Speech by Ralf Dekker MP to the Dutch Parliament, 18 March 2025Chairman,Forum for Democracy has argued here on many occasions that the European response to the geopolitical tensions which have arisen in the context of the Ukraine conflict should not primarily be to boost Europe's military strength but instead to take diplomatic initiatives, both towards Russia and the United States.The conflict in Ukraine is essentially a proxy war between the United States and Russia. This much has now been explicitly admitted by US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. Compared to other proxy wars, such as the former war between North and South Vietnam, this conflict is even closer to a direct confrontation between Russia and America because the Ukrainian war operations are controlled by the United States, or NATO, both in terms of armaments and also largely in terms of command and control and information.Talks between Russia and the US, which fortunately are now finally taking place, are working towards a lasting peace solution with the earlier 2022 Istanbul agreement as a starting point. If successful, hostilities in Ukraine will soon be over.Unfortunately, instead of diplomacy, the European Union, and also in large majority this Chamber, is choosing what we believe to be a completely hopeless, prohibitively expensive and counterproductive military route that will increase, rather than ease, tensions on our continent.Under the banner of ‘ReArm Europe’, the European Commission has announced initiatives to make €800 billion available within the European Union for defence purposes in the coming years. To this end, the European budgetary rules are being stretched to allow an increase in defence investment of 1.5% GDP per member state for 4 years, using the so-called escape clause. Member states would then thus be allowed to have a 4.5% budget deficit. This could generate around € 650 billion in additional national defence spending.In addition, the European Commission is considering additional borrowing on the capital market on behalf of the EU for a total of € 150 billion and lending this on to member states. This can be done within budget rules by using the so-called headroom as security for these loans.In this way, with a few more measures, the financial headroom would be created to continue helping Ukraine and build its own defence force and industry within Europe aimed at countering threats from Russia. An insane plan.We can argue whether this mode of financing fits within current EU budget rules. It seems that, strictly speaking, it does. But it is obvious that it further increases the volume of EU funds and requires member states to stretch themselves financially even more than already to make it possible. This further weakens the EU's already shaky financial edifice. Many countries already in an unhealthy financial position will be put under greater pressure.&nbsp; &nbsp; Particularly where the ‘loans for loans’ formula of 150 billion is concerned, it is ultimately the case that member states, through the EU, will be guaranteeing each other.&nbsp;Furthermore, it is clear that a sensible coherent spending of the € 800 billion will require European coordination and regulation, as the Prime Minister already hinted in his letter. Conditions will be attached to both national spending of the borrowed EU money, and also to approval in the application of national escape clauses. De facto, the EU Commission will have considerable control over the use of these funds. Although structured differently, this is still very reminiscent of the Covid Fund where the European Commission determines what national states can spend money on.More power to the EU is what we want less of, Chairman.Forum for Democracy strongly opposes these European defence plans.But if it is going to happen anyway, we have to be prepared for it. That means as big a role as possible for Dutch industry in the possible building of the European defence apparatus. And as little say as possible for the EU in the spending of Dutch tax money.Thank youText for a motionProposed March 18, 2025The Chamber,having heard the deliberations,noting that efforts are underway at the EU level to strengthen European military capability;whereas the said efforts will entail some degree of coordination and cooperation at the EU level;whereas coordination by the EU could easily result in moves to create a European army;states that in the organization of defence in the EU the sovereignty of the Member States must remain unaffected and that a European army, in whatever form, cannot be envisaged,and moves on to the order of the day.Ralk DekkerFor once, this FVD motion was carried by a majority of the House:<img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXezaWN9QaE7D4ewBivdEAK32QXDmqOIQ68y1zDJ55Hv4q_EMYbANQCLoxh9Xx6kERq1fkoZbOuWILm6lLJzIu3HUARddQtK_87OoRGafOUwgQv9OA-AVBNEBOpyOhnTpQ4H5ymjnA?key=dgoKG4AD_BuPnBljQ4hNQun7">

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No to a European army!

Climate policy must stopSpeech by Lidewij de Vos in the Second Chamber of the Dutch parliament.12 March 2025Chairman,Thank you, Chairman. Climate change is of all times. 150,000 years ago, we were in the middle of an ice age. So were we 20,000 years ago. The Netherlands was under an ice cap, which brought boulders from which people built dolmens. Between these two ice ages, we had a warm period, an interglacial.This variation in the climate can be explained using Milankovitch's theory. The Earth's orbit around the sun and the position of the Earth's axis follow cycles of tens of thousands of years, which determine the alternation between ice ages and interglacials.And even on a smaller scale, the climate is not unchanging. A millennium ago, the Vikings moved to Greenland during the Warm Medieval Period. 500 years later, people skated during the long winters of the Little Ice Age.Since 1850, things have been getting a little warmer again. At the same time, our society has industrialised on a large scale, resulting in CO2 emissions, and people have started measuring and thus observing a rise in temperature.But is this change unique? And is the cause higher levels of CO2 in the air? It is these two assumptions that form the foundation of the zero CO2 policy we are discussing today. And it is therefore crucial to assess them.In 1999, the IPCC published the hockey stick graph (1). I have it here with me. The graph shows the course of temperature since the year 1000, and shows an almost constant temperature with a drastic rise in the last century (the black line). Hence the name hockey stick.<img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXencLs60Frae6o_HhM-7HZz9d4Rb1a_RkfGRNO4wbZlL2mtyCKTNhlw64VEN8bPVBHk49Ttxn7lSJbVBIlACT3fLYa4o8udcxIK9FGB32Hrat4ZSbwVuBTSRj8s8ONPrVk6SsvfQw?key=NSYoszAO9F06vZiffmJcOZl6"><ol><li>Hockey stick Graph</li></ol>A remarkable scale, if we keep in mind the time scale of ice ages. But more importantly, the underlying data of this graph is wrong. Data series have been broken up or padded with data from other years for reasons that are unclear. And with cleaned-up data, you get a graph of fluctuations that match our historical lore (the green line).So an unprecedented temperature rise is, at the very least, unproven, and in the extreme, not an issue. How does minister Hermans view this?Regarding CO2, it is true that higher CO2 levels in the past hundreds of thousands of years have coincided with higher temperatures, and vice versa. But it seems that temperature increases always precede CO2 increases, and not vice versa. After an ice age, the oceans warm up and hold less CO2, which raises atmospheric levels. Please comment on this as well.President. Time scales of tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of years have uncertainties. Perhaps, therefore, the only pure conclusion is that we do not, or not yet, properly understand climate.With that, the firmness of climate fanatics is in any case misplaced. The hockey stick graph is wrong. The decisive influence of CO2 on the current temperature rise is unproven. There is no reason to think that climate cycles of tens of thousands of years are confused by human activity over the past 150 years. Anyone who does think so is overestimating the impact of us humans on the earth.But that is exactly what almost all parties in this Chamber do. Billions go to offshore wind turbines and billions to solar panels and wind turbines on roofs and pastures. Our stable and affordable energy supply is being dismantled by turning off the Groningen gas tap, while meanwhile our electricity grid is clogging up. Based on a misguided idea about climate change, this Chamber has passed the Climate Act, which forces us to take extremely expensive and pointless measures.Chairman, I cannot but conclude that this climate policy must stop. Forum for Democracy wants to protect our economy, preserve the purchasing power of Dutch people and therefore put an end to this irresponsible waste of money.Thank you.

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Climate Policy Must Stop

How should Europe and the world take advantage of the Trump era? This is the question former Czech president Vaclav Klaus addressed in a speech in Slovakia last week, which we are honoured to publish. Klaus sees the Trump era as an opportunity because the US president has returned the world to a pre-Wilsonian era of transactionalism. In other words, he is breaking with practices which are more than 100 years old – what Klaus calls the ‘we are all friends’ way of doing politics. Unfortunately Klaus is not optimistic that Europe will take advantage of this. Instead, European politicians, intellectually unwilling and institutionally unable to pursue national interests, are hunkering down and hoping for the Trump era to pass. It is the policy of the ostrich, the bird which can run but cannot fly.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/can-we-avoid-wasting-the-unique-opportunity-offered-to-us-by-trumps-presidency">Read Vaclav Klaus’ article here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXffvRr78bx75QiMtbPyvvAhv-LBVl5umk6EqotMJIUzPja1ugS7LGb7RPQiTxXzeQrSkVNkZ83GzGvWV5SGJ0SFm4CfJGeq0UgugwFY8ikYyCZqZbXtUL-kUp_Bi9DOMEFPbkBx?key=gsB3Sh6Y32qReTyKBzQyalH2"> Instead of taking advantage of the Trump era to return to a policy of national interests, Europe is taking advantage of the Trump era to accelerate a policy of serving the personal and institutional interests of the European Union. The plan to spend an extra 800 billion euros on ‘defence’ is intended to create a European federal state with its own army. But this will not make Europe stronger. It will simply launder ever more tax money into the Brussels institutions. Accountancy tricks do not win wars.&nbsp; Instead, the new debt will lead to further inflation and impoverishment. FVD International’s director, John Laughland, spoke to RT shortly after the London mini-summit to explain the boring truth behind the unconvincing myth of a newly independent Europe.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiMCZPYzvLw&amp;ab_channel=FVDInternational">Watch John Laughland's interview here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXewThGrYm1x0i65fUFv_9Y26yPo5eUXsILWUv06YYBWcSCAty4msURWP-Mme9Uq5GrZ6zyoEqDRKtNicvUcsYKVHeWxFstBAfzEEQYO_kX-EDRFoXqT5-29Bnqr06cNCMt7MK0p?key=gsB3Sh6Y32qReTyKBzQyalH2">‘No guts, no glory’ is an old saying among bankers and investors, as Ralf Dekker MP pointed out in a recent speech to the Second Chamber of the Dutch parliament. Pleasure and a full life involve risk. Yet for too long Europe has become ever-more risk-averse. The obsession with health, especially tobacco, is now so deep that we have got used to being told by the state how to live our lives. A dreary nannying protectionism hangs over everything like a damp fog.&nbsp; Unless Europe can rediscover the pleasure which comes from pleasure, it will remain forever in a smokeless, loveless and joyless miasma of goody-goody protectionism – a sort of living death.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fcWG32wkRA&amp;ab_channel=FVDInternational">Watch Ralf Dekker’s speech here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXd-AXgLwFcgKe2sEu-xMc9irHC75UIQ1cB7XRMWbWPUbuiuqXJq6mi_1Ol_gSLKKM5gxGfXgzPhmVi8iM7hYRxODSumm7s0aIPLe6f1cB0AQq1p-WtECZr0cFoEYGLHTRJ52-Ij-g?key=gsB3Sh6Y32qReTyKBzQyalH2">According to Jobst Landgrebe, an extremely intelligent German mathematician and philosopher, the scare over artificial intelligence is a myth. Machines cannot take over the world, as he demonstrates experimentally and mathematically. Instead, the AI scare is designed to implement ever more sinister levels of social control. If you missed The Forum this week, where he was our guest, please listen back to it.&nbsp; It was a superb discussion.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGa9ZWR2bbE&amp;t=5s&amp;ab_channel=FVDInternational">Listen back to The Forum here</a>

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The Weekly Forum - 14 March

This speech was given at the Istropolis Summit, Primaciálny palác, Bratislava, March 7, 2025.I don’t intend to analyse and critically evaluate the details of Trump’s policies announced or introduced in the first days and weeks of his presidency. Their overall impact and their implicit side effects are much more relevant. And that is very positive, at least in my view.&nbsp;Because Trump has been doing it in his special style, this style receives undue attention, much bigger than the content. Partly correctly, partly incorrectly. His way of doing politics is, of course, unimaginable in Europe, but we are not Americans, and we don’t have American traditions and a majoritarian electoral system. As I see it, Trump has started&nbsp;a new era of international politics which is much more important.&nbsp;Some commentators see this as a return to the “concert of superpowers”, but they are wrong.&nbsp;Trump has “only” returned national interests into the substance of politics. He doesn’t like empty moralizing. As a businessman, he prefers negotiating and making deals rather than preaching good intentions. His approach has not been the way how international politics has been done since the Wilsonian era which started one hundred years ago. This era is over, however.Such a change was much needed and will have huge consequences. It will, undoubtedly, sharpen the world’s insincere&nbsp;“we are all friends” way of doing politics. It will increase existing conflicts and enhance the risks of creating new ones. Nevertheless, Trump’s change was necessary after decades of the empty ideology of collective security based on United Nations inefficient style of dealing with world problems. But the criticism of the past is not something I would like to devote to here now.I am much more interested in discussing what it will mean for us, for our fates, for our chances to make necessary changes also here, in Europe, and especially in our Central Europe. This should interest us more than anything else. We should be frank and sharp in analysing our situation, something our politicians are not seriously doing.&nbsp;I said “we”. The problem starts with what we mean by using the pronoun “we”.&nbsp;I am here as a Czech at an event organized in Slovakia by a Hungarian think tank.&nbsp;Both countries – Hungary and Slovakia – find themselves on an upward march, and both have leaders who know that they were elected&nbsp;to serve their own countries, not Brussels. They both refuse to accept all the absurdities of progressivism, multiculturalism, environmentalism and globalism. They feel obliged to do politics in the interest of the citizens of their own countries, not of Brussels bureaucracy, not of Soros-type NGOs, not of UN apparatchiks, and not of the international universalist media which speak to the people who&nbsp;belong anywhere but don’t understand that we, some of us, want&nbsp;to live somewhere. I want to live in the Czech Republic.&nbsp;I am, partly, being held back in my statements here today because I principally disagree with doing politics from abroad – instead of at home. Unfortunately, this has become a fashionable but evidently counterproductive practice these days. I want to say very resolutely that&nbsp;Czech politicians don’t behave as their Slovakian and Hungarian colleagues do.&nbsp;This narrows the limits of my freedom to discuss relevant topics of today’s world here in Bratislava now. I am probably old fashioned, but after three decades in high political functions, I am not an independent columnist.Trump’s election victory and his radical entry into his office shook the world. He attacked many long-standing habits, traditions, and behavioural patterns, and by doing so he endangered the comfortable existence of many European politicians who had been living in a world of irresponsibility and inefficiency made possible by the relatively quiet developments after the fall of communism.By returning to national interests,&nbsp;Trump challenges globalism and main global institutions and organizations which have been for a long time opposing the idea of a nation state and its sovereign politics. He dared to attack several almost sacred ideas of the currently dominant and politically correct progressivist doctrines. His surprizing election victory proved to all sophisticated pessimists (including me) that something seemingly impossible is possible.The usually very loud and excessively self-assured exponents and advocates of the pre-Trump world are silent now. To my great regret that won’t last for long. We must make use of the temporary chaos, confusion and shock of all those who feel offended in their self-perceived greatness. We must take advantage of the suddenly opened window of opportunity and start making&nbsp;resolute changes – resolute changes if we are in government and active preparations for elections if we are not. Such an opportunity will not return anytime soon.Europe, or rather the European Union, has not done anything worth mentioning yet. Its politicians hesitate. They still believe they could return to their old ways of political behaviour&nbsp;when the storm is over. This is exactly what also the Czech politicians do. Many of them are convinced that the storm will be over soon.I disagree. This daydreaming will come relatively rapidly to an end when Trump begins to move beyond mere rhetoric as regards the Ukraine war. Last Friday’s “incident” in Washington D.C. is a proof of that. Trump’s direct talks with Putin made European politicians nervous. They have invested – quite irrationally – so much in supporting Ukraine that they need to get tangible results and, last but not least, some benefits for themselves.&nbsp;That will be difficult to get. When Trump indicated that he wants to lick up all the cream, as we say in Czech, European politicians became nervous and unable to react rationally.&nbsp;In spite of all my pessimism, I am convinced that&nbsp;the end of the Ukraine war will return some degree of freedom and democracy, both of which have been in Europe substantially weakened by the war. This will give us a chance for being more active, more open and more courageous.&nbsp;Let me return to the question I put into the title of my address: “Can We Avoid Wasting the Opportunity Offered to Us by Trump’s Presidency?” To my great regret, I have to confess that&nbsp;I am not very optimistic in this regard:1.&nbsp; We are indecisive, uncourageous, and spoilt by years of inactivity and comfortable life;2.&nbsp; We are divided (both among countries and inside countries);3.&nbsp; We, as states, have already lost an important part of our sovereignty (by handing it over to Brussels by Maastricht and Lisbon Treaties);4.&nbsp; &nbsp;We don’t have a meaningful system of political parties. Existing parties are inconsistent in both their thinking and behaviour. They are not ideologically well-defined. Their members are motivated more to be in power than to politically lead the country;5.&nbsp; All political parties are more or less accepting the tenets of contemporary dominant ideologies of environmentalism, multiculturalism, genderism, progressivism, and globalism, which makes them almost indistinguishable.&nbsp;They are all green, even though they don’t have this adjective explicitly engraved in their titles. We are returning to something like a National Front way of doing politics, which we experienced in the communist era.These only sketched out, not fully developed “characteristics” of our situation indicate that Europe, and particularly Central Europe may very easily waste the opportunity offered by Trump’s victory and by his in many respects revolutionary way of starting his term. I am afraid we will stay divided, unwilling to oppose the Brussels’ decisions and directives, our political parties will continue to predominantly take care of their distinguished members and functionaries, instead of pushing for the long-overdue changes our countries need. (Political parties should stop functioning as quasi-social service agencies and instead become genuine proponents of new political ideas.)&nbsp;We should be prepared for the desperate attempts of old political entities and structures&nbsp;to return the world before Trump’s victory. I expect the intensification of efforts and activities from both the EU politicians and bureaucracy (and nomenclatura) as well as from long-serving politicians in individual European states with their mutual almost fraternal relations, from influential celebrities of well-known political NGOs, from corporatist bosses of big business firms that have long lived from governments’ benefits, and last but not least from global media leaders, all working to turn the course of history backwards.It is up to us whether we passively accept this sad fate or whether we try to move forward. I wish both Hungarian and Slovakian organizers of this gathering to be able to continue moving their countries in the right direction. In this respect, Donald Trump is a great source of inspiration.&nbsp;

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Can We Avoid Wasting the Unique Opportunity Offered to Us by Trump’s Presidency?

The Ukraine issue continues to develop at breakneck speed but the two sides in the argument are speaking different languages. On the ‘pro-Ukraine’ side (in reality, pro-globalist) there is the language of ‘morality,’ World War II, Hitler, appeasement and so on. These are all ideological talking points designed not to convince but to humiliate the opponent.&nbsp; On the ‘pro-peace’ side, realism. Realism is what FVD has called for since the beginning of the war and Ralf Dekker did so again this week in Parliament – the day before General Kellogg, Trump’s Ukraine envoy, told the Council of Foreign Relations that Russia currently has more soldiers in Ukraine than there are in the entire US army, and that the Ukrainian losses are greater than US losses in Vietnam and Korea combined. What, realistically, can Europe do against such overwhelming force except sue for peace and look to the future? And what is moral about continuing a war which has patently been lost?<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/a-plea-for-realism">Read Ralf Dekker’s speech here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcvmVrWr0ecy20GqqOoyCTRdDiX47hhIMDs_3cONKnhaE-2kTh-Beo91Q8HFF5mWvW9304yLPjb_w-U3WWOR0CY1mJcq2YlTnUwHcVVi1EX59mfBCjzOrwmZuPeEH7dN3tYZOCR?key=r7C4EtWS2qUkkI3p2S92OdzW">However, the other side does not give up easily. In the week when the European Parliament called for Hungary’s voting rights to be suspended in the EU, three judges at the European Court of Human Rights upheld Romania’s decision to cancel last year’s presidential elections. There is a pattern here – if you don’t vote the right way, your vote will be removed. The lawfare deployed massively against Donald Trump after 2016 is now also being deployed at the international level against all dissidents on the Ukraine issue. As J. D. Vance said at Munich, the cancellation of the Romanian elections is an outrage. In an article we are honoured to republish, Stephen Marshall denounces “the ever-expanding, quasi-totalitarian rule of judges, lawyers, prosecutors, bar associations, and other legal operatives” both in Romania and across the West.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/romanian-protests">Read Stephan Marshall’s article here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdfv5xOAntqleGpaYUwD3JktaydNV-NcdmAIboZkJHO_uHTk2ymboUFu8qDaRPQwTarrYIOv_BvUofQwRtMrowU2hRVri55ZqI-sfrKxxrL8xw2MHvqWBgYgaq67p27__diNbpTmQ?key=r7C4EtWS2qUkkI3p2S92OdzW">And what about those who claim to have new ideas? FVD International’s Vincent Vos attended the ARC conference in London recently where various right-wing luminaries, many from the English-speaking world, presented their proposals for saving ‘Western civilisation’.&nbsp; But as Vincent Vos quickly realised, they were in fact just serving warmed-up liberalism – the very liberalism which has led the West into its current impasse and which Trump is trying heroically to abandon.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/the-arc-conference-reinventing-liberalism">Read Vincent Vos’ article here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXc8B04X61Wnum_qr0CGSIKYlNAcv8a0S4kCIps5tywe2Aix3xjiLlYJoBNLy8MDtmWOkuC2h3vC8iCcxqFTvuPZ0HUefbZ3MNmnf6x45YDxEymYg2IAbB5gmEgzgGV99SWdcufy7w?key=r7C4EtWS2qUkkI3p2S92OdzW">On Saturday 15 March one of our international networks, The Patriots Network, is holding an event in Amsterdam with Thierry Baudet as the speaker.<a href="https://my.weezevent.com/amsterdam-conference">Please sign up for the event here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeFqY1oqAx6AWicgjwPMHT4Mx0ZqWqOSGwKOf4SNBXU5CyeA4hOUSmBWoJ1mH-uHm42zdZ350GQ-s8SUlQ5vLcMRJ_neLCW-X-OUMGxq4WeeR2RCvWefPsRJkb8VapGOG3cwfkv2w?key=r7C4EtWS2qUkkI3p2S92OdzW">We had a fascinating discussion about Ukraine on The Forum this week with two Ukrainian exiles, one a former MP, the other a former diplomat and civil servant. We discussed the end of Zelensky and what the future can possibly hold for that broken country.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEL-0eeMmyU&amp;ab_channel=FVDInternational">Listen to The Forum &amp; Friends here</a>

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The Weekly Forum - 7 March

The original article was published on<a href="https://www.activenews.ro/">&nbsp;ActiveNews</a> and can be read<a href="https://www.activenews.ro/english/Lawfare-Kills-Democracy-in-Romania-%E2%80%93-and-Beyond-An-American-view-on-the-Calin-Georgescu-case-especially-for-ActiveNews-195588">&nbsp;here</a>.Romanian authorities seem determined to compound the attack on freedom and democracy they began by cancelling the presidential election in December, after an undesired candidate won the first round. The "detention” of frontrunner Calin Georgescu — along with raids on his supporters’ homes — is a thinly-disguised&nbsp;coup,&nbsp;an obvious lawfare operation designed to intimidate Georgescu and all Romanians and prevent them from electing him president.The question now is, who exerted the pressure on Romanian authorities for this repression? Pressure to cancel the election came from the Biden Administration in the United States, where the State Department issued a&nbsp;<a href="https://2021-2025.state.gov/statement-on-romanias-presidential-elections/">thinly-veiled threat</a> to Romania, instructing them that Georgescu is unacceptable as president of this key NATO member and situs of NATO’s largest military base, because of his desire to end the bloodbath in Ukraine.But it seems unlikely that the Trump Administration was the instigator of this most recent action.&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1894746675589120272">Elon Musk</a> quickly tweeted his indignation. Before that, Vice President J.D. Vance had just delivered a stinging rebuke to Europe’s petty tyrants for their contempt of the very "western values” that they claim so vocally to promote: little things like free speech and fair elections. Of all the outrages he cited, Romania’s canceled election has most shocked the world.Most likely, the pressure this time came from the European Union, possibly seconded by Britain. Both are determined to continue the killing in Ukraine, even after the impending departure of the Americans. The EU has the financial leverage to force Romania to dance to its tune and multiple reasons to use it against Georgescu.In this, the EU is simply tightening the same squeeze it has been using against its member states for years, albeit on less momentous matters than elections. When democratic electorates in Ireland or France refuse to ratify new EU treaties or "constitutions”, the EU simply repeats the referenda until the people vote as they are told. Financial leverage is used to punish Poland and Hungary when their democratically elected governments dissent from EU immigration policies (a matter on which the EU has no jurisdictional authority to be formulating policies in the first place).Now Romanians (along with all Europeans) are likewise being told, even more directly, that they will vote for the right candidates or they will not vote at all.A more direct and extreme assault on the very concepts of freedom and democracy than cancelling an election and arresting the winner is hardly imaginable. If the newly "acting presidents” Klaus Iohannis and now Ilie Bolojan had teamed up with the Constitutional Court and the army to seize control of the Parliament, jail its members, and declare themselves the ruling&nbsp;junta for life, it could hardly have constituted a more flagrant&nbsp;coup d’etat. (And Iohannis’ belated resignation — months after his term expired and under threat of impeachment — does not change this.)But for all his ambitions, Iohannis’ role in this was not driven by lust for power. The same cannot be said of the Constitutional Court — and now of the prosecutors who are harassing Georgescu.Another source than the EU accounts equally for the&nbsp;coup d’etat, one that Washington has refrained from denouncing and that hardly figures on the radar screen of MAGA supporters or the MAGA media. Yet it is largely American in origins, and it may be even more insidious than the European Union: the Imperial Judiciary.The epigraph quoted above from Judge Bork (like the title of his book, whence it comes) shows that the trend leading to this&nbsp;coup is not unique to Romania. In fact, it is the culmination of not so much Romanian politics as western ones generally. Perhaps above all — and it is understandable that Romanians may not realize this — it is largely a product of Anglophone and especially American politics: the ever-expanding, quasi-totalitarian rule of judges, lawyers, prosecutors, bar associations, and other legal operatives. For decades, the English-speaking countries and above all the United States have been exporting what the late Kenneth Minogue called "legal salvationism”. Yet even Americans are stymied to rein in judicial power. One can hardly expect the countries to whom it is exported — most of whom have little experience with judicial tyranny — to make sense of it.One recurring&nbsp;modus operandi&nbsp;ran through the naked power grab that took place in the US during the last 5 years: judicial power. The "Deep State” may or may not be doing tangible harm to people, but the judiciary destroys lives daily and by the thousands. Americans are&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB930174615931954464">terrified of their courts</a>, knowing that a summons to court — even an groundless one that results in no punishments or awards — means financial ruin. Innocence is no excuse, because a&nbsp;<a href="https://stephenbaskerville.substack.com/p/the-power-to-prosecute-is-the-power">prosecution alone can destroy your life</a>.This transfer of power from sovereign people to judicial operatives may be the most dangerous trends in the western democracies. The judiciary, after all, is the branch of government whose job is punishing people with jail, prison, and whatever they come up with. They can do this criminally or "civilly”.The EU itself has been gradually extinguishing democracy for years by touting "the rule of law”, which really means the rule of lawyers. And the logical progression from the rule of lawyers is, more specifically, the rule of prosecutors — functionaries who build careers by putting as many people as possible into prison. One is now&nbsp;<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/keir-and-kamala-cut-from-the-same-cloth">prime minister of Britain</a>, where he is censoring his people and diverting law enforcement away from violent crime and into&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/its-justice-not-revenge-top-prosecutor-warns-rioters-could-get-ten-years-vp9cxszsf">prosecutiong ordinary Britons</a> for infractions like "hate speech”. Another prosecutor recently won the Democratic Party’s nomination for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newenglishreview.org/articles/the-real-indictment-against-kamala-harris/">president of the US</a>. (Numerous other prosecutors occupy the<a href="https://stephenbaskerville.substack.com/p/josh-hawley-scolds-us">US Congress</a> and American state governments.)An oligarchy of prosecutors is far more deadly than any machinations by a bureaucratic "deep state”. And yet we hear nothing about it, even from MAGA Republicans. J.D. Vance judiciously neglected to mention routine&nbsp;<a href="https://www.stephenbaskerville.com/taken-into-custody">violations of America’s own Constitution and Bill of Rights</a>, perpetrated by the very institution that is supposed to be protecting them from violation by others:&nbsp;<a href="https://stephenbaskerville.substack.com/p/weaponizing-the-judiciary-more-fake-62e">the judiciary</a>. European leaders were too ignorant or too ashamed to retort with this obvious&nbsp;tu quoque.<a href="https://stephenbaskerville.substack.com/p/weaponizing-the-judiciary-more-fake-62e">Lawfare operations</a> were a major weapon used to prevent Donald Trump from being elected US president. And it may have been under American pressure that similar lawfare is underway in France against figures like Marine Le Pen and a previous presidential candidate, Francois Fillon in 2017.It is true that the American democracy has survived the lawfare onslaught against Trump and his allies, and Americans rejected the election of a prosecutor-president. But it is not clear that they realize the nature of the danger they avoided.The Trump Administration now has many evildoers on the run, but as far as I can tell, the judiciary is not one of them. Trump and his housecleaners have said not a word about cleaning house at the almighty American judiciary. They have not said a word precisely because it is almighty.Romanians need to clean house in theirs before it tightens its grip further on what is left of their fragile democracy. The Romanian state is already poisoned, perhaps irreparably, by this&nbsp;coup. Who can now believe that the Constitutional Court — whose job is to ensure the constitutional integrity of the rest of the state — retains any constitutional integrity itself or respect for constitutional government? It is likely that any president other than Georgescu will be deeply compromised and lack any legitimacy in the eyes of Romanians, and the same is true of any government or parliament that bacquiesces in, or even survives, this fiasco.Stephan Marshall is the pen name of an American academic historian and political scientist

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Lawfare Kills Democracy in Romania and Beyond

Speech given in the Second Chamber of the Netherlands’ Estates-General,&nbsp;5 March 2025During the previous debate on the Ukraine conflict, Forum for Democracy tabled a motion calling on the government to look to the future: after all, as the Netherlands, we want to keep good contacts and trade with both the United States and Russia and, whatever the outcome of the Ukraine conflict will be, we should not burn all ships behind us and do irreparable damage to the relationship with either of these countries.To my surprise, this mild and constructive motion was not supported by any party in this chamber.&nbsp;This marks the situation we are in, Chairman. Whenever we talk about the Ukraine-Russia situation here, all contributions are steeped in moral judgements and condemnations, World War II comparisons, the so-called ‘absolute good’ versus the ‘absolute evil’ - a cartoon caricature that can obviously only be reinforced with half or whole falsehoods.&nbsp;Years of anti-Russia pro-Ukraine propaganda have fed that absurd black-and-white thinking.&nbsp;And then, in our debates in the Lower House, you then see a second component: the fantastic, far-reaching and heroic-sounding proposals and expressions of solidarity that lack all sense of reality and serve no Dutch interest whatsoever.&nbsp;What do we gain from this? Why should we do this? Why is this good for the Netherlands?Let's be realistic. Look at reality without wishful thinking. Just, the facts.&nbsp;The war has long been lost, especially now that - as we predicted long ago - America is going to withdraw. Simply because US interests are not served by continuing this hopeless war.Any suggestion that NATO could win this war is absurd. The idea that Europe could also do this on its own is the superlative of that.&nbsp; Yet that is what European countries keep telling Zelensky. We stand with Ukraine. “Whatever it takes,” “for as long as it takes,” Foreign Minister Veldkamp even said. Whatever it takes? Is the foreign minister serious? No limits on support in terms of money and equipment? Dutch boys and girls being sent to Ukraine? Bizarre.There is now also talk of whether or not to participate in imaginary peacekeeping forces. Let's be real. Without Russia's approval, all foreign troops in Ukraine are seen as hostile targets. That Russian approval is never going to happen. Forcing it anyway can only be done with a security guarantee from the United States. This is the preference of Zelensky and - it seems - of most countries in Europe. As Trump rightly pointed out in his interview with Zelensky, this is gambling with a nuclear third world war. And thus, as far as Americans are concerned, unthinkable.Relations between the US and Russia are being normalised, there are discussions to restore air links and make mutual embassies fully operational again. And probably lift sanctions. Furthermore, arms and information supplies to Ukraine are paused,&nbsp;This thwarts all European plans and fantasies.Forum for Democracy calls on the prime minister and the foreign and defence ministers to urge their counterparts to be calm and pragmatic in the upcoming talks, not to go along with wild plans about even more extensive support for Ukraine, against still trying to obtain US security guarantees for a peacekeeping force. And to speak out against the build-up of European mega defence funds, or the annexation of Russian assets. And: never agree to send Dutch soldiers to Ukraine.

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A plea for realism

A couple of weeks ago, a small delegation of Forum for Democracy travelled to London for the second global conference of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. We were joined by 4000 other people from all over the world to discuss the politics of the future of our Civilisation.ARC’s mission statement reads: “The Alliance for Responsible Citizenship is an international movement with a vision for a better world where empowered citizens take responsibility and work together to bring flourishing and prosperity to their families, communities, and nations. We are inviting you to join us in developing a better narrative in response to life's most fundamental social, economic, philosophical and cultural questions. We reject the inevitability of decline and instead are seeking solutions which draw on humanity's highest virtues and extraordinary capacity for innovation and ingenuity.”&nbsp;This statement matches the exact way of FVD’s thinking. Where other political parties are only interested in controlling symptoms of civilisational decline (if they even understand them), FVD goes back to the root causes of our current societal problems. Decline is a choice and we would be able to find our way back to the top of the best civilisation that has ever been created.The conference lasted three days and had a day and evening programme. Throughout the day many different speakers spoke about big issues facing the West. The speaker’s list included people as: Jordan Peterson, Nigel Farage, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Niall Ferguson, Douglas Murray, Kemi Badenoch, Mike Johnson, Konstantin Kisin and Tony Abbott. Between the main programme, there was plenty of time to network with other attendees. At the end of each day there was an evening program where speakers joined the visitors and there was of course enough time there to meet some other attendants there too.Many of those people who we spoke with were looking for something new. Everyone was confronted in their own way with the current declining state of the West and was interested in connecting with other people just like them and also learn from the main speakers about new ways to look at politics in order to promote change. They wanted to learn something that would help the West to rise from its own ashes.&nbsp;Conversations with other attendants seemed very hopeful. A broad range of people joined the convention, from politicians to journalists, from activists to civil servants and from teachers to think tank members. Even psychologists joined in to talk about the current broken state of psychology. Everybody agreed with one thing: society has to change in a fundamental way.Old ideas, new jacket Unfortunately, the general answers the people on the main stage provided were not sufficient enough to answer the fundamental questions regarding our civilisational decline and what to do differently in order to solve this crisis. This was obvious from the start with the first speech by current leader of the Conservative Party in the UK Kemi Badenoch. She stated that when we are looking at the problems of our decline we have to watch out that we will not be too extreme in our solutions. The most important thing for her was that we should keep liberalism around. Of course it is ridiculous that the biggest ruling party of the UK of the past 80 years, and is responsible for the decline of the UK, is going to lecture the attendants that want something new on why we should keep the old order. That is the reason in the first place that we are in this mess! She also talked about tolerance. In a time where tolerance and diversity are two of the main causes that are destroying our societies, talking about the importance of the two values should not be your priority. Self-doubt was for her the main reason the West is failing. Of course the conservative party (that has conserved nothing in the UK) is the biggest example on how self-doubt in their own ideology has led to the left implementing their policies (even though the Conservative Party themselves). Badenoch warned us of the temptation to choose for strong leaders, repeating the liberal myth that strong leadership would lead to a new Hitler. Two sentences after this remark, she praised American president Donald Trump for his “strong leadership”. Consistency was clearly not her thing.Another example was the speech given by Vivek Ramaswamy. He suggested that “peak woke” is behind us. The removal of DEI programs in the USA was the nail in the coffin for the left, but in a world where the root cause of ‘woke’, famously called ‘cultural Marxism’, is intertwined with American culture (not only in DEI programs) and is certainly not defeated at the moment. Cultural Marxism is even one of the most important foundations of the post WOII order in the West (the current “woke hype” is just the latest incarnation of this thinking). We call it, progressive-liberalism. While there is the opportunity to change this whole thinking, we need a more fundamental addressing of the question than ‘woke has gone too far’.Jordan Peterson gave an interesting speech about the problem with hedonism and the importance of sacrifice in our civilisation. Sacrifice is according to Peterson the most important thing in civilisation. Men sacrifice their youth for their community in order to protect the women and children. Christianity and the sacrifice of Christ has had such a fundamental impact on our culture. If nobody is willing to give up their life for the greater of society you have no society. The problem with current society is that people do not feel that they have a stake in the bigger picture. While this is a very good point from Peterson, the cause of this individualisation of society is again liberalism. A couple speeches after, other speakers were greatly positive about the role hyper-individualistic capitalism plays in our society and why we need more of that.Russia, Russia, Russia!!! This very true story of Peterson was also nullified by the speech of Douglas Murray. Douglas Murray stated that the culture war is being waged, but that the real war (supposed with Russia) should be much more concerning and that we should shift focus to that. We had to protect our norms and values like ‘individual freedom’ (wait, was individualism not the problem?) against the ‘bad dictator’ Putin. Do not focus on the problems from within, but unite to fight an ‘enemy’ from outside. A tactic commonly used by leaders in the past to shift the attention away from the bigger problems on the inside. While the problems still remained.Also the role of technology in our future societies played an important role in the conference. For example British actress Sophie Winkleman spoke about the dangers of digitizing the school system and the role Ipads play in the declining school results of young children. Billionaire Peter Thiel spoke about the future of AI and the important philosophical positions regarding life and consciousness. Blackwater founder Erik Prince talked&nbsp;on future AI applications in warfare.The elephant in the room: Immigration It also stood out that the problems with immigration were not mentioned. Maybe because of that the event was hosted in the police-state UK, where it currently might be illegal to discuss immigration under the Starmer regime.If people just adopt ‘western values’ everything will come out alright in the end. Where in the same breath people do not agree with each other what ‘western values’ are. According to progressives, conservatives are not integrated in current western values where tolerance, LGBTQ++++, globalism and rampant degeneracy are the norms. Should conservatives be deported? Are these values worth dying for? Conservatives should also want to conserve their own people. Nation states are derivatives of peoples and peoples are not interchangeable. This is why when we look at the core issue with immigration, we do not talk about a little less illegal and more legal immigration, we talk about remigration.&nbsp;The event was great as a catch-all conference for all flavours of the right. This is probably why they wanted to play it relatively safe regarding the ideological positions the chosen speakers chose. I understand from an organisational position that you do not want to become too extreme, because you will alienate a lot of potential allies. This could of course be a good thing if you want to create a broad umbrella of the whole right-wing.At the same time it was a missed opportunity to redpill the attendants about political positions that lay outside of the overton window. This is needed if we want to stop the decline. A convention that is filled with old, safe ideas, the problem could arise that you block everybody again in the overton window that is dominant in our society, and that was the problem in the first place. In what is considered right-wing today, the different flavours are so different from each other that the differences are as big of a gap as the left-right. Many people that call themselves right-wing hold positions that were considered extreme left-wing positions a couple of years ago. What do they have in common? Does every flavour of the supposed right-wing really want to save our civilisation at all costs?&nbsp;The main question was missing: What is civilisation? Is a civilisation just some norms and values that now came under pressure of hostile elements or is it more than that? Is civilisation based only on the nation state, where bureaucracies run rampant and the state does everything possible to make policies that are negative for its own people, like today?&nbsp;While some concepts were talked about in the convention (like the importance of Christianity), those concepts are meaningless in a world where subjectivism of moral values are dominant and Christianity is being used to promote leftism. How do we restore the eternal order? How do we win the war of the mind?The bigger picture was missing. Maybe next year, the organisation could focus on a more completed narrative with clear ideological foundations. Let’s hope it will not be liberalism!&nbsp;The new Trump Administration in the White House offers us new opportunities to change the course of world history. History is BACK, and we will be the ones to lead it. We will only need a better narrative!

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The ARC Conference: Reinventing liberalism

Gideon van Meijeren MP returned to the issue of abortion in the Dutch parliament this week. To be precise, he tried to but was again prevented from speaking, just as he had been a month previously when he showed a plastic model of a 22-week-old foetus. This time, he entered the chamber with a picture of a foetus on his T-Shirt.&nbsp; As soon as he took off his jacket, so that it was visible to all, the Speaker immediately ordered him to stop. Gideon never gave his speech. Apart from the sheer injustice of preventing an elected MP from addressing the national representation, it is striking to see how images are far more powerful – and a far greater taboo, in the case of abortion – than words. If they are all so strongly in favour of abortion, what, exactly, are they trying to hide? Could it be the reality? &nbsp;<figure class="table" style="float:left;"><table><tbody><tr><td style="background-color:#ffffff;padding:8pt;vertical-align:top;"><a href="https://email.email.fvd.nl/c/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPAz53uL5m0&amp;ab_channel=FVDInternational">Watch the video of Gideon's non-speech here&nbsp;</a></td></tr></tbody></table></figure><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeugFrrTOjqWVGjY7or_z6ZYnvuyAjKw-eBH8nZl06f2SiC6ugbv2x3EiO2ltS6P7gsiKvercOZF6tNybO197fLz1Tcr3kVrfPTqzwdLI-oxbF66a_69I6FadxLCoxInsY7JXghig?key=dM0cZ8HEupAT59I1_cTF8qhY"> &nbsp;Lenin said, ‘There are decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades happen.’ This wise saying applies to the few extraordinary weeks since Donald Trump took office. The US president has said that Ukraine will never join NATO, that NATO expansion caused the war, and that Zelensky is a dictator. That is about as big a disavowal of decades of policy as one can imagine. Both Zelensky and the Europeans are being thrown under a bus. FVD International’s director, John Laughland, emphasized the magnitude of what is happening in an interview he gave to Basil Valentine of The Pulse Today, of which two clips are accessible on X. (The full interview is behind a paywall.)<figure class="table" style="float:left;"><table><tbody><tr><td style="background-color:#ffffff;padding:8pt;vertical-align:top;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJHJQRjWfig&amp;ab_channel=FVDInternational">Watch a part of the interview here&nbsp;</a></td></tr></tbody></table></figure> &nbsp;<figure class="table" style="float:left;"><table><tbody><tr><td style="background-color:#ffffff;padding:8pt;vertical-align:top;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVtWDPyhws8&amp;ab_channel=FVDInternational">Watch another clip here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfEQD5sddA9Q1RXM_xPN29SdMcsmnyPbLmCD0zdhxnRiPg-M8xt1i3OAWsnpe6D4adW0ciC3UNSpzBJNcioJsRSrrAkPvkm6-2jqNbdhTARy0wyTxqHKAySFTBPVS6Li5GDECW4wQ?key=dM0cZ8HEupAT59I1_cTF8qhY">Meanwhile, in Bulgaria demonstrations against the euro have been met with police repression in the capital, Sofia. MEP Rada Laykova, whom FVD originally met in Sofia last year and who has attended FVD events since, has written a piece for us detailing the various police abuses – tear gas, pepper spray, injuries. Just imagine what people would say if anti-Orban protesters were treated like this in Budapest! This time, the EU roundly condemned … the demonstrators. The broader issue, of course, is that Bulgaria is being forced to abandon its national currency, something which the Bulgarian people have not been, and never will be, asked about. They are opposed to it because they know that the euro is a racket which will not only make them poorer but which will also destroy what is left of their national independence.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/bulgarians-demonstrate-against-the-euro">Read Rada Laykova's article here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcSu2QVciiQf6T6YznjDAPTTrscqg4KVECzPaSUFN3O9T8dgvUYjCDK0nGC5w8vfDKUQWC_kBCmCAq5CXukcEMslZMkv5fGLhYbKcTx5VniKF78Hc8g1IZ6mZc6m-ztBY7tuYmLKQ?key=dM0cZ8HEupAT59I1_cTF8qhY">The Forum ‘travelled’ to South Africa this week from where our guest Joost Strydom joined us to talk about Orania, the new town created by Afrikaners in the middle of the desert to give themselves a proper homeland. It is a fascinating experiment, the creation of a new society. If you missed it you can listen back here.</td></tr></tbody></table></figure> &nbsp;<figure class="table" style="float:left;"><table><tbody><tr><td style="background-color:#ffffff;padding:8pt;vertical-align:top;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5DnqK2hrok&amp;ab_channel=FVDInternational">Listen to the Forum &amp; Friends here</a></td></tr></tbody></table></figure>&nbsp;

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The Weekly Forum - 28 February

Forum for Democracy International

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Forum for Democracy

FVD is a anti-globalist political party in the Netherlands founded and led by Thierry Baudet. John Laughland (right) is director of FVD International.

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