Summary
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen outlined the EU’s vision as a global economic leader during the World Economic Forum, contrasting Trump’s “America First” policies.
She highlighted Europe’s advantages, including its large single market, social infrastructure, and commitment to the Paris climate accord, while emphasizing new alliances with Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
Avoiding direct criticism of Trump, von der Leyen underscored the EU’s stability and rules-based approach.
Her speech signaled a pivot away from U.S.-centric relations and a focus on global trade diversification.
von der Leyen is a hypocrite. Where was the rule-based approach during the genocide in Gaza? She and many EU leaders purposefully ignored the Hague and the Geneva conventions.
What’s my best bet for emigrating to the EU as a mechanical engineer? I only speak English fluently, used to speak Spanish but never maintained it. Was looking into Sweden but didn’t get very far.
Are there any Ukrainian organizations that could arrange transport/visa in exchange for service? I’ve definitely got the skills to fly/build/design drones and know how to shoot what I aim at, but I’m capable of more than that as well. I would rather contribute to a cause I believe in than have any hand in building a fascist America.
For your profession, there should be plenty of companies where English is spoken, irregardless of the country. In my previous company, we had engineers from all over and while English was everyones second language, it was the only common one we had so that was spoken. I’d first try to choose a country you like or where immigration is easy and focus on finding employment there.
Things are bad here too. As a US citizen you will be paying tax twice if you work here, you’ll never quite fully feel at home for about 8 years, and (most importantly) you’ll miss the cultural banter you grew up with.
US isn’t a country, it’s practically a continent. There are plenty of places to knuckle through the next few years, but I’m telling you now - Europe isn’t the safe haven you think it is.
Germany always needs engineers, and a lot of companies use English as a main language. So far it’s very easy for an American to get a visa, as long as have a job, and the jov market is very active
I would say try finding a job that sponsors a visa.
It’s quite hard to move between EU countries nowadays even if you are a citizen, there is a lot of nationalistic sentiment going on and if you only speak English, companies in a bunch of countries will straight out say no, even if they would sponsor you.
To be honest I’m N Irish and we voted against Brexit but are deemed irrelevant due to England. But yeah it absolutely pisses me off to see the English politicians sucking Trump off when we would have been way better off not just being morons and staying in the EU.
Its infuriating to see the UK falling apart when every country except England voted against Brexit but somehow their vote counts double or something.
UK is a wreck and we should just start from scratch and also I can’t see America as anything but an enemy right now (they are obviously siding with both Russia and Israel) both sides I disagree with honestly.
Its infuriating to see the UK falling apart when every country except England voted against Brexit
Wales also voted in favour of Brexit.
but somehow their vote counts double or something.
Englands population is significantly higher than the rest combined, so it’s hardly surprising. I think Yorkshire alone has more than double the population of Northern Ireland.
Agree with everything else you said though. Hopefully we get to see the day when we get to re-join again!
Also adding my English condolences, can’t agree with you strongly enough. UK is fucked, need to emigrate
Englishman here. I can only apologise for the sheer stupidity of my fellow countrymen. Brexit was such an own fucking goal and the morons will never admit it. If Cameron really had to put it to a vote he could have required a super-majority on account of how economically devastating leaving would be. But no, a slim majority is good enough to fuck over us all for generations to come.
And Trump. Good god. The country that sells itself as a beacon of democracy has happily voted in a crook. Someone who fomented an insurrection attempt, hid top secret documents in his shower while foreign agents roamed freely around and lied about it! Like, actual treason. But I’m not sure what’s worse, the orange shit head or the people and system that not only have allowed him to get away with it all but have actually fucking promoted it. Fucking depressing.
I wish us Americans did.
I wish about half of us weren’t smoothbrain fuckwits.
Two thirds, you mean.
You gotta count the authoritarian followers and the ones top stupid to vote at all.
The US is not statistically very different from the rest of the world.
The oligarchs want us divided. And have been working on it for decades. Blame them, not your neighbor, even if your neighbor is a smooth brain fuckwit.
I’m fully aware of the oligarchs, and blame them for being oligarchs. And by the same fucking token, I blame my smoothbrain neighbors for being smoothbrains. The latter doesn’t get a pass if they enthusiastically vote in favor of the oligarchs. Both get their respective blame.
Blame them both for different but still similarly terrible things. Fucking morons don’t escape culpability because they refuse to acknowledge how fucking dumb they are.
Some parts of the culture are smoothbrained. Diversity is things like ‘black white latino asian’ whereas in more wrinklybrained cultures it’s more like ‘somali finnish trini chilean thai’. Economics is freedom vs communism instead of reality etc. And geography, well, good luck.
Man, if only you had decided on this before the US elected a giant orange wannabe-fascist… for the second time.
Yeah, but you have to consider that the alternative was a woman of colour. They had no other choice, really, they had to vote for a fascist.
Just imagine if we take her by her word and really strengthen our economical relationship with Africa. That is a huge market with huge possibilities. Africa could easily replace China as a manufacturing powerhouse. If we could somehow shake off the colonial baggage and work together, America could go packing!
Africa could easily replace China as a manufacturing powerhouse.
If we could somehow shake off the colonial baggage
They’re the same thing.
That is a huge market with huge possibilities. Africa could easily replace China as a manufacturing powerhouse.
And China knows it, which is why “belt and road” is a thing.
In principle, I agree. However, in detail there are the same issues and more as when everything was outsourced to China:
- While there are stable and democratic states in Africa, a lot of the resources for manufacturing
mightwill come from not so stable parts. I am looking at Congo as an example in particular. - If you think about it, it is Colonialism 2.0: Cheap labourers turning basic resources into goods that are too expensive for them to buy themselves, which in return are sold for cheap in relation to local production costs in other countries.
- Exporting the environmentally harmful jobs elsewhere makes us look good on paper, but has drastic consequences for locals.
While China has until recently and to a significant extent been able to turn the second point around, the environment is where this whole plan might come apart before it even can be put into practice: The African continent is possibly most directly impacted by climate change. In the past, present and future. Don’t get me wrong: We are all going to suffer. But the African combination of geolocation and political and social stability is a powder keg.
Don’t get me wrong, I do not want to leave Africa and its people in the dust. If we can build a relationship on a basis of mutual trust and long-term benefit, let’s go for it. However, I am highly sceptical that in our current political climate the EU and its countries or, let alone companies, would be going to invest more than the absolute minimum to get any form of production going. And investing the absolute minimum to extract the most benefit equals colonialism 2.0.
while all that is fairly true, competition usually leads to better outcomes across the board. i think that alternatives rather than replacements is the idea, and spreading those opportunities across the globe will probably be beneficial in the long-run
- While there are stable and democratic states in Africa, a lot of the resources for manufacturing
the EU’s stability and rules-based approach.
Great, but countries violating their own ICC laws to host netenyahu, promising him they wont apprehend him for war crimes is not a “rules-based approach” at all.
Also violating their own anti genocide agreements by supporting Israeli proven genocide by several third parties at this point. I guess it’s rules based approach when it’s convenient and when it’s not, we’ll just ignore those rules.
You will notice that only countries which have to suck up to the USA (for reasons) did the Bibi thing.
Pan-continentality is nice
This is more circlejerk from Von der Leyen. Before Trump became president, she was talking about de-risking from China, reducimg economic reliance on other countries, including Russian energy, and now somehow, all of a sudden, she is boasting the EU’s ability to trade with Mexico and China?
Seriously, the EU can’t compete with the US because it cares about its people. Its superior economic, human, social, and civil rights come at the cost of strictly regulating businesses, which kills off innovation and profit making by big businsses. The American syatem rewards monopoly, the lack of labor rights, and increasing wealth inequality by not regulating enough. That breeds big tech, big pharma, big tobacco, big oil, and Wall Street, but that’s what’s driving the American economy. The EU is too ethical for that.
Meanwhile, Nestle is currently asking the Commission to please not dilute the supply chain act. Nestle, fucking Nestle, saying that regulations that require companies to enforce human rights standards abroad are good for their business, please keep them, don’t listen to the lobbying of smaller companies.
Not everyone is so caught-up in supply-side trickle-down economics as the US. Nestle sees profit in African markets, that’s a giant pool of consumer demand, they don’t want to be seen as slave holders, they also don’t want others to have a competition advantage in markets that don’t care as much about slave labour, so they’re arguing that those standards they profit from should apply to everyone, everywhere.
I sure fucking hope we do.
Seems like that flag breaks a commandment or two. But I don’t expect anyone to have actually read the damned things