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Cake day: 2025年1月29日

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  • Defence or Welfare? Europe Can Afford Both, and Must

    This is a highly biased article with little content. The article links to a couple of other media reports, but the author admits that increased military spending will “likely” result in a further erosion of the decades-old European social compact. I very much doubt that the author has had a look into the budget plan of a single EU member. They mention not a single number in the whole article, no research, it’s just a rant with a bold headline that serves a particular narrative.

    What makes the whole thing worse is the sentence:

    Europe’s leaders have decided to embrace the sort of massive ramp-up in military spending that so often serves as the prelude to war.

    No, the current ‘ramp-up’ of military spending is certainly not ‘the prelude of war’ - simply because the war is already here. It has been happening for more than three years with military attacks on Ukraine and what is sometimes called a ‘hybrid war’ against European countries such as a recent arson attack on a restaurant in Estonia ordered by Russian intelligence .

    I don’t see what’s wrong if the European countries spend “3.5 percent of their respective GDPs on core military spending, and another 1.5 percent on security and miscellaneous other expenditures designed to harden economies and infrastructure against cyberattacks, people trafficking, and additional risks and perceived risks to NATO economies.”

    Estonia, for example, has been spending more than 5% of its GDP for defense already before the Nato summit, and I argue that this has not so much to do with ‘appeasing’ Trump than with its common border with Russia.



  • This is a very weird framing of this study. The original study (which is linked in the article) is in German. Those who don’t speak German will find a useful translation provider, I provide the study’s summary literal translation:

    >Young people: EU and democracy are good, but reforms are needed

    • 57% prefer democracy to any other form of government - 39% think that the EU does not function particularly democratically
    • Young Europeans want change - 53% criticize the EU for being too preoccupied with trivialities instead of focusing on the essentials
    • Cost of living, defense against external threats and better conditions for businesses should be priorities for the EU
    • Only 42% think that the EU is one of the three most powerful global political players

    Among others, the study also says (again, a direct translation, I am not paraphrasing):

    48% of young Europeans believe that democracy in their country is under threat, compared to 61% in Germany. Two thirds rate their country’s membership of the EU as positive. At the same time, 53% of young people criticize the fact that the EU is too often concerned with minor issues. Half of 16 to 26-year-olds think the EU is a good idea, but very poorly implemented.

    I don’t say that everything is perfect, but the whole study paints a completely different picture than this article - and especially its headline - appears to suggest.

    [Edit my comments for clarity, translation has not been edited.]






  • I don’t want to defend nor attack England, France or anyone else, but we should never look at one metric when assessing a market. The EU provides some useful insights on its website about the bloc’s housing market (unfortunately without the England or UK data …).

    When measured by the gross value added (GVA) of a country’s construction sector as a share of total GVA, France is persistently below the EU average. In 2023, the EU countries with the largest shares were Slovakia (8.4%), Romania (8.3%) and Lithuania (7.3%), and with smallest Greece (2.1%), Ireland (2.6%) and Malta (4.2%).

    Regarding the number of dwellings approved for construction between 2010 and 2023, France saw the largest decrease (-27%), followed by Finland and Italy (-36% and -50%, respectively). The largest increases were in Bulgaria (+269%), followed by Ireland (+123%) and Estonia (+117%).

    We must also look at how affordable housing is. According to the EU data, Greece, Denmark, and Germany appear to have he least affordable housing in the EU.

    You’ll find a lot of interesting data on the site: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/interactive-publications/housing-2024






















  • This is propaganda, there is no evidence that Russia did this. We should not turn every random act of vandalism into a headline, hinting at russian involvement.

    As the article says:

    The pro-Russian channel claimed the operation was carried out by “our people” and celebrated the destruction of equipment allegedly bound for Ukraine. However, the reality indicates a direct attack on German property and military readiness […]

    In other news on the attack you can read:

    Russian pro-war Telegram channel Voenacher published a video of the incident that depicted several military vehicles engulfed in flames. It claimed that the vehicles had been under repair for the Ukrainian military, and alleged that “[its] people” conducted the attack.

    You’ll find more on the web. It adds to a series of dozens of Russian attacks across Europe in recent years.



  • In addition to Italy and Ireland as mentioned in the article, regulators in several countries have been increasing scrutiny of Deepseek.

    The Netherlands banned the country’s civil servants from using Deepseek, citing policy regarding countries with an offensive cyber program. At the end of January this year the Dutch government urged Dutch users to exercise caution with the company’s software over DeepSeek’s data collection practices.

    In early February, Australia banned DeepSeek from all government devices over concerns that it posed security risks.

    At the same time, India’s finance ministry asked its employees to avoid using AI tools including ChatGPT and DeepSeek for official purposes, citing risks posed to confidentiality of government documents and data.

    Taiwan banned government departments from using DeepSeek also in February labeling it as a security risk, censorship, and the risk of data ending up in China.

    South Korea, the U.S., increased pressure for similar reasons, and this list may not be complete.