Germany: Angela Merkel: No-deal Brexit would send a bad signal to the world

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday that it would send a bad signal to the world if a Brexit trade deal could not be reached, as an EU negotiating team stayed in London for additional talks.

With just one month remaining for the European Union and the UK to come to an agreement, Merkel told a virtual gathering of parliamentarians from across the continent: "Britain and the EU share common values. If we failed to reach a deal, it would not send a good signal."

Read more at: Angela Merkel: No-deal Brexit would send a bad signal to the world | News | DW | 30.11.2020

EU: Poland could be expelled (exit) from EU over judicial reform clash: top Polish court

Poland could end up leaving the European Union because of plans by the ruling nationalists that would allow judges to be fired if they question the legitimacy of the government’s judicial reforms, the Supreme Court said on Tuesday.

The court said the plans could contravene European law and exacerbate existing tensions between Brussels and Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party (PiS).

“Contradictions between Polish law and EU law ... will in all likelihood lead to an intervention by the EU institutions regarding an infringement of the EU treaties, and in the longer perspective (will lead to) the need to leave the European Union,” Poland’s Supreme Court said in a statement.

Read more at: Poland could exit EU over judicial reform clash: top Polish court | Reuters

The Netherlands: Unilever officially no longer Dutch company

For 91 years, the company structure was divided between the Netherlands and Great Britain, with two head offices in London and Rotterdam. The company also had two boards and two types of shares.

To simplify its structure, the company decided in 2018 to opt for one main office. Initially, the choice fell on Rotterdam, possibly partly due to the government's announcement to abolish the dividend tax. However, after opposition from influential shareholders, London became the final choice. In the end, the abolition of the dividend tax in the Netherlands was not passed.

The restructuring means that important strategic decisions will subsequently be made in London. This brings an end to the long Dutch history of the company, but in practice – at least in short term – there won't be much change.

Read more at: Unilever officially no longer Dutch company | NL Times

USA: Biden Can’t Stop America’s Democratic Decline - by James Traub

A few years ago I developed a moderately cheering theory about the effects of four years of U.S. President Donald Trump. The thought came to me while I was covering the French presidential elections in 2017. Very few French voters seemed to be attracted to Emmanuel Macron’s Anglo-American brand of liberalism, but they voted for him in overwhelming numbers against Marine Le Pen because they felt called to defend so-called republican values against her populist nativism. The French had a collective memory of their own brush with fascism during the Vichy era and the 1930s. So, too, the Spanish, who kept their own right wing firmly in check. Perhaps, I thought, Americans’ own problem was historical complacency; if so, Trump could provide a kind of homeopathic remedy which would inoculate them against the full-blown disease of authoritarianism without making them gravely ill.

I was wrong. The democratic catharsis that I hoped this election would produce did not happen and is not happening. I need not recite the evidence, as so many others have, including Foreign Policy’s editor, Jonathan Tepperman. It is enough to say that my medical metaphor got it backward: Trump exploited a preexisting condition of contempt for democratic norms and then made it vastly worse.

Read more at: Biden Can’t Stop America’s Democratic Decline

EU Counter Measures To Be Taken- Article 7: Hungary and Poland maintain united front blocking EU COVID-19 recovery fund

The leaders of Hungary and Poland have vowed to maintain a united front and uphold their veto of the EU's budget and its massive pandemic relief fund.

They continue to oppose the mechanism that ties funding for countries to rule of law principles, arguing that the EU plan risks derailing the bloc.

" Note EU-Digest: Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union should be applied, which is a procedure in the treaties of the European Union (EU) to suspend certain rights from a member state and consequently stop all funding to these two countries within this legal framework".

Read more at: Hungary and Poland maintain united front blocking EU COVID-19 recovery fund | Euronews

UK economy to suffer 'largest fall in output for 300 years' as GDP down 11.3% in 2020, says Sunak

Debt would be 91.9% of GDP this year, rising to 97.5% in 2025-26, he said. In comparison, government debt in the eurozone stood at 95.1% of GDP in the second quarter of 2020, according to Eurostat, the EU statistics agency.

The OBR said that if the UK trades with the EU under World Trade Organization (WTO) terms, as would happen should no trade deal be reached by the end of the transition period on December 31, the effect would "reduce real GDP by a further 2% in 2021". Bottom line, the economic picture for Britain looks quite bleak.

UK economy to suffer 'largest fall in output for 300 years' as GDP down 11.3% in 2020, says Sunak | Euronews

EU - Opinion on Hungary and Poland: The E.U. Puts Its Foot Down on the Rule of Law - editorial board

After years of passively watching nationalist governments in Hungary and Poland undermine democratic rule, the European Union finally drew the line this year and declared that disbursements from the E.U. budget and a special coronavirus relief fund would be contingent on each member’s adherence to the rule of law. Hungary and Poland have shamelessly retaliated by threatening to veto the Union’s next seven-year budget, emergency funds and all, unless the condition is scrapped.

The governments in Budapest and Warsaw couched their defiance with their usual plaints that the bloc was behaving like their former Soviet overlords. “This is not why we created the European Union, so that there would be a second Soviet Union,” declared Viktor Orban, the proudly illiberal prime minister of Hungary. But such posturing has long been discredited, especially as both right-wing governments have happily reaped huge subsidies from the European Union.

The cynical reactions of Mr. Orban and the right-wing Law and Justice government in Warsaw demonstrated how far they have strayed from the fundamental principles they signed on to when they joined the European Union. They make no bones about it: Hungarian and Polish officials recently met to set up a joint institute to combat the “suppression of opinions by liberal ideology.”

Mr. Orban in particular has systematically worked to curtail the independence of the judiciary, bring the press to heel and curb civil society. With Fidesz, his nationalist party, in full control of Parliament, he took advantage of the coronavirus pandemic in March to assume broad and open-ended emergency powers that effectively allow him to rule by decree for as long as he wants.

Note EU-Digest: "Hungary and Poland want all the benefits of the EU, but do not want to comply with the rules - it's hight time for the EU Commission to give them an ultimatum- live up to the rules of the EU or lose your membership"

Read more at: Opinion | The E.U. Puts Its Foot Down on the Rule of Law - The New York Times

Germany: Berlin landlords forced to reduce rents

From November 23, landlords in the German capital must lower excessively high rents — that is, if they exceed a standardized limit by more than 20% — or face heavy fines. The German constitutional court dismissed the landlord associations' attempts to halt the imminent reductions at the end of October.

Read more at: Berlin landlords forced to reduce rents | Germany| News and in-depth reporting from Berlin and beyond | DW | 23.11.2020

EU: We need to call Orbán's bluff by going ahead without him - by Guy Verhofstadt

By vetoing the EU's recovery financing, Viktor Orbán and Jarosław Kaczyński are putting at risk the lives of all Europeans threatened by a needlessly prolongued Covid-19 crisis, as well as the livelihood of everyone whose job or business is harmed as a result, only because they want the EU to continue to fund their increasingly corrupt power grab. We must not let them.

Luckily, the EU Treaties provide other options. We need to call their bluff and we need to do it now.

Financing the recovery through enhanced cooperation of the 25 other member states is the way to do it.

Read moe at: We need to call Orbán's bluff by going ahead without him

Global Economy: G20 Summit kicks off in Saudi Arabia

In his opening speech, Saudi King Salman bin Abdelaziz focused on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on international economies. This as many human rights groups around protested Saudi Arabia's very poor human rights record.

Read more at: G20 Summit kicks off in Saudi Arabia

EU - former Eastern bloc Nations: ‘Work, family, fatherland’: populist social policies in central and eastern Europe – by Mitchell Orenstein and Bojan Bugaric

The rise of authoritarian populists in Hungary and Poland has shocked the European Union, forcing it to contemplate new procedures to ensure compliance with the rule of law. But these regimes have an enduring electoral appeal to many voters, including those naturally inclined to the left. Why?

Our research shows that central and east European populists have developed a new approach to social policy, based on past conservative models, which can be encapsulated in the old Vichy slogan, ‘work, family, fatherland’. Developed in Hungary and Poland, it is now spreading across Europe. Hungary, Poland, populistsBojan Bugaric

Responding to decades of neoliberal economic policies, these populist parties advance a nationalist programme. This seeks to build up domestic as against foreign capital, and support indigenous versus migrant workers, addressing native population loss through ‘pro-family’ measures. The pitch is to protect ‘ordinary people’ from ‘liberal elites’, while growing the economy through economic self-rule and a conservative developmental state.

Read more at: ‘Work, family, fatherland’: populist social policies in central and eastern Europe – Mitchell Orenstein and Bojan Bugaric

China-USA relations: A Growing Threat from China - Note EU-Digest - "but doesn't the blame for this lies with the USA ? "- by Mackubin Thomas Owens

It has been clear for some time that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) seeks to displace the United States as the leading power within the global order. China has sought to do so in a number of mutually reinforcing ways by employing all available tools, from military means to trade and technology.

In the area of trade, the PRC has exploited the openness of the liberal global system. Seduced by the conceit that the fall of the Soviet Union had heralded the triumph of a liberal world order of free trade and interdependence, the U.S. and other liberal countries invited China to join the World Trade Organization, believing that Beijing would happily accept the tenets of a liberal economic order and play by that order’s rules.

Read more at: A Growing Threat from China

EU-China Trade Relations - Germany: 'Better off thanks to China': German companies double down on resurgent giant - by Michael Nienaber

German industrial robot-maker Hahn Automation plans to invest millions of euros in new factories in China over the next three years, keen to capitalise on an economy that's rebounding more rapidly than others from the COVID-19 crisis.

Read more at: 'Better off thanks to China': German companies double down on resurgent giant

US Economy - the great divide between Wall Street and Main Street: as thousands Line Up In Dallas For North Texas Food Bank’s ‘Largest Mobile Food Distribution Ever’

Thousands of families lined up in Dallas on Saturday for a giveaway hosted by the North Texas Food Bank, and the organization called it its largest ever.

Organizers said the NTFB gave away over 7,000 turkeys and around 600,000 pounds of food in Fair Park to those families in need as the holidays approach and the COVID-19 pandemic continues.

Saturday’s event was also the NTFB’s fifth food giveaway in Fair Park since the pandemic began in March.

Note EU-Digest: US Economy: Wall Street versus Main street - total disparity - the recent Wall Street bounce can be better described as the US Economy's "Dead Cat bounce" , before "the walls from Jericho came tumbling down ".

Read more at: Thousands Line Up In Dallas For North Texas Food Bank’s ‘Largest Mobile Food Distribution Ever’ – CBS Dallas / Fort Worth

USA: Dow on verge of 30,000 and first record close in 10 months on back of Apple’s stock surge

The Dow Jones Industrial Average on Monday was knocking on the door of a psychologically significant 30,000 milestone, which would mark the first such round-number level for the benchmark since mid January as the stock market attempts to punch higher in the wake of the volatility inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read more at: Dow on verge of 30,000 and first record close in 10 months on back of Apple's stock surge - MarketWatch

American Global dominance coming to an end: It’s time the world looks beyond Pax Americana - by Tee Ngugi

Since World War II, America has been the premier military and economic power. Western Europe, faced with the ‘Russian threat’, worried whether the incoming US administration would still commit to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation military framework.

The reality is China has overtaken America as the provider of aid and loans around the world and is beginning to challenge American military hegemony in places like South East China. It would now make more sense for countries in that region to start cultivating strong ties with China and putting more emphasis on regional blocks as guarantor of their security. While American support is still crucial for Israel, the Jewish state - perhaps more perceptively than most — has been reaching out to a resurgent Russia and ratcheting up diplomatic ties with Arabs as a way of guaranteeing its future security.

Read more at: https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/oped/comment/it-s-time-the-world-looks-beyond-pax-americana-3020104

The Origins of the EU: How the CIA Created the EU - by Eric Zuesse

The details are supplied in an exhaustive 1,000-page biography of Jean Monnet by Éric Roussel, which was published only in France in 1996, and which seems to have been successfully suppressed. It has never been translated, and has no reviews even at Amazon. However, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of UK’s Telegraph newspaper has provided some of the core information from it. Furthermore, Richard J. Aldrich’s 2003 The Hidden Hand also provides key details, such as by Aldrich’s saying, on page 366, about the American Committee for a United Europe: ACUE, more than any other American front organization of the Cold War, was a direct creature of the leading lights of the CIA. Indeed, it was so replete with famous CIA figures that its ‘front’ was very thin. Its early years seemed to have formed something of a laboratory for figures such as [Bill] Donovan, [Allen] Dulles, [Walter] Bedell Smith and [Tom] Braden, before they moved on to other projects in the mid-1950s. Over its first three years of operations, 1949-51, ACUE received $384,650, the majority being dispersed to Europe. This was a large sum, but from 1952 ACUE began to spend such sums annually. The total budget for the period 1949-60 amounted to approximately $4 million. As the quantity of money flowing across the Atlantic began to increase, ACUE opened a local Paris office to monitor more closely groups that had received grants. By 1956, the flood of increased funding was prompting fears among the Directors of ACUE that its work would be publicly exposed.

The emerging European Economic Community (EEC) and the growing Western intelligence community overlapped to a considerable degree. This is underlined by the creation of the Bilderberg Group, an informal and secretive transatlantic council of key decision-makers [representatives of the billionaires who controlled U.S. and U.S.-allied international corporations]. Bilderberg was founded by Joseph Retinger and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands in 1952 in response to the rise of anti-Americanism in Europe. … Retinger secured support from Averell Harriman, David Rockefeller and Walter Bedell Smith. The formation of the American wing of Bilderberg was entrusted to Eisenhower’s psychological warfare chief, C.D. Jackson, and the funding for the first meeting, held at the Hotel de Bilderberg in Holland in 1954, was provided by the CIA.

Funds for these CIA operations came not only from the U.S. Treasury but from private sources, America’s super-rich, and, also from organized gangsters, as was revealed in the 1998 classic by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press. This off-the-books funding comes from narcotics kingpins throughout the world, as protection-money, which is essential to keep them in business. So, the EU was financially fueled from all of these sources, and, basically, was a bribing-operation (to end up getting the ‘right’ people into the EU’s Parliament, etc.), in addition to be receiving funds from what might be considered idealistic philanthropic donors (because the dream of a united Europe had long preceded the grubby version of it that the CIA created for Europeans). The EU was a Cold War operation, from the very start. Though the Cold War was allegedly ideological, it was actually the result of a decision that U.S. President Harry S. Truman made on 26 July 1945, for the post-WW-II U.S. to achieve, ultimately, the world’s first all-encompassing global empire. The EU was designed to serve the political aspects of that, and NATO the military aspects, for America’s European ‘allies’ (America’s European vassal nations). The aim was for the Soviet Union (subsequently only Russia) to become surrounded by enemies, so that, in the final analysis, the U.S. and its ‘allies’ would be offering the U.S.S.R. “a deal they can’t refuse.” This deal (quite fitting to come from an international gangland operation such as America’s Deep State) would be inclusion in the U.S. empire, on terms that are set solely by the U.S. Government — either this, or else conquest. Then, the same thing would be done to China.

Pritchard issued two important articles about this, the first being his 19 September 2000 “Euro-federalists financed by US spy chiefs”: DECLASSIFIED American government documents show that the US intelligence community ran a campaign in the Fifties and Sixties to build momentum for a united Europe. It funded and directed the European federalist movement. … One memorandum, dated July 26, 1950, gives instructions for a campaign to promote a fully fledged European parliament. It is signed by Gen William J Donovan, head of the American wartime Office of Strategic Services, precursor of the CIA.

The documents were found by Joshua Paul, a researcher at Georgetown University in Washington. They include files released by the US National Archives. Washington’s main tool for shaping the European agenda was the American Committee for a United Europe, created in 1948. The chairman was Donovan, ostensibly a private lawyer by then.

The vice-chairman was Allen Dulles, the CIA director in the Fifties. The board included Walter Bedell Smith, the CIA’s first director, and a roster of ex-OSS figures and officials who moved in and out of the CIA. The documents show that ACUE financed the European Movement, the most important federalist organisation in the post-war years. In 1958, for example, it provided 53.5 per cent of the movement’s funds.

The European Youth Campaign, an arm of the European Movement, was wholly funded and controlled by Washington. The Belgian director, Baron Boel, received monthly payments into a special account. When the head of the European Movement, Polish-born Joseph Retinger, bridled at this degree of American control and tried to raise money in Europe, he was quickly reprimanded.

The leaders of the European Movement — Retinger, the visionary Robert Schuman and the former Belgian prime minister Paul-Henri Spaak — were all treated as hired hands by their American sponsors. The US role was handled as a covert operation. ACUE’s funding came from the Ford and Rockefeller foundations as well as business groups with close ties to the US government.

Read the complete report at: How the CIA Created the EU - Modern Diplomacy

History - repeating itself?: Can History Predict the Future? - by Graeme Wood

The fundamental problems, he says, are a dark triad of social maladies: a bloated elite class, with too few elite jobs to go around; declining living standards among the general population; and a government that can’t cover its financial positions. His models, which track these factors in other societies across history, are too complicated to explain in a nontechnical publication. But they’ve succeeded in impressing writers for nontechnical publications, and have won him comparisons to other authors of “megahistories,” such as Jared Diamond and Yuval Noah Harari. The New York Times columnist Ross Douthat had once found Turchin’s historical model­ing unpersuasive, but 2020 made him a believer: “At this point,” Douthat recently admitted on a podcast, “I feel like you have to pay a little more attention to him.”

Read more at:Can History Predict the Future? - The Atlantic

EU: Budget deal struck, with Hungary threat still hanging - by Eszter Zalan

After what negotiators described as "tough" and "long" talks, MEPs and diplomats from the German EU presidency struck a deal on Tuesday (10 November) on the long-term EU budget and the coronavirus recovery package.

Momentum on the budget talks picked up after the European Parliament and the EU presidency agreed on how to link EU funds to the respect of rule of law in separate talks last week.

Read more at: Budget deal struck, with Hungary threat still hanging

Global Economy: China’s On Top Of The World, But Not For Long - by Sam Hill

China is feeling pretty good about itself. On November 1, President Ji Xinping said the economy will double by 2035. He has reason to be bullish. China has the most people. It produces the most Apples, Aluminum and Autos, and has the world’s biggest Army. And we’re not even out of the “A’s” yet. (Further down the alphabet, it also grows the most wheat.) Each year China files more patent applications than every other country in the world put together. It has $3.3 trillion in foreign reserves and is the world’s number one exporter. It’s not the largest economy in the world yet, but it should pass the U.S. as its domestic consumption takes off. They should enjoy it while they can, because China’s time at the top will be short. How short? 30 years or so, according to the analytics.

Read more: China’s On Top Of The World, But Not For Long

Coronavirus vaccine : Our COVID-19 vaccine is 90% effective, says Pfizer - by Alice Tidey

A potential COVID-19 vaccine being developed by Pfizer and BioNTech has been found to be more than 90% effective.

The vaccine has been tested on more than 43,500 participants during Phase 3 — the final stage of development when it is given to thousands to test its efficacy and safety.

Analysis carried out evaluated that 94 trial participants had been confirmed to have contracted COVID-19.

"Today is a great day for science and humanity," Pfizer Chairman and CEO, Dr Albert Bourla, said in a statement.

Read more at: Coronavirus: Our COVID-19 vaccine is 90% effective, says Pfizer | Euronews

US Elections: Trump's Turkish Ally Erdogan and other populists/authoritarian leaders around the world Stay Mum on Biden Victory

Erdogan, along with the leaders of Russia, Israel, Iran, Hungary, Saudi Arabia and China, offered no initial congratulations to the president-elect.

Read more at: Trump's Turkish Ally Erdogan Stays Mum on Biden Victory | Greek Reporter Europe

USA - Live: Joe Biden elected president of the United States after winning Pennsylvania - by Lauren Chadwick

Joe Biden is the president-elect of the United States after being projected to win the battleground state of Pennsylvania. He is also projected to win the state of Nevada.

Read more at: Live | Joe Biden elected president of the United States after winning Pennsylvania | Euronews

US elections are not all you can read about: Five key European news stories you may have missed while all eyes were stateside

While our collective attention has been gripped by the unusually tight race to see who will prevail in the US presidential election between President Donald Trump and challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, the world has continued to turn and with it, a lot of important news stories have broken that have by and large flown under the radar.

Here are the five biggest stories in European which may have missed your attention during coverage of the race for the White House. Click on link below

Read more at: US election: Five key European news stories you may have missed while all eyes were stateside | Euronews

US Election 2020 - final results will be days off: Tighter than expected vote may take days to resolve

Mr Trump, a Republican, claimed to have won and vowed to launch a Supreme Court challenge, baselessly alleging fraud, while Mr Biden, a Democrat, said he was "on track" to victory.

Read more at: US Election 2020: Tighter than expected vote may take days to resolve - BBC News

Brexit negotiations: Britain snubs EU deadline over bill breaking Brexit deal

To date, the EU has received no reply from the UK,” spokesman Daniel Ferrie told journalists, three days after a deadline for London to reply to Brussels had passed.

“We are therefore considering the next steps, including issuing a reasoned opinion,” the next stage in the EU’s legal action launched against Britain a month ago, Ferrie said.

Read more at: Britain snubs EU deadline over bill breaking Brexit deal

The Global Economy: Real World Economics: Bad trade policies will last for years – by Edward Lotterman

The election Tuesday will be a momentous one in U.S. history, perhaps the most important since 1932 or even 1860. The last four years have been turbulent indeed for our politics and economics. Those splits will remain as we now vote against a backdrop of a world pandemic not seen in a century.

Read more at:Real World Economics: Bad trade policies will last for years – Twin Cities