Angela Merkel and Bono have been awarded gongs in the European Union’s first honours list.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainan president, and Lech Walesa, Poland’s first president after communism, join Mrs Merkel in the highest rank of the new European Order of Merit.
Bono, The Edge and the other U2 band members were also named laureates, albeit at a lower grade than Mrs Merkel, who was recognised for leading Germany’s push away from nuclear towards renewable energy.
That nuclear decision was also one of the worst of recent decades, anywhere, by anyone. Whatever the Europeanness of it.
Where did we put that Tyburn Tree?
“That nuclear decision was also one of the worst of recent decades, anywhere, by anyone.”
Worse than letting millions of Islamics into Germany?
Whichever decision is worse Merkel has got the the top 2 for sure.
A little forgotten now, but Merkel could only make those catastrophic decisions because she was effectively Empress of Europe. Closing down German nuclear also tore up or re-worked the EU’s climate commitments.
She then opened the EU’s borders pretty much on a whim, not forgetting more minor Imperial flourishes such as appointing Ursula von Lederhosen as commission president just for the lols. Where is she now?
On the plus side anything that fucks the EU over can’t be that bad and deserves some accreditation.
And of course there’s the decision (and lets face it that was probably Merkel’s) to send Cameron home with a flea in his ear when he came asking for some sort of concessions over the UK’s EU membership. If she’d have just given him something (over free movement say) then Brexit would almost certainly not have happened. Thank you Angela!
Is there anything she did get right?
The “Wir schaffen das” moment would be a good example of “the politics of care”, of putting heart first. Or at least, fear of bad PR from more pictures of sobbing refugees. She actually first said it a few days before the photos of Alan Kurdi, a drowned Kurdish child, really accelerated the sense of public consciousness about the issue. Of course many more migrants have drowned since, both during the era of the open door and since things have tightened up somewhat, but there’s an element of irony that the policies sparked by a drowning have done so little to prevent it.
For what it’s worth, I would argue the nuclear shutdown was worse if judged purely on the quality of decision-making (you might evaluate in other ways, like based on harm of the outcomes). The nuclear shutdown was entirely illogical and had no basis in evidence. It formed part of the ongoing Energiewende yet was directly in conflict with the rest of the goals of the Energiewende. It would not make energy cheaper, greener, safer or more reliable. It seems to have been driven by optics and the feelz. Now arguably the same “optics and the feelz” drove the open door policy for migrants, but at least that could be defended as an act of compassion. Keeping coal power stations running longer cannot be.
I would argue the open borders was the worse decision, because its virtually impossible to revoke. New nuclear power plants could easily be built, Net Zero could easily be abandoned, fracking could easily be started. All it takes is the decision to do so. Getting rid of unwanted migrants on the other hand……
Agree. And that’s why it’s being done. It’s permanent.
“New nuclear power plants could easily be built” – theoretically could be, but not “easily”. Partly loss of expertise etc but also just a matter of time frames given how complex nuclear has got. If they started planning for it again now there wouldn’t be nuclear output for 2 decades or so. As a result it’s a hard thing to expend political capital on – no real benefits for many terms to come, and inevitable howls of protest during the construction stage that mean even starting the project doesn’t guarantee it will get finished.
So the decision to end nuclear is effectively permanent, unless SMRs or a similar breakthrough can crush some of the barriers to nuclear re-entering the market. Industry experts seem pretty adamant that new nuclear power stations in Germany have no chance of getting the go-ahead and even leaders who have regrets about the policy seem to have no interest in reversing it: https://www.dw.com/en/merz-says-germany-wont-join-eu-return-to-nuclear-energy/a-76305267
Having said that, I agree that a poor and irreversible decision is worse than a poor but reversible decision.
Getting rid of unwanted migrants on the other hand……
Germany rather made a name for itself, getting rid of unwanted migrants, didn’t it? They lost the touch?
Lost expertise.
All the infrastructure would have to be built from scratch…
Nowhere in Poland to build it…
Poland has the advantage that nuclear power has high polling support and has maintained that for many years, whereas Germans trust it far less. Surprising since it’s so close to Chernobyl but Poles seem to see domestic nuclear as a national project to be proud of. However, just look at how hard it’s been for Poland to go nuclear.
They actually got partway through building Żarnowiec before giving up in 1990 due to local opposition and environmentalist campaigns. Plans to build one in Mielno were only in very preparatory stages in 2012 before 94% of voters in a local referendum rejected it. https://www.reuters.com/article/poland-nuclear-idUSL5E8DD1E120120213/
Pursuing nuclear power has been official government policy since 2006 yet a realistic start date to actually produce energy seems to be 2040. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/polands-first-nuclear-plant-seen-starting-operations-2040-minister-says-2024-05-07/
If Germany manages to readopt nuclear power at the same rate – which seems optimistic given the strong political hurdles and the chance of Greens or other anti-nuclear parties playing a spoiler role in future coalitions either regionally or locally – then we can look forward to a grand reopening in 2060. That far ahead, and with so much risk of future governments pulling the plug on the idea, even pro-nuclear politicians don’t see it as worth pursuing. Private investors will inevitably be sceptical too about anything they agree to fund ever coming to fruition. By the time we are talking of nuclear coming online, there’s a half-decent chance that the energy storage problem will have had some progress made on it and the economics of generation will look very different.
“Keeping coal power stations running longer cannot be.” you could argue that carbon dioxide causes re-greening of the planet and is net beneficial.
That is the policy of the Liberal National Party here in Queensland.
They simply keep the coal burners running. If loathsome Labor get into power, they would have to cut peoples power, raise taxes to pay for more windmills and generally inconvenience us all. The good old LNP simply do nothing.
Guess who I vote for!!
But you cannot say that is to the credit of the decision makers, since they believed the opposite and that carbon emissions make things worse. They can’t get brownie points for pro-plant altruism for doing something they constantly warn (because they believe it) imminently endangers many species on Earth.
And there’s less dispute that other stuff that comes out from coal power stations (particulate, sulfur emissions) is bad for both local health and the environment, and that coal mining isn’t a whole barrel of laughs either – other harms known to the decision-makers yet they preferred more of that and less nuclear.
How many years before they create a royal family?
Macron already considers himself the Emperor.
He’s childless, though, I note.
Miracles do occur…
Remember, the last free and democratic elections in Germany were in 1933.
Didn’t they ban a few parties who didn’t follow the agenda?
Plus ca change.
We should do the same.
The Greens – why should we allow people who want to burn down our society to organise and campaign to burn down our society? Why should we allow people to lie to our children, and lead them – Pied Piper style – to their destruction?
Ban green parties and jail their leaders. If they complain too loudly, arrest them for extremism and put them on a “Prevent” list.
Remember – the British government imprisons people for stickers saying “It’s OK to be White”. Anything we do to secure the Reconquista of Western civilisation is legitimate, because there is no public morality higher than survival. God wills it.
Because once you have established the principle that campaigning can be banned based on it being what the government dislikes, then the government will slowly start banning campaigning for everything contrary to its policies.
And we don’t have that right now?
It’s certainly fascinating to see how ‘freedom of speech’ is being rapidly strangled by ‘hate speech’.
See: my final paragraph
Merkel is single handedly responsible for the rise of the AfD. They are now neck and neck with CDU in the polls, even leading in some.
I guess she deserves a prize for that.
If Angela Merkel had been a Russian agent – what would she have done differently?
I ask myself that too. Maybe you can take Merkel out of the Young Communists but you can’t ….
Tried to kick James Bond.
What did poor Walesa do to deserve to be put on that list of oafs, miscreants, and bloody fools?
I bet Zelensky has already sold the trophy.
Isn’t Adam Clayton, the bass player of U2, English? He was born in the next village to me when I lived in Oxfordshire, the village known locally as the People’s Republic of Chinnor. Probably an Irich citizen now, they hand it out like Smarties.
You can’t beat Sunday lunch at a carvery in Oxon.
Ah, Bicester!
Mmm!
He shagged Naomi Campbell, I believe.
Lucky bastard. But I wouldn’t have told her my real name.
I told my wife to be, my real name. Never again.
Lucky??
I say…
Naomi Campbell’s mum !
Difficult to know which of the two to feel most sorry for.
Bono….. Sez enough…….
“It’s over 9000 Courics, Angela!!!! “
Joy, they’ve avoided having to form a committee in a few years time to remove honours from those who turned out to be wrong’uns a la Lester Piggott, Fred Goodwin, Alan Davies, Bob Mugabe.
They just give them to the wrong’uns in the first place. Zelenskyy is a plucky underdog but he is literally a fascist for crying out loud.
Zelensky isn’t a fascist, he just plays one on TV. From his point of view, he’s done everything he can to defend Ukraine from Russia. I don’t think it was worth it and Boris shouldn’t have flown to Kiev to prevent peace breaking out, but on t’other you can’t deny the man is brave and tireless.
He should hold elections asap tho.
Zelenskyy’s party, Sluha narodu (“Servant of the People”), is one of those ghastly liberal centrist middle of the road parties that has made real efforts to realign Ukrainian law and governance with EU demands to boost their accession hopes. I’m talking in terms of underlying political and judicial structures which have been reformed – obviously failure to hold elections is non-compliant, but in fairness the UK didn’t hold a GE in WW1 or until VE day in WW2, and the Ukrainian constitution would need to be rewritten to allow wartime elections. Still, hard to disagree that things are dragging on a bit since the last elections were in 2019. By 1945 the UK parliament had gone 10 years since the last election but I wouldn’t recommend copying the example.
Ukraine does have proper hard-right or neo-fascist parties, but they’re stronger in terms of hardcore activists than electoral support. Svoboda (Freedom) has one representative in parliament, while Pravyi sektor (Right Sector) and Konhres ukrayinskykh natsionalistiv (Congress of Ukrainian nationalists) have none. A lot of Ukrainian parties have names that sound suspiciously fash but turn out to be very moderate centre-left to center-right: Batkivshchyna (Fatherland), Holos (Voice), Syla i Chest’ (Strength and Honour), Samopomich (Self Reliance), Syla Lyudey (Power of the People).
The worst thing a country can have is a popular leader that the people will rally around.
Amazing. Ursula von der Leyen has just come out and said denuclearisation was a strategic mistake for the EU. She is European Commission and the awards are European Parliament. Trouble at t’mill?
This whole awards committee bullshit is another indication that the directly elected part of the EU was deliberately designed to be the most powerless, useless spaztard part.
Fourth Reich: Iron Cross with Oakleaf Cluster.
There should be an entry level award for the likes of the traitorous fish-faced cow. Maybe a blue and yellow sticker or a pencil?