Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Europe

  • Cultivated Meat’s Three Major Challenges

    Good Meat plant Alameda California
    Cultivated-meat plant of Good Meat in Alameda, California (Just Eat)

    When I wrote about the three mistakes people make about cultivated meat — comparing its current price to that of traditional (and subsidized) meat, comparing cultivated meat to a perfect world, and betting against progress — I also pointed out the industry does have real challenges:

    1. Growing more than muscle fibers in order to make complex meats, like steaks.
    2. Cultivating meat at scale.
    3. Getting regulatory and political approval.

    I investigated those challenges for Nieuwe Oogst, a Dutch agrarian magazine. Here is a summary for English readers. (more…)

  • Feijóo Asked to Form Government, But Chances Are Slim

    María Dolores Cospedal Alberto Núñez Feijóo
    Former Spanish defense minister María Dolores Cospedal confers with then-President Alberto Núñez Feijóo of Galicia during a People’s Party congress in Seville, April 7, 2018 (PP)

    King Felipe VI has asked the leader of Spain’s conservative People’s Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to try to form a government.

    He is unlikely to succeed.

    Feijóo’s party won the election in July with 136 out of 350 seats, but even with the backing of the far-right Vox (Voice), which has 33 seats, and the one deputy of the Navarrese People’s Union, he would fall five votes short of a majority.

    Outgoing prime minister, and Socialist Party leader, Pedro Sánchez stands a better chance of cobbling together a majority — but only just. (more…)

  • Omtzigt Shakes Up Dutch Election with New Party

    Pieter Omtzigt
    Dutch parliamentarian Pieter Omtzigt makes a speech in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, June 26, 2019 (Council of Europe/ Ellen Wuibaux)

    Dutch parliamentarian Pieter Omtzigt has thrown the November election in the Netherlands wide open by announcing the formation of a new political party.

    His New Social Contract would replace the conservative Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB) as one of the three parties vying for first place. The others are outgoing prime minister Mark Rutte’s People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), led by Justice Minister Dilan Yeşilgöz, and the joint Labor Party-Green list, led by EU commissioner Frans Timmermans.

    Omtzigt would cut support for the BBB in half, reducing the agrarians to sharing fourth place with Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom Party (PVV).

    Omtzigt’s unconventional mix of left- and right-wing policies would also enable him to lure voters away from the Socialists. And it opens up more possibilities for a coalition government after the election. (more…)

  • Sánchez Should Offer Catalans a Federal Spain

    Sagrada Família Barcelona Spain
    Aerial view of the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain (Unsplash/Carles Rabada)

    Pedro Sánchez’ chances of remaining prime minister narrowed on Saturday, when the votes of almost 234,000 Spaniards living abroad were counted. His Socialist Workers’ Party lost one seat in Congress to Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s conservative People’s Party. The left- and right-wing blocs would have 171 seats each, assuming Sánchez can convince the two Basque nationalist parties and the center-left Republicans of Catalonia to support him.

    The center-right Canarian Coalition, with one seat, and the centrist Junts (Together) of Catalonia, with seven seats, would hold the balance of power.

    The Canarians refuse a deal that includes Vox (Voice). Feijóo has no realistic path to a majority without the far-right party, which won 33 seats. But the Canarians are unlikely to vote for Sánchez either. They may abstain.

    Junts‘ demand — an independence referendum in Catalonia — is unacceptable to Sánchez. But the Basque branch of his Socialist Party has a plan that might just win Junts over: a federal Spain. (more…)

  • Dutch Election Three-Way Race: Polls

    Frans Timmermans Nicola Zingaretti Pedro Sánchez
    Dutch, Italian and Spanish socialist party leaders Frans Timmermans, Nicola Zingaretti and Pedro Sánchez meet in Brussels, March 21, 2019 (PES)

    The Dutch parliamentary elections in November are shaping up to become a three-way race.

    Outgoing prime minister Mark Rutte’s People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) is neck and neck in the polls with the conservative Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB) and a joint list of the Labor Party and Greens. All three have between 15 and 18 percent support.

    Geert Wilders’ nationalist Freedom Party is polling in fourth place with 9 to 12 percent. Ten other parties are below 7 percent.

    That makes it hard to imagine a coalition government that doesn’t include at least two of the three largest parties. The VVD (of which I am a member) may need to choose between a coalition with the right or the left. Both pose risks. Either would require a third and probably a fourth party for majority. (more…)

  • Regional Parties Refuse Deal with Spanish Right

    Alberto Núñez Feijóo
    Spanish People’s Party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo attends the European People’s Party congress in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, May 30, 2022 (PP)

    Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s chances of becoming Spain’s prime minister appear slim.

    His conservative People’s Party won the election on Sunday with 136 of the 350 seats in Congress. But a coalition with the far-right Vox (Voice) and center-right Navarrese People’s Union would be stuck at 170 seats, six short of a majority.

    The Canarian Coalition, which governs the Spanish islands in the Atlantic with Feijóo’s PP, and the moderate Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) have six seats between them. But both refuse to support a prime minister who also needs Vox.

    Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’ chances are only slightly better. He would need the support of almost all remaining parties, including Basque and Catalan separatists, to stay in power.

    If neither man can muster a majority, Spain would have to hold a repeat election, probably in December or the new year. (more…)

  • Spanish Election Gives Power to Separatists

    Pedro Sánchez
    Prime Ministers António Costa of Portugal, Pedro Sánchez of Spain and Stefan Löfven of Sweden attend a meeting of European socialist party leaders in Brussels, October 15, 2020 (PES)

    An election that centered on Spanish identity has handed power to parties from the two regions that most clearly define themselves against it: the Basque Country and Catalonia.

    Neither Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’ left-wing bloc of the Socialist Party and Sumar (Unite), nor a combination of Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s conservative People’s Party and the far-right Vox (Voice), will have a majority in the next Congress, which convenes in August. Basque and Catalan nationalists won enough seats on Sunday to decide who becomes the next prime minister.

    Sánchez holds the best cards despite placing second. He governed with the support of Basque and Catalan parties before. But they may ask for more this time than he is willing to give.

    The odds are against Feijóo. He grew his party from 89 to 136 seats, and claimed victory on Sunday night, but he would need both the anti-regionalist Vox and one of the four regional parties from the Basque Country and Catalonia for a majority. That is an improbable combination. His best hope is that Sánchez will fail too and the country must hold a repeat election next year. (more…)

  • Neither Left Nor Right Wins Majority in Spain

    • Neither the left- nor right-wing bloc won a majority in Spain’s Congress of Deputies on Sunday. Regional parties will hold the balance of power.
    • Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of the Socialist Workers’ Party was reduced to second place despite gaining seats. Alberto Núñez Feijóo propelled the conservative People’s Party into first place with 33 percent support, but he doesn’t have a majority even with Santiago Abascal’s far-right Vox (Voice) and the center-right Navarrese People’s Union.
    • For Sánchez to stay in power, he would need the support of Yolanda Díaz’ far-left Sumar (Unite) and almost all regional parties, including the separatist Together for Catalonia. (more…)

  • Spanish Election Could Reignite Catalan Independence Crisis

    Barcelona Spain
    Columbus Monument in Barcelona, Spain (Unsplash/Benjamin Voros)

    The outcome of Sunday’s election in Spain could usher in a new period of confrontation with the independence movement in Catalonia.

    If, as the polls predict, the conservative People’s Party and far-right Vox (Voice) win a majority, the next government would be far more hostile to Catalan interests than Pedro Sánchez’, a coalition of the Socialists and far left.

    The last major protests were in 2019, when nine of Catalonia’s leading separatists, including the region’s former vice president, were convicted of sedition for organizing a referendum on independence. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Barcelona and smaller Catalan cities. At night, trashcans were burned and there were altercations with police. (more…)

  • Sánchez Has Made Spain Freer and Greener

    Pedro Sanchez
    Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez speaks at a rally of his Socialist Workers’ Party in Badajoz, May 23 (PSOE)

    Spain has done well under Pedro Sánchez. The economy is projected to grow 2 percent this year and next, faster than the EU average. Unemployment is at its lowest since 2008. Inflation is down from 8 to under 3 percent. Spaniards pay almost the lowest energy bills in Europe. Renewables provide 50 percent of Spain’s electricity.

    Sánchez, a social democrat who governs with the far left, has protected Spaniards from the worst effects of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine by temporarily reducing sales tax on food and fuel and by paying the wages of workers who lost their jobs. He has invested 40 percent of Spain’s EU COVID-19 recovery funds into green projects.

    He has also made structural reforms, like raising the minimum wage and reducing severance pay. He cut taxes for small businesses and incomes under €300,000, and paid for it by raising taxes on capital gains and incomes over €3 million.

    The left-wing coalition government — the first since the Civil War — banned “gay conversion therapy”, legalized euthanasia for the terminally ill and required slaughterhouses to install cameras. (more…)

  • Spanish Election Guide

    Spanish Congress Madrid
    Palacio de las Cortes, seat of the Spanish Congress of Deputies, in Madrid, August 16, 2017 (Shutterstock/Vivvi Smak)

    Spaniards elect a new Congress and Senate on Sunday. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the conservative People’s Party, hopes to unseat Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, a Socialist, but surveys give neither man a majority. The relative strength of the far left and far right, which have been polling at a combined 25 to 30 percent percent, could decide who forms the next government.

    This election guide explains everything you need to know: the Spanish electoral system, the parties, the issues and which coalitions may be possible. (more…)

  • Spanish Conservatives Are Unlikely to Normalize Vox

    Esteban González Pons
    Esteban González Pons, the group leader of Spain’s conservative People’s Party in the European Parliament, gives a news conference in Madrid, June 13, 2022 (PP)

    Spanish conservatives still hope they can neutralize the far right by cooperating with it.

    Esteban González Pons, the group leader of Spain’s People’s Party in the European Parliament, told The New York Times that bringing Vox (Voice) into the government might “normalize” it:

    Vox will be another party, a conservative party inside of the system.

    Polls predict the People’s Party (PP) will win the election this month with 31 to 37 percent support. It would need Vox’s 12 to 15 percent for a majority.

    To his credit, Pons acknowledged there is a risk: “We can legitimize Vox.” Arguably, it already has by not ruling out a coalition. (more…)

  • Conservatives Water Down EU Nature and Farming Laws

    European Parliament Strasbourg
    The European Parliament votes in Strasbourg, October 24, 2018 (European Parliament)

    The European Parliament narrowly approved a new nature-restoration law on Wednesday. 336 lawmakers, mostly from the center-left, supported a European Commission proposal to restore 20 percent of Europe’s degraded ecosystems by 2030 and all areas deemed in need of restoration by 2050. 300 lawmakers from the conservative European People’s Party (EPP) and Euroskeptic right voted against it.

    But to make the proposal palatable to the centrist Renew group, the obligations for member states were watered down and farm land was excluded from the restoration goals.

    Liberals from Finland, Germany and the Netherlands still voted against the bill, fearing a repetition of the situation in the Netherlands, where a strict interpretation of existing EU conservation law has slowed construction and thrown thousands of livestock farmers into uncertainty.

    In a lesser-noticed vote, the center-right also excluded most livestock farmers from stricter EU targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. (more…)

  • Rutte to Quit Dutch Politics. What Happens Next?

    Mark Rutte
    Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte arrives in Brussels to meet with other European leaders, February 12, 2015 (European Council)

    Mark Rutte stunned the Dutch parliament on Monday, when he told lawmakers he would not seek his center-right party’s nomination for a fifth term as prime minister.

    Rutte had already submitted his resignation to King Willem-Alexander after the four parties in his government failed to do a deal on asylum reform, but he left the door open in a news conference on Friday to running again.

    In power for thirteen years, Rutte is Europe’s longest-serving elected leader after Viktor Orbán. His surprise exit, combined with the meteoric rise of a new farmers’ party and the likely merger of the Labor Party and Greens, could redraw the Dutch political landscape, which has been dominated by Rutte’s People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) for thirteen years.

    Rutte stays on as caretaker until a successor can be sworn in, which could be a year from now. Elections aren’t due until November. Forming a coalition government in the Netherlands usually requires months of negotiation. Reforms in agriculture, housing and labor law may be put on hold in the meantime. (more…)

  • What Spain’s People’s Party Wants

    Alberto Núñez Feijóo
    Spanish People’s Party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo gives a press conference after meeting with other European conservative party leaders in Brussels, June 29 (PP)

    Polls predict the conservative People’s Party (PP) will win the election in Spain this month. But with 31 to 37 percent of the votes, it would fall well short of a majority.

    Leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo has said he would first seek the acquiescence of the outgoing Socialist Party, which is polling at 27 to 29 percent, to form a minority government. That may be an option if Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez resigns or is forced out as leader. The centrist wing of his party never warmed to his coalition with the Basque and Catalan separatists and far left.

    If the Socialists vote against him, Feijóo would need the support of Vox (Voice). The far-right party rules several Spanish regions and municipalities with the PP.

    What would a minority PP government look like? And what might a deal with Vox entail? First I’ll list the highlights from the two parties’ election programs, then some of the concessions the PP has made to Vox in the regions. (more…)