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Dave Keating

@DaveKeating

May 6

As the 🇬🇧#Coronation takes place in London, here's some fun facts about monarchies around the world.

I find Americans have the mistaken impression that Europe has many monarchies. In fact, excluding microstates, there are just 8 - and only 3 have been there more than 200 years.

There are actually more monarchies in Asia than in Europe.

The world has 16 kings, and only one queen (🇩🇰). Then there are 4 princes, 3 sultans, 2 emirs, 1 pope and 1 emperor (🇯🇵).

There are 4 types of monarchies remaining in Europe:

🇬🇧British
🇸🇪🇩🇰🇳🇴Scandinavian
🇳🇱🇧🇪🇱🇺Low Countries
🇪🇸Iberian
🇻🇦🇱🇮🇦🇩🇲🇨Microstates

This map shows when other European monarchies ended (most give the year of national independence from a imperial monarchy)

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Dave Keating

@DaveKeating

May 5

In 2 days, #Eurovision2023 week begins in Liverpool with delegations arriving on the #TurquoiseCarpet

Surely the most important thing happening in🇬🇧this weekend😉

I'll be there covering. Here's the mother of all threads on the most important things to know for this year. 🧵1/23

The context: Despite what many think (Europeans' cultural cringe and all), #Eurovision is a big deal.

It's the most-watched annual live event in the world, with an average 200m viewers each year. That's more than the 🇺🇸Superbowl, Oscars & Grammys combined en.as.com/en/2022/03/14/…

Each year 40,000 visitors descend on the #Eurovision host city.

🇬🇧Liverpool is hosting this year. They've built a fan zone holding 15,000 people. There will be 9 shows over the week (televised: 2 semis & 1 final).

The 54,000 tickets sold out in an hour. citymonitor.ai/neighbourhoods…

Read 23 tweets

Dave Keating

@DaveKeating

Apr 17

🇵🇱Poland, 🇸🇰Slovakia & 🇭🇺Hungary have banned #grain imports from 🇺🇦Ukraine, saying 🇪🇺EU's freeze of import tariffs to help get Ukraine grain around the world is flooding their markets and hurting their farmers.

But such unilateral trade actions cannot be taken nationally.

Despite these bans being a clear violation of EU law, the 🇪🇺Commission took a soft approach today and wouldn't even say what possible repercussions there could be.

Why? They likely don't want to become a pawn in Polish election politicking.

Poland's hard-right nationalist governing party PiS depends on the farmer and rural vote to maintain power - and there's an election later this year.

🇵🇱farmers have been protesting the Ukrainian grain influx (which has drastically lowered prices) and the Ag minister resigned.

Read 5 tweets

Dave Keating

@DaveKeating

Mar 28

Just in: EU national governments have just passed #CombustionEngineBan legislation.

Germany dropped its block on final adoption after being given a written guarantee from the Commission they will create a new category of ICE vehicles running only on #eFuel exempt from 2035 ban

Controversially, Germany has instructed the Commission to do this through a delegated act added into existing Euro6 type approval legislation - which could be forced through with no vote by the 🇪🇺Parliament or member states.

Expect already-angry MEPs to push back hard on this.

If a legal objection is successful against using a no-vote delegated act to do this politically sensitive thing, then 🇪🇺Commission will move to Plan B: revising the legislation (to Euro7).

That would need approval by 🇪🇺Parliament & 🇪🇺Council.

Read 6 tweets

Dave Keating

@DaveKeating

Feb 4

Tomorrow, the EU's ban on refined Russian oil product imports (petrol/diesel) takes effect. It comes in addition to the existing ban on crude oil.

In addition to that, the EU & G7 agreed last night to ban their companies from shipping Russian petrol/diesel trading above $100.

This is expected to be a much more complex and disruptive cap for the world markets than the existing one for crude. It may shock fuel prices.

To limit the impact, there will be a 55 day transition period. The $100 cap is just a bit below the current diesel price of $117.

A senior Commission official says they couldn't go any lower than the $100 per barrel cap without risking major market disruption.

$100 is for refined oil products that trade at a premium to crude. There's a lower $45 cap for cheaper refined oil products like fuel oil & naphtha.

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Dave Keating

@DaveKeating

Feb 1

David Frost is spouting so much nonsense in this interview, but I want to hone in on his claim that 🇬🇧wasn’t a “full democracy” while in 🇪🇺

A nationalist perspective, looking at only 1 layer of governance. 🇪🇺layer “constraining” 🇬🇧 was/is also a democracy.globalplayer.com/podcasts/episo…

So many in 🇬🇧, a unitary state, cannot understand the concept of federalism (or, in 🇪🇺 case, an international confederation).

UK citizens directly voted for 🇪🇺Parliament and the ministers who take decisions in 🇪🇺Council. They voted for both “constrainor” and “constrainee”.

Is an American not living in a “full democracy” because her state is “constrained” in some ways by the federal government?

It’s an absurd argument to make when she votes for both her state and federal government (and her state makes 60% of the laws affecting her).

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