Zero tolerance for fascist billionaires from Silicon Valley, now also on Substack:

Palantir hat ein politisches Manifest veröffentlicht, das es in sich hat. Von KI-Militarismus und Führerkult bis Angriff auf Pluralismus ist alles dabei. Das sind die Grundpfeiler eines neuen Techno-Faschismus. Ich habe was dazu in meinem neuen Substack aufgeschrieben substack.com/@woelken/not...

Green hypocrisy over the Mercosur vote is astonishing. You can vote against the agreement OR want it be implemented, but not both. For the Commission to ignore the EP will also mean overriding the interinstitutional agreement on cooperation, weakening the EP's role and democratic scrutiny on trade.

Wasch mir den Pelz, aber mach mich nicht nass. Erst gegen das Abkommen stimmen, um dann die Anwendung zu fordern - das ist der Gipfel der Schizophrenie. Da gibt es nichts zu beschönigen: Eine Fehlentscheidung die Geschenk für Trump, Schwächung unserer Souveränität und des Parlaments ist. Toll.

Very much required reading for Europeans also to think through their place in the world - both on how much the world is changing, but also on how a shift in strategy means that countries other than the three empires (US, China, lesser extent Russia) are not powerless:

Remarkable polling by @ecfr.eu - "end of the West" spells pessimism in Europe, while China sees EU as a great power. That disconnect shows the need for a new European narrative to capture peoples' imagination and spark optimism for a brighter future @markhleonard.bsky.social @fromtga.bsky.social

Und schon lohnt sich das Speichellecken der US-Tech-Oligarchen. Trump fordert, dass die EU ihre Wettbewerbsverfahren gegen US-Techunternehmen wie Apple & Google einstellen soll. Unsere Antwort muss klar sein: in Europa gilt EU-Recht und alle haben sich daran zu halten. Punkt.

Musk und Zuckerberg und die Gefahr für Europas Demokratie – was wir jetzt tun müssen! www.spd-europa.de/nachrichten/...

Ich stimme heute der neuen Rechtsruck-Kommission von Ursula von der Leyen nicht zu. Warum? CDU/CSU um von der Leyen & Manfred Weber bauen lieber mit AfD & Co. eine Rechtsruck-Kommission statt eine Koalition der politischen Mitte. Wir haben keine Vertrauensgrundlage mehr.

European companies must compete across each supply-chain segment, whereas Chinese state firms can produce raw materials at a loss and thereby bolster battery-makers downstream 🇪🇺 companies are not competing against individual 🇨🇳 companies – but against entire supply chains ecfr.eu/article/rech...

Es gibt eine Einigung zur neuen EU-Kommission, aber Freude kommt nicht auf. Manfred Weber wollte Orbans Kommissar Varhelyi & den 🇮🇹-Post-Faschisten Fitto schützen & hat dafür die Kommission als Geisel genommen. Mit diesem unverantwortlichen Kurs ist er zwar teilweise gescheitert

The EPP wants to dominate the European Parliament by playing both pro-EU and far right groups. The result is a highly dysfunctional institution that is no longer a reliable or even remotely predictable partner for the Council and Commission. Strap in for a "fun" ride for the next five years!

Für Manfred Weber ist die Ernennung der neuen Kommission offensichtlich nur noch ein Machtspiel - ohne Rücksicht auf die Handlungsfähigkeit der Eu. Völlig verantwortungslos.

Die #FDP hat das Ausscheiden aus der Bundesregierung wie einen Feldzug durchgeplant. Das ist sowas von abstoßend. #Lindner hat uns alle eiskalt belogen. Von wegen, er habe gelitten & es habe ihn menschlich aufgerieben. Er war einfach nur sauer, dass sein Drehbuch gescheitert ist.

Let’s turn Bluesky red! ✊🌹❤️

The DE Ministry of the Economy just published its long-awaited industrial strategy. It does not add many new measures but provides a pretty honest description of what DE is doing and why it is doing it. And for the EU it has some actual news. Here are the 3 most important points

My favourite piece of good news from the European Parliament this week: MEPs demand an end to geoblocking of streaming services. The Commission should propose a review of the Geoblocking Regulation by 2025.

Important article by @financialtimes.com about yesterday's vote on the EU Sustainability Reporting Standards! It went under the radar of most media, but the EU's human rights & environment due diligence ambition could have suffered a severe setback yesterday, luckily averted by an S&D-led majority.

Good news: we managed to defeat the EPP attempt to weaken global protection of human rights, environment and climate. 🥳 The @theprogressives.bsky.social led a progressive majority to support the new reporting standards and ensured that companies have legal certainty implementing them.

Wir konnten den Angriff der CDU/CSU auf den globalen Schutz von Menschenrechten, Umwelt & Klima abwehren! Eine absolute Mehrheit ist meinem Plädoyer für die neuen Nachhaltigkeitsstandards gefolgt. Das bedeutet Rechtssicherheit für Unternehmen und keine Verwässerung von Gesetzen durch die Hintertür.

Lieferkettengesetz-Update 🚨 Heute Mittag will die CDU/CSU in einer Abstimmung neue Standards zur Lieferkettenberichterstattung kippen. In ihrem ideologischen Eifer behauptet die Union, unnötige Bürokratie abschaffen zu wollen, aber das Ziel ist die Sabotage des EU-Lieferkettengesetzes. Mehr👇

The EPP is trying to kill the Sustainability Reporting Standards today. If they succeed, they will create legal uncertainty for companies on CSRD implementation. This is not about "unnecessary bureaucracy", but about sabotaging global due diligence laws and protection of human rights & environment.

Most Polish analysts and commentators are now confident that democracy has won in Poland. Final results tomorrow. Given the massive disinformation and defamation by state-controlled media this result is remarkable. Looks like the spirit of solidarnosc is still alive in Poland!

BREAKING - After reports that the EU Commission used political microtargeting to sway key groups of their controversial CSAM proposal, the European Data Protection Supervisor has reached out under the "so-called pre-investigation procedure. What could this mean?

Breaking: The S&D Group in the EP proposes to suspend the membership of its Slovak MEPs (SMER and HLAS) due to comments and positions "regarding the Russian war against Ukraine, migration, the rule of law and the LGTBIQ community"

Absolutely savage analysis by Reuters: X/Twitter is now worth less than its debt of $13bn, likely just $8bn. Musk paid $44bn for Twitter less than a year ago. Is this the most spectacularly failed acquisition of this century?

Ok folks, party on here is over, my boss @woelken.eu found my account

Very good that the commission demands explanations by Musk and gets ready to enforce the DSA. A week ago I urged the commission to act against the spread of misinformation on X. Happy that commission Breton shares my assessment.

What a mission statement for the next progressive UK government.

Painful truth from Keir Starmer: "Our job in 1997 was to rebuild a crumbling public realm. That in 1964 it was to modernise an economy left behind by the pace of technology. In 1945 to build a new Britain out of the trauma of collective sacrifice. Then in 2024 it will have to be all three.”

Language of Bluesky posts, 13.00 yesterday to 13.00 today.

Getting rid of the unanimous majority on foreign policy would be the only way to fix lacking EU performance on the geopolitical level. But treaty change is almost impossible with autocrats running several Member States. EU needs to fix its internal issues before it can turn outward (unfortunately).

Great analysis. Yet another reason why the Commission must step up its enforcement of the DSA rules now. Investigation & implementation of remedies takes time and the European elections are less than a year away.

#Germany is not the “sick man of Europe” today and it won’t be in the future, if it focuses on its three key strengths instead of giving in to vested interests trying to cement old structures. My op-ed (in German): www.zeit.de/zustimmung?u...

Another important article revealing the worrying facts behind the #csam proposal, demonstrating that it’s not about protecting children but making money.

Ashton Kutcher’s supposed child rights NGO Thorn is the most influential lobby on the EU proposal to scan private chats for CSAM, but it also (conveniently) builds & sells the tech needed to implement it. Great analysis by @alexfanta.bsky.social shows just how problematic Thorn as an org is👇

Dream denied

More EU on Bluesky! MEPs I found so far: @katarina-barley.de @gabischoff.bsky.social @delarabur.bsky.social @woelken.bsky.social @aschwab.bsky.social @karmel80.bsky.social @rasmusandresen.bsky.social @ciarancuffe.bsky.social @davidcormand.bsky.social @hneumannmep.bsky.social @juttapaulus.bsky.social

Growing pains of a platform: The (real) German Environment Minister Steffi Lemke is trying to get rid of her "impersonation warning" tag - but there doesn't seem to be a straightforward way to do it. Maybe something to look at @bsky.app?

Interesting observation: Bluesky doesn't seem to crop images at all, the result can be absurdly long posts (like my last one). Wonder how far you could take this trick?

Commissioner Johansson's reply to LIBE's letter on her CSAM proposal is shocking. She doesn't engage with the questions, accuses reports by reputable media @zeitonline.bsky.social & Le Monde of bias, suggests opponents of the law help abusers & Big Tech. Confrontation instead of constructive debate.

Just in: a two-thirds majority of party groups in the European Parliament will support Wopke Hoekstra and Maros Sefcovic as new climate commissioner and Executive Vice President of the Commission respectively. Confirmation vote tomorrow at noon.

As a European, it's astonishing to me that Threads ever existed. A whole social media network rose and fell and we didn’t even notice, let alone get access to it. / via @jayrosen.bsky.social

Musk is not alone with his far-right propaganda, media attacks & Covid denial content on X. EC VP Jourova confirmed that X has the highest disinfo ratio in the EU. Reason enough to ask when the Commission will finally enforce the Digital Services Act rules. The Commission has 3 weeks to respond.

Fascinating to watch Bluesky grapple with fake accounts. May be my bias but it looks to be a particular issue in the newly forming German community. Vivid debate though, like below, where artists impersonated the Süddeutsche to highlight the problem. At least Bluesky is quick to tag impersonators!

The reality of how Musk operates is finally sinking in in Germany, so this outburst is likely about distracting from that and setting up a "political persecution" narrative for future use as things get worse

After revelations that a huge lobby network spent $24m over the last few years to push for surveillance of private communications online, supposedly in close coordination with the responsible Commissioner, the European Parliament is now asking the Commission to explain itself. Huge development!

Die Enthüllungen zur den finanziellen Verstrickungen hinter dem Vorschlag zur #Chatkontrolle sind besorgniserregend. Sehr gut, dass der Ausschuss für Bürger*innen-Rechte von der Kommission Aufklärung verlangt. Stimmen die Rechercheergebnisse, muss der Vorschlag sofort vom Tisch.