Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,
Not long ago, a democratizing Turkey, with the second-largest army in NATO, appeared on track to join the European Union.
That’s not likely now, or perhaps ever.
Last week, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan compared Angela Merkel’s Germany to Hitler’s, said the Netherlands was full of “Nazi remnants” and “fascists,” and suggested the Dutch ambassador go home.
What precipitated Erdogan’s outbursts?
Moments ago, UK Parliament passed legislation giving prime minister Theresa May approval to start the Brexit process and allowing the government to invoke Article 50, with the House of Commons overturning amendments from the unelected House of Lords that sought to limit May’s room for maneuver. While press reports earlier said May could trigger Article 50 as early as Thursday, subsequent reports from Bloomberg suggested that she will commence Brexit in the last week of March.
Authored by Judith Bergmann via The Gatestone Institute,
The rule strikes at the very center of free speech, namely that of elected politicians, which the European Court of Human Rights has deemed in its practice to be specially protected. Members of the European Parliament are people who have been elected to make the voices of their constituents heard inside the institutions of the European Union.
Via GEFIRA,
The Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) between Ukraine and the European Union, which came into force on 1 January 2016, was aimed at helping the East European economy to recover; however, the results after the first year fell far short of Ukraine’s expectations. The former Soviet Republic lost €2.2 billion more than it lost in 2015 on trade with the EU. While imports from the EU have surged, exports have barely grown.
March 15 is not only the day when the FOMC is now widely expected to hike rates by another 25 bps, and when the US debt ceiling suspension expires, but just as importantly, is the date of the 2017 Dutch General Election. Here is a full preview of what to expect courtesy of RBC Capital Markets.
By way of background, the Netherlands is the euro area’s 5th-largest economy, a founding member of the EU and one of only 3 euro area countries (along with Germany and Luxembourg) to enjoy an AAA rating from the 3 main ratings agencies.