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Streets in Marseille with tons of rubbish piling up as garbage bin workers seeking a 21 hour week go on strike in Marseille, France. Much has changed in European countries as countries such as India work on a Clean India effort to clear up rubbish through Swacch Bharat campaign.

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BBC's Europe Editor Katya Adler talks to EU officials and gives this assessment of how the situation in Britain after the elections looks from the European Union. The elections in France with pro-EU Macron winning with a large majority, the increasing support for Angela Merkel in Germany, the drubbing for the Five Star Movement in Italy, all point to increasing confidence in the EU, and willingness to let Britain sort its mess out while the EU focusses on more pressing issues. Adler calls the first day of talks on Brexit a Mad Hatters Tea Party, showing how Britain is seen in the EU as having a huge complicated mess to sort out. British politicians are seen from the outside as having ruffled up the electorate on migration, the European Court of Justice and other issues, just to make their own points and for their own ends, not necessarily having the best interests of Britain in mind.

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IG Metall, the union representing 3 million workers in metals and engineering industries, negotiated a 4.3% wage increase over 13 months. The union had asked for a 6.5% increase. Unions won wage increases of more than 6% in the public and telecommunications sectors. Workers in chemical, agriculture and hotel industries are pushing for increases of over 6%. The union wage negotiations help set the pattern for wage increases for the 41 million employed workers in Germany. This will help France and other EU countries close the gap with Germany in wages and improve competitiveness.

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Serge Galam says in this NYT piece that abstention can affect the election in France. He says abstention from the far left voters is likely to favor Marie Le Pen. He says an overall abstention rate of 25% shown in polls can make it possible to have an uncertain result, and that Le Pen may need much less than 50% of the vote if abstentions are high. If 95% of Le Pen voters turn out and less than 61% of Macron voters turn out there is an opening for Le Pen, says Galam.

Another way of looking at this is the disaffection of the electorate with parties in France, with a high abstention vote even if Macron wins, especially on the far left.

 

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Rosario, Argentina is the hometown of Lionel Messi. DW.com looks at this city, the third largest in Argentina, and capital of Santa Fe state. Two of Argentina's famous soccer coaches were born in Rosario. Lionel Scaloni, the current national coach and 1978 coach Cesar Luis Menotti. Argentina lost to Germany 1-0 in 2014, and 8 years later locals are sensing something big as Argentina meets France on Sunday.

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The global minimum corporate tax will enable US, France, Germany, India and other countries to invest more in healthcare, education, infrastructure, in the years to come. Countries that helped tax avoidance shown in this graph in Live Mint are Netherlands, Cayman Islands, Britain, Ireland, Hong Kong, China. The biggest contributor to tax losses for advanced countries US, Europe and India is the Netherlands with $27 billion in tax that is diverted away, as shown in Live Mint.

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The story told here about a Frenchman Arsene Wenger who is made the new manager of Arsenal in 1996. A complete outsider who is thought of as knowing nothing about English football is faced with changing the culture and ways of thinking at Arsenal. His first encounter with the media and reports about a visit he made to the South of France leading to calls for him to resign is revisited here from his new book.

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As the U.S. economy continues to recover Europe is seeing the impact of the second wave of the pandemic on the economy. Economists say the U.S. economy grew at an annualized rate of 28% in the third quarter of 2020 after a drop of 31% in the second quarter. WIth a surge of cases to over 1 million in Spain and curfews in France and Italy, the economy in the European Union is slowing again.

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Most people have not heard of Stellantis N.V. First there was Chrysler, then Fiat merged with Chrysler, now Fiat Chrysler merges with Citroen and Peugeot of France. The result is Stellantis N.V. with CEO Carlo Tavares. This group plans an investment of $35.5 billion in electric vehicles through 2025 and have 5 battery plants built in US and Europe. Tougher emissions standards worldwide are pushing car makers to make these investments in electrification of cars.

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Pakistan follows other countries by making vaccination mandatory for all public sector workers. Pakistan also requires vaccination to go to airports. France and some other countries in Europe have taken this action to prevent spread of the Delta variant.

According to the US Census Bureau 3.6 million Americans say they face eviction in 2 months as the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to end suspension of evictions July 31, 2021.

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Germany will reach 85% of gas storage with Russian gas reduced to 10% of consumption by September 1, 2022. The next target is to get it up to 95% for German gas storage facilities by November 1, 2022. "The reservoirs are filling quicker than planned," German Economy Minister Habeck told Der Spiegel. The big part of gas supplies are now from Norway and Netherlands. And LNG supplies will come from France. 

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At a meeting in Ostend, a Belgian port, the leaders of 7 European nations meet to combine work on their coastlines to develop wind energy on scale. It includes Belgium, France, Germany, Denmark, Norway.The goal to quadruple wind energy generation capacity by 2030, and tenfold by 2050. Strong winds and shallow water in the North Sea are highly suited to plant wind turbines. Denmark gets 25% of its energy from this source, Britain 15%.

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The coronavirus is making implementation of the U.S. China trade deal less likely as Chinese imports from the U.S. decrease and China's exports continue to grow. China's exports to U.S. decreased by $60 billion but increased to other countries by $70 billion in 2019.

As a result the Trump administration is shifting its focus to another approach. The new multilateral approach is to combine the effort with allies Australia, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and France. This would take the shape of a Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership to replace the old Obama period Trans Pacific Partnership which becomes defunct. The goal would be to build new supply chains with allies in Asia outside of China with the help of France and other countries that are wary of excessive dependence on China and have deep reservations of China's handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

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A third of the rail lines operate late with trains not reaching on time in Britain. This some say shows that privatization has failed. Such delays are accepted in the way privatization is organized in Britain because the rail lines make the same revenues whether they run late or on time. Rail lines look to be incentivized to operate on time, a strange proposition because operating on time is part of running an efficient rail system.The Labour Party plans to nationalize the railways. France and Germany have the largest rail network in Europe, which is operated by state owned SNCF in France and Deutsche Bahn in Germany. Public ownership of railways is not new for European countries even though it is presented as a radical idea in Britain. Rail has to be run efficiently which is possible under state ownership for a public service as it is in major European countries. 

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European Union countries, Britain and the US face the risk of a resurgence of coronavirus through the Delta variant and other variants. The Delta variant detected in India is 40% to 80% more transmissible than the Alpha variant detected in the UK, with the Alpha variant 50% more transmissible than the original coronavirus that originated in Wuhan.    Virologists in Italy feel they are flying blind at this time because of the lack of genetic sequencing in Italy, Spain, France and across most European Union countries. The UK has done genetic sequencing on 27% of recent covid positive tests. The figure drops to 1% for Italy and is tiny for most of the EU countries including Spain and France. Without genetic sequencing it is hard to predict and take steps. Another problem in the EU is that the southern economies Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Croatia are dependent on summer tourism for the economy. The UK economy can handle a delay to a full opening for 6 weeks without serious impact to the economy, says WSJ. Southern European economies can afford only short delays to full reopening. Croatia acted as a door to spread of coronavirus into central Europe when Germans and Austrians went to vacation spots in Croatia in summer 2020. This situation could be happening again in 2020 with British and other tourists visiting vacation areas in Portugal, and Germans visiting Greece and other summer tourism spots. Portugal's national health institute says the Delta variant represents 60% of new cases in the area around Lisbon based on early data. The government of Portugal is facing criticism for letting a Champions League soccer final to take place in Porto, Portugal between two English teams. Thousands of English fans watched the game at the stadium. Other problems are in relaxing of mask rules in France and Italy, last week in France and in the coming week in Italy. French nightclubs open July 9 without mask requirement. Germany is maintaining some social distancing measures and this includes mandating medical masks in closed public spaces and on public transport. Half of French, Italians, Germans are vaccinated and quarter fully vaccinated. Yet the gaps of unvaccinated people is large enough to cause serious concern of another wave. The relaxation of mask rules- the entire stadium in Budapest was packed for a recent game between Hungary and Italy for a soccer Euro 2021 game with no masks to be seen. Stadiums played a key role for the spread of the original coronavirus in Italy with a game in Bergamo, Italy, in the area near Milan. All this makes health officials concerned about the risks of still another wave of the coronavirus.   ...

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Compare the presidential election spending in France and US one sees a huge, really huge difference. In France by law the first round it is limited to 16 million euros and second round to 22 million euros. Companies cannot donate and maximum donation is euros 4600 per year. All candidates must be given equal time by networks after official campaigns start usually March 28. If you get 5% of the presidential vote you get about 48% of the $22 million ceiling and if not only about 5%. Its a fairer system considering about $5 billion will be spent in US presidential election 2024. It keeps out lobbyists and donors looking for silent favors as the pharma industry and the tech industry in the US that has prevented any legislation on fair drug pricing or oversight of the monopolies of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and others, taxation of profits of tech and fossil fuel companies, or passage of healthcare for all. Indian elections cost of 1.35 lakh crores or $13 billion in 2024 are also similar to the US with parties spending leading to much corruption in the democratic process and defeating its best character.  ...

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Russian offers for settlement of Ukraine conflict in 2025 described as capitulation in the UK's Guardian- all of the eastern Donbass region and Crimea ceded to Russia, limits on its army and its long range weapons, leaving it too weak to defend itself. The UK, France oppose it. The new German government of CDU's Merz is increasing Germany's defense capabilities to shoulder the burden of defence in the EU in 2025-2026. Under this situation and with presure within the Republican party on DJT, it is unlikely that such a capitulation or agreement is likely to have a chance  for agreement. It is a restatement of Russian proposals in 2022.

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Faltering peace talks in Moscow December 2, 2025, after EU modifications of US/Russian draft developed by Witkoff with Putin adviser Dimitriev. Putin says European nations have modifed the plan and this is unacceptable to Russia. Putin says-

“All these changes are meant to do one thing. To block this entire peace process.” He said European nations were trying to hand Russia a strategic defeat. 

Because the proposals were drafted without Ukrainian involvement and involved conceding parts of eastern Ukraine there were serious doubts about the earlier plan from the EU and France, Germany, Britain.

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Germany reaches daily coronavirus cases of 20,000 on November 4, with total 600,000 cases for a population of 83 million people. France reached 40,000 daily cases. Both countries are in a national lockdown for the second wave of coronavirus which is different from the first in that some parts of the economy remain open.

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India is joining Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Britain, France, Russia, and many other countries in calling for an investigation by the World Health Organization into how the coronavirus crisis escalated into a pandemic with millions of cases and hundreds of thousands of deaths and how adequate the response of the WHO has been. 

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The modernization of the Indian Air Force proceeds with the phase out in 2 years of all MiG 21's to be replaced with Rafale jets from France and new Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft AMCA which will be made in India with advanced technologies for the Air Force and the Indian Navy.

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Lacking a vaccine mandate or serious protocols for coronavirus such as mandatory mask use and social distancing, schools reopen in Britain without the safety action taken in other European countries. Italy has clear vaccine mandate for teachers, France and Germany have mandated use of masks and social distancing action, Britain none of the above.

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Yvette Cooper, UK Home Secretary, continues to pursue a policy of keeping open asylum hotels even as the UK public opinion on asylum seekers shifts, with large parts of the population not supporting it. Immigration is the top issue in Britain and keeping asylum seekers in hotels at government expense is highly unpopular. Giving Reform UK support that it did not have in 2024. A WSJ report shows the problems UK immigration policy is running into in 2025 under Labour.  Editorial opinion in The Times of London says Farage's ideas on stopping migrants should be heard, as both Conservatives and Labour have not got it right, with surging numbers of migrants as long as policies on benefits favor migrant flow. It is plain common sense. The irony is that for most of the British Empire since 1600 during colonization there were no such policies favoring immigrants much less illegal migrants, colonial peoples had no such rights in British colonies in China or India much less in Britain that are now being offered to migrants coming illegally under the European Convention of Human Rights. Asian people pulled themselves up by the bootstraps- Japan, Taiwan, China, and India, and never depended on such Conventions. Some ideas in The Times of London say the UK military should be given the task of protecting the waters around Britain and some troops stationed in France to prevent illegal boat crossings where they start, considering that such action was taken during the recent Olympics in France. ...