposed regulations and pitting governments against one another.
  • “No one, not even the creators of these systems, know what they will be able to do,” said Matt Clifford, an adviser to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain, who presided over an A.I. Safety Summit last month with 28 countries. “The urgency comes from there being a real question of whether governments are equipped to deal with and mitigate the risks.”
  • Europe takes the lead
  • In mid-2018, 52 academics, computer scientists and lawyers met at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Brussels to discuss artificial intelligence. E.U. officials had selected them to provide advice about the technology, which was drawing attention for powering driverless cars and facial recognition systems.
  • as they discussed A.I.’s possible effects — including the threat of facial recognition technology to people’s privacy — they recognized “there were all these legal gaps, and what happens if people don’t follow those guidelines?”
  • In 2019, the group published a 52-page report with 33 recommendations, including more oversight of A.I. tools that could harm individuals and society.
  • By October, the governments of France, Germany and Italy, the three largest E.U. economies, had come out against strict regulation of general purpose A.I. models for fear of hindering their domestic tech start-ups. Others in the European Parliament said the law would be toothless without addressing the technology. Divisions over the use of facial recognition technology also persisted.
  • So when the A.I. Act was unveiled in 2021, it concentrated on “high risk” uses of the technology, including in law enforcement, school admissions and hiring. It largely avoided regulating the A.I. models that powered them unless listed as dangerous
  • “They sent me a draft, and I sent them back 20 pages of comments,” said Stuart Russell, a computer science professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who advised the European Commission. “Anything not on their list of high-risk applications would not count, and the list excluded ChatGPT and most A.I. systems.”
  • E.U. leaders were undeterred.“Europe may not have been the leader in the last wave of digitalization, but it has it all to lead the next one,” Ms. Vestager said when she introduced the policy at a news conference in Brussels.
  • In 2020, European policymakers decided that the best approach was to focus on how A.I. was used and not the underlying technology. A.I. was not inherently good or bad, they said — it depended on how it was applied.
  • Nineteen months later, ChatGPT arrived.
  • The Washington game
  • Lacking tech expertise, lawmakers are increasingly relying on Anthropic, Microsoft, OpenAI, Google and other A.I. makers to explain how it works and to help create rules.
  • “We’re not experts,” said Representative Ted Lieu, Democrat of California, who hosted Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, and more than 50 lawmakers at a dinner in Washington in May. “It’s important to be humble.”
  • Tech companies have seized their advantage. In the first half of the year, many of Microsoft’s and Google’s combined 169 lobbyists met with lawmakers and the White House to discuss A.I. legislation, according to lobbying disclosures. OpenAI registered its first three lobbyists and a tech lobbying group unveiled a $25 million campaign to promote A.I.’s benefits this year.
  • In that same period, Mr. Altman met with more than 100 members of Congress, including former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, and the Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York. After testifying in Congress in May, Mr. Altman embarked on a 17-city global tour, meeting world leaders including President Emmanuel Macron of France, Mr. Sunak and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India.
  • , the White House announced that the four companies had agreed to voluntary commitments on A.I. safety, including testing their systems through third-party overseers — which most of the companies were already doing.
  • “It was brilliant,” Mr. Smith said. “Instead of people in government coming up with ideas that might have been impractical, they said, ‘Show us what you think you can do and we’ll push you to do more.’”
  • In a statement, Ms. Raimondo said the federal government would keep working with companies so “America continues to lead the world in responsible A.I. innovation.”
  • Over the summer, the Federal Trade Commission opened an investigation into OpenAI and how it handles user data. Lawmakers continued welcoming tech executives.
  • In September, Mr. Schumer was the host of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Sundar Pichai of Google, Satya Nadella of Microsoft and Mr. Altman at a closed-door meeting with lawmakers in Washington to discuss A.I. rules. Mr. Musk warned of A.I.’s “civilizational” risks, while Mr. Altman proclaimed that A.I. could solve global problems such as poverty.
  • A.I. companies are playing governments off one another. In Europe, industry groups have warned that regulations could put the European Union behind the United States. In Washington, tech companies have cautioned that China might pull ahead.
  • In May, Ms. Vestager, Ms. Raimondo and Antony J. Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, met in Lulea, Sweden, to discuss cooperating on digital policy.
  • “China is way better at this stuff than you imagine,” Mr. Clark of Anthropic told members of Congress in January.
  • After two days of talks, Ms. Vestager announced that Europe and the United States would release a shared code of conduct for safeguarding A.I. “within weeks.” She messaged colleagues in Brussels asking them to share her social media post about the pact, which she called a “huge step in a race we can’t afford to lose.”
  • Months later, no shared code of conduct had appeared. The United States instead announced A.I. guidelines of its own.
  • Little progress has been made internationally on A.I. With countries mired in economic competition and geopolitical distrust, many are setting their own rules for the borderless technology.
  • Yet “weak regulation in another country will affect you,” said Rajeev Chandrasekhar, India’s technology minister, noting that a lack of rules around American social media companies led to a wave of global disinformation.
  • “Most of the countries impacted by those technologies were never at the table when policies were set,” he said. “A.I will be several factors more difficult to manage.”
  • Even among allies, the issue has been divisive. At the meeting in Sweden between E.U. and U.S. officials, Mr. Blinken criticized Europe for moving forward with A.I. regulations that could harm American companies, one attendee said. Thierry Breton, a European commissioner, shot back that the United States could not dictate European policy, the person said.
  • Some policymakers said they hoped for progress at an A.I. safety summit that Britain held last month at Bletchley Park, where the mathematician Alan Turing helped crack the Enigma code used by the Nazis. The gathering featured Vice President Kamala Harris; Wu Zhaohui, China’s vice minister of science and technology; Mr. Musk; and others.
  • The upshot was a 12-paragraph statement describing A.I.’s “transformative” potential and “catastrophic” risk of misuse. Attendees agreed to meet again next year.
  • The talks, in the end, produced a deal to keep talking.
Javier E

2 Brothers Identified as Brussels Attackers; 3rd Suspect Is Sought - The New York Times - 0 views

  • It’s a scary situation,” said Anton Zeilinger, an Austrian diplomat who lives and works nearby and who was at his office when the station was bombed on Tuesday. He said of the attackers, “A few bombs won’t destroy the way we live, even if they want to.”
  • In terrorism-plagued countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq and some others in the Middle East, bags are put through scanners when travelers enter the airport.
  • At least one of the bombs used in Brussels — the one at the airport — did far more damage and appears to have been far more powerful than those used in Paris, blowing out many of the windows in the large departure hall and shaking nearby buildings.
knudsenlu

Martin Selmayr: The man at the heart of a Brussels saga - BBC News - 0 views

  • The European Commission has denied allegations of cronyism after a protégé of its president, Jean-Claude Juncker, was given one of the most powerful jobs in the EU civil service.Martin Selmayr has been appointed Secretary-General of the Commission, the organisation that monitors whether countries are sticking to EU rules, dreams up new laws and runs the Brexit talks day-to-day.
  • The 40-something former lawyer and media executive from Germany joined the European Commission as a press officer in 2004.He helped run Jean-Claude Juncker's successful campaign to be selected as president of the commission in 2014 and later became his head of cabinet, Brussels-speak for chief of staff.
  • Admirers, like his mentor the German MEP Elmar Brok, describe a hard-working strategic genius with political nous, who gets much better results than your average official.Detractors say his take-no-prisoners attitude goes too far. Asked about his fierce reputation, Mr Selmayr himself said: "You can't run the European Commission like a Montessori school," referring to the education system that favours child development over passing exams.
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  • At a surprise press conference in February, Jean-Claude Juncker announced he had been keeping a secret: the commission's top civil servant, the secretary-general, was retiring. Martin Selmayr would take his place.It emerged that Mr Selmayr had applied for the role of deputy secretary-general, got that job and was then instantly promoted.
  • It has been suggested that the only other candidate in the race to become deputy withdrew their application, meaning Mr Selmayr had a clear run to the top. It has been alleged that members of the European Commission were offered more generous severance packages as inducements to smooth Mr Selmayr's path, which is vigorously denied.It is claimed that he even plans to knock down walls in the commission's management suite to cement his power.
  • The European Parliament is to hold a debate about it. A motion calls for a formal inquiry into the appointment and more transparency in the recruitment process in general."The way Martin Selmayr was appointed puts the European institutions into disrespect. If this procedure was corresponding to the rules, the rules have to be changed," said Green MEP Sven Giegold.
  • To MEPs outside the most powerful parliamentary groups it looks like jobs for the boys.To campaigning reporters it smells bad. To less zealous journalists it is great gossip.To Brexiteers it is a "coup" that proves the EU's structures are opaque and undemocratic.To me, it is the latest twist in a long-running tussle over where power lies in Europe: with the member states or with an increasingly political commission that seeks to protect the very idea of the EU.
lilyrashkind

Biden heads to Poland as he announces new plan to wean Europe off Russian energy - CNNP... - 0 views

  • (CNN)President Joe Biden announced a new initiative meant to deprive Russian President Vladimir Putin of European energy profits that Biden says are used to fuel Russia's war in Ukraine.Speaking in Brussels alongside European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Biden said Russia was using its supply of oil and gas to "coerce and manipulate its neighbors." He said the United States would help Europe reduce its dependence on Russian oil and gas, and would ensure the continent had enough supplies for the next two winters. The announcement came just before Biden departed Brussels for Poland.
  • "I know that eliminating Russian gas will have costs for Europe, but it's not only the right thing to do from a moral standpoint, it's going to put us on a much stronger strategic footing," he said.
  • Senior administration officials said the 15 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas come from multiple sources, including the United States and nations in Asia. But officials did not have an exact breakdown on where the gas was coming from. The announcement Friday was the culmination of a US effort over the past months to identify alternate sources of energy for Europe, particularly in Asia. Officials said those efforts would continue through this year to hit the target.
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  • Upon his arrival at Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport, Biden will be greeted by Polish President Andrzej Duda and receive a briefing on the humanitarian response to the war. He'll meet with service members from the 82nd Airborne Division in Rzeszów before traveling to Warsaw in the evening.On Saturday, the White House says Biden will hold a bilateral meeting with Duda to discuss how the US and allies are responding to the refugee crisis that has ensued as a result of the war. He'll also deliver remarks before returning to Washington.Biden's travel to Poland comes after meetings on Thursday in Brussels, where he attended a slate of emergency summits, announced new actions -- such as sanctions against hundreds of members of Russia's parliament and a commitment to admit 100,000 refugees fleeing Ukraine -- and conferred with global leaders on how the world will respond if Russia deploys a chemical, biological or nuclear weapon.
  • Poland, which borders Ukraine to the west, has registered more than 2 million Ukrainian refugees crossing into the country. However, the number of refugees staying in Poland is lower, with many continuing on in their journey to other countries.Earlier this month during Vice President Kamala Harris' trip to Poland, Duda personally asked the vice president to speed up and simplify the procedures allowing Ukrainians with family in the US to come to the country. He also warned Harris that his country's resources were being badly strained by the influx of refugees, even as Poland welcomes them with open arms.The White House says that since February 24, the US has provided more than $123 million to assist countries neighboring Ukraine and the European Union to address the refugee influx, including $48 million in Poland.
  • Biden brought up that he has visited war zones, saying he understood the plight of refugees."I've been in refugee camps. I've been in war zones for the last 15 years. And it's -- it's devastating," he said.Biden also said the refugee influx is "not something that Poland or Romania or Germany should carry on their own."
  • The Poland trip also comes two weeks after the US rejected Poland's proposals to facilitate the transfer its MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine. The US rejected Poland's proposals over fears that the US and NATO could be perceived as taking an escalatory step, further fomenting conflict between the alliance and Russia -- which adamantly opposes Ukraine's ambitions to join the NATO alliance.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly requested more aircraft for the invasion, making another appeal to NATO leaders on Thursday.
sarahbalick

Euro 2016 football tournament in France could be terror target, US warns - BBC News - 1 views

  • Euro 2016 football tournament in France could be terror target, US warns
  • The US has warned that the Euro 2016 football championship being held in France next month could be a target of militant attacks.
  • "The large number of tourists visiting Europe in the summer months will present greater targets for terrorists," the State Department said.
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  • In March, 32 people died in neighbouring Belgium when suicide blasts hit Brussels airport and a metro station. So-called Islamic State said it was behind both the Paris and Brussels attacks.
  • The attacks could hit tourist sites, restaurants, commercial centres and transportation, it warns, with large events such as Euro 2016 singled out. @media only screen and (min-width: 1px) { .ns_datapic_stat--euro-2016-data .ns_outer_wrapper { background-image: none; } .ns_datapic_stat--euro-2016-data .ns_outer_wrapper .ns_inner_wrapper { max-width: 100%; padding: 0; } } @media only screen and (min-width: 480px) { .ns_datapic_stat--euro-2016-data .ns_outer_wrapper .ns_inner_wrapper { max-width: 40%; padding: 0.5em; } .ns_datapic_stat--euro-2016-data .ns_outer_wrapper { background-image: url(http://news.files.bbci.co.uk/vj/live/idt-images/data_pic-Euro_2016_data/marseille_r13sr.jpg); } } .ie8 .ns_datapic_stat--euro-2016-data .ns_outer_wrapper .ns_inner_wrapper { max-width: 40%; padding: 0.5em; } .ie8 .ns_datapic_stat--euro-2016-data .ns_outer_wrapper { background-image: url(http://news.files.bbci.co.uk/vj/live/idt-images/data_pic-Euro_2016_data/marseille_r13sr.jpg); }
  • An unnamed US official told the Reuters news agency they had no particular threat information that gave rise to the latest alert.
  • More than 90,000 police, soldiers and private security agents are being deployed as well.
jongardner04

Migrant crisis: Leaders gather for Turkey-EU summit - BBC News - 0 views

  • Turkish and EU leaders have gathered in Brussels for an emergency summit on tackling Europe's worst refugee crisis since World War Two.
  • The EU has pledged €3bn (£2.3bn; $3.3bn) to Turkey in return for housing migrants and stemming the flow.
  • Last year, more than a million entered the EU illegally by boat, travelling mainly from Turkey to Greece.
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  • German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte met their Turkish counterpart, Ahmet Davutoglu, at the Turkish embassy in Brussels late on Sunday to prepare for the summit.
  • On Sunday, reports from the area said Macedonia had stopped allowing entry to anyone from areas in Iraq and Syria it did not consider to be active conflict zones
qkirkpatrick

Belgium Marks WWI Execution of Britain Nurse 100 Years Ago - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Belgium on Monday commemorated the heroism of British World War I nurse Edith Cavell a century after she was executed by the German forces that occupied the country.
  • Germany accused Cavell — the head of a nursing school in Brussels — of helping injured Britons escape, and shot her at dawn on October 12, 1915. Around much of the world she has largely been forgotten, but at the time the allied nations considered her a
  • Cavell was the head of a nursing school in Brussels when Germany invaded Belgium in 1914. She was sentenced in the very rooms of the Belgian senate where the commemoration took place and which the Germans had occupied during the war.
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  • "Her crime was that she had helped allied soldiers, British, French and Belgian escape to freedom across the Dutch border," said biographer Diane Souhami.
Javier E

We are Europeans. Brexit will make us face up to it | Rafael Behr | Opinion | The Guardian - 0 views

  • Meanwhile, the prime minister has to persuade EU leaders that her country is not turning its back on them; that it offers something in return for favourable exit terms.
  • The best economic argument that the remain campaign failed to communicate to voters was that no EU satellite arrangement combining market access and influence over the rules could rival the one we already have as full members.
  • May’s negotiations have to go well beyond the list of current benefits that Britain might salvage. She needs a broader agenda to discuss what we have to offer as a strategic partner to the European project.
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  • But the pitch in Brussels, Berlin, Paris and Warsaw must aspire to more than tariff elimination. It must include promises to engage with continental challenges: Isis-inspired terrorism, Russian territorial expansion, energy security. The question is not whether we can cobble together a thin facsimile of EU membership but how the UK can be an upstanding friend and neighbour to the EU after we leave. That is the terrain on which the best deal is struck.
  • Brussels-baiting Euroscepticism and the internal dynamics of the Tory party have for a generation set the terms of the debate about Britain’s status as a European nation. Yet history, geography and global diplomacy dictate that we can be no other kind. A stark irony of the Brexit vote is that it demands of the prime minister a more thorough, ambitious and diligently applied vision of Britain’s strategic relationship with the rest of the continent than has been possessed by any of her predecessors since Ted Heath. Leaving the EU will involve diplomacy as ardently and explicitly pro-European as that required for joining in the first place. In the intervening years we have spent a lot of energy arguing about what Europe means to Britain. It is time to consider what the rest of Europe might see in us.
zareefkhan

Gunman in Belgium May Have Been Radicalized in Prison, Officials Say - The New York Times - 0 views

  • One day after the assault in the eastern Belgian city of Liège, which further unnerved a country that was already on edge after two deadly attacks in Brussels in 2016, officials confirmed that they were investigating the case as possible terrorism, but cautioned that other factors were in play
  • “There are signs that allow us to speak of radicalization in prison,” Interior Minister Jan Jambon said about the assailant’s possible motives. “But it can also be because he had no prospects anymore in our society, as he also committed a murder the night before.”
  • Mr. Herman had been serving a continuous series of prison sentences for theft, assault and drug offenses since 2003.
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  • Mr. Herman may have come in contact with extremist inmates, investigators say, and converted to Islam, although no firm connections to a militant terrorist organization that might have helped or encouraged him have been established.
  • Belgian prisons are notoriously dilapidated and overcrowded, and in recent years some have become breeding grounds for extremism.Many of the terrorists who carried out violent attacks in Europe over the past three years had served short prison sentences for drug related offenses and other crimes, some violent. And it was often in prison that they began adopting extremist views.
  • In addition to the terrorism investigation, Koen Geens, the justice minister, said the authorities were looking into the decisions that led to Mr. Herman’s temporary release.
anonymous

Belgium shooting: Two policewomen, passerby killed - CNN - 0 views

  • Belgian media, including CNN affiliate RTBF, are naming the gunman as Benjamin Herman. A spokesperson for the Brussels prosecutor told CNN the attacker, who was shot dead by police, was 31 years old and had the initials B.H. but declined to provide the full name.
  • According to the prosecutor, the suspect then took refuge in a local high school, where he held a woman hostage. When police intervened, the man opened fire, injuring several other officers, before he was shot dead.
  • Liege is Belgium's third-largest city, after Brussels and Antwerp, according to the national tourist office. For centuries, it has been an important cultural and industrial center for the country.
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  • In 2011, Liege was the scene of a grenade and gun attack that left at least five dead and injured more than 100.
Javier E

Europe's Young Are Not That Woke - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • ccording to the standard account, the 2008–09 economic crisis and the migration crisis of 2015–16 were bound to drive voters into the arms of the far right. Young Europeans were seen by some as easy prey for populists, as they had no memories of the bad old days of nationalism and war in the mid-20th century.
  • In the European elections held earlier this year, Le Pen’s score among the young nearly halved, and the Greens triumphed, despite the efforts of the renamed National Rally to attract the youth vote by installing the charismatic 23-year-old Jordan Bardella as the lead candidate.
  • Across the Rhine, Germans ages 30 and under gave the Greens their best-ever result in a national election. At the other end of the ideological spectrum, the right-wing nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) came in a distant sixth among the young.
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  • Overall, the 2019 European elections were a disappointment for the leaders of the populist right
  • the far right collectively recorded a net gain of only 13 members in the 751-seat European Parliament.
  • Young Europeans may worry about the environment, but for four out of five under-25s, it is not their No. 1 or even their No. 2 priority.
  • a rising proportion of Millennials and Gen Zers identify themselves as left-leaning or centrist.
  • Millennials and Gen Zers value public services; they worry about racial and other forms of discrimination, as well as about climate change. They are more pro-European than previous generations and more willing to hand over new governing powers to Brussels.
  • A third of Millennial and Gen Z voters in Europe consider themselves centrists, compared with about a fifth who are on the center left and fewer than a 10th who are far left
  • Recent national elections point to the same leftward trend among younger voters.
  • As in urban areas of the United States, rising costs for housing further squeeze the young’s spending power
  • In Europe, by contrast, the under-30s are more disposed than their parents to view poverty as a result of an individual’s choice. Even as they still support the social contract typical for Europe, whereby the welfare state limits inequality and provides generous public services, they are also less in favor than older generations of fiscal redistribution to reduce inequality
  • All of this has contributed to a growing generational economic divide
  • Before the crisis, the under-25s were not much more at risk of poverty than the over-64s. Now they are more than a third as likely to be poor.
  • The short-run trend is therefore that the old will dominate in European politics. In 2017, for the first time, more than half of the voters in the elections for the German Bundestag were over 50
  • most of them believe that the private sector is better at creating jobs than the state is, that work contracts should become more flexible, and that competition is good. Indeed, under-25s have a more positive view of globalization than do older cohorts.
  • in Europe, Millennials and Gen Zers are not fundamentally different from the population as a whole when it comes to immigration. Survey data show that they have a more positive view of immigration (from inside and outside the EU) than do older generations. Almost as much as their parents, however, they want national governments and the EU to take additional measures to fight illegal immigration.
  • it is worth taking a closer look at the Danish parliamentary elections held in June. The anti-immigration Danish People’s Party plummeted to 8.7 percent from 21.1 percent in 2015. But that was not because voters were frightened by anti-immigration policies. It was because the big center-left and center-right parties co-opted the far right’s agenda
  • In the 1990s, it was Denmark’s Social Democrats who adopted “Third Way” social and economic policies, sometime before Britain’s Tony Blair and Germany’s Gerhard Schröder. The Danes may once again be taking the lead. Sweden’s governing center-left party has already followed the Danish example by toughening its migration stance.
  • Postelection surveys show that the CDU is now losing nearly four times as many voters to the Greens as to the AfD. Significantly, the Greens take pride in being the only party to have consistently defended Angela Merkel’s 2015 refugee policy without ifs or buts.
  • generalizations about European politics are hard to mak
  • In the U.S., the GDP per capita of the highest-income state (Massachusetts) is roughly twice that of the poorest (Mississippi). In the EU, by contrast, citizens of Luxembourg are more than nine times as rich as Romanians.
  • There is also much less common history. Growing up in the Soviet Union has left older Estonians, for example, with very different views from older Spaniards, who grew up under Francisco Franco
  • For many Central and eastern Europeans, the collapse of the Soviet Union was as much about restoring national independence as it was about restoring liberty and democracy. They have little appetite for ceding sovereignty to Brussels
  • the younger groups on both sides of the former Iron Curtain seem to be converging on some issues, such as their support for democracy and EU integration. Yet this convergence is not visible on all issues.
  • For younger voters in the EU’s original member states, ethnic and religious variables are much less important in defining citizenship than for their parents. For Central and eastern Europeans, however, where your forebears came from still matters. Indeed, young Hungarians and Croatians tend to associate ancestry with nationality even more than older generations do.
  • A reverse dynamic is visible in Austria. In 2017, 30 percent of those ages 29 and under voted for the nationalist-right Freedom Party in the parliamentary elections. In May, having been hit by a scandal, the party came in third with the same age group (17 percent), far behind the Greens (28 percent) and the Social Democrats (22 percent).
  • So why aren’t European young people as receptive to tax-and-redistribute ideas as their American counterparts? Perhaps because they know, from experience, that those policies can’t immediately fix what ails their countries.
  • he politics of the future in Europe seems unlikely to resemble the politics of generational division in America. The continent is divided in many respects, but it does not face a “generation war.” The gap between the generations seems narrower, the political opportunity to mobilize younger voters less enticing.
  • The German Greens started out in the 1980s as part of the antinuclear and pacifist movements. They were clearly to the left of the SPD. But in recent years they have moved decidedly to the center ground. Last year Winfried Kretschmann, the Green prime minister of Baden-Württemberg, and conceivably a future German chancellor, published a book with the surprising subtitle For a New Definition of Conservatism. Kretschmann cites Edmund Burke as an inspiration, arguing that the father of conservative thought favored gradual change over revolution.
johnsonel7

Former EU envoy investigated over China spying claims | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

  • A former German diplomat who worked in the EU’s institutions is under investigation along with two lobbyists on suspicion of spying for the Chinese government.
  • It is claimed that two of the individuals shared confidential commercial information with the Chinese ministry for state security. The third indicated a willingness to do so, according to Der Spiegel. The diplomat at the centre of the investigation is reported to have formerly worked in both the EU commission and the European External Action Service (EEAS), the bloc’s foreign affairs wing.
  • The investigation is notable for it being comparatively rare. Last year the EEAS alerted member states to the presence of about 250 Chinese and 200 Russian spies said to be roaming the embassy-lined streets of Brussels. But there are few cases of spies for Beijing being uncovered.
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  • Last autumn, the US government’s expulsion of two Chinese spies who had driven into a sensitive military base in Norfolk, Virginia was the first such action in 30 years.
criscimagnael

In Concession to Poland, E.U. Opens Door to Frozen Funds - The New York Times - 0 views

  • About $38 billion earmarked for Poland from a coronavirus recovery fund had been blocked over judicial disputes. But relations with the bloc improved over Poland’s strong stance against Russia.
  • In a major concession to the Polish government, the European Union’s executive arm on Wednesday opened the door for the disbursement of billions of dollars in aid to Poland that had been blocked during a standoff over judicial independence in the country.
  • “The approval of this plan is linked to clear commitments by Poland on the independence of the judiciary, which will need to be fulfilled before any actual payment can be made,”
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  • Reflecting how divisive the issue is in Brussels, two commissioners voted against the approval of Poland’s plan on Wednesday, a first since the recovery fund was established, and two others sent letters expressing concern over the move.
  • Laurent Pech, professor of European law at Middlesex University in London called the commitments “vague, partial and easy to evade.”
  • the invasion of Ukraine by President Vladimir Putin of Russia changed everything, tilting the balance of power in Europe and reshuffling alliances.
  • The rule of law is an existential issue for the European Union: For the bloc to function properly, all member nations have to follow the same principles.
  • Last year, frustrated by Poland’s recalcitrance on judicial independence issues, the bloc started using the sharpest tool at its disposal: money, withholding much needed aid from the coronavirus fund.
  • “Poland simply deserves this money,” the country’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, told local media last week. “And now, with the war going on, Poland needs it even more.”
  • Poland and Hungary, led by right-wing authoritarian leaders who backed each other in conflicts with Brussels over the rule of law, took divergent paths following the Russian invasion. Under Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Hungary maintains close relations with Mr. Putin and has become a main spoiler of E.U. unity.
  • In response to the concerns by the European Commission, President Andrzej Duda of Poland put forward a bill amending the disciplinary system, which is expected to be approved by the Polish Parliament on Thursday.
  • But analysts say that Mr. Duda’s bill offers only cosmetic tweaks and does not resolve the fundamental issue identified by the European Court of Justice — pressure on judges to rule in accordance with the desires of the government.
lilyrashkind

Ukraine-Russia War Live News: Latest Updates - The New York Times - 0 views

  • President Biden met with European leaders in Brussels to reinforce solidarity against Russia’s invasion and proposed excluding Russia from the G20. Ukraine said it had destroyed a Russian naval ship.
  • BRUSSELS — President Biden and leaders of more than 30 nations convened Thursday to demonstrate united opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, announcing new economic sanctions, aid for refugees, deployment of additional forces to Eastern Europe and grim preparations in case Russia uses chemical
  • As heavy fighting continued in the suburban town of Irpin, a steady stream of tired civilians, mainly older people, were evacuated to relative safety in the capital of Kyiv on Thursday. A day earlier, Ukrainian firefighters battled a fire at a home struck during a Russian rocket attack in western Kyiv.
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  • More than 320 miles to the south, a refugee family from Ukraine waited on Tuesday for a minibus to arrive to take them to a reception center after they crossed the border in the small village of Palanca, in eastern Moldova.
lilyrashkind

U.S. announces new Russian sanctions, plans to admit thousands of Ukrainian refugees - 0 views

  • BRUSSELS — The United States announced a package of new sanctions against Russia and further aid for Ukrainian refugees as President Joe Biden looked to rally the leaders of some of the world’s most powerful democracies to increase their efforts to help Ukraine in a series of high-stakes meetings.
  • with a focus on those who are most vulnerable. The administration is also prepared to offer more than $1 billion in additional funding toward humanitarian assistance and $11 billion over the next five years to address worldwide food security threats after the disruptions to the Russian and the Ukrainian agricultural industries.
  • While the U.S. announced new efforts around sanctions and refugees, it made no new military commitments — despite pleas from Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
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  • But Ukrainians never thought that the alliance and the allies were different."Zelenskyy told NATO that his country still needs more military equipment, specifically tanks and fighter jets, and chided them for not establishing a no-fly zone.
  • Biden has committed $2 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since the start of his presidency, including an $800 million military package last week.
  • The NATO summit was followed by a meeting with leaders of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations and an address to European Union leaders, the White House said.
  • The U.S. also said that international organizations and multilateral corporations should no longer conduct their activities with Russia in a business-as-usual manner, the second official said. “Our purpose here is to methodically remove the benefits and privileges Russia once enjoyed as a participant in the international economic order,” the official said.The new sanctions include 328 Duma members; Herman Gref, the head of Russia’s largest financial institution Sberbank and a Putin adviser since the 1990s; member of the Russian elite Gennady Timchenko, his companies and his family members; 17 board members of the Russian financial institution Sovcombank; and 48 large Russian defense state-owned enterprises
  • As the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II enters its second month, the discussions here could be among the most consequential of Biden’s presidency. When Biden was asked as he was leaving the White House for Brussels how likely he thought the threat of chemical warfare was, he said, “I think it’s a real threat.”  
  • “We are united in condemning the Kremlin’s unprovoked aggression and in our support for Ukraine sovereignty and integrity," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said ahead of the meeting. The group would also discuss efforts to strengthen the military alliance's defenses in the short and the long term, he said.
  • Biden plans to travel to Poland on Friday to offer support as it deals with millions of refugees who are fleeing the conflict and to thank U.S. troops stationed there.
Javier E

Opinion | Belgium Shows What Europe Has Become - The New York Times - 0 views

  • In Brussels, the seat of the European Union, rising crime, pollution and decaying infrastructure symbolize a continent in decline. With unusual clarity, Belgium shows what Europe has become in the 21st century: a continent subject to history rather than driving it.
  • For a long time, Belgian politicians and citizens hoped that European integration would release them from their own tribal squabbles. Who needed intricate federal coalitions if the behemoth in Brussels would soon take over? Except for the army and the national museums, all other levers of policy could comfortably be transferred,
  • The upward absorption has not come to pass. The European Union remains a halfway house between national government and continental superstate. There is no E.U. army or capacious fiscal apparatus. Consequently, Belgium has been put in an awkward position. Unable to collapse itself into Europe, it is stuck with a ramshackle federal state
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  • As the ideological glue that allows Belgians to cohabit has come unstuck, the traditional parties of government have found it difficult to retain public backing. Amid a wider fracturing of the vote, Flemish and Walloon voters are now lured by adventurers on right and left
  • Belgium serves as a stern reminder that there are few bulwarks against the trends that ail European nations. The country is no Italy or Netherlands, where the far right is already in government, and party democracy and its postwar prosperity survive only as faint memories.
  • Yet even with Belgium’s lower inequality rates, higher union membership and comparatively stronger party infrastructure, the march of the far right has also proved eerily unstoppable.
katieb0305

NATO bolsters presence in Eastern Europe as Russia tension rises - CNN.com - 0 views

  • The UK has deployed hundreds of troops to Eastern Europe as NATO continues to bolster its presence in the face of perceived Russian provocation.
  • "Russia has tripled defense spending," Stoltenberg told reporters.
  • "Russia has invested heavily in a modern military equipment. They are conducting a large-scale, no-notice exercises close to NATO borders, but perhaps most importantly Russia has been willing to use military force against neighbors.
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  • said Russia withdrew the request after the ministry had asked the Russian Embassy in Madrid to clarify reports the flotilla might participate in military operations against the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo.
  • On Wednesday, Russia withdrew a request for a flotilla of warships, including its flagship aircraft carrier the Admiral Kuznetsov, to refuel in the Spanish port of Ceuta as the ships head toward Syria.
  • The UK has deployed hundreds of troops to Eastern Europe as NATO continues to bolster its presence in the face of perceived Russian provocation.
  • "Russia has tripled defense spending," Stoltenberg told reporters.
  • NATO defense ministers met Wednesday in Brussels, Belgium, to discuss the situation as well as the fight against ISIS.
  • Poland's paramilitary defense has grown rapidly, with more than 35,000 people signing up and undergoing military training. They range from high school students to lawyers and doctors.
  • n July, the UK said it would deliver one of four battalions to NATO's enhanced forward presence in the Baltic states and Poland.
  • Belgium, Croatia, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Norway will join a German-led battalion in Lithuania, while Denmark and France will contribute to the UK-led battalion in Estonia.
  • In February, the US Department of Defense announced it was spending $3.4 billion for the European Reassurance Initiative to deter Russian aggression against NATO allies.
  • A limited rotational force of 330 Marines are set to be located at the Vaernes military base in Norway, according to a statement from the Norwegian Defense Ministry.
ethanmoser

Russia Drops Bid to Refuel Warships on Spanish Territory as Tensions with NATO Rise - WSJ - 0 views

  • Russia canceled a bid to have Syria-bound warships refuel on Spanish territory as tensions rose between Moscow and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization over Russian ships deploying in the Baltic Sea and new NATO measures to reinforce Eastern European allies
  • defusing rising intra-alliance tensions as alliance defense ministers meet in Brussels.
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