EU Politics: I miss Renaults(don't make fun of me)

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WAR CRIME GIGOLO: Oct 3, 2012; The Hague
tryna get me
for these glutes

Dawncloack posted:

"But dont you know He kept us out of the war??"

Which is BS, he was tugging at the leash.

Yeah Franco TOTALLY would have kept them out of the war had hitler beaten the soviets or brits he definitely wouldn't have blown into portugal and Gibraltar.

Franco also allowed Italian frog men basing rights for moves into Gibraltar.

# ? Oct 28, 2019 22:22

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# ? May 25, 2024 14:32

Dawncloack: Nov 26, 2007; ECKS DEE!; Nap Ghost

Elman posted:

I assume you went to highschool in the 80s or something? I mean to be fair I grew in a traditionally left wing region, but this sounds bonkers.

This is the La Mancha of the tail en of the 90's my man.

# ? Oct 28, 2019 23:13

NihilCredo: Jun 6, 2011; iram omni possibili modo preme:
plus una illa te diffamabit, quam multæ virtutes commendabunt

WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:

Yeah Franco TOTALLY would have kept them out of the war had hitler beaten the soviets or brits he definitely wouldn't have blown into portugal and Gibraltar.

Franco also allowed Italian frog men basing rights for moves into Gibraltar.

Well I don't think that the Spaniards who say "Franco kept us out of the war" would particularly object to the addendum "but he would have joined at the last moment, if he thought Germany had it in the bag".

I'm genuinely curious, what's the leftist reading of the Hendaye meeting? Just a bit of horse trading, with Franco wanting to join but needing to get enough territorial bribes to convince his inner circle to support him? Or a real breach between Fascist leaders with different priorities?

# ? Oct 29, 2019 00:30

Celexi: Nov 25, 2006; Slava Ukraini!

A lot of portuguese right wing and alt righters will also say that salazar saved portugal from the war and entirely not mention the colonial war.

They are also usually found of Franco, hell I mean, in Funchal, Portugal some highschool was named "Francisco franco" by the Salazar regime and it somehow keeps the name.

# ? Oct 29, 2019 00:57

Randarkman: Jul 18, 2011

NihilCredo posted:

Well I don't think that the Spaniards who say "Franco kept us out of the war" would particularly object to the addendum "but he would have joined at the last moment, if he thought Germany had it in the bag".

I'm genuinely curious, what's the leftist reading of the Hendaye meeting? Just a bit of horse trading, with Franco wanting to join but needing to get enough territorial bribes to convince his inner circle to support him? Or a real breach between Fascist leaders with different priorities?

I've only seen a couple of references to that meeting in more overall histories, not really leftist ones, but it seems that Hitler at least did not come away from that meeting with a positive opinion about Franco and Spain, essentially feeling that Franco just kept talking empty platitudes for horus at end in order to stall the whole thing out and not have to commit or agree to anything in particular.

Essentially the deal with Franco and not joining the war to me seems to be down to a fairly simple calculus, he knew Spain was in no way ready to fight a war against a major European power, Spain was devastated from the civil war and economically, industrially and militarily backwards. Essentially this meant that he did not want to take the risk of joining in until Britain was neutralized as a threat. Though Spain was close to Germany and offered aid of various kinds, I don't really think there was much chance of Franco joining the war if he could help it after Germany had failed to defeat Britain in 1940 and the Soviet Union in 1941/1942 (which Hitler often argued would force Britain to the negotiating table), Franco was ruthless and politically savvy and probably more appreciative of his country's weakness than Mussolini was in 1940 when he thought to join in on the war and get a piece of the pie before it ended.

# ? Oct 29, 2019 01:05

OhFunny: Jun 26, 2013; EXTREMELY PISSED AT THE DNC

NihilCredo posted:

Well I don't think that the Spaniards who say "Franco kept us out of the war" would particularly object to the addendum "but he would have joined at the last moment, if he thought Germany had it in the bag".

I'm genuinely curious, what's the leftist reading of the Hendaye meeting? Just a bit of horse trading, with Franco wanting to join but needing to get enough territorial bribes to convince his inner circle to support him? Or a real breach between Fascist leaders with different priorities?

I don't think it's really a leftist reading, but it's important remember that:

1. Before the meeting Hitler sent Awehr chief Wilhelm Canaris to negotiate with Franco. Canaris was secretly an anti-Nazi and told Franco not to join the war. Perhaps even that Germany could not win.

2. Spain's main trading partners were the US and UK. The loss of trade, especially wheat and oil, from joining the war on Germany's side would have been crippling.

3. Spain was still rebuilding from the civil war and really in no shape to fight or defend it's colonies from Britain.

# ? Oct 29, 2019 03:06

WAR CRIME GIGOLO: Oct 3, 2012; The Hague
tryna get me
for these glutes

NihilCredo posted:

I'm genuinely curious, what's the leftist reading of the Hendaye meeting? Just a bit of horse trading, with Franco wanting to join but needing to get enough territorial bribes to convince his inner circle to support him? Or a real breach between Fascist leaders with different priorities?

Well like everyone said, franco knew germany was on the brink of collapse in the process of the meeting and partially did a left face and reciprocated UK relations. Franco was a vanity fascist in terms of foreign policy. Selfies with adolf, fascist assault brigades with slappin uniforms etc. However his focus was domestic.
Franco realised he needed gibraltar and made a choice of two options

A: Join the axis and Invade gibraltar with italy and enjoy a german-italian administration of the mediterranean post britain.

B: stay neutral and enjoy trade through the mediterranean without nasty concessions or loss of governance post germany

# ? Oct 29, 2019 05:13

3D Megadoodoo: Nov 25, 2010

GABA ghoul posted:

Good job everyone, Ligur is finally banned. Took a lot of time, training and coordination but we did it!

GUESS WHAT

# ? Oct 31, 2019 17:03

Junior G-man: Sep 15, 2004; Wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma

NYT did a really interesting long-read investigative journalism piece on the abuse of CAP funding by eastern oligarchs:

quote:

The Money Farmers: How Oligarchs and Populists Milk the E.U. for Millions
The European Union spends $65 billion a year subsidizing agriculture. But a chunk of that money emboldens strongmen, enriches politicians and finances corrupt dealing.

CSAKVAR, Hungary � Under Communism, farmers labored in the fields that stretch for miles around this town west of Budapest, reaping wheat and corn for a government that had stolen their land.

Today, their children toil for new overlords, a group of oligarchs and political patrons who have annexed the land through opaque deals with the Hungarian government. They have created a modern twist on a feudal system, giving jobs and aid to the compliant, and punishing the mutinous.

These land barons, as it turns out, are financed and emboldened by the European Union.

Every year, the 28-country bloc pays out $65 billion in farm subsidies intended to support farmers around the Continent and keep rural communities alive. But across Hungary and much of Central and Eastern Europe, the bulk goes to a connected and powerful few. The prime minister of the Czech Republic collected tens of millions of dollars in subsidies just last year. Subsidies have underwritten Mafia-style land grabs in Slovakia and Bulgaria.

Europe�s farm program, a system that was instrumental in forming the European Union, is now being exploited by the same antidemocratic forces that threaten the bloc from within. This is because governments in Central and Eastern Europe, several led by populists, have wide latitude in how the subsidies, funded by taxpayers across Europe, are distributed � even as the entire system is shrouded in secrecy.

A New York Times investigation, conducted in nine countries for much of 2019, uncovered a subsidy system that is deliberately opaque, grossly undermines the European Union�s environmental goals and is warped by corruption and self-dealing.

Europe�s machinery in Brussels enables this rough-hewed corruption because confronting it would mean changing a program that helps hold a precarious union together. European leaders disagree about many things, but they all count on generous subsidies and wide discretion in spending them. Bucking that system to rein in abuses in newer member states would disrupt political and economic fortunes across the Continent.

This is why, with the farm bill up for renewal this year, the focus in Brussels isn�t on rooting out corruption or tightening controls. Instead, lawmakers are moving to give national leaders more authority on how they spend money � over the objections of internal auditors.

The program is the biggest item in the European Union�s central budget, accounting for 40 percent of expenditures. It�s one of the largest subsidy programs in the world.

Yet some lawmakers in Brussels who write and vote on farm policy admit they often have no idea where the money goes.

One place it goes is here in Fejer County, home to Hungary�s populist prime minister, Viktor Orban. An icon to Europe�s far right and a harsh critic of Brussels and European elites, Mr. Orban is happy to accept European Union money. The Times investigation found that he uses European subsidies as a patronage system that enriches his friends and family, protects his political interests and punishes his rivals.

Mr. Orban�s government has auctioned off thousands of acres of state land to his family members and close associates, including one childhood friend who has become one of the richest men in the country, the Times investigation found. Those who control the land, in turn, qualify for millions in subsidies from the European Union.

�It�s an absolutely corrupt system,� said Jozsef Angyan, who once served as Mr. Orban�s under secretary for rural development.

The brazen patronage in Fejer County was not supposed to happen. Since the earliest days of the European Union, farm policy has had outsized importance as an immutable system of public welfare. In the United States, Social Security or Medicare are perhaps the closest equivalents, but neither of them is a sacrosanct provision written into the nation�s founding documents.

The European Union spends three times as much as the United States on farm subsidies each year, but as the system has expanded, accountability has not kept up. National governments publish some information on recipients, but the largest beneficiaries hide behind complex ownership structures. And although farmers are paid, in part, based on their acreage, property data is kept secret, making it harder to track land grabs and corruption. The European Union maintains a master database but, citing the difficulty of downloading the requested information, refused to provide The Times a copy.

In response, the Times compiled its own database that, while incomplete, supplemented publicly available information on subsidy payments. This included corporate and government records; data on land sales and leases; and leaked documents and nonpublic land records received from whistle-blowers and researchers.

The Times confirmed land deals that benefited a select group of political insiders, visited farms in several countries, and used government records to determine subsidy payments received by some of the largest of these beneficiaries. The Times investigation also built on the work done by Hungarian journalists and others who have investigated land abuses despite a media crackdown by Mr. Orban�s government.

quote:
WHAT WE FOUND
How oligarchs, Mafia figures and populists get rich off the European Union

Farm subsidies helped form the basis for the modern European Union. Today, they help underwrite a sort of modern feudalism in which small farmers are beholden to politically connected land barons.

The European Union provides $65 billion to farmers each year. It�s the largest line item in the E.U. budget and one of the biggest subsidy programs in the world.

The centerpiece of the program is that people get paid based on how much land they farm. The system is supposed to help hard-working farmers and stabilize Europe�s food supply.

But in former Soviet bloc countries, where the government owned lots of farmland, leaders like Hungary�s prime minister, Viktor Orban, have auctioned off land to political allies and family members. And the subsidies follow the land.

A company formed by the Czech prime minister, Andrej Babis, collected at least $42 million in subsidies last year.

Even as the European Union champions the subsidy program as an essential safety net for hardworking farmers, studies have repeatedly shown that 80 percent of the money goes to the biggest 20 percent of recipients. And some of those at the top have used that money to amass political power.

In the Czech Republic, the highest-profile subsidy recipient is Andrej Babis, the billionaire agriculturalist who is also the prime minister. The Times analysis found his companies in the Czech Republic collected at least $42 million in agricultural subsidies last year. Mr. Babis, who denied any wrongdoing, is the subject of two conflict-of-interest audits this year. The Czech government has, in recent years, ushered in rules that make it easier for big companies � his is the biggest � to receive more subsidies.

�The European Union is paying so much money to an oligarch who�s also a politician,� said Lukas Wagenknecht, a Czech senator and economist who used to work for Mr. Babis. �And what�s the result? You have the most powerful politician in the Czech Republic, and he�s completely supported by the European Union.�

In Bulgaria, the subsidies have become welfare for the farming elite. The Bulgarian Academy of Science has found that 75 percent of the main type of European agricultural subsidy in the country ends up in the hands of about 100 entities. This spring, the authorities carried out raids across the country that exposed corrupt ties between government officials and agricultural businessmen. One of the largest flour producers in the country was charged with fraud in connection with the subsidies and is awaiting trial.

In Slovakia, the top prosecutor has acknowledged the existence of an �agricultural Mafia.� Small farmers have reported being beaten and extorted for land that is valuable for the subsidies it receives. A journalist, Jan Kuciak, was murdered last year while investigating Italian mobsters who had infiltrated the farm industry, profited from subsidies and built relationships with powerful politicians.

Despite this, proposed reforms are often watered down or brushed aside in Brussels and many other European capitals.

European Union officials dismissed a 2015 report that recommended tightening farm-subsidy rules as a safeguard against Central and Eastern European land grabbing. The European Parliament rejected a bill that would have banned politicians from benefiting from the subsidies they administer. And top officials swat away suggestions of fraud.

�We have an almost watertight system,� Rudolf M�gele, one of Europe�s top agricultural officials, said in an interview earlier this year.

Unstated is that, while audits can catch incidents of outright fraud, rooting out self-dealing and legalized corruption is far more difficult. The European Union seldom interferes with national affairs, giving deference to elected leaders.

Few leaders have attempted such widespread, brazen exploitation of the subsidy system as Mr. Orban in Hungary. At rallies, he deploys a false narrative that Brussels wants to strip away farm aid and use it to bring in migrants, and that he alone can stop it.

Farmers who criticize the government or the patronage system say they have been denied grants or faced surprise audits and unusual environmental inspections, in what amounts to a sophisticated intimidation campaign that harkens to the Communist era.

�It�s not like when a car comes for you at night and takes you away,� said Istvan Teichel, who farms a small plot in Mr. Orban�s home county. �This is deeper.�

One man who did speak up was Mr. Angyan, the former under secretary for rural development. A jowly, gray-haired rural economist with a mischievous smile, Mr. Angyan became an unlikely crusader for small farmers. He served under Mr. Orban, initially thinking him a reformer, only to leave angry and disillusioned. He canvassed the countryside, documenting the government�s dubious land deals and mistreatment of small farmers.

And then he disappeared from public life.

A Thief Economy

To understand how leaders like Viktor Orban exploit Europe�s largest subsidy program requires going back 15 years, to when Hungary was spinning with optimism and change.

In a moment that symbolized Western triumph in the Cold War, the European Union officially absorbed much of the breadbasket of Central and Eastern Europe on May 1, 2004. Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia � all former Soviet satellites � were among 10 nations that joined the bloc that day (Romania and Bulgaria joined three years later).

Amid the celebrations, Mr. Orban was in political purgatory. He had been the prime minister who helped guide Hungary into the union � only to see voters turn him and his party, Fidesz, out of office in 2002. Now he noticed one of the first protest groups to emerge in the new Hungary: farmers.

Hungarian farmers clogged Budapest�s narrow streets in 2005 for a mass demonstration. They did not oppose European Union membership. Far from it. As new European citizens, they wanted the subsidies they were eligible for under the bloc�s Common Agricultural Policy, or C.A.P., but the payments hadn�t arrived. Hungary�s left-leaning government was too disorganized and unprepared.

From the outset, the European subsidies represented a pot of money scarcely fathomable to farmers accustomed to Communist austerity. The program was designed after the Second World War to boost farming salaries and ramp up food production in countries laid waste by conflict. Over time, it became a critical foundation in creating the borderless economy that would grow into the modern European Union.

European leaders understood that absorbing former Soviet satellites would bring challenges, but never fully grasped the potential for corruption in the subsidy program.

At its heart, the program is defined by a simple proposition: Farmers are mostly paid based on how many acres they harvest. Whoever controls the most land gets the most money.

And Central and Eastern Europe had lots of land, much of it still state-owned, a legacy of the Communist era. European officials worked closely with incoming governments on issues such as meeting food testing standards, or controlling borders, yet only limited attention was paid to the subsidies.

�They thought they would change us,� said Jana Polakova, a Czech agricultural scientist. �They were not prepared for us.�

Mr. Orban showed hints of what was to come even before Hungary joined the bloc. Before he left office in 2002, Mr. Orban sold 12 state-owned farming companies, which became known as the �Dirty Dozen,� to a group of politically connected buyers. Buyers got cut-rate deals and exclusive rights to the land for 50 years, making them eligible for subsidies when Hungary became part of the system two years later.

�This is a crony economy, where friends and political allies get special treatment,� said Gyorgy Rasko, a former Hungarian agriculture minister. �Orban didn�t invent the system. He�s just running it more efficiently.�

Out of office, Mr. Orban watched the farmers� protests in Budapest and saw the potential political and economic power of subsidies in the countryside. He also was intrigued by the man who negotiated successfully on behalf of the protesters: Jozsef Angyan.

After the fall of Communism, Mr. Angyan made the case that small landholders could keep villages alive through sustainable practices. He founded an environmental program at one of the nation�s most prestigious universities and helped build an organic farm called Kishantos with 1,100 acres of wheat, corn and flowers.

�He wanted to help the local farmers,� said Mr. Teichel, the farmer from Fejer County, who said Mr. Angyan was a rare champion of the small farmer in a countryside where corrupt politicians ran a �thief economy.�

Eight years after losing office, Mr. Orban again ran for prime minister in 2010 and wanted to court the rural vote. Mr. Angyan was now a member of Parliament, and his ties to the farmers gave him political clout in the countryside. Mr. Orban summoned him to his modest home west of Budapest.

It was a chilly February morning and Mr. Angyan had a cold. So Mr. Orban fixed tea over a wood-burning stove and, for two hours, the two men spoke about the future of Hungarian farms.

Mr. Angyan envisioned a government that gave small farmers more political and economic clout. Mr. Orban made it clear that he wanted to implement Mr. Angyan�s ideas and offered to make him under secretary of rural development.

�When Orban speaks, he speaks with such conviction,� Mr. Angyan said. �You believe him. I believed him.�

After a landslide victory, Mr. Orban moved quickly, just not as Mr. Angyan had anticipated.

Mr. Angyan�s proposal called on the government to carve up its massive plots and lease them to small and midsize farmers. But Mr. Orban instead wanted to lease whole swaths of land to a coterie of his allies, a move that Mr. Angyan predicted would make the countryside beholden to Mr. Orban�s party, Fidesz, and its allies.

He also knew that European subsidies would follow the land, widening the gap between rich and poor and making it easier for those at the top to wield power.

�I had absolutely no chance to carry out what I wanted to do,� Mr. Angyan said.

In 2011, Mr. Orban�s new government began leasing out public land. At first, officials said that only local, small-scale farmers would be eligible for leases. But the plots ultimately went to politically connected individuals who, in some cases, had been the sole bidders present at auctions. By 2015, hundreds of thousands of acres of public land were leased out and much of it went to people close to Fidesz, according to records obtained from the government and Mr. Angyan.

New leaseholders paid low rates to the government, even as they became eligible for European subsidies. The deals drew sharp criticism in the local media, yet ordinary farmers stayed quiet, despite being left out.

In one example, a powerful Fidesz lawmaker, Roland Mengyi, inserted himself into the leasing process in Borsod-Abauj Zemplen County, where one of his associates won leases for more than 1,200 acres. Mr. Mengyi is an outsized character, who referred to himself as �Lord Voldemort.� He was later convicted and sentenced to prison in a separate case for corruption related to European subsidies.

Mr. Orban�s sudden change in policy left Mr. Angyan disillusioned, and feeling betrayed. He quit the government in 2012 but remained in Parliament, where he tried to push his vision, even as the government moved in the opposite direction.

At a closed-door meeting in early 2013, Mr. Angyan confronted Mr. Orban in front of the prime minister�s most trusted allies in Parliament.

�You�re going to destroy the countryside!� Mr. Angyan recalled saying.

�You are a well-poisoner,� Mr. Orban shot back, according to Mr. Angyan, startling the crowd with a blunt rebuke of a former member of his cabinet. �You have abandoned me.�

As a shocked silence fell over the party faithful, Mr. Orban launched into a soliloquy comparing politics to a battlefield. Those who are loyal, he said, could count on their brothers in arms for protection.

�But those who aren�t?� the prime minister asked. �We will also fire at them.�

A Modern Feudalism
n 2015, Mr. Orban started moving even faster. His government sold hundreds of thousands of acres of state farmland, much of it to politically connected allies. Technically, it was an auction. But many local farmers say they were told not to bother bidding because winners had been predetermined. Few could afford the large plots, anyway, and many more did not even know about the sales.

One pensioner, Ferenc Horvath, 63, lives in a shack in Fejer County, and belatedly discovered that the government had sold all the state-owned land surrounding his tiny plot.

�It happened so fast,� Mr. Horvath said. �We had no idea you could buy land here.�

On nearly all sides, Mr. Horvath had a new neighbor, Lorinc Meszaros, a childhood friend of Mr. Orban and former pipe-fitter who is now a billionaire. Fences sprung up overnight, and the stench of pig manure fell over the area.

Mr. Meszaros, along with his relatives, has bought more than 3,800 acres in Fejer County alone, according to a Times analysis of land data compiled by Mr. Angyan and other sources, and confirmed by visits to the farm. Mr. Orban�s son-in-law and another friend of the prime minister�s have also bought large estates a short drive away, The Times found.

The prediction made by Mr. Angyan � that Mr. Orban�s policies would make the countryside beholden to Fidesz and his allies � was being realized.

It is a type of modern feudalism, where small farmers live in the shadows of huge, politically powerful interests � and European Union subsidies help finance it. In recent years, according to a Times analysis of Hungarian payment data, the largest private recipients of farm subsidies were companies controlled by Mr. Meszaros and Sandor Csanyi, an influential businessman in Budapest.

Last year alone, companies controlled by the two men received a total of $28 million in subsidies.

The two men have radically different relationships with Mr. Orban and his party.

Mr. Csanyi is seen as someone Mr. Orban cannot afford to antagonize. He is chairman of OTP Bank, one of the nation�s most important financial institutions, and has a reputation for outlasting mercurial leaders. He has hired out-of-work politicians from all parties, and his farming conglomerate, led by his son, now controls two of the �Dirty Dozen� companies privatized by Mr. Orban.

Mr. Meszaros�s fortune, by contrast, is tightly bound to the prime minister. He has built an empire by winning government contracts for projects largely financed by the European Union and has recently snapped up companies that once belonged to a business tycoon who had fallen out of favor with Mr. Orban.

They are eligible for a range of subsidies under the Common Agricultural Policy, whether direct payments based on acreage, subsidies directed at livestock and dairy farming or rural development programs � all of which is distributed at the national level by the Fidesz government.

�I�m always accused, and I am very angry about it, that I got the biggest subsidies,� Mr. Csanyi said in an interview. The reason, he said, is not politics. It is pigs. �I produce about one-sixth of the Hungarian pig production.�

On paper, landowners should face restrictions. The Hungarian government has capped subsidy payments to the biggest farms, a seemingly progressive policy advocated by reformers. But farmers say it is easy to skirt the rule by dividing plots and registering the land to different owners.

Rajmund Fekete, a spokesman for Mr. Orban, said that Hungarian subsidy procedures �fully satisfy� European regulations but declined to answer specific questions about Mr. Angyan, or about land sales that benefited Mr. Orban�s relatives and allies.

�Hungary is also fully compliant in the sale of state land, which is regulated by law,� he said.

In Brussels, European officials were specifically warned about problems in Hungary even before the auctions. A May 2015 report, commissioned by the European Parliament, investigated land grabbing and cited �dubious land deals� in Hungary. The report even cited Mr. Orban�s home of Fejer County.

More broadly, the investigators found that wealthy, politically connected landowners had the power to annex land across Central and Eastern Europe. �This is particularly so when they conspire with government authorities,� the report said.

In Bulgaria, for example, land brokers had pushed for laws allowing them to effectively annex small farms.

Investigators pointed to the farm subsidy program as a major factor, saying it encouraged companies to acquire more and more land.

�The C.A.P. in this sense has clearly failed to live up to its declared objectives,� said the report, which was prepared by the Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute.

In a written response, European agricultural officials denounced the findings as unreliable, and in bold letters declared that it was up to the countries� leaders to set and enforce national land use policies.

That deference to national governments is a hallmark of the European Union. But it has left the bloc unable or unwilling to confront leaders who try to undermine its efforts, said Tom�s Garc�a Azc�rate, a longtime European agriculture official who now trains the Continent�s policymakers.

�The European Union has very limited instruments for dealing with gangster member states,� he said. �It�s true on policy, on agriculture, on immigration. It�s a real problem.�

As Mr. Orban�s government began auctioning off thousands of acres to his allies, Mr. Angyan began his own project. Out of government, he meticulously studied the land sales, compiling a record that officials could not easily purge. He interviewed farmers who had been abandoned by the government and mapped political connections among the buyers � findings now supported by the Times analysis.

Beyond the biggest oligarchs like Mr. Meszaros, other supporters and sympathizers of Mr. Orban got blocks of public land.

In Csongrad County, for example, family members and associates of Janos Lazar, a Fidesz lawmaker, were among the biggest buyers, obtaining about 1,300 acres. In Bacs-Kiskun County, associates and family members of a former business partner of Mr. Meszaros bought big chunks of land. And in Jasz-Nagykun-Szolnok County, associates and relatives of current and former Orban government officials were among the biggest winners in the land auctions. Many have since leased the plots, with a markup, to big agricultural firms that receive European subsidies.

�This is what the European Union resources do, and the revenues from the land do,� said Mihaly Borbiro, a former mayor of Obarok, a tiny village in Fejer County, a short drive from Mr. Orban�s hometown.

While political patrons get rich, many small farmers count on the subsidies to survive. That discourages them from criticizing the system too loudly, many of the farmers said, especially in the face of retribution.

Ferenc Gal, who raises cows, alfalfa and a few pigs on his family farm, said he applied to lease about 320 acres because the European subsidies alone would have made it profitable before he even planted anything. Local farmers were supposed to get preference, but the land went to wealthy out-of-town investors.

When he complained, he quickly found himself a pariah. He said government inspectors showed up at his farm, suddenly concerned about environmental and water quality. He said local officials told him not to bother applying for future rural grants.

�Once you�re on a black list,� Mr. Gal said, �that�s it.�

A Policy of Fear

Retribution also found Jozsef Angyan.

Months after he quit the cabinet, government officials retracted the lease on Kishantos, the organic farm he had helped operate for 20 years. They gave the land to political loyalists, who plowed over the fields and sprayed the cropland with chemicals.

Then school officials shuttered Mr. Angyan�s department at Szent Istvan University, destroying his legacy.

�Orban understands when to keep people in fear,� Mr. Angyan said.

In interviews in Hungary, some agricultural scientists and economists refused to discuss land ownership or asked to not be identified when discussing their research. Farmers, too, saw what happened to the man who spoke up for them.

Mr. Orban�s control of the European subsidies helps prevent another rural uprising, Mr. Angyan said. As long as the government administers the grants, nobody can afford to speak up. �If you�re critical of the system,� he said, �you get nothing.�

Besides, he added, there is no real opposition in the countryside. Mr. Angyan�s small farmers� association forged an alliance with Mr. Orban�s far-right party to get the prime minister re-elected. That relationship has outlasted Mr. Angyan, and those in charge of the farming group now hold powerful government positions.

Mr. Angyan has receded from public life. This year, he met twice with The Times, providing the data he had been compiling.

After the second meeting, Mr. Angyan stopped returning phone calls.

When Mr. Teichel saw him recently at a funeral, he looked defeated. �He�s given up the fight,� Mr. Teichel said. As usual, Mr. Angyan asked how the farmer and his family were doing.

�I don�t matter,� Mr. Teichel replied. �I�m just a soldier. How are you doing? You are the general.�

Mr. Angyan replied: �How should I continue when nobody is behind me?�

Reporting was contributed by Agustin Armendariz in London, Hana de Goeij in Prague, Milan Schreuer in Brussels, Akos Stiller in Budapest and Boryana Dzhambazova in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Full piece here has some graphics and stuff: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/world/europe/eu-farm-subsidy-hungary.html

# ? Nov 4, 2019 11:07

Orange Devil: Oct 1, 2010; Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

The Hungarian people deserve to discover the guillotine, to be honest.

Also CAP delenda est, change my mind.

# ? Nov 4, 2019 11:28

Junior G-man: Sep 15, 2004; Wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma

Orange Devil posted:

Also CAP delenda est, change my mind.

It's the only existing pot of money that holds up the European countryside, without it a hell of a lot of it - starting with the smaller farmers - would fall to poo poo?

Also, if properly reconfigured, it could actually do a lot of progressive work for climate and the environment? (not saying that that would be remotely easy, but still)

# ? Nov 4, 2019 11:32

Orange Devil: Oct 1, 2010; Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

Junior G-man posted:

It's the only existing pot of money that holds up the European countryside, without it a hell of a lot of it - starting with the smaller farmers - would fall to poo poo?

Also, if properly reconfigured, it could actually do a lot of progressive work for climate and the environment? (not saying that that would be remotely easy, but still)

Wouldn't this be the kind of reform that starts with taking CAP, taking out all the words currently in it and replacing them by entirely different words?

Like, what is required is not so much "reconfigure" as "rebuild from the ground up"?

# ? Nov 4, 2019 11:41

Junior G-man: Sep 15, 2004; Wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma

Orange Devil posted:

Wouldn't this be the kind of reform that starts with taking CAP, taking out all the words currently in it and replacing them by entirely different words?

Like, what is required is not so much "reconfigure" as "rebuild from the ground up"?

Not necessarily, but I'd say like 60% of it or so?

The problem with Europe is that once the pot of money is dedicated it's really hard to get rid of it, and once you do it gets spent on other stuff. If you eliminated the CAP tomorrow, all the budget would probably go to building border walls and hiring female camp guards - as long as the pot itself is called 'CAP' it's much more acceptable.

I would argue that it's actually really good to have a giant pot of pan-EU money dedicated to the countryside (since no national government currently funds it, and wouldn't pick up the slack once it fell - look at the UK lol), especially since issues of water management, pollution, biodiversity and climate are extremely transnational.

# ? Nov 4, 2019 11:54

Orange Devil: Oct 1, 2010; Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

I'm in favour of dumping massive resources into the countryside. I've been saying for years that the vicious cycle of continued population concentration (both internationally with east and south Europe migrating to west and north Europe en mass and intranationally with basically every country dealing with deserted countrysides for ever bigger [and more congested] urban conglomerations) is arguably one of the largest issues of today. And not because I mind immigrants, but because of the dislocating effects of the basically economically forced migration on both the migrants and those who stay behind in increasingly less viable communities.

Companies set up shop where the labour pool is. People move to where the jobs are, repeat ad infinitum until the whole continent is virtually empty except for a few massive cities.

It seems instead though that the EU has created a massive oversight-less pot of money nominally supposed to be used for helping the countryside, but practically run on an honour system.

The real fundamental issue here of course is as described in the article: the EU lacks mechanisms to deal with bad actors among its members. Because it was founded by liberals fully believing that they had reached the end of history and everyone else would be just like them forever. Utopian thinking, basically.

# ? Nov 4, 2019 12:13

Junior G-man: Sep 15, 2004; Wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma

Orange Devil posted:

It seems instead though that the EU has created a massive oversight-less pot of money nominally supposed to be used for helping the countryside, but practically run on an honour system.

The real fundamental issue here of course is as described in the article: the EU lacks mechanisms to deal with bad actors among its members. Because it was founded by liberals fully believing that they had reached the end of history and everyone else would be just like them forever. Utopian thinking, basically.

Oh God yeah, no doubt about all that (or about the move-to-the-city thing, though I doubt that that's unavoidable). The real problem right now is that Orban & co essentially would have to vote in favour of regulating themselves, and that .. uhhh ...

It's so signifying that the EPP still hasn't kicked our Orban, but only put him on the naughty step. They're clearly waiting for poo poo to die down so they can re-admit him.

# ? Nov 4, 2019 12:17

His Divine Shadow: Aug 7, 2000; I'm not a fascist. I'm a priest. Fascists dress up in black and tell people what to do.

It's another one of those EU issues that seems to be unsolvable, much like the euro.

EDIT:
I mean they can all be technically solved, but just lol at the likelyhood of those kinds of things happening. So things will just keep on lurching forwards, collapsing forwards?

# ? Nov 4, 2019 12:20

Tesseraction: Apr 5, 2009

If I recall correctly, isn't CAP's current shittiness a result of direct lobbying by France to protect their agricultural output?

# ? Nov 4, 2019 12:22

Junior G-man: Sep 15, 2004; Wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma

Tesseraction posted:

If I recall correctly, isn't CAP's current shittiness a result of direct lobbying by France to protect their agricultural output?

A little bit, but everyone always like to blame France while being quite happy to protect their own agricultural sector and not taking the first set of blame. The French are generally just better and more willing to defend their farmers - also because the farmers there are still relatively powerful and will actually come out and demonstrate?

I mean, there's lots of reasons the CAP is currently pretty bad, from farmers' unions to the per-hectare payment (though the production-first payment wasn't great either) to its environmental program. It's super multi-factoral.

# ? Nov 4, 2019 12:25

Tesseraction: Apr 5, 2009

In the UK all I know is that it's mostly a sop to the landed gentry and actually encourages them to destroy natural habitats (absolutely decimating biodiversity) in order to get subsidies for empty fields.

# ? Nov 4, 2019 12:32

YF-23: Feb 17, 2011; My god, it's full of cat!

It looks like the setup for a knockoff US civil war, with the post-Soviet bloc states trying to maintain their fiefdoms and serfs or some poo poo. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if the right-Eurosceptic parties re-allign themselves into a kind of "states' rights" kind of bloc as outright exit from the EU becomes more and more clearly unfeasible.

# ? Nov 4, 2019 12:42

Nothingtoseehere: Nov 11, 2010

The real problem with the EU is alot of the internal mechanisms are built around consensus decisions and allowing individual vetos, which works in a liberal group of 10ish countries but falls apart once you have a series of bad actors in the group who can back each other up.

# ? Nov 4, 2019 12:45

Junior G-man: Sep 15, 2004; Wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma

Tesseraction posted:

In the UK all I know is that it's mostly a sop to the landed gentry and actually encourages them to destroy natural habitats (absolutely decimating biodiversity) in order to get subsidies for empty fields.

ehhhhhh sort-of-kind-of-sometimes-true-sometimes-not ?

The CAP stopped paying farmers to expressly destroy the environment in the late 90s / early 2000s, I think - this was when we were paying farmers to dig up hedgerows over weird fears over diseases and pests living in them etc. Right now about 30% of the direct farm subsidies are directly linked to environmental goals (keeping permanent grasslands, 3-5% of the total farm area to be non-farming and dedicated to envi measures, and crop rotation). The overall direction there is pretty good, but the fine print of the rules is still pretty screwy and dependent on farmer good will.

In my experience, the landed gentry isn't significantly better or worse than a 'normal' farmer in terms of protecting biodiversity - it really depends on whether the individual farmer wants to do stuff. If they want to there's money and advice, if they don't (and that's the majority of farmers) then it doesn't happen or happens in such a way that allows them to fill out the forms without really making a difference. Also, subsidies for fallow fields can be super good

# ? Nov 4, 2019 12:47

Tesseraction: Apr 5, 2009

We had to bring them in once communism was defeated so they can liberalise!

*they all just immediately regress to Soviet-style totalitarianism*

....how could this have happened? Capitalism == fredom????

# ? Nov 4, 2019 12:47

Tesseraction: Apr 5, 2009

Junior G-man posted:

ehhhhhh sort-of-kind-of-sometimes-true-sometimes-not ?

The CAP stopped paying farmers to expressly destroy the environment in the late 90s / early 2000s, I think - this was when we were paying farmers to dig up hedgerows over weird fears over diseases and pests living in them etc. Right now about 30% of the direct farm subsidies are directly linked to environmental goals (keeping permanent grasslands, 3-5% of the total farm area to be non-farming and dedicated to envi measures, and crop rotation). The overall direction there is pretty good, but the fine print of the rules is still pretty screwy and dependent on farmer good will.

In my experience, the landed gentry isn't significantly better or worse than a 'normal' farmer in terms of protecting biodiversity - it really depends on whether the individual farmer wants to do stuff. If they want to there's money and advice, if they don't (and that's the majority of farmers) then it doesn't happen or happens in such a way that allows them to fill out the forms without really making a difference. Also, subsidies for fallow fields can be super good

I'm specifically thinking of the reporting by George Monbiot, culminating in this one https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/10/brexit-leaving-eu-farming-agriculture

quote:

Because payments are made only for land that�s in �agricultural condition�, the system creates a perverse incentive to clear wildlife habitats, even in places unsuitable for farming, to produce the empty ground that qualifies for public money. These payments have led to the destruction of hundreds of thousands of hectares of magnificent wild places across Europe.

quote:

Some landowners receive �1m or more. You don�t even have to live in the EU to take this money: you just have to own land here. Among the benefit tourists sucking up public funds in the age of austerity are Russian oligarchs, Saudi princes and Texas oil barons.

quote:

Yet even farmers have been hurt by these payments. European subsidies have helped turn farmland into a speculative honeypot, making it highly attractive to City financiers. The price of land has more than doubled since payments by the hectare were introduced, pushing it out of reach of most farmers. By reinforcing economies of scale, these subsidies have driven out small farmers and accelerated the consolidation of land ownership.

Not to say everything in the CAP is bad, but that the CAP has created a perverse CAPitalism that has priced smaller farmers out of the market.

# ? Nov 4, 2019 12:52

Orange Devil: Oct 1, 2010; Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

His Divine Shadow posted:

It's another one of those EU issues that seems to be unsolvable, much like the euro.

EDIT:
I mean they can all be technically solved, but just lol at the likelyhood of those kinds of things happening. So things will just keep on lurching forwards, collapsing forwards?

I wonder what happens to the institution once the strain of these internal contradictions becomes too much for it to bear...

# ? Nov 4, 2019 14:05

Orange Devil: Oct 1, 2010; Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

YF-23 posted:

It looks like the setup for a knockoff US civil war, with the post-Soviet bloc states trying to maintain their fiefdoms and serfs or some poo poo. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if the right-Eurosceptic parties re-allign themselves into a kind of "states' rights" kind of bloc as outright exit from the EU becomes more and more clearly unfeasible.

The East has a better standing army but the West is vastly richer. Nobody has any industry.

But it won't be all bad: Germany is the natural battleground. Get ready for 30 Years War II.

# ? Nov 4, 2019 14:09

Private Speech: Mar 30, 2011; I HAVE EVEN MORE WORTHLESS BEANIE BABIES IN MY COLLECTION THAN I HAVE WORTHLESS POSTS IN THE BEANIE BABY THREAD YET I STILL HAVE THE TEMERITY TO CRITICIZE OTHERS' COLLECTIONS

IF YOU SEE ME TALKING ABOUT BEANIE BABIES, PLEASE TELL ME TO

EAT. SHIT.

Tesseraction posted:

We had to bring them in once communism was defeated so they can liberalise!

*they all just immediately regress to Soviet-style totalitarianism*

....how could this have happened? Capitalism == fredom????

If you think that the EU portion of Eastern Europe is living under soviet-style totalitarianism then, loving hell, I don't even know what to say. Maybe you should talk to people from there more. In particular the idea of there being serfs is just utterly loving ludicruous - the portion of people employed in agriculture is tiny, and for almost all of them by choice.

Yeah teenagers and students sometimes work on farms to make some extra money (the other common options being distributing leaflets, working in a call centre, helping out with archeological digs, moving furniture or working in a fast-food outlet or similar). I loving did that myself, but not of some destitution - it's just a way of getting extra pocket money. Sure - if your parents are multi-millionaires then you might not have to, but otherwise it's really common, even among the children of upper-middle class professionals like doctors and advocates.

And yes there are issues which are somewhat more widespread than in contemporary western Europe - racism, sexism, corruption, poverty - but globally speaking it's still not that bad of a place, and it's not incomparable to somewhere like 80s-90s Britain. Which I wouldn't call Soviet-style totalitarianism either.

e:
I would even go as far as to say that suggestion would be very offensive to the vast majority of eastern europeans (at least from the EU part, the russian bloc of nations is a bit more complicated) and not because they are uneducated nationalistic barbarians who don't know any better, unlike us western ubermench, but precisely because they know how much better their lives have gotten over the last 3 decades.

Private Speech fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Nov 4, 2019

# ? Nov 4, 2019 15:44

Tesseraction: Apr 5, 2009

Private Speech posted:

I would even go as far as to say that suggestion would be very offensive to the vast majority of eastern europeans, and not because they are uneducated nationalistic barbarians unlike us western ubermench.

This is the Western European chauvenism megathread. :colbert:

More seriously I agree, it was a joke about the fact that the EU's supposed demands about human rights and social liberalism are manifestly not happening, and in countries like Poland and Hungary a plurality of voters are voting to undo progress. Conversely Slovakia is showing signs of a more progressive arc. Mocking the EU for assuming progressivism is driven by capitalism was the major butt of my joke.

# ? Nov 4, 2019 15:52

Truga: May 4, 2014; Lipstick Apathy

Private Speech posted:

but precisely because they know how much better their lives have gotten over the last 3 decades.

i love getting 24/7/365 access to bananas and oranges and not having to smuggle jeans and electronics over the border in exchange for lovely things like *checks notes* being able to own a home, being home from work by 1600, or ever retire. sounds fair, really

i'm literally living in a town where every year more people are switching to burning wood to save a couple bucks over the winter and it's gonna give everyone cancer, but hey, my life as a consumer of cheap american entertainment and plastic junk from china has gotten so much better!

# ? Nov 4, 2019 16:24

Tesseraction: Apr 5, 2009

Yeah the changes to Eastern Europe since The End of History is way to complicated to summarise as "old system bad, new system good" or "old system good, new system bad" but I do think it's worth acknowledging that the EU just figured that without those pesky Soviets around capitalism would solve everything that illed Eastern Europe.

Now, one thing I will say we absolutely need to apologise to Eastern Europe for is the amount of dickheads we send to Eastern Europe to get cunted on the cheap, leaving the locals to deal with the noise, piss, puke and congestion.

# ? Nov 4, 2019 16:30

Private Speech: Mar 30, 2011; I HAVE EVEN MORE WORTHLESS BEANIE BABIES IN MY COLLECTION THAN I HAVE WORTHLESS POSTS IN THE BEANIE BABY THREAD YET I STILL HAVE THE TEMERITY TO CRITICIZE OTHERS' COLLECTIONS

IF YOU SEE ME TALKING ABOUT BEANIE BABIES, PLEASE TELL ME TO

EAT. SHIT.

Truga posted:

i love getting 24/7/365 access to bananas and oranges and not having to smuggle jeans and electronics over the border in exchange for lovely things like *checks notes* being able to own a home, being home from work by 1600, or ever retire. sounds fair, really

i'm literally living in a town where every year more people are switching to burning wood to save a couple bucks over the winter and it's gonna give everyone cancer, but hey, my life as a consumer of cheap american entertainment and plastic junk from china has gotten so much better!

Also not having to deal with censorship, not having to serve in the army, not considering buying sweets twice a month a luxury, being able to read and write whatever books you want, being able to travel and migrate freely, having a good chance of going to university (without a bunch of idological commission backstabbing), not being subject to forced farm work (topical), not getting jailed for being in a pub on a workday, having ready access to abortions (exc. Poland), being able to be openly homosexual and trans (the latter to a degree), being able to get meaningfully involved with politics, being able to freely choose one's place of work, not getting arrested for a variety of petty ideological offences, etc.

You know, meaningless poo poo.

e:
Oh and if you are in a rural area go ask older people how many used wood for heating back in the soviet days, the answer might surprise you. It took forever to get my grandmother to stop burning plastic and particleboard, never mind wood.

I won't pretend there aren't issues with modern capitalism, particularly for young people who did not benefit from keeping their houses from the 80s and depopulated rural areas, but the creature comforts of life are incomparably better and e.g. income inequality is still among the lowest in the world (albeit depending on the country). Which might be a condemnation of the modern world more than anything else, but let's not pretend it's some horrid dystopian nightmare.

Private Speech fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Nov 4, 2019

# ? Nov 4, 2019 16:43

Truga: May 4, 2014; Lipstick Apathy

i dunno, i'd take not having to work my rear end off for a pittance and being able to retire one day over any of those these days.

obviously having a not lovely state is better, but i'll take a lovely commie state over a neoliberal hellscape. also lol jailed for being in a pub on a weekday, another thing that never happened

Private Speech posted:

Oh and if you are in a rural area go ask older people how many used wood for heating back in the soviet days, the answer might surprise you. It took forever to get my grandmother to stop burning plastic and particleboard, never mind wood.

yeah, rural. wood burning works fine when it's 3 houses per square km, most rurals here never stopped burning wood, and i see no reason to limit that. not so much when there's 100k+ other people around you, also burning wood.

# ? Nov 4, 2019 16:58

Private Speech: Mar 30, 2011; I HAVE EVEN MORE WORTHLESS BEANIE BABIES IN MY COLLECTION THAN I HAVE WORTHLESS POSTS IN THE BEANIE BABY THREAD YET I STILL HAVE THE TEMERITY TO CRITICIZE OTHERS' COLLECTIONS

IF YOU SEE ME TALKING ABOUT BEANIE BABIES, PLEASE TELL ME TO

EAT. SHIT.

Truga posted:

also lol jailed for being in a pub on a weekday, another thing that never happened

Literally did in the Czech Republic at least, I'll try to find an online source but basically if you were in a pub during the day on a workday there were inspections to check you were retired and if you weren't you'd get jailed for being workshy.

# ? Nov 4, 2019 17:04

Randarkman: Jul 18, 2011

I think there's some misconceptions here about wages, work conditions and labor rights in Eastern Europe during the communist era.

To put it short, it was neither good or progressive.

# ? Nov 4, 2019 17:07

Tesseraction: Apr 5, 2009

Randarkman posted:

I think there's some misconceptions here about wages, work conditions and labor rights in Eastern Europe during the communist era.

To put it short, it was neither good or progressive.

Truga is from Yugoslavia which might explain their different view on the situation compared to people directly under Soviet control.

# ? Nov 4, 2019 17:13

Randarkman: Jul 18, 2011

Truga posted:

yeah, rural. wood burning works fine when it's 3 houses per square km, most rurals here never stopped burning wood, and i see no reason to limit that. not so much when there's 100k+ other people around you, also burning wood.

He seems to be saying people in the countryside were often reduced to burning plastic and such for heating.

# ? Nov 4, 2019 17:15

Truga: May 4, 2014; Lipstick Apathy

Never said poo poo was good, conditions were pretty bad for most. I'm now at the point where my grandma's world war loving 2 survivor pension is an amazing 400 euros tho, and just getting someone to look after her costs ~600 a month cash, and everyone in the family is at work 24/7 and or has their own poo poo to handle so we can't really do it ourselves and a sitter is required because she's demented af. And just quitting my job won't do either, then we'll go broke.

Private Speech posted:

Literally did in the Czech Republic at least, I'll try to find an online source but basically if you were in a pub during the day on a workday there were inspections to check you were retired and if you weren't you'd get jailed for being workshy.

yikes

# ? Nov 4, 2019 17:17

Tesseraction: Apr 5, 2009

Private Speech posted:

Literally did in the Czech Republic at least, I'll try to find an online source but basically if you were in a pub during the day on a workday there were inspections to check you were retired and if you weren't you'd get jailed for being workshy.

[extremely StB voice] and why weren't you at work during the day, comrade?

# ? Nov 4, 2019 17:21

Private Speech: Mar 30, 2011; I HAVE EVEN MORE WORTHLESS BEANIE BABIES IN MY COLLECTION THAN I HAVE WORTHLESS POSTS IN THE BEANIE BABY THREAD YET I STILL HAVE THE TEMERITY TO CRITICIZE OTHERS' COLLECTIONS

IF YOU SEE ME TALKING ABOUT BEANIE BABIES, PLEASE TELL ME TO

EAT. SHIT.

Tesseraction posted:

[extremely StB voice] and why weren't you at work during the day, comrade?

Oh you still had time off, but you were expected to use it in some socially responsible manner (so not getting drunk).

# ? Nov 4, 2019 17:28

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# ? May 25, 2024 14:32

Tesseraction: Apr 5, 2009

Private Speech posted:

Oh you still had time off, but you were expected to use it in some socially responsible manner (so not getting drunk).

Shying away from work, eh? Those holidays should be spent furthering the emancipation of the people from the binding chains of capitalism. A night in the pokey should get you fired up to get back to work.

# ? Nov 4, 2019 17:34

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