March 28, 2025 The Honorable Tulsi Gabbard Director of National Intelligence Office of the Director of National Intelligence Washington, D.C. 20511 Dear Director Gabbard, In this letter we would like to draw your attention to Flight MH17, which was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. Three days later, the then Secretary of State, John Kerry, appeared on CNN, Fox, ABC, NBC and CBS, stating that the US intelligence community concluded that the missile which shot down the passenger plane was launched from an area controlled by the pro-Russian rebels.&nbsp; The US government has never provided the satellite data to the Dutch Public Prosecution Service, which later led the criminal investigation into the shooting. In 2020, relatives of the victims wrote a letter to the US ambassy in The Hague calling for the data to be provided, so that the Public Prosecution Service could present it to the District Court in The Hague which handled the criminal case against four suspects. Their request was not granted. The only cooperation the US authorities provided was a briefing given to a representative of the Public Prosecution Service and a memorandum provided to the Public Prosecution Service in 2016. That memorandum was prepared on behalf of the DNI by Kenneth R. Stolworthy. The memorandum reads:&nbsp; “At the time that flight MH17 dropped out of contact, the US intelligence community detected an SA-11 surface-to-air missile launch from approximately six kilometers south of the town of Snizhne in eastern Ukraine.”&nbsp; At that time “six kilometers south of the town of Snizhne” was rebel held territory. That would indicate culpability of the pro-Russian rebels in the downing of MH17.&nbsp; In 2002 the Dutch lawyers for one of the four accused, Oleg Pulatov, concluded from the memorandum that the observed launch could not possibly have been from the missile that brought down MH17. After all, a missile cannot be launched and simultaneously knock a target off the radar: a missile takes time to reach its target. According to the Dutch National Aerospace Laboratory NLR the Buk missile that hit MH17 must have traveled for about 32 seconds,&nbsp;if&nbsp;it was launched six kilometers south of the town of Snizhne. So, the launch that the US intelligence community observed cannot have been from the missile that hit MH17.&nbsp; We therefore appeal to you to provide more clarity on what exactly the US intelligence community observed and concluded. We know the exact time that the missile hit the plane. This can be concluded from the time that the Flight Data Recorder and the Cockpit Voice Recorder stopped recording.&nbsp; We also know the exact time that the aircraft disappeared from the Russian radar. But we do not know the exact time when the US intelligence community recorded the missile launch. Can you please release this information, and indicate the precise flight path of the missile?&nbsp; Can you also tell us whether the US intelligence community saw just one missile launch south of Snizhne, or also another missile launch, one that occurred before MH17 dropped out of contact, and if so, when this missile was launched, from what location and where it went?&nbsp; It is possible that missiles were fired from two different locations, one from rebel-held territory and the other from Ukrainian-held territory. The Ukrainians had the same SA-11 missiles as the Russians. According to Dutch military intelligence service MIVD, some Ukrainian SA-11 systems were present in eastern Ukraine around the time of the crash. Many residents have witnessed that they heard more than one explosion.&nbsp; Thank you for your attention. We look forward to your reply.&nbsp; Sincerely, Eric van de Beek Thierry Baudet (author of two books about MH17 trial) (Member of Parliament, President of Forum for Democracy &nbsp;

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Letter to Director Gabbard

On January 16, Enric Ravello (President of <a href="https://aaesa.org/jornada-sobre-argentina-en-amsterdam/">A.A.E.S.A.</a>) and Pablo J. Davoli (<a href="https://aaesa.org/jornada-sobre-argentina-en-amsterdam/">A.A.E.S.A.</a> delegate in Argentina) were speakers at a day dedicated to Argentina organized by the nationalist party Forum voor Democratie (FvD) at its headquarters in the Dutch capital. The day was opened by Thierry Baudet, the charismatic leader of the party and since 2017 a national deputy in Congress.The day began with a visit to the meeting room, decorated with historical and traditional Dutch motifs and where Argentine wine was served, accompanied by typical products.The day consisted of two conferences. The first, given by Ravello, had as its theme the ethno-demographic formation of Argentina. The conference began with an enlightening review of the demographic history of Latin America, and then focused on the processes that turned Argentina and Uruguay into the most European countries in Latin America.<img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXe1SLgLCXmay8TiFFfHucGQ0ijqhlO8aW8hkbcpgVyqW3reksCDdyLSnxTz3Oq8gmzOjvYmcVsrf8HhtUdH7DBGX6S4GXUY0LYMvLRjErWphIBjqqzuDzPUiSQ9qNGXYW5A1YiPDQ?key=MAO05_3pc1c9mg4g9d9dEqBY"><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcJneazHDGP-prB9PPA13ncHzGOXuyDLFhLSANl3Zgq5iKXrKLtMR9seBY-JaT7D50FzI_z64lBhWE9TZmK-Y5Oa03I0tKTvkxBnTfVVzYNbqb5qFnl8CzCkE_ufXeHlWcxFvWQ?key=MAO05_3pc1c9mg4g9d9dEqBY"><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcjukOdSNRMjmy3D1whZY3_ezLFhRe3b-7EhCn-ADHNUS-Nkhrqj-LO5kGmtPusBppoqDrhu54PxTh05O7C0DXRNst72mhrpJ7Q9H6BkFmbt6MghFhyszXPXU5Esx68xlKdS7WPug?key=MAO05_3pc1c9mg4g9d9dEqBY">Davoli, for his part, presented the political, economic and social problems of Argentina in recent times, and then went on to make a critical analysis of the management of the current president, the anarcho-liberal Javier Milei.Both conferences aroused great interest in the public, who actively participated in the question period. After more than three hours of conferences and conversation in a very cordial atmosphere, the day was over. At the end of the day, Davoli was contacted by the young Dutch writer Luca de Clippelaar, who proposed that he do an interview for the FvD youth magazine, called De Dissident.After the conferences, a dinner of camaraderie took place between our representatives and the FvD leadership. During the dinner, not only were the important ideological coincidences between A.A.E.S.A. and the FvD confirmed, but an excellent personal harmony between the participants of the meeting was also evident. &nbsp;<img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeM0cAQqxSdcmNwJX37EowqhUn1kOJuSAUuauxeG1Hz31uP_ZHHMPlCeFaAWdtJ4Yx5Ic6Rr4Tr4SuKNLfTsZzUfIcq4YujObyct4k9oxkHWMIiQM7qh2kGxgUWcO9yK66p62u_2w?key=MAO05_3pc1c9mg4g9d9dEqBY"><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcrPY1LdSr89yEznvYcccxdJ7p0VzMH_nYGPduxqEBimlGXJL_GDLJNDCS6NX8bQ_S56kLV7iTQ-9mut278dbVhncLMwboSViExcVh6NGYCIUhgoIHQQYFoteV49EjTUMQOiJQA?key=MAO05_3pc1c9mg4g9d9dEqBY">

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Conference on Argentina in Amsterdam

Speech by Ralf Dekker, Foreign Affairs Committee, Dutch Parliament, 26 March 2025Chairman,On 3 and 4 April, the 32 foreign ministers of NATO countries meet in Brussels to discuss the strategic challenges facing the NATO alliance.Of course this meeting will be mainly about the Ukraine conflict. The papers routinely discuss Russian aggression which is said to pose an acute and immediate threat to Euro-Atlantic security, plus the ‘worrying cooperation between Russia and North Korea.’ Support from Europe is considered essential to put Ukraine in the best possible negotiating position. It is also claimed that continued military support to Ukraine remains important even after any truce with America.There is much to be said about this.The battle in Ukraine is a proxy war between America and Russia. The Russians are winning. America and Russia are currently in negotiations on normalising their bilateral relations, and also on the conditions under which hostilities can be ended.&nbsp;Ukrainian soldiers, with support from the West, are fighting and dying in huge numbers. It is a sad and horrific situation stemming from the old US foreign policy which luckily now seems to have been abandoned. The command and control, the arming, the intelligence all comes from NATO, i.e. America. When this stops, the war will soon be over.&nbsp;Ukraine itself, without US support, is not a military player of consequence against Russia. If NATO and US support continues, it may take a little longer but even then peace will be largely shaped on Russian terms, which will then be even more unfavourable than at present. There will be no question of creating a favourable negotiating position for Ukraine with Europe's help.Russia's interests and considerations in this conflict, the security of its western border and the protection of Russian privacy, are well understood, whether you agree with them or not. These interests have been put forward unchanged for years but have never been taken seriously into account. This has nothing to do with aggressive expansionism. On the US side, Russia is finally finding an ear.&nbsp; Mutual understanding is growing.&nbsp;The constant tendency of European countries to forget or distort the background and cause of the conflict and to keep suggesting that this is expansionist Russian aggression is unfounded and irritating.&nbsp; Moreover, it creates needless complications and disturbs relations with Russia and now also with America.&nbsp;What remains of Ukraine will in all likelihood have a neutral status. Military support to that country then makes no sense.I would also note here that apart from reports from the partisan secret services of Ukraine and South Korea, there are no serious indications of a substantial role of North Korea in the Ukraine conflict. This still seems to be a fabricated story that was used to justify escalation and target Russian territory with long-range missiles.So we at Forum for Democracy completely disagree with the assumptions used in the upcoming discussion. In our view, these are damaging to Europe. As mentioned earlier, European countries have been vassal states of America on the Ukraine issue. With America drastically changing course, it is crazy for Europe to stick to the old wrong course. The big people are trying to settle their quarrel. The toddlers must now shut up for a while and hope the misery stops.&nbsp;To my surprise, what is not on the agenda at the Brussels discussion is America's claim to Greenland. This does seem to me to be an eminently relevant topic for this group. How to deal with this? Are we going to support Denmark if America claims this large island by force? Will that be an Article 5 situation? I would like a response from the Minister.Thank you

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Europe’s Stubbornness over Ukraine is Crazy

As Europe gears up for war, the screws are being tightened on free speech. In the Netherlands, the government is giving itself new powers to close down finance from abroad of organisations deemed to be spreading homophobia or misogyny.&nbsp; Free speech used to be regarded not just as a right but also as a social good - the more opinions there are out there, the more people will have to choose from. Not any more. Worse, the criteria for restricting such financing (the notion of finance ‘from abroad’ itself being evidence of paranoia) will not be legal but discretionary. Gideon van Meijeren tried in vain to pin down a liberal MP to explain what would be the legal criteria for preventing such organisations from operating. He failed because there aren’t any. Welcome to totalitarianism.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVIzY3xKH2E&amp;ab_channel=FVDInternational">Watch Gideon van Meijeren question the MP here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXc_b5QROR6uExh9RWI25BkUnebyVFEN3fYkmd7fAnaAqsqvnUZOZOIzjS0-q4FKc3qRd1MaempLL243YZ3CULhEU6AfA4jx222RtY94T1Tm4r1PJel1yGzIrLLnFk4LqXMUQK8H?key=iEcZCpLnq3GCHxom83Z9NqTP">Meanwhile, as Europe seems to be preparing for war, green policies remain a taboo – at least officially. This is leading directly to the de-industralisation of the Netherlands, as of much of Europe. The crazy thing about these net-zero targets is that they have nothing to do with pollution in the ordinary sense of the word. Our cities and countrysides are cleaner than ever before. Instead, the carbon mania seeks to remove from the atmosphere a totally natural gas (we breathe it out) which is present only in the tiniest of quantities anyway. Ralf Dekker MP nailed it recently in a speech to the Dutch parliament – such a policy verges on the criminal.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/climate-policy-is-verging-on-the-criminal">Read Ralf Dekker’s speech here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfXkuddjv2KsD1QGtbSEplU7vFTl1yBC-FIDn0fjTC-g7pw6jp0BVR25WZVEmW-DRbztouIIXmzohyT5pbuHJlj-eH9LRgVNza8WpV0uKkmL_ELjy7Lmqz7QToxQJlHDS3W-o32Cw?key=iEcZCpLnq3GCHxom83Z9NqTP">Meanwhile, in keeping with its goal of addressing problems at their root, FVD’s Jelena Postuma spoke recently at a Make Europe Great Again conference in Brussels. MAGA is an inspiration for MEGA, she says – the US and Europe face the same problems and Europe should imitate MAGA to solve them. But Europe has two handicaps from which the US does not suffer, or suffers less. The first is that European countries are not sovereign but are controlled by the EU. The second is that the cultural rot is even deeper in Europe than in the US and politics is downstream from culture. The solution, then, is national sovereignty and civilisational renewal. This is FVD to the core.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/from-maga-to-mega">Read Jelena Postuma’s speech here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeBK88eS6ZdtcFRFEYbxfUtlL7bYamAX6sHGpiR1ZbmhkeyBhz6MdSmzsOdwdqW-VNhyAKv1xi8fgfCem-5fN_lQKdho7M4EOP0JK_vMvFKzBfn0TxSbfSJK0fpL9CrfKh3-D_O_w?key=iEcZCpLnq3GCHxom83Z9NqTP">Former UK diplomat Ian Proud was our guest on The Forum this week, to discuss ‘Is Diplomacy back?’ What is diplomacy and what can it really achieve in international relations? If you missed The Forum, you can listen back by clicking below.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe5w5-s015g&amp;ab_channel=FVDInternational">Listen back to The Forum here</a>

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The Weekly Forum - 28 March

Our own Jelena Postuma attended the From MAGA to MEGA conference in Brussels yesterday. This event was organised by&nbsp;<a href="https://salonlib.substack.com/">Salon Liberté</a>.Speech by Jelena PostumaI am very honoured to be able to speak today on this very important topic of the MAGA and MEGA movements, which in my opinion have the possibility to reshape the future of Europe, as well as the future of the US.I think this is a good thing, because the problems the MAGA movement has addressed in the US and is trying to solve, are for a big part exactly the same as the issues we face in Europe.&nbsp;We’re talking about mass immigration, which causes not only a lot of pressure on our social services but also a lot of cultural conflicts. The native people of Europe do not recognize their cities anymore and feel unsafe in their own countries. Add to that the rising cost of living, caused by multiple factors such as inflation, high taxes and regulation, which has made it impossible for young people in many European cities to buy a house and start a family. Those regulations and high costs, especially energy costs, also push many companies in the manufacturing industry to move abroad, taking jobs away from us and further deteriorating the economy.But I think the most dangerous issue we share, the issue which prevents all these problems from being addressed, let alone solved, is as Elon Musk calls it: the woke mind virus, or to put it in other terms: the prevalence of cultural Marxism. How does this prevent the current problems from being solved? Well, if you want to talk about the problems caused by mass migration, you’re a racist, if you ask questions about the excessive climate regulations and the high energy costs caused by the green transition, you’re a climate denier and if you’re worried about young kids mutilating their bodies because they are persuaded into thinking that will make them happy, you’re a transphobe.And this way of thinking has stifled every fruitful debate in both Europe and the US for years. But the massive victory of the MAGA movement has finally broken this cultural and intellectual tyranny.And this paves the way for them to address the problems they’re having and solve them. Within the first months, the Trump administration already increased the deportation of illegal immigrants, left the Paris Climate Agreement to decrease regulations and perhaps most importantly, has massively cut government spending through the Department Of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Today I checked how much taxpayer money they have saved until now, and it’s around 130 billion dollars!And that’s a great achievement, which I think we should see as an example here in Europe. But to get to that point, we have to follow a different strategy. Because even though we face a lot of the same issues as the US, our situation is different. First of all, the US is a sovereign country, but we as Europeans are still chained to the bureaucratic behemoth that is the EU, which makes it impossible to unilaterally implement meaningful changes, such as securing our borders or ending climate spending. So in order to truly change our countries for the better, I believe it is necessary to admit that the European project has failed, and that we as Europe can be way more powerful and successful as sovereign countries, working together internationally, but not supranationally.To make this a reality and move forward as sovereign countries will be quite a challenge, because of the way our governments work, and this brings me to the second difference between MAGA and MEGA. Because of the two party system in the US, the MAGA victory meant that they would automatically deliver the President and be in power. But in Europe, our governments work with coalitions, which means that even if a MEGA-minded party wins an election, this party can still be excluded from participating in the coalition, or even if it enters a coalition, become powerless because of all the compromises they have to make.So what can we do then in Europe, to make MEGA a reality? In my view, we have to look beyond politics and start acknowledging the importance of culture. Because eventually, politics is downstream from culture. In the past, the left has been very successful in influencing the cultural attitude. Because when the right wing parties were focusing on economics and industry, the left-wing parties controlled the media, education and the arts, which largely influenced society. This has enabled them to completely control the narrative, up to the point where Christian, conservative parties fly the pride progress-flag and free market liberal parties promote more green regulations.To transform this status quo on a political level, we have to first tackle it on a cultural level. In the Netherlands, this strategy is working, slowly but surely. Our party, Forum for Democracy, is the largest party in terms of members by far, and currently has its own talk show, its own farmers’ association, its own social network and hopefully within two years, our own school. This local and community-based strategy has made us very effective outside the political realm as well. For example, through social media we have exposed the insidious ways in which certain activist organisations are teaching 4 year-olds about sex, transitioning and gender in public schools. And because of our action, the majority of public schools are now cancelling these lessons. Very recently we also set up our own DOGE-department to expose government waste, together with our members. This enables our parliamentarians to make detailed proposals to cut spending and ease the tax burden on our citizens.And I strongly believe that if we continue on this path of influencing people through culture, locally and through our own networks, we will eventually change the future of our countries, and Make Europe Great Again.

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From MAGA to MEGA: Does Europe need its own direction?

Speech by Ralf Dekker MP to the Dutch parliament. 20 March 2025 Chairman,It seems these days that climate, nitrogen and sustainability policies are going a bit out of fashion.&nbsp;Although the restrictive measures associated with these policies are still in full swing, it is noticeable that these hobbies - or perhaps I should say this ideology- are increasingly clashing with things like housing construction, the maintenance of industry and employment and, last but not least, the grand ambitions of militarisation and warfare.&nbsp;The latter in particular is obviously at odds with the green sustainability ambitions of many in this Chamber.Becoming leading and competitive with the large-scale construction of military equipment is obviously not possible in a zero emissions environment based on solar and wind energy.But apart from these eccentric combinations of policy ambitions, which are nevertheless mostly advocated with a straight face, it has also become clear in a broader international context that it is completely unrealistic to continue tinkering with climate and energy transitions which put all industrial activity in trouble. These industries are now rapidly disappearing from the Netherlands and ultimately from Europe. The United States or Asia are becoming increasingly attractive as business locations, as Europe and the Netherlands systematically price themselves out of the market with absurd regulations and sky-high energy prices. Major investment firms like BlackRock have now abandoned the Paris climate targets as a guide for investment decisions.In our neighbouring countries, France and especially Germany, this dilemma is also being seen.&nbsp; Regulations are being set up – or even dismantled&nbsp;- to reduce restrictions on this issue. Admittedly also partly for military -and thus the wrong – reasons, as far as Forum for Democracy is concerned, but still.In the Netherlands, where since time immemorial the merchant and the pastor have competed for supremacy - with usually the pastor as the winner - we relentlessly continue our green, noble world-saving activities, with disastrous economic consequences.We have often discussed the gagging of the Dutch agricultural sector with bizarre rules which are increasingly based on faulty science. The highly successful Dutch agribusiness is facing enormous headwinds from government policies.&nbsp; It is shrinking, quitting or moving elsewhere. This is even more true for fisheries. But for fisheries, relocation is hardly possible.Industry is experiencing similar challenges and is now also actively leaving. Energy-intensive industrial sectors in particular are struggling, especially due to high energy prices. Recently, Ingrid Thijssen of the employer’s organisation VNO-NCW sounded the alarm bell. Something must be done before the complete de-industrialisation of the Netherlands.In the light of these developments, Chairman, I found it a ray of hope that even within the administration of the Ministry of Climate and Green Growth, voices are being raised to loosen the reins of overambitious sustainability plans and commitments. They are also saying that sustainability by 2030 no longer needs to be a hard condition for financial support. This is a very cautious step towards realism.&nbsp;It would be preferable to get rid of sustainability targets completely. The Netherlands is cleaner and greener today than it has been in recent human history. It is purely due to the increased precision of measuring instruments that we can still find impurities in air, water and the soil. The alleged environmental and natural problems in our country are invisible to the naked eye.&nbsp;The same applies to the alleged climate problems caused by CO2, where we are talking about imperceptible tenths of degrees Celsius. An imaginary issue. What is certain in any case is that the Netherlands' contribution to this issue is so futile that it does not matter anyway.&nbsp;To sacrifice entire traditionally Dutch industrial sectors for this purpose and to ruin the Netherlands economically is verging on the criminal.Thank you very much

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Climate policy is verging on the criminal

First it was ‘global warming’ then ‘global boiling’ (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyacrd1d-cU">Antonio Guterres</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/speech_23_4426">Ursula von der Leyen</a>).&nbsp; Generally, however, we now refer to ‘climate change’ – a more consensual phrase which is supposed to encompass everything including the Alice in Wonderland&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/polar-vortex-chilly-cold-climate-change-frigid-5dd0dcb49a7ead488e221e8c5d9edc8f">suggestion</a> that it is getting colder because it is getting hotter.&nbsp; The problem is, the climate has always changed.&nbsp; It used to be colder and then it got warmer and then colder again.&nbsp; The weather is notoriously unpredictable and the supposed science which claims to show ineluctable trends – the infamous ‘hockey stick’ graph – is bunk.&nbsp; We know all this but our elites claim not to know it.&nbsp; Lidewij de Vos MP took apart some of the myths in a recent speech to the Dutch Parliament, debunking both the ‘science’ and also the gigantic sums of taxpayers' money involved.&nbsp; The solution is simple: stop it.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/climate-policy-must-stop">Read Lidewij’s speech here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeXjmAVwRf7yb5IrjZ_GZf6u5lcJSdhVNgx6iFdS8iPW-y_Fb2KY1D7NPPiLgYCgxPbkERPBdX_bUa6ZwmhZE5liCI_RBjOI1hYySe1VRSEuJHoIr_SL3012o4Jv9iZhmgvJ-UP-g?key=OpfDvcwE88Xwe2rHct_JEfIX">A lone voice crying in the wilderness?&nbsp; That seems to be FVD all over.&nbsp; Gideon van Meijeren MP proposed a debate this week in the Second Chamber on the elections in Romania, where the candidate who won the first round in December has been debarred from standing, the original election he won having been simply cancelled.&nbsp; One after the other, all the party representatives in the Netherlands parliament trooped up to the stand to say they did not support the idea of the debate, either because it was not important or because such a debate could be held later.&nbsp; (It has not been.)&nbsp; What makes these people act in this way?&nbsp; What are they afraid of?&nbsp; Can you imagine the outcry if this happened in Viktor Orban’s Hungary against his liberal opponent, Peter Magyar?<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCV5Jl8PEkM&amp;ab_channel=FVDInternational">Watch Gideon’s intervention – and the responses - here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcexeXXzc9BSNEC043VG4EbL8CvujpBKK7b0Pz8YE9ZZawNpZg4tRUx6VUvb5SVbFcGayyC5SBfoQPqP5C8E7RUFN-TGz9vqiufvq0y4ShCn0V_sW8hQ90b7f6-FdUoLc3bYj1NZw?key=OpfDvcwE88Xwe2rHct_JEfIX">‘Never let a good crisis go to waste’ is attributed to people as different as Winston Churchill and Niccolò Machiavelli.&nbsp; It is clearly a working principle of the European Union, as evidenced for example by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2020/html/ecb.sp200717~1556b0f988.en.html">this use</a> of the phrase by a member of the board of the European Central Bank during the Covid so-called pandemic.&nbsp; Ralf Dekker MP has identified the principle at work in the wake of Donald Trump’s apparent disengagement from the Ukraine war – the EU commission is using this as a pretext to ramp up spending and increase its power.&nbsp; For once, FVD was listened to.&nbsp; The Chamber voted in favour of his motion rejecting a European army.&nbsp; The climate may or may not be changing but maybe times are.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/no-to-a-european-army">Read Ralf Dekker’s speech here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfSmcj4PHRvDFJMVVkbKt82A94pBQgbgGVaY9norKcA8G_4gxOHR_nAi06boFP7QHWXLEBa3dsY_jSQ0YxmWNxwLMi9j19ly60SlNzrsuz2zPm41-OWZxZYrCKeBhvU58xsKHiGXA?key=OpfDvcwE88Xwe2rHct_JEfIX">It is not often that John Laughland and his co-hosts Peter Lavelle and Jeremy Nell are lost for words but they were this week listening to Mother Agnès Mariam of the Cross giving eye-witness reports of the horrific massacres in Syria on this week’s Forum.&nbsp; She was joined by Kevork Almassian of Syrianna Analysis who added a geopolitical perspective.&nbsp; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRSW9nTxT0E&amp;t=1s&amp;ab_channel=FVDInternational">Listen back to The Forum &amp; Friends here</a>

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The Weekly Forum - 21 March

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

Forum for Democracy International

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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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