The centre-right European Peoples Party, to which President von der Leyen and Chancellor Merkel belong, has responded to this by putting out a statement saying the Polish government "is pushing Poland on the road to #Polexit" bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
“By declaring that the EU Treaties are not compatible with Polish law, the illegitimate Constitutional Tribunal in #Poland has put the country on the path to Polexit," says EPP MEP Jeroen Lenaers, EPP spokesman for Justice and Home Affairs. eppgroup.eu/newsroom/news/…
The EPP says Prime Minister #Morawiecki, who requested this ruling from the PiS-created tribunal, "has not only legitimised an illegal system of the judiciary in Poland, but he has also questioned the very basis of the European Union," says MEP Lenaers.
PM Morawiecki and his far-right PiS Law & Justice party are pro EU membership. But "it’s hard to believe Polish authorities and PiS Party when they claim that they don’t want to put an end to Poland’s membership of the EU. Their actions go in the opposite direction" says Lenaers.
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Looks like Laschet's CSU rival Markus Söder was waiting to see if CDU/CDU could overtake or tie SPD before taking the knives out.
Now that it's clear SPD 'won', he says the Union has no compelling claim to government formation. zeit.de/amp/news/2021-…
I think it's becoming clear that if we end up with another grand coalition (🟥⬛️) or jamaica coalition (⬛️🟨🟩) it will only be because the logical coalition of the election result, the traffic light (🟥🟨🟩) talks somehow failed.
Which is still a very real possibility.
Scholz agrees with Söder.
“CDU and CSU have not only lost a considerable amount of votes, but they also received the message from citizens that they should no longer be in government but should go into the opposition,” the SPD leader said at a press conference earlier.
If these are accurate, it's disappointing for centre-left and encouraging for centre-right. But it's only an exit poll.
This is effectively too close to call, and leaves open the crucial question of who will come first and have the 1st mandate to try to form a government.
It's going to be a long night.
Not just a long night, but potentially a long several months.
This exit poll suggests that the result will be even more unclear than people expected. A tie or near-tie gives no clear mandate for government formation.
Means #Merkel may remain chancellor as caretaker till 2022.
Since I’m obsessed with invisible borders, I’m taking advantage of the brief spell of nice weather to cycle 🇧🇪 ➡️🇳🇱➡️🇧🇪➡️🇳🇱➡️🇧🇪➡️🇳🇱➡️🇧🇪 today.
Putte is a town divided between a Dutch portion and a Belgian portion.
The buildings on the right are in 🇧🇪, on the left 🇳🇱. The subtle flags at this intersection is the only sign of this though.
When Kasteel Ravenhof was built, it was in the center of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Then after Belgian independence in 1830, the castle’s lands stayed in 🇳🇱 while the castle went to 🇧🇪. Today it sits directly on the border. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Ki…
Following the EU decision to ban unvaccinated Americans from entry, the big question was whether countries would put quarantine requirements for the vaccinated that make non-essential travel impractical.
It is really a shame that the Biden administration has been unwilling to come to an agreement with the Europeans on travel that could have established some clear reciprocal policies.
This is going to be a mess.
Americans thinking about getting around the Dutch restrictions by flying to another EU country and then flying to NL, think again.
If on the Dutch passenger locator form for your connecting flight you say you’ve been in US the past 14 days - quarantine required.
Breaking: #AstraZeneca has settled the lawsuit launched against it by the EU.
The company has committed to deliver 60 million doses by the end of Q3, 75m by end Q4 and 65m by end Q1 2022. reuters.com/world/europe/a…
The delivery isn't particularly relevant any more given EU is now amply supplied by other vaccine providers and EU countries aren't very enthusiastic about AZ.
The importance of this lawsuit was to demonstrate that a company must meet its commitments in contracts with the EU.
But EU health commissioner @SKyriakidesEU notes "there are significant differences in vaccination rates between our member states, and the continued availability of vaccines, including AstraZeneca's, remain crucial."
Eastern Europe still has a lot of vaccinating to do.