Territorial integrity and sovereignty are fundamental principles of international law.

@HennaVirkkunen Fundamental question:

Since EU upholds legislation that protects US companies, for the favour of not having #tariffs, why are we still holding on to those protections when we have tariffs slapped on our faces anyway?

I refer you to @pluralistic who foresaw this and what we should do, at his lecture in 39c3 in Hamburg, just a month ago.

https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-a-post-american-enshittification-resistant-internet

@gimulnautti @HennaVirkkunen @pluralistic
Oikein hyvä kysymys!

@gimulnautti @HennaVirkkunen @pluralistic

This is absolutely the right question to ask.

@stuart @HennaVirkkunen

Democratic countries (not counting the US here) consist of around half of the worlds GDP

Yes losing the US in this sense is a big loss, but they aren’t the majority of the world.

@gimulnautti @HennaVirkkunen @pluralistic @RichardJMurphy

According to Richard Murphy, threats to Greenland present an opportunity for strategic reassessment while US dependencies create leverage that Europe needs to acknowledge and use.

https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2026/01/18/can-europe-rise-to-the-us-challenge/

#tariffs #nato #europe #eu #greenland #denmark #germany #france #uk #italy #poland #sovereignty

@joschi64 @HennaVirkkunen

I was pointing to the fact that international law is irrelevant if you now expect the USA to respect it.

This is now a case of what we believe in. Is it comfort for us or the right of self-determination for others?

That's a hard and expensive question to answer. I hope we stand by that and elements within GOP recognise it too and reign in their President. I don't want to think about the alternative.

@szbalint @HennaVirkkunen

Without the US there is no NATO. Kill switches on US supplied weapons means we have little defence. European countries are totally exposed.

Closedown by US owned clouds would make government systems dysfunctional. Mass unemployment as a result of tariffs empowers the fascist right.

Major or terminal?

@energisch_ Sorry, not sure whether that was quite on topic - what exactly did you intend to reply to and.or suggest?

@HennaVirkkunen Welcome on the fediverse! I hope you convince more of your colleague to make the move and leave X (or only repost there). Democracy needs sovereignty.

@joschi64 @stuart @HennaVirkkunen What democratic values? Those that drown children in the Mediterranean? Or the ones mandating Chat Control so no private digital communications in Europe? Those ones?

@mojala @joschi64 @HennaVirkkunen

I agree and all of us could add a 100 more democratic failures without breaking sweat.

But, imho, Democracy had one redeeming feature. The ability to change government without a civil war - or worse. Also to correct, in time, the worst faults.

'Had' because it failed in Germany in 1933 and we have to wait and see if it failed America in 2020. The fault is if you elect fascists you get fascism.

Democratic Fascism is an oxymoron.

@stuart @HennaVirkkunen

Absolutely.. Everything will work only if all the players play the same game with the same rules.

And clearly that is not the case.

@energisch_ @stuart @joschi64 @HennaVirkkunen Maybe Trump will unify the EU, just like RFK Jr. has made vaccines more popular in the USA than before.

@rrb @energisch_ @joschi64 @HennaVirkkunen

Rejoining the EU will be a long and tortuous trail for the UK no matter it's what people want. More iinteresting, easier and faster is to expand the EEA (countries sharing the EU single market but not members). Drop the first E so we could include Canada, Australia and anybody else who thinks this the best way to protect themselves.

The EU would have to concede some control of the SM but it return we get something with clout so we all benefit.