Free Republic

PVV has not made any further progress since the previous poll. Geert Wilders' party - which recorded a large increase in December 2023 - will be two seats slightly lower in the new year with 45 seats (47 in December).

ITALY -- Italian regulators said they told OpenAI that its ChatGPT artificial intelligence chatbot has violated European Union’s stringent data privacy rules. The country’s data protection authority, known as Garante, said on Monday that it notified San Francisco-based OpenAI of breaches of the EU rules, known as General Data Protection Regulation. The watchdog started investigating ChatGPT last year, when it temporarily banned within Italy the chatbot that can produce text, images and sound in response to users’ questions. Based on the results of its “fact-finding activity,” the watchdog said it “concluded that the available evidence pointed to the existence of...

The European Union has just run crosswise with Captain James T. Kirk, and by any measure the Captain is right to blast Europe’s left-wing, nanny state, cancel culture, loons for their latest “diversity” move. This week, news broke that the EU — which apparently stands for Entirely Useless — is looking to make the world safe from evil “gendered” words, like man, male, guys, and anything testosterone related, The Telegraph reported. This impinges directly on one of Captain Kirk’s most famous lines, the one that serves as the opening monologue to the famed 1966 series, “Star Trek.” TV viewers and...

In a somber admission, the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, conveys a gloomy outlook on the Ukrainian conflict, stating, “We do not see the light at the end of the Ukrainian tunnel.” Despite European sanctions, Borrell acknowledges that they have only weakened, not destroyed, the Russian military machine. This confession comes as Ukraine’s hopes of defeating Russia appear to be fading, with President Zelensky pleading for more support amid international fatigue and political gridlock. The Washington Post reports a sense of desperation within Ukraine’s corridors of power, highlighting the country’s plea for arms, aid, and political commitments. Two years...

The upcoming European Parliament elections will see a “sharp turn to the right” as populist parties are projected to be victorious in at least nine EU member states and come in second or third in a further nine countries. According to an analysis of opinion polls in each EU member state in combination with statistical modelling based on the previous performance of national parties, the globalist European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) think tank has predicted that right-wing populist parties will come out on top in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Slovakia in...

At an undetermined date, in an undisclosed location, the Biden administration began operating a secretive new court to protect Europeans’ privacy rights under U.S. law. Officially known as the Data Protection Review Court, it was authorized in an October 2022 executive order to fix a collision of European and American law that had been blocking the lucrative flow of consumer data between American and European companies for three years. The court’s eight judges were named last November, including former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Its existence has allowed companies to resume the lucrative transatlantic data trade with the blessing of...

At the opening of the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for increased cooperation between governments and private businesses to enact tech censorship in the face of “industrial scale disinformation”.Following in the example of WEF Chairman Klaus Schwab’s ‘Global Risk Report’, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen used her address in Davos on Tuesday to highlight the supposed risks of allowing the free flow of information in light of the alleged threat of “disinformation and disinformation”. (snip) Going into the election year, Brussels will have also have more censorship powers...

'Our freedom comes with risks,' European Union (EU) President Ursula von der Leyen told the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. 'The top concern is ... disinformation and misinformation [as] the boundary between online and offline is getting thinner and thinner.' The European Commission’s pursuit of digital ID on a global scale became none more apparent than during President Ursula von der Leyen’s remarks to the globalist elite at the World Economic Forum (WEF). "The top concern for the next two years is not conflict, or climate, it is disinformation and misinformation," she said in Davos, Switzerland on January 16....

While EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen praised Ukrainian “democratic institutions” and promised more billions for the NATO proxy war in her speech before the EU Parliament, AfD MEP Bernhard Zimniok blasted von der Leyen and the EU for stonewalling the death of US journalist Gonzalo Lira and called for an independent investigation. Official Ukrainian spokesperson Michael “Sarah” Cirillo continued to mock the dead US journalist on Twitter/X. “The case of US journalist Gonzalo Lira, who died in a Ukrainian prison last week, shows that Ukraine has nothing in common with our values,“ MEP Bernhard Zimniok said in the...

Former Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski and his deputy Maciej Wasik were detained by police and taken to prison on Tuesday after being convicted of abuse of power. [...] ANTI-CORRUPTION AGENCY Kaminski was first elected a member of parliament in 1997 and was re-elected in 2001 and 2005. He resigned in 2006 to become the head of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau. Political opponents said he and his associates pursued corruption with excessive zeal, using methods they said sometimes circumvented laws and hounding innocent people. PARDON In 2015, Kaminski and Wasik were found guilty and sentenced to three years in prison....

The EU will begin taking British travellers’ fingerprints and scanning their faces from next autumn, as reported by the i and the Times. The new Entry/Exit Scheme (EES) could reportedly come into force on October 6, 2024 after several delays. It was initially due to begin in 2022, then in 2023. Non-EU (including British) travellers heading to the EU will have their fingerprints checked and their faces scanned the first time they enter the zone. It will apply to all EU countries except Cyprus and Ireland. Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, which are in the Schengen area but are not...

The EU is preparing a back-up plan worth up to €20bn for Ukraine, using a debt structure that sidesteps the objections of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán about funding the war-torn country.

EU officials will begin drawing up a list of extremist Israeli settlers who have been attacking Palestinians in the West Bank so they may be subject to potential sanctions, according to the EU’s chief diplomat. The announcement by Josep Borrell followed the statement earlier by Tánaiste Micheál Martin that Ireland would be “very open” to imposing sanctions and travel bans on extremist settlers if there is no agreement at EU level. Mr. Borrell, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Policy, said the issue was discussed during today’s meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels. While there was as yet no...

The European Commission has harshly denounced the blockade at the Ukrainian border instigated by Polish truckers and farmers, threatening legal action against the government in Warsaw. "The truth is that I find the situation at the Polish border with Ukraine absolutely unacceptable," Adina Vălean, the European Commissioner for transport, said on Wednesday. "While I support the right of people to protest, the entire EU, not to mention Ukraine, a country currently at war, cannot be taken hostage by blocking our external borders. It's as simple as that." Since 6 November, Polish truckers and farmers have blocked transit through different border...

During a SMER party conference, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico declared that his government will not sign the World Health Organisation’s Pandemic Treaty and SMER Members of Parliament will not ratify in parliament the Pandemic Treaty with the WHO because it is a project of greedy pharmaceutical companies. Robert Fico was appointed as Slovakia’s Prime Minister for the fourth time on 25 October 2023 after his SMER – Slovenská Sociálna Demokracia (“SMER”) party won the election on 30 September and formed a coalition with the centre-left HLAS – Sociálna Demokracia (“HLAS”) and nationalist Slovenská Národná Strana (“SNS”) parties. A week...

On 22 November, 11 Members of the Estonian Parliament wrote a letter to the World Health Organisation (“WHO”) to reject the proposed international agreement on pandemic prevention preparedness and response – also known as the “Pandemic Treaty” or “Pandemic Accord”. The letter also rejects the amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005) (“IHR”). Last month we published an article explaining that in May 2022 the World Health Assembly (“WHA”) quietly agreed to reduce the period during which nations have to opt out of future amendments to the International Health Regulations. For nations to retain the longer 18-month period previously allowed...

Russia barred entry to a number of officials from Moldova on Monday and complained about moves by its pro-European government to block Russian media outlets ahead of local elections earlier this month. The moves were the latest in a series of acerbic exchanges between the two sides and allegations by Moldova that Russia has been exerting pressure on the ex-Soviet state's affairs and President Maia Sandu's drive to join the European Union. A Russian foreign ministry statement said Moldovan Ambassador Lilian Darie was summoned to be told of the decision. "The Moldovan side was presented with a decisive protest in...

Polish President Andrzej Duda expressed support for Ukraine's accession to NATO and the EU in a video address posted to the platform X on Nov. 21. The message of support arrived on the 10th anniversary of Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, a grassroots social uprising that grew out of pro-EU demonstrations in the fall of 2013. Duda congratulated Ukraine on the European Commission's recommendation to begin EU accession talks and said Poland would continue to support Ukrainian sovereignty in its fight against Russian aggression. "Because no one understands better than the Poles what a high price to pay for freedom and...

Europe and the U.S. have been arguing that wealthier emerging economies such as China and Saudi Arabia should also give money to the fund. Hoekstra said that what is true for the European Union and North America should be true for any country in a position of economic and geopolitical strength. “And that means driving down emissions and doing your fair share in covering the bill for those who cannot,” he said. Given the magnitude of the problem, “every single country with the ability to pay and the ability to contribute should contribute,” he said. A statement issued by China’s...

"We made a tolerance offer to Brussels: every country can deal with #migration the way they want to, but they cannot force #Hungary to copy the failed migration policies of Western Europe. We don’t want #terrorism, gang wars and mini Gazas in Budapest!" Viktor Orban Twitter