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EU Commissioner Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By EU Parliament

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Re: EU Commissioner Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By EU Parliament

#61
post #33
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which are these fascist parties in Europe? Seriously, I live in Europe and never seen any. In most EU countries propagating nazi ideology is criminal offense.

Anything described as ultra-rightwing are fascist in sheep's clothing. I know of openly fascist Golden Dawn party from Greece. And I think there are Tricolour Flame, New Force and National Social Front in Italy. There are also plenty of horrible evil parties with a similar agenda (but not identifying as right-wing or fascist) growing like mushrooms all over rest of the Europian continent.

> Anything described as ultra-rightwing are fascist in sheep's clothing.

I wouldn't agree. For example ultra-right libertarian party doesn't seem like fascist to me. They are all about personal freedom, and nazism/fascism is all about uniting society with one goal againist common enemy.

Re: EU Commissioner Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By EU Parliament

#62
post #12

Good news. Strengthens the case significantly for the EU to be abandoned.

And where would that leave us ? Massive recession in Germany, Bankrupcy for the southern nations, a few hurt nations (France, Italy, others) closing their borders to try to survive on their own, and the UK surviving as a dependency of the US. With fascist parties triumphing everywhere around (they are already doing 20%+ in a lot of countries, there are even nazis in the Greek parliament now). And, of course, global e…

The 'OMG Scary Nazis, lets put everything under the control of a single unified state' idea doesn't appear to make any sense.

Surely if you're worried about Nazis taking over, you should be encouraging the existence of small independent nations, so that when they take over in one place, the damage is limited in scope.

Creating a federal European state is like giving the Nazis all the apparatus they need when they become strong enough.

Remember that in real life both Hitler and Mussolini came to power in countries that had been formed some 60 - 70 years ago from unifying smaller states into one.

Re: EU Commissioner Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By EU Parliament

#63
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like it's time for them to do just that - if this sort of open contempt for the democratic process and the rule of law doesn't qualify as adequate grounds, nothing does. What's the best channel by which to call for that action?

This is just sophistry now. The commissioner is playing the role he's supposed to play in the EU institutions, and I have seen no indication that he's done anything illegal or held the parliament in contempt.

He said he'll ignore what citizens of EU, and their elected representatives want, because according to law he technically can.

I have no problem with abusing the law to get rid of him ASAP.

Re: EU Commissioner Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By EU Parliament

#64
post #39
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which are these fascist parties in Europe? Seriously, I live in Europe and never seen any. In most EU countries propagating nazi ideology is criminal offense.

I live in Austria. There is one nationalist, populist party with a number of neo-nazis in there called FPÖ. It doesn't have too much power yet, but it's there. However, since most people have a deep hate of Nazis and everything that looks like it could this party knows it can't grow, if it remains that far to the right. That's why they currently throw out most of these members. Also, there have been two huge split-of…

Do you have any links about what is going on in Hungary? I am in europe and haven't heard much about it.

Re: EU Commissioner Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By EU Parliament

#66
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In principle yes, but in practice that's not always the case. Once chosen, a member state can't remove a commissioner, even if they're willing to. Simply there's no way. Now they have to wait until 2014. Imagine that some political party has (actually) appointed a commissioner because they won the national elections, not much democratic but it's something. Next election they lose, and the new government can't change…

> Next election they lose, and the new government can't change the commissioner, where's democracy now? This is standard practice in all civil service jobs, as well as the judicial branch. You can't just remove a judge, or a bureaucrat because his party is out of office. Doing so, ensures that there is continuity and stability between governments.

You're absolutely right and things should work that way. But these are in fact political appointments yet their point is to give the member states a sense of entitlement. Once the voters have lost their confidence in the political party to which the commissioners belong, there's no reason for them to be there, as they really haven't been elected by the people. Moreover, they are unlikely to play second fiddle any longer, the temptation to stick to their own narrow agendas is just too strong. Keep in mind that these people are professional politicians, not technicians.

Re: EU Commissioner Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By EU Parliament

#67
post #12

Good news. Strengthens the case significantly for the EU to be abandoned.

And where would that leave us ? Massive recession in Germany, Bankrupcy for the southern nations, a few hurt nations (France, Italy, others) closing their borders to try to survive on their own, and the UK surviving as a dependency of the US. With fascist parties triumphing everywhere around (they are already doing 20%+ in a lot of countries, there are even nazis in the Greek parliament now). And, of course, global e…

You seem to have invoked Godwin's law. Perhaps try rephrasing your argument?

Re: EU Commissioner Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By EU Parliament

#68
post #53
post #4

The commission needs to be neutered before the EU can be considered truly democratic. The fact that this guy can come straight out and say he's going to ignore court rulings and the democratic will of the elected MEPs with no fear of reprisals, because he's not elected, yet he can hold so much power ... it's sick.

The issue here is that the EU currently is a de facto confederation. The EU parliament can not be, and is not, the supreme legislative body for the simple reason that the member states are still sovereign, with the ability to withdraw (though there are some legal questions in some member countries about how that would be possible). It is the same issue facing the US under the Articles of Confederation, where Congress…

My country, and I'm sure most of the EU, isn't sovereign anymore when it comes to transposing EU laws^W directives (assuming they regard a domain where the EU is allowed to legislate, I suppose). The constitutional amendment was done a little before the constitutional treaty tried for ratification.

Re: EU Commissioner Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By EU Parliament

#69
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything described as ultra-rightwing are fascist in sheep's clothing. I know of openly fascist Golden Dawn party from Greece. And I think there are Tricolour Flame, New Force and National Social Front in Italy. There are also plenty of horrible evil parties with a similar agenda (but not identifying as right-wing or fascist) growing like mushrooms all over rest of the Europian continent.

To be specific "fascist" stuff is outlawed in italy, though this is barely enforced. This basically means you have fascist symbology and slogans on posters, fliers and speech, but you don't write "fascista" in the party name. There are a few of them, but far right parties have very little consensus (e.g. maybe 2-3% total), protest voting seem to go in different directions. By comparison, the hungarian far right is th…

In Poland it's illegal to propagate totalitarian ideology, applies to both nazism and communism (fascism too, probably, nobody tested this).

Before EURO 2012 championships everybody interpreted it like nazism and communism symbols are forbidden, but Russian supporters wanted to marsh before their match with communism symbols, and some Polish minister said symbols are OK, only propagating is illegal (probably to appease Russian politicians). And nobody was persecuted for walking with red star/other communism symbols during that march, AFAIK. So now it's open question what's actually allowed.

Funny thing, that some asshole Polish nationalists/hools beaten up a few Russian supporters during that march and their excuse was that Russians had illegal totalitarian symbols, and they were just defending law (police and judges don't support their excuse, I imagine :) ).

Re: EU Commissioner Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By EU Parliament

#70

Come back Nigel Farage http://www.nigelfaragemep.co.uk/ All is forgiven! Watch some of his videos laying into the commissioner(s) at the EU parliament. Quite amusing but it seems to be just what they need and deserve.

His site seems to be down, here's a Youtube channel with recordings https://www.youtube.com/user/europarl
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