Youtube comments of (@IntoEurope).
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To my Dutch audience (but also everyone else), this video was made before the current developments in Amsterdam, but there are now several things that I can now expand on for the policy response of the Netherlands.
While this video will give you the bigger picture understanding of what is happening, I am currently working on the next episode of Last Week in Europe, which will feature a part on the what is happening in Amsterdam, the football game and supporters, the rioting, and antisemitic attacks.
When it comes to the reaction by the Dutch authorities and the Dutch political class so far, there has been talk of 'integratieprobleem' -- an integration problem. This discourse puts the Netherlands on the path to follow the Danish approach which I cover in this video (though certain politicians like Geert Wilders are likely to push for some Swedish elements to it).
I have yet to see anything related to the French/Danish approaches -though that may yet come.
As the political narrative develops, I hope to update more on this subject for the Netherlands, but also other European countries.
Cheers,
Hugo
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Hi everyone,
I wanted to adress the feedback that I have been receiving and mention a point of difficulty I had with making this video.
In the introduction, I made the decision to describe the video of the incident, without going into the details of the chase that happened before it. I thought it would be enough to provide the context of the riots, but this was obviously a mistake on my part. This in no way justifies the shooting, but the description of the chase might have added nuance to the story which instead seems like a description of an 'execution'. This was not my intention and I will make sure that future videos have the appropriate amount of context when talking about incidents like this one.
This was quite challenging to produce a story for me since it is about people which have more nuance than volumes of natural gas, and the provenance of solar panels. It was quite difficult to give a place accurately to two notions, so I thought I would expand on them in this comment.
The first was the idea of race, for which I personally am stuck between two rival schools of thoughts that correspond roughly to the Anglo-American/French divide on the issue. I find that the Anglo-American perspective of racializing everything is problematic from both an ethical perspective and also a very simplistic. This way of looking at social problems, which also stems from the USâ own history of racial relations, that it then projects on other countries fails to acknowledge differences in culture, social conditioning and ultimately the role of individuals in shaping their own destinies. However, I also believe that the French perspective of refusing to see race, is somewhat in denial about the role that it plays in profiling and defining the people from the banlieue.
Instead, I tried to find a compromise which I think is a better reflection of the complexity of this story and issue, where race is but one of the items (and markers of identity) that leads to but also makes visible the rift that I talk about in the video.
The second issue that I found hard to capture is the anger of the people in the banlieue, and while I talked to people coming from there in making this video to try and capture the difficulty of living and coming from there, it is something I believe could have been done better justice in the video.
I look forward to reading your comments and criticisms on this approach and am curious for any feedback you may have.
Since I recorded this video, this great column came out on opportunities for foreign born people in France, and I think that fits in nicely with the conclusions of the video on opportunity (although it should be considered alongside the high unemployment numbers France has had over the past 40 years): https://www.ft.com/content/25eda9f0-8bd3-41e1-948c-89cc7c0ec66e
On another note, I had two technical difficulties with my camera which resulted in a bit jittery footage, and had to rerecord my conclusion, which I will look to address in the next videos!
All the best,
Hugo
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Hi,
You are right that the numbers are outdated on this video, the 300,000 shell production numbers for Europe are from February and I should have updated them accordingly (new numbers dropped this week), and are now around 500,000.
This is the article in question with quotes from Estonian defence officials
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/17/europe/ukraine-shell-supplies-intl/index.html
That being said, the point I am making still stands: the EU is struggling to scale shell production: https://apnews.com/article/eu-ukraine-ammunition-russia-war-6e0be2d27201bc7ea205ffac7d7a7693
And most of the shells that Ukraine has received coming from the US (2 million since the start of the war), according to the same article.
Since then the situation has only gotten marginally better with the EU having only sent limited numbers to Ukraine (incidentally also 300,000 shells):
https://www.politico.eu/article/germanys-pistorius-says-eu-will-fall-short-of-million-shell-pledge-to-ukraine/
All and all, yes, I could have made the point better, and used more recent numbers but I hope you agree that my point is still very valid.
Cheers,
Hugo
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1-No comment, I donât talk that extensively about Salafism in this video.
2- Parallel societies are a feature of Islam, when Denmark tried to tackle them through its social engineering policies to tackle crime, low employment⊠It got called racist for breaking up communities. You do not get to have it both ways, saying that parallel societies are the consequence of poverty and complain when they get broken up to improve outcomes for living there.
3-The Halal economy, is a parallel economy by definition â it is about creating a class of products and services that is made mostly by and for muslims. Goes far beyond food products we, there is Islamic finance, there is âModest fashionâ. These elements differentiate muslims from non-muslims â and that is the goal. (See âLe Marche Halalâ by Florence Bergeaud Backler)
4- Muslim majority countries are banning hijabs, and shutting down muslim organisations as well. â I talk about the consequences of this in the 4th part of this video.
5- Yes, I am aware of their leanings, but is their poll methodologically sound? I would say yes, and their results are in line with other polls from credible institutions. The day were the UK censes agencies make similar polls, I will share them â until then, all I had access to was this imperfect data.
6- I read their criticism to make my own opinion, and they do the same thing as calling her âIslamophobicâ which is not a rebuttal of any of her arguments or body of work. Epistemological, these critics provide little to no value to the public debate.
7- "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope." This is the motto of the Muslim Brotherhood. If this is not a call for an Islamic society
While (currently) non-violent, it is as multiple security studies have shown a destabilizing force and increases the rift between Muslims and non-Muslims.
8- Protests that are good illustration if not entirely a reflection of the political opinions of Muslims in Europe as seen by the 3 surveys I shared.
9-The evidence against him â that he has an Al-Qaeda manual on his laptop, and the highly suggestive fact that every single court sketch of him has him hiding his face (and potential facial hair features?)
10- Again, the Quran is ambiguous and ambivalent (as I mention in the video), you can take any call for integration and match it up with a call for tolerance (I am not going to get into the debate on whether these are Mecca or Medina Sourats, and the context in which they were written). â You can decide that you want to engage with only the positive ones, fine, but that is not a reflection of reality.
The fact is these calls for secession and difference are the ones being shared by mosques (many Salafi Imams in Europe) and TikTok imams. And reflected in the behaviour of Muslims in selecting friends as demonstrated by the academic studies mentioned in this video.
11- Muslims in the US represent less than 1% of the population â in a more religious society, which previously had a highly selective immigration procedure under which its Muslims came. And the country is about to implement a second muslim immigration ban under the new Trump presidency. I doubt such a policy approach would be contested by Europeâs far right leaders
Hopefully, this clarifies a few things. đ And thank you for allowing me to flex my keyboard!
Cheers,
Hugo
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Good morning!
While you mention the lexical origin of homogenous, I do believe that is quite restrictive since words take a meaning of their own, especially in another language (being French trust me, I have learned this about English the hard way).
If you look up homogenous, you'll see that it has several definitions one of which means 'of the same nature', it also has several meanings in the academic world. When used to describe a chemical solution, it means that it has a uniform composition, not that all the molecules are the same.
When used to describe a market (the way I used it in the video), it means that there is little differentiation between the products being sold there, which is the case in both the US and China but not in Europe.
Also I don't tend to answer comments at 3 in the morning!
Cheers,
-Hugo
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Nope, just a good topic for a future video (I also don't get pinged when someone replies to my comments)!
In your argument you fail to talk about many externalities to benefit your argument. These include tourism, the East-West brain drain, the ability to invest in infrastructure through the cohesion funds, how the cheap Eastern European labour helps keep agricultural costs low, the economic clout in making trade deals and perhaps the indirect benefits of being part of the EU from a defensive purpose (on top of NATO).
In the case of Belgium, off the top of my mind, just the 40.000 EU civil servants also form a part of the money transfers. Additionally, I believe that it's too easy to blame the EU for problems that take place at a national level: the fact that Belgium has no effective governmental system would be a start.
I don't have the full picture and these are mostly aspects off the top of my head, but will look into it more in the future!
Cheers,
Hugo
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I find it funny that you talk of solidarity and building a social Europe, while at the same time questioning whether Eastern Europe would have paid for the West. You talk of a social Europe while adopting factionalism
Brussels real estate prices are not going through the roof because of Eastern European migration (https://ibsa.brussels/sites/default/files/publication/documents/PerspectiveBrussels-Mini-Bru_2021-ENG.pdf), there are very few Eastern Europeans in the city compared to other nationalities. Instead, I would argue this is due to the low-interest rates over the past 10 years which are a result of the financial crisis and were necessary to allow the economy to keep functioning. House prices are increasing everywhere in Europe, not only in Belgium.
As for your argument on keeping wages high in the agricultural sector, that is a misunderstanding of the purpose of the Common Agricultural Policy (which btw predates Maastricht and the EU by some 30 years) and the context in which it was developed. French agriculture is notoriously inefficient and could in my opinion use some consolidation with a social plan to support small farmers and their conversion.
I also find it funny that you mention that you mention homelessness increasing since the 1990s, I'm going to guess you would also refer to the long-term economic decline of Wallonia? Well, I would argue that this is due to the region's failure to take a technological turn, and instead, it went into long-term industrial decline. If you look further North at the Eindhoven region in the Netherlands, which went into a similar crisis in the 1990s with the near-collapse of Philips, they managed to re-emerge better than before.
You also show your hand when you talk about Serbia in the way you do, and while I do not agree with the way NATO got involved, to talk of them as mere victims in the Yugoslav wars (Srebnica) is misleading at best. Additionally, I was talking about the security benefits of the EU independently from those of NATO, the rant on NATO is your own doing.
Also a tip the next time you feel like going on a comment section crusade, you can throw terms like ultra-liberal around, but instead of making me seem like a radical, they only decrease the value of your arguments in a conversation. As a persian saying goes: âRaise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.â
Additionally, the way you structure arguments is just a transposition of the globalist vs nationalist discussion that equates to 'everything was better before'. One does not preclude the other.
Sure the EU needs reform (and in my opinion, a lot of it), but your criticism of it and the reasoning behind it suffers from too little information.
But anyways, like I said, these are points that will address in a future video, this will be the last comment I answer in this feed.
FYI, the whole of the Into Europe team is from Europe :) And personally, I (Hugo) am French.
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I understand your skepticism, and I have to say, I personally think the Orban video (on a script level) is one of the more flawed videos I have made, whether it be in the context of his rise to power, his handling of the economy as well as his political leanings. I was too focused on the institutional changes that I lost the bigger picture of the story that needed to be told. Anyways, these are things that I learn from, and mistakes that I now know to avoid.
However, for the point on power to the chefs, that is not merely a Hungary and Poland or an exclusively right-wing phenomenon (Just look at what some of the French presidential election candidates are saying, even from the left).
In any case, thank you for your criticism and feedback! That's how I learn :)
Cheers,
Hugo
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Hi,
My bad for the High Speed Trains start date, that is indeed a mistake.
However the night train route actually started in 2021: https://www.transdev.com/en/press-release/transdev-first-snalltaget-night-train-european-capitals-stockholm-copenhagen-berlin/ (though with a slighly different route, than what I show, since my dataset was apparently outdated).
When I talk about boarding, I meant it is including everything else.
The comparison between night trains and high speed trains is still relevant from what I understood, since the potential return on investment from doing 4 trips in one day vs 1 trip per night is different. Additionally, I gathered that the problem was not so much the night slots, as the distance travelled fee, which increase for long distances.
Cheers,
Hugo
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Hi,
1- Rockets came from Russia, not my favorite source (Telegraph), but still proves the point: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/09/02/russia-misleads-un-inspectors-origins-rocket-near-zaporizhzhia/ QED
2- The dam was blown up from the inside, seismic data shows a large explosion, and Russia has been occupying it since nearly the start of the war. QED (https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/evidence-suggests-russia-blew-kakhovka-dam-ukraine-new-york-times-2023-06-18/_
3- Russia has been mining the Black Sea on the Ukraine coast to block shipping lanes, Ukraine has done so as well, to prevent Russia from landing in Odessa and in other cities. Yet Ukrainian mines should prove less of a problem for the Ukrainians themselves since they know where they are. QED (Again not favorite source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/23/russian-navy-ordered-to-lay-mines-at-ukraines-black-sea-ports-says-us )
Imho, I think your problem is that you think both sides need to agree on something for us to 'know something', ie the blockade. By refusing to see some of the data and info, you are deliberately putting yourself in the fog of war. Granted there are (a lot of) fakes and propaganda by both sides but by putting your head in the sand to the data and evidence that is counterproductive.
Cheers,
Hugo
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Hi,
I disagree, the EU is a balance and a compromise between the idea that every country has the same voice, and that larger nations by default have a bigger voice. This is central to the EU institutions in the Qualified majority (which has both a population % AND a member state component), or in the European Central Bank, where the larger economies have a larger voice. This is counterbalance by the veto right in some instances. The country coalitions function is a similar fashion to voting coalitions so I find your point about the 'EU being non democratic' as unrelated to the content of this video.
Imho, the EU is neither undemocratic nor fully democractic. I think it was Mark Rutte who described it as a giraffe.
As for the Brexit negotiations, the reasoning for why France and Germany didn't intervene was to make a common front with other European countries. Multiple times during the negotiations, the Brits attempted to reach out to Macron and Merkel, but were brushed off.
Cheers,
Hugo
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Hi,
I understand your point, and I have to say although there is some truth to it, the reality is much more nuanced than either your comment or the way I formulated it in the video. The eurosceptic movement has, it is true left from straight out calling for an exit from the EU, however, there is a continuous questioning of how the EU works, where the power lies, and what the current form of the EU is or should be. It is true that I could have added 'in its current form' to express this nuance better.
In any case, thanks for the feedback! I will pay more attention to these formulations in the future.
Cheers,
Hugo
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You mean these milestones? --> https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_22_3375
If this is the list you are refering to, then it is only about judicial reform, if it isn't feel free to share the list you are refering to. (Also Copenhague Criteria is about rule of law which includes how your political system operates which checks and balances, which also includes the legislative branch, but hey just a minor detail).
The point about the French and German systems is that you would be taking a piece of them without the rest of the system. That is exactly what Hungary has done, taking piecemeal legislation from different democratic countries to create an authoritarian whole. That is exactly what Poland is even doing, taking elements of the French system to build its own authoritarian model. Read opinion here; https://verfassungsblog.de/french-law-is-not-a-model-for-the-polish-bill-on-disciplining-judges/ What you are saying is a false equivalency. (but hey I'm not a legal expert, so what do I know)
On French protests, you say the state of emergency was used to quell protests is ridiculous: the Gillets Jaunes crisis ended before the start of Covid after the government backtracked on a series of reforms including pension reform. Sure you will point the vaccine mandates, but those were lifted once the pandemic regressed. Whereas Hungary has been in a state of emergency continuously since 2015. Yet another false equivalency.
Why is Poland's government authoritarian? Because if they have their way with their judicial reform can take any decision they want regardless of the constitution by just having it rubber-stamped by the Supreme Court. That is what this entire situation is about, to prevent Poland from becoming another Hungary which has changed its constition 11 times since 2011, increasing the power of the government and of Fidesz.
Why is national populism a slur? It means right wing politics combined with anti-elitism and anti-establishmentism, its a technical term. Cuckservatism is however a slur.
Anyways, I don't think I will get anything out of this exchange other than relativism, false equivalencies, distortions and slurs, this will be my last answer.
Cheers,
Hugo
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Well your ad hominem attacks and adversarial stance, don't exactly invite an intelligent response on my end. But anyways, lets tone down on the insults.
If you build 1 reactor for âŹ10 billion or 2 for âŹ15, that's called economies of scale, and that is what happened in France in the 70s and 80s (thanks to batch production of American designs).
The success of that build-up is what made Nuclear business make sense (France in the 70s and 80s). That is not a controversial statement, those plants were built on time and on budget. However, if you have cost overruns then I agree it makes less sense (France in the 2000s). <--This is the whole video in one paragraph.
The marginal production of electricity from nuclear is cheap, it just requires huge upfront investments that then pay up over the rest of the lifecycle, that is what I answered to your other comment. To expand on that France actually has (up until its current mess up) had cheaper electricity than Germany for the past 3 decades.
The reason French nuclear is doing badly now is because of the poor utilization rates for their power plants in part due to bad designs in the 1990s and poor maintenance/reinvestment as the government milked EDF. Additionally, (my understanding) is that the nuclear stop in the USA also has a lot to do with public opinion and construction bans more than it does with the actual business model of nuclear energy.
Since the business and free market seem important to you, ask yourself whether as a company the promise of cheap and reliable electricity/energy would attract you to the country to set up an energy-intensive industry.
Additionally when you talk about 'cheap renewables' which (are indeed cheap) are being scaled massively, but they do not work without gas or nuclear as a backup/baseload. The battery storage technology that you would need does not exist yet, and as an engineer by trade, I sincerely doubt it would be able to deal with the 3 weeks without wind in the North Sea.
As an engineer, I see that as a system primed for failure. But I am very curious about which energy system you would design that tackles those problems, (I warn you, if you say gas, oil, or coal, I will fall from my chair laughing) ;)
Anyways no energy system is perfect and nuclear definitely isn't either (it's all about trade-offs), but imo it contributes to tackling issues of energy security, grid stability, and climate change while being beneficial to the economy and being a pre-requisite for a post-fossil fuel industrial society.
Also please do stop with your US-centered perspective, just because something doesn't/didn't work there doesn't mean it can't/won't work in another. The US isn't the pinnacle of human accomplishment nor is its situation as an energy-rich continent-sized country transposable to Europe.
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Hi Evans, thank you for you comment(s) ;) I'll only respond on this one however.
Switzerland is not part of the European Union, which is why it is not included on my maps, and while you consider the EU to be merely a political Union, the truth is that it is way more than that. There is the economic dimension (in which Switzerland particates on a case by case movement), but also the geopolitical dimension which goes beyond just the idea of borders and Schengen, hence Switzerland being excluded from the map in geopolitical videos. Switzerland is after all a neutral country, is it not? :P
Finally, as to the video about innovative companies, I believe that I made the correct call in excluding Switzerland from the map since I was focusing on the European Union's innovation programs. Switzerland as far as my knowledge goes, does not actively participate in. I understand you could have another perspective whether Switzerland should be included!
Hope this clarifies my decision-making!
I do believe you strike a point when saying that I should be more consistent in separating the term EU and Europe, which I use rather interchangeably.
Cheers,
Hugo
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These are things that I looked into, for the family unit size, the fall has actually been quite small, from an average household size of 2.4 in 2010 to 2.3 in 2023 (according to Eurostat for the entire EU).
Yes opportunities are concentrated in international cities, and there is a continued rural to urban exodus, but again the order of magnitude is quite small in relation to the scale of immigration to major European cities.
The building capacity destruction argument doesn't hold for all European countries, it applies mostly to Greece, Spain and to a lesser extent the Netherlands. In countries with more robust housing markets like France (which is stricter with mortgages), there was almost no change.
These are the reasons I did not mention these points.
As for the land price and credit ability, I do agree that these are points that could have been made more explicit.
Cheers,
Hugo
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1) Nightjet is subsidized: https://www.railjournal.com/policy/dutch-court-rules-state-subsidy-for-nightjet-not-illegal/
2) It is actually relevant that people get on at the end or start cluster, since it limits the use cases you could have for night trains: they have to be between major city clusters, since minor cities are unlikely to be able to fill them
2b) 'My same political spectrum' --> Ad hominem attack, that says little. And it doesn't change the fact that it is expensive, I am just pointing out that it is the case.
3) Stupid marketing that corresponds to a market segmentation (which is the definition of marketing), and validates the fact that 'the environmentally conscious' are not the ones driving the revival of night trains (see we actually agree :P)
4) Fair enough, misread your first comment.
5) As I understand it, night trains disappeared not because of their marketing, but because of a shift in travel preferences, and a shift to 'mass transit high-speed rail', which made night trains unnecessary for most options. I do not see any argument dispelling this, so I assume that the information I gathered on this is true.
'Hotels on Wheels' vs 'Travel at Night', I see that as mostly the same value proposition? But maybe the phrasing about arriving at a reasonable hour could have been better phrased.
6) Yes, I do say that, because it gives an idea of the scale of improvements, and the new possibilities that are emerging. I do not say that the night train will make that trip in that time frame.
Also, there is no need to be so angry and attack me personally. It reflects poorly on your arguments, which are otherwise interesting points to consider. Also, I do not presume to be an expert on night trains, and I do think this video does a pretty good job of debunking the major hype around night trains that is currently going around.
Have a nice day!
Cheers,
Hugo
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