this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025
32 points (97.1% liked)

Europe

6526 readers
980 users here now

News and information from Europe 🇪🇺

(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)

Rules (2024-08-30)

  1. This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
  2. No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
  3. Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
  4. No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
  5. Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
  6. If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
  7. Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in !yurop@lemm.ee. (They're cool, you should subscribe there too!)
  8. Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
  9. No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
  10. Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.

(This list may get expanded as necessary.)

Posts that link to the following sources will be removed

Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media. Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com

(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)

Ban lengths, etc.

We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.

If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.

If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the primary mod account @EuroMod@feddit.org

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

‘Nato’s going to become very strong with us,’ says US president, as secretary general calls him ‘daddy’

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] F04118F@feddit.nl 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's not something to be proud of, that's obvious.

But Rutte was not made secretary-general because of his personal pride. I wasn't happy to have him as prime minister, at all, for all those years, but he is very good at one thing: getting everyone in the room to agree and making everyone in the room feel heard.

This is how you get Trump to be enthusiastic about your project. He is using Trump's ego to get him om board with NATO. This is top-tier manipulation, and it's working!

Rutte is the perfect man for this job, and this is exactly why. No pride, no ego, just doing whatever it takes to keep the unity in NATO and to ensure we are strong enough to deter Russia.

[–] sucius@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

There's no appeasing a bully. He'll come back for more if you give in. And now it seems whatever moronic idea born from his late night twitter mental diarrhea festivals, Ratte is gone eat up. Still, not surprising at all, Ratte was always a rat and a hypocrite

[–] FortyTwo@lemmy.world -1 points 1 week ago

I don't think this is appeasing a bully, this is actually giving him very little. Appeasement would have involved actually giving him something. The increase to 3.5% is back to around cold war levels, which seems very appropriate for the current geopolitical situation. The final 1.5% is essentially an accounting trick to make whatever expenses you like count towards the 5%, like road maintenance or technological R&D, it would be hard not to reach this target. Plus this money can now be increasingly spent on Europe's own companies instead of sending 1-2% of yearly GDP straight to the US economy, especially once economies of scale start picking up.

This is just what Europe was planning to do on its own, but framing it in a way that strokes Trump's ego and lets him claim it as his victory. Especially after a few years this will not be a positive change for the US. I'll happily sacrifice Rutte's pride if it means Europe gets exactly what it wanted.