The European Project: the future of the EU.

[Lexicus]

Do you think denying and/or downplaying the atrocities committed in the name of communism to people who have experienced them first or second hand is going to counter the authoritarian propaganda?

Do you think I have denied or downplayed them here?

 

[innonimatu]

EU the empire to be, or how the EU needs to play at the warmongering like a proper great power:

Josep Borrell, who will become the EU’s foreign affairs chief next month, said the bloc must go further than the current 35,000 men and women deployed worldwide by member states. In a stinging attack on the EU’s current military capabilities, the Spaniard said Brussels’ joint forces must be “more operational”. He made the war cry in front of MEPs at the European Parliament during a confirmation hearing for his new role.

Mr Borrell said: “Member states are deploying 35,000 women and men worldwide, in different types of international missions.

“That’s already impressive, but we have to do more.

“Member states estimated military spending in 2018 was €260 billion. Roughly, half the GDP of Belgium, more than China, much more than Russia and second only to the United States.”

"The EU has to be more operational on the ground. We have to be ready to deploy forces, starting with our neighbourhood.”

Mr Borrell called on the bloc to revive a 20-year-old target to have between “50,000 and 60,000 troops on the ground”.

He went on to say: "We have the instruments to play power politics. The EU has to learn the language of power.

"We should reinforce the EU's international role and further our military capacity to act."

"The language of power", yay!

Good luck finding other media covering the statements. Good luck finding a complete official transcript also. Though you can try watching the video. I wonder what are his plans for Africa, other than "protect" those poor poor natives, just like Libya was "protected".

 

[innonimatu]

Which we see perfectly well in the resolution:

Stresses that the Second World War, the most devastating war in Europe’s history, was started as an immediate result of the notorious Nazi-Soviet Treaty on Non-Aggression of 23 August 1939, also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and its secret protocols, whereby two totalitarian regimes that shared the goal of world conquest divided Europe into two zones of influence;

If we count the start of the Second World War in Europe as the attack on Poland, then its perfectly valid to hold the Soviet Union responsible as well.

That quoted bit from the proposal is an outright lie. Hitler was going to attack Poland with or without a pact, just as he attacked Austria before, and Czechoslovakia after. The same "western democracies" that made pacts with Hitler to let him to that refused to cooperate with the USSR in setting up a defense against him. The soviets did a non-agression pact after exhausting attempts at doing an alliance with the UK and France.

 

[Kyriakos]

Yeah, first of all, parliamentary resolutions are a tool quite often used. Don't overestimate its effect, whether on public opinion, academic state of art or legal realities.

What this shows is that there are quite a few different publics around Europe where the discussion of this historical reality is in different stages. I don't think debating the history is useful, but that modern conversation is very interisting from a sociological point of view. I do think our understanding of history is very much shaped by our national (education) background. But I certainly don't think it's time for a doomsday view.

You do realize this resolution is just done to spite Putin, right?
Unless you think the Eu has other reason to go with this ruling, 70+ years after ww2.
Several eu countries have fascist-y governments and the Eu does nothing to condemn them

EU the empire to be, or how the EU needs to play at the warmongering like a proper great power:



"The language of power", yay!

Good luck finding other media covering the statements. Good luck finding a complete official transcript also. Though you can try watching the video. I wonder what are his plans for Africa, other than "protect" those poor poor natives, just like Libya was "protected".

Did he give free Franco leaflets to the crowd? ^_^
Saying "the Eu has a defense budget larger than China, Russia" etc is obviously misleading, cause only 5-6 countries in the Eu have any army to speak of. That isn't the Eu, just those countries, which have armies for different reasons. Eg Greece and Finland for determent (well, not that realistic in the case of Finland ), while France for foreign invasion.
I am very against a common Eu army, even if just for foreign stuff. But there were even talks about a common Eu peace force, as an internal thing, such as police. The use of multinational armies, or armies consisting of troops from distant provinces, had historic precedent, eg in the Roman Empire the Goth mercenary armies had no issue massacring thousands of people if the emperor asked them to, cause their allegiance was to the emperor, not the people.
Similar tactics were used in colonies in Africa, eg very infamously in Belgian Congo, with merc african soldiers from other countries/regions killing with no remorse.

 

[Lexicus]

...and why do you think a lot of Eastern Europe is "rabidly anticommunist"?

Probably the same reason so many of them enthusiastically collaborated with the Holocaust...

 

[Yeekim]

Probably the same reason so many of them enthusiastically collaborated with the Holocaust...

I'm quite sure everyone who ever "collaborated with Holocaust", enthusiastically or otherwise, is dead.

 

[Yeekim]

The soviets did a non-agression pact after exhausting attempts at doing an alliance with the UK and France.

"Non-aggression pact". What a nice, sweet term. I'm sure neutral third countries that the USSR invaded and annexed as per this innocent pact, would have loved some of that "non-aggression" as well.

 

[Kyriakos]

"Non-aggression pact". What a nice, sweet term. I'm sure neutral third countries that the USSR invaded and annexed as per this innocent pact, would have loved some of that "non-aggression" as well.

A rather more friendly "non aggression pact" was between Finland and nazi Germany. I am sure you don't view that quite the same, right?

 

[uppi]

Do you think I have denied or downplayed them here?

Well, I wasn't sure before, but

Probably the same reason so many of them enthusiastically collaborated with the Holocaust...

Now you certainly did.

 

[Lexicus]

Now you certainly did.

Oh? Explain...

 

[Kyriakos]

Now you certainly did.

TBF there were a number of euro countries which either fully allied with or kept very close ties to nazi Germany. In some of them the local fascism/nazism variant doesn't even seem to have been accepted as horrible either. Some notable examples include Croatia (Ustase), Hungary (various groups) and (maybe) Finland (though in the case of Finland there is the added issue with the Winter war, so it would complicate things).
Not sure if Francoism ties there too, or if it doesn't really allude to nazism.

 

[innonimatu]

"Non-aggression pact". What a nice, sweet term. I'm sure neutral third countries that the USSR invaded and annexed as per this innocent pact, would have loved some of that "non-aggression" as well.

You know that the soviet point of view at the time '"if we don't occupy them the nazis will and then march right over to Leningrad" was true. The germans had already annexed Memel and would not be content with that.

Even so they still waited two weeks after September 1st to see how things would go in Poland. France and the UK did nothing while the germans had almost their entire armed forces busy attacking Poland. Stalin was an opportunist when the opportunity presented itself, but from all we know of his actions he didn't like risks. He'd rather have had an alliance against Germany then, tried to set up one, and was refused.
Likewise with the annexation of the baltic states. He moved only after the western allies were defeated in the battle of France, and it had become obvious that if the soviets didn't take that territory the germans inevitably would move in. It was an aggression yes, but it was also a defensive move that they would be fools not to do, given the circumstances.

The soviet-german treaty did not start World War II. It just kept the USSR out of it a little while longer than it otherwise would. And, in hindsight, it was probably strategic mistake.

 

[Yeekim]

A rather more friendly "non aggression pact" was between Finland and nazi Germany. I am sure you don't view that quite the same, right?

I am not aware of Finland having attacked any third countries as a result. Moreover, they allied with Germany not to preempt a hypothetical future attack, but as a direct result of the Winter War that you've apparently heard of, so I'm really not sure what you're trying to say here.

@uppi Hey, but @Lexicus is quite right. His tender communist heart just could not bear typing out "Soviet atrocities against them", which indeed is the major and common reason behind anti-communism of today and past collaboration with Nazis.

 

[Kyriakos]

I am not aware of Finland having attacked any third countries as a result. Moreover, they allied with Germany not to preempt a hypothetical future attack, but as a direct result of the Winter War that you've apparently heard of, so I'm really not sure what you're trying to say here.

The Winter war was apparently going on still in 1944 then.

 

[EnglishEdward]

I find the equating in the declaration of Nazism with Communism offensive.

Communism was based, on amongst other things, a moral principle that
society should be organised to benefit ordinary people rather than aristocrats etc.
The fact that things didn't work out like that does not negate the moral principle.

Whereas there was no moral principle at all with respect to Hitler's Nazism.

Edit:

I am not aware of Finland having attacked any third countries as a result. Moreover, they allied with Germany not to preempt a hypothetical future attack, but as a direct result of the Winter War that you've apparently heard of, so I'm really not sure what you're trying to say here.

My understanding is that Finland and Germany did not ally, they were merely co-belligerents.

 

[Akka]

European Parliament scrutinizing the new commissioneers.
It's a bit sad to see that it seems to be just as much influenced by politicking agenda than true evaluation of the characters and professionalism of the candidates, but I would still be pretty happy to see them reject Sylvie Goulard. Pretty shameful to present someone with so much shady parts to such a high-responsibility post.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Remind me. Does/did the European Parlkiament approve of their appointment by a vote, and if so, is/was it a public or a secret ballot?

 

[Yeekim]

The Winter war was apparently going on still in 1944 then.

No. That would have been rather suitably named Continuation War.

My understanding is that Finland and Germany did not ally, they were merely co-belligerents.

You are indeed correct.

I find the equating in the declaration of Nazism with Communism offensive.

The declaration contains no equation of Nazism with Communism.
This is a false equivalence used as a strawman by tankie scum who can not bring themselves to disavow USSR.
The declaration speaks of "Stalinism", and "communist/totalitarian/authoritarian regimes" and crimes perpetrated by those regimes.
Kindly see for yourself:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/RC-9-2019-0097_EN.html

That certain posters reflexively flock to defense of "Stalinism" and "communist/totalitarian/authoritarian regimes" speaks more about them than it does about principles of communism.

Remind me. Does/did the European Parlkiament approve of their appointment by a vote, and if so, is/was it a public or a secret ballot?

They shall vote on the appointment of the Commission as a whole and it will be public ballot.
However, even before the final vote, negative evaluation by Parliament has prompted candidates to withdraw (this time, two so far, I believe).

 

[Kyriakos]

Pretty sure that most people here don't care about the USSR, yet still are identifying how stupid this new declaration is...

Also, Stalin and Hitler apparently were allies, but Finland and Hitler were just "co-belligerents". Like I said, I am not surprised

 

[Akka]

Even funnier is to see the contrast between the exact same people who in one thread act all scandalized that someone would rate the level of immorality of the English Empire in India compared to other empires because "if it's evil, it's evil", and act all scandalized in this thread that people wouldn't rate the level of immorality of stalinism vs nazism because "you just can't say they were evil on the same scale".

The magic of Shroedinger morality.