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.
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I wish us Americans did.
I wish about half of us weren’t smoothbrain fuckwits.
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.
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.
Two thirds, you mean.
You gotta count the authoritarian followers and the ones top stupid to vote at all.
We have options. They aren’t all pleasant options, nor am I advocating them. But we have options.
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.
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.
You will notice that only countries which have to suck up to the USA (for reasons) did the Bibi thing.
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.
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.
Well this has economic and soft power benefits. Standing up against genocide apparently was t beneficial enough.
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.
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
Germany would be pretty excellent actually, the part of Wisconsin I grew up in has a long German heritage. I did look into it, but my German ancestors came over in the 1850s which appeared to disqualify me from automatic citizenship. Are there websites or recruiting companies that specialize in finding jobs in the EU for foreigners? Thank you!
Try this one:
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.
Yeah, this is what I’ve heard. I’m absolutely willing to learn a new language, but understand that ‘willing to learn’ and ‘already knows’ are two different things. Do you know of any websites that aggregate job postings with visa sponsorships?
I’d be a much happier person if I knew any.
Most job posting websites are inundated with crap postings, it’s hard enough to find a job posting that has an actual job behind it, and not just some shitty HR company collecting data. And the market is in a downturn, some of those people laid off in a wave are still looking for jobs.
Don’t get me wrong, I hope for the best for you, and I hope you get to make the move, it’s just that I had a very recent, very bad experience with the whole thing.
All I can say is that job postings vary by country, it’s like social media, one country is all Linkedin, the next one will go all on Indeed, some places will have their own platforms… try researching a specific country.
Yeah, that’s what I’ve found so far as well, mostly crap postings (though frankly it feels little different in the US). I’ve had Sweden in mind for awhile, have done some digging and have the Pimsleur Swedish course downloading. Found an email for an aerospace professor with research in my field of interest but haven’t reached out yet. Did reach out to a former professor/research lead to pick his brain about emigrating in general this morning but haven’t heard back yet.
Frankly though, the career, mission, dream I was striving for is in the hands of a manchild throwing fascist salutes at the US presidential inauguration and that pisses me the fuck off. I’m trained as an engineer but am not opposed to wearing multiple hats, Ukraine looks like it could use a hand and I’m all about mutual aid.
Hope it works out for you, but research postings also tend to be competitive here since a lot are decently paid - not well, but decently - and quality education is much easier to get in Europe than the US, at least financially speaking.
I know multiple people doing a second master just for that competitive edge in the lull in the market. They are staying in uni because it makes financial sense. Imagine that.
My tuition is 2k for the whole masters at a global top 10 place.
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.
I’m not looking for a safe haven; did the Ukraine question not make that clear? I am looking to contribute my mental labor to a country with a functioning social contract. I put a lot of time and work into this degree to escape the anti-intellectualism of rural Midwest USA, but it appears the anti-intellectualism made it out before I did so now I must look further afield.
I hope you find what you’re looking for then
Pan-continentality is nice
Seems like that flag breaks a commandment or two. But I don’t expect anyone to have actually read the damned things
Yeah no, Europe is toast. For most of the continent the demographics are terminal. In the US we have a large Millennial and gen Z population that can replace the boomers. Europe doesn’t have that.
People between the ages of 25 to 45 power the economy through consumption because they are trying to establish households and families. They do not have enough young people to support their own industries. Much like China they need export markets like the US where consumption is strong to stay afloat. The US is the only rich market that will be consumption driven for the next 20 or 30 years before our it’s demographics begin to fail.
However, Trump is all bluster, he will back down if he can score some kind of win even if it is small. He can’t start trade wars with most of the world’s major economies without inciting rampant inflation in the US. That’s why he didn’t implement his tariffs on day one of his presidency like he promised. Ignore him or give him something small and he will go away.
Stop giving him attention and taking his words seriously. He is just trying to dominate the news cycle.
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.
