Illegals in the US have started self-deporting ahead of Trump taking office according to an immigration attorney.
Rolando Vasquez told NewsNation that there has been a surge in immigrant voluntarily leaving with Trump’s promised mass deportations on the horizon and with Mexico agreeing to take non-Mexican deportees.
Another driving factor is that Cuba and Venezuela generally do not accept deportation flights from the United States but may accept them from Mexico.
“This is causing many migrants to leave on their own, knowing that they’re either going to be deported to their home country or be deported to Mexico,” Vasquez said, adding “The overwhelming majority of them do not want to be in Mexico.”
NewsNation reporter Jorge Ventura also warned sources have told him that newly deported migrants are targets for extortion or even abduction by Mexican cartels and human smugglers.
Watch:
Illegals are now self-deporting out of fear of Trump’s mass deportations.
The Trump effect.
Trump has done more good for our country than Biden has in 4 years, and he isn’t even in office yet! pic.twitter.com/NgtuRAleca
The news comes amid rumours that the Trump administration will carry out its first large-scale deportation operation in the ‘sanctuary city’ of Chicago next Tuesday, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Trump plans a large-scale immigration raid in Chicago on Tuesday, the first move in his promised mass deportation campaign https://t.co/IiML7QXFGe
This is definitely the Trump effect! Illegals don’t want to be thrown out by ICE and rather self deport so they have a little dignity left and can do so on their own terms !
Trump’s border czar Tom Homan noted Friday “We’re going to concentrate on public safety threats and national security threats right out of the gate. That’s our priority. We’re going to go for the worst first. And I find it hard to believe any elected official doesn’t want public safety threat out of their communities.”
Homan warned governors and mayors in so called ‘sanctuary’ areas not to impede the process, asserting “Just stay out of the way and we will do it. You can sit back and let us do the job. It’s going to be less efficient, it will be more dangerous without their assistance, but we’re going to do the job regardless.”
* * *
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Gaza Ceasefire Will Begin 8:30AM Sunday – 33 Israeli Hostages To Be Freed In 1st Phase
After Israel’s cabinet on Friday approved the Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal, it is expected to finally take effect beginning at 8:30am Sunday (local), and initially three Israeli women are expected to be named and freed.
“As coordinated by the parties to the agreement and the mediators, the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will begin at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, January 19, local time in Gaza,” Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari announced on X. “We advise the inhabitants to take precaution, exercise the utmost caution, and wait for directions from official sources.”
CNN writes of the Israeli government that “The 33-member group of ministers approved the agreement following a recommendation earlier Friday by the smaller security cabinet. Deliberations stretched over seven hours, late into the night on Friday into early Saturday morning local time.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also confirmed the ceasefire’s start time, and three civilian women who are on a list of 33 hostages to be freed in the 42-day first phase of the deal are set to be handed over, after which up to 1,904 Palestinian prisoners will be released from Israeli prisons. 735 of these prisoners will be released in the first phase.
“The State of Israel is committed to achieving all the goals of the war, including the return of all our hostages – both living and dead,” the Prime Minister’s Office said.
Times of Israel notes that the Palestinian freed will include “several serving multiple life sentences for deadly terror attacks and murders.”
At least 50 humanitarian aid and fuel trucks are awaiting to enter the Strip as soon as the truce takes effect Sunday morning.
A surge of homeless Gazan refugees are expected to seek to return to their communities in Northern Gaza, but the Israeli army is warning that the situation will still be dangerous.
The Israeli army’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued instructions for Palestinians for when the ceasefire takes effect. Al Jazeera listed out a translation of the instructions as follows:
Moving from the south to the north of the Gaza Strip or towards the Netzarim Corridor remains dangerous in light of the military activities in the area. Once movement is permitted, instructions will be given.
The Israeli army will remain deployed in specific areas of the Gaza Strip. You must not approach its officers until further notice and doing so could expose you to danger.
It is dangerous to approach the Rafah crossing, the Philadelphi Corridor and all areas in southern Gaza where Israeli forces are deployed.
In the coastal area along the Strip, fishing, swimming and diving is dangerous and we warn against entering the sea in the coming days.
It is forbidden to approach Israeli territory and the buffer zone. Approaching the buffer zone is very dangerous.
Still, there’s some last minute details still reportedly being worked out, including a demand by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who says Israel will not proceed with the ceasefire until a list of the 33 captives who will be released by Hamas in the first phase is received.
Over the past day, the IDF—led by the Manpower Directorate and the Medical Corps—completed preparations for receiving the hostages from Gaza upon their return to Israel. The IDF, in coordination with the Health Ministry, additional government ministries, and security authorities,… pic.twitter.com/prr8nibD8i
“We will not move forward with the agreement until we receive the list of hostages who will be released, as agreed. Israel will not tolerate violations of the agreement. The sole responsibility lies with Hamas,” Netanyahu said on X.
Readers of The Epoch Times have identified border security, fiscal responsibility, and national defense as the top priorities for President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration.
A poll of 26,740 readers, conducted between Jan. 10–13, points to these issues as key areas of focus, reflecting widespread concern over unchecked immigration, economic instability, and global security threats.
Meanwhile, write-in responses by readers of The Epoch Times highlighted strong support for government reform, coupled with opposition to progressive policies such as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
Border security and deportations topped the list, with 90 percent of respondents considering it “extremely important.” This aligns with Trump’s campaign pledge to launch what he has described as the largest deportation operation in American history, set to begin immediately after his inauguration on Jan. 20.
“On my first day back in the Oval Office, I will sign a historic slate of executive orders to close our border to illegal aliens and stop the invasion of our country,” Trump said during a Turning Point USA conference in Phoenix in December 2024.
Besides vowing to deport millions of illegal immigrants, Trump also plans to end birthright citizenship, in which anyone born in the United States is currently given automatic citizenship, including to parents of illegal immigrants.
Fiscal Discipline and Economic Stability
Government spending and debt reduction ranked as the second-highest priority, with 82 percent of respondents highlighting the need for fiscal discipline.
Concerns over the ballooning national debt—now at $36.22 trillion—is a key concern. The president-elect has said he intends to address these issues through measures such as cutting wasteful spending and reforming federal agencies.
To spearhead these efforts, Trump has proposed the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—with Tesla CEO Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy tapped to lead the initiative. DOGE aims to slash $2 trillion from the federal budget.
“Your money is being wasted,” Musk said at a Trump rally in New York in October 2024, underscoring Trump’s commitment to tackle government inefficiency and cut wasteful spending.
The federal government spent $6.75 trillion in fiscal year 2024—which was $1.83 trillion more than it collected in revenue—pushing the national debt up to $36.22 trillion, according to the Treasury Department.
So far in fiscal year 2025, which runs until the end of September, the government has already spent $1.79 trillion.
The issue of debt sustainability, long a concern of fiscal conservatives, has clearly been on Trump’s radar. In a statement announcing the nomination of Scott Bessent to serve as his Treasury secretary, Trump said his administration would “reinvigorate the private sector, and help curb the unsustainable path of federal debt.”
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has warned about the unsustainable trajectory of federal debt, projecting it to climb to a hefty 181 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2053.
If left unchecked, this rising debt is expected to slow economic growth, increase interest payments to foreign creditors, and limit lawmakers’ flexibility to address future fiscal and economic challenges, according to the CBO.
Strengthening National Defense and Securing Elections
Military strength and national security emerged as the third most important priority, with 77 percent of respondents citing it as “extremely important.”
Concerns over global threats from adversaries such as China and Russia have amplified calls for bolstering America’s defense capabilities.
Trump’s proposed “peace through strength” agenda emphasizes modernizing the military, increasing operational readiness, and reinforcing U.S. deterrence on the world stage. On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to reform the U.S. military, criticizing “woke” policies that he says undermine the nation’s warfighting capacity.
“I think everything that we do can be done, frankly, anywhere in the United States that has a decent internet connection,” he told The Epoch Times.
Trainor, a Republican appointed during the first Trump administration, wants to move the headquarters of his campaign finance and election oversight agency away from Washington, D.C., the seat of federal power in the American political system.
The idea is in line with President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge on the campaign trail to relocate up to 100,000 federal positions out of D.C. During his first term, he moved the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and other elements of the federal bureaucracy out of the capital.
Trainor said his proposal squares with the ambitions of the Department of Government Oversight, or DOGE, the Elon Musk- and Vivek Ramaswamy-led, time-limited commission that Trump has tasked to “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”
The idea, Trainor said, has “DOGE potential.”
Rent and the Cost of Living
Trainor cited expensive D.C. rent and the local cost of living, which boosts the paychecks of government workers. Trainor pointed out that FEC employees are already entitled to work from home much of the time, thanks to their union.
The commissioner said the move out of expensive D.C. could increase the number of people interested in joining the FEC.
“People may be interested in doing work in places that are probably a little easier to access,” he said.
Karen Sebold, a professor of political science at the University of Arkansas, told The Epoch Times that much of the agency’s work now occurs online.
“They might be one of the easier ones to relocate,” she said of the FEC.
Sebold said decentralization could open up federal jobs to more and different applicants than are found in the nation’s capital.
“By dispersing the agencies around the country, you’re certainly broadening the pool of people who might work for those agencies,” she said.
Other FEC observers took a more critical view of a potential move.
“Lots of places, dare I say most, are expensive today. Selling a house and relocating my family will bring its own costs,” Michael Franz, a professor of government at Bowdoin College and another campaign finance expert, told The Epoch Times via email.
In an X post responding to Trainor’s proposal, which he first outlined in an opinion article for the Daily Caller, Michael Beckel of the election reform group Issue One suggested that Odessa, Texas, a site Trainor mentioned in that piece, would make the Western District of Texas the venue for lawsuits against the FEC.
A 2024 opinion from a judge in that district, Judge David Alan Ezra, described it as “heavily congested,” citing a federal agency’s argument that the district had 801 weighted cases per judge—far more than the District of Columbia’s 276 per judge.
But Odessa is not the only place Trainor can imagine hosting the FEC. He told The Epoch Times that bigger cities in blue and purple states might work too.
“When you take a look at some place like Chicago or Detroit—places that have been hit pretty hard by the pandemic and are struggling to lease out their commercial space—there are other places where the agency itself could be housed and gain enormous fiscal efficiency in doing it,” he said.
Relocation and Exodus a Pattern Under Trump
Franz said Trainor’s idea “seems like a perfect way to get people to quit.”
“Say I live in DC, have a family, and work for the FEC. If they move to Texas, I either move my whole family, ask to work remotely, or quit,” he added.
Sebold warned that the agency is already understaffed.
“If they end up trying to do this to shed employees, that’s certainly not going to help the agency,” she said.
If DOGE or others take up Trainor’s proposal, it would further a trend of decentralization during Trump’s first term. Previous moves also led to mass exoduses of existing employees.
One high-profile example involved BLM, which falls under the Department of the Interior. Trump relocated BLM’s headquarters to Grand Junction, Colorado, closer to the millions of acres of mostly western lands that the agency manages.
Most of the agency’s D.C. employees did not move west for their jobs. They retired or found other federal jobs.
The Biden administration substantially reversed the maneuver, putting the headquarters back in Washington while keeping a western office in Grand Junction.
Also under Trump, most positions in the Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture and its Economic Research Service were transferred from Washington to Kansas City, in the heart of the United States’ heavily agricultural Midwest.
Attrition also ensued after those moves. By February 2020, four months after the relocation was complete, staffing at the agencies had fallen to roughly a third of those mentioned in its cost-benefit analysis, according to an analysis from the Congressional Research Service. The analysis noted that active recruitments soon followed.
‘A Relatively Small Agency’
Questions linger about DOGE’s ability to effect change, especially given the scale of the United States’ non-discretionary program spending and interest payments that the commission would be hard-pressed to downsize.
Still, Trainor believes an FEC relocation warrants consideration from a commission charged with bolstering the efficiency of a government bowed down by debt and persistent deficits.
“It’s a relatively small agency to move, and it’ll have a correspondingly small financial impact. But a penny saved is a penny earned,” he said.
Though she stressed that partisan gridlock and deficient enforcement are bigger problems for the agency, especially given the scale of money in American politics, Sebold noted the logic of the idea.
“I can see why they would want to save some money,” she said.
The agency requested $93.5 million for Fiscal Year 2025. By comparison, BLM, the agency Trump moved, requested $1.4 billion for Fiscal Year 2025.
Of course, even that number is dwarfed by annual mandatory spending, including interest. In 2024, such spending made up 74 percent of the government’s $6.8 trillion budget, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The FEC’s overhead is dominated by costs that could be downsized by a move to a cheaper locale.
“Nearly 70 percent of the agency’s budget is composed of salaries and benefits,” the FEC’s 2025 budget request notes. The agency also sought $5.4 million for rent.
Trump Unveils “Official” MemeCoin Late Friday; 12 Hours Later It Is Up 16,000% To $30 Billion
Just hours after Gary Gensler left the SEC headquarter for the last time in his life…
It has been the privilege of a lifetime to work for you as @SECGov Chair.
Over the last four years, we updated rules in our equity market & Treasury Markets, & shortened the settlement cycle. We returned more than $2.7B to harmed investors.
… Trump showed the world what an outsized role crypto, and certainly memecoins, will have in his administration.
After nearly a year of frenzied speculation which of the dozens of Trump-linked memecoins the 47th president will pick as his own, just before 10pm ET on Friday night – and just two days before his inauguration as the 47th president of the United States – Trump stunned the world when he unveiled on his Truth Social and X accounts, his “official” meme coin, TRUMP…
… which in the 12 hours since its unveiling has surged to a $30 billion market capitalization, roughly three times bigger than Trump’s other momentum chasing venture, DJT (whose market cap is $8.7 billion and has roughly the same amount of revenue or cash flow as the meme coin) as part of an exponential move that has seen its market cap rise (and occasionally fall) by a billion dollars every few minutes.
“My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE! It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING! Join my very special Trump Community. GET YOUR $TRUMP NOW,” Trump wrote on his social media platform.
My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE! It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING! Join my very special Trump Community. GET YOUR $TRUMP NOW. Go to https://t.co/GX3ZxT5xyq — Have Fun! pic.twitter.com/flIKYyfBrC
The token started trading at an opening price of $0.1824, but within 12 hours had jumped over 15,000%, trading at roughly $30 as of 10:00am ET, 12 hours after its launch. Its market cap stood at ~$30 billion at the time.
Initially, the crypto community initially voiced concerns about the token’s legitimacy, with some warning of a possible hack or social engineering scheme. According to blockchain engineer cygaar, the project’s official website mirrors those of Trump’s previous NFT collections and suggested that “either this is the greatest cyber heist of all time, or this is legitimate.” However, as Trump’s posts remained online, and with Polymarket data suggesting only a 10% chance of account compromise, skepticism began to subside, pushing the price of the token further up.
The token’s explosive growth has also drawn concerns regarding its allocation.
“80% of the token supply is locked in a multisignature wallet, amounting to $3 billion controlled by the creator, who also added $40 million in liquidity,” Conor Grogan, head of product business operations at Coinbase, said in a post on X, adding that the project was seeded with millions of dollars of funds from Binance and Gate, two exchanges that don’t serve US customers. Other analysts noted that 80% of the token’s circulating supply is allocated to Fight Fight Fight LLC and CIC Digital LLC, entities linked to the Trump Organization, with only 20% of the supply split equally between public investors and liquidity.
While Trump controls the vast majority of the tokens, they remain locked which means the US president is unlikely to “rug” millions of his most ardent fans… at least for now.
Meanwhile, amid the panicked buying frenzy, the market value of the token is now $30BN, meaning it has surpassed such veteran cryptocurrencies as TRON, Avalanche, Chainlink and Shiba Inu.
Separately, while the Solana-linked memecoin has pushed the market cap of Solana – a cryptocurrency conceived with the purpose of create such shitcoin pump and dump schemes – to a record $118 billion, there has been an offsetting drain in the price of Ethereum, which has served as the primary source of liquidity, and whose market cap has dropped by 5% overnight, losing about $240BN in value.
TRUMP’s launch comes as the president-elect continues to align himself with cryptocurrency initiatives. Once an outspoken crypto-skeptic, he made a U-turn during his election campaign and pledged to reshape the US cryptocurrency landscape to make the country the “crypto capital of the planet.” Paul Atkins, Trump’s pick to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), is expected to spearhead these efforts. A known crypto advocate and former SEC commissioner, Atkins will replace Gary Gensler, who has been criticized for his crackdown on the industry.
Finally, while many are delighted to jump on board of the biggest momentum trade in history which is eclipsing even such social media phenomena as Gamestop and AMC, some such as Bloomberg ETF guru are voicing skepticism that this particular foray by Trump “seems exploitative” and is an “unforced error in the making”.
I don’t like it. I get its prob being done to add to the enthusiasm for the dawn of a new era but it seems exploitative. Unforced error in the making IMO. https://t.co/qMxItkgMAN
An advert created by Pakistan International Airlines has received fierce backlash for depicting one of the company’s planes flying directly toward the Eiffel tower in an image evoking the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The caption alongside the image reads “Paris, We’re Coming Today,” prompting some to ask if it is a threat.
Is this a threat???
— Dr. Parik Patel, BA, CFA, ACCA Esq. (@ParikPatelCFA) January 10, 2025
To make things worse for the airline, an ad made by PIA in the 1970s that depicted a plane’s shadow on the twin towers of the World Trade Center is again going viral.
This was PIA’s ad in 70s… they haven’t learnt anything yet… in which world they live????? pic.twitter.com/AdkaBBK5as
The purpose of the new ad is to announce that PIA flights to Europe are resuming following a five year ban imposed by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) after a PIA Airbus A-320 jet crashed into a street in Karachi, killing a hundred people.
In addition to a poor safety and financial records, investigations into the incident led to accusations that many PIA pilots were flying with falsified licenses. The airline is still banned from operating in the United Kingdom and the United States.
prolly should have put the tower on the left of the shot
Even people in Pakistan were shocked at the imagery, with columnist and former political media adviser Omar Quraishi pondering “Did the idiot who designed this graphic not see a PIA plane heading for the Eiffel Tower? One of Europe’s iconic landmarks?”
Do they not know about the 9/11 tragedy – which used planes to attack buildings? Did they not think that this would be perceived in similar fashion? Do they not know that PIA is an airline owned by a country often accused of supporting terrorism?” Quraishi added.
I mean who is PIA’s creative agency
Who designed this?
Who or which agency manages its social media accounts?
Did the airline management not vet this?
Did the idiot who designed this graphic not see a PIA plane heading for the Eiffel Tower? One of Europe’s iconic landmarks… pic.twitter.com/Z0Vm7LQR51
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UK Police Seize Cybertruck Illegally Driving Around Great Britain
Instead of focusing on third-world migrants causing havoc in the UK, the police have shifted their focus to confiscating at least one Tesla Cybertruck, which the government has deemed illegal for street use.
Officers from GMPTransportUnit stopped this Tesla Cybertruck in Whitefield last night. The driver was a permanent UK resident but the vehicle was registered and insured abroad which is prohibited in the UK. The Tesla Cybertruck is not road legal in the UK and does not hold a certificate of conformity. Whilst this may seem trivial to some, legitimate concerns exist around the safety of other road users or pedestrians if they were involved in a collision with a Cybertruck. The vehicle was subsequently seized under S165 of the Road Traffic Act and the driver reported.
It’s extremely difficult (in fact, nearly impossible) to register a Cybertruck anywhere in Europe. Some intrepid folks have gone through the painstaking task of modifying lights, compensating for its sharp edges and inspection processes to get a small number in and legal. However, this truck in the UK was not one of those modified vehicles.
A Facebook user commented on Bury Police of Greater Manchester’s post, telling the police:
Well done guys. You made our country much safer now. Can’t stand anymore to see how those Cybertruck owners are driving around stealing tools from vans, stealing catalytic converters, cars, burgling, drug dealing etc…
Another user said:
Got nothing better to do god forbid there’s actually a serious crime going on…
Will the Cybertruck ever be road-legal in the UK, given Elon Musk’s barrage of attacks on the Labour government over the grooming gangs scandal?
Germany is importing huge volumes of nuclear-generated electricity due to recent unfavorable weather for renewable energy production — placing the left-wing government’s decision to shut down Germany’s nuclear power plants firmly under the spotlight in the lead-up to next month’s federal elections.
Rather than producing its own clean nuclear energy, Berlin is importing electricity from France at a far higher cost this week as winter grips the nation with colder temperatures, overcast skies, and weak winds drastically reducing solar and wind power generation.
“Friday is a very weak day. There will also be little wind on Saturday. Monday will be almost a total loss for wind energy. Tuesday will also be difficult. The high-pressure system is extremely stable,” warned weather expert Karsen Brandt from Donnerwetter.de, as cited by Bild.
With high energy demand but insufficient green electricity, Germany’s grid operators have had to resort to importing energy at a premium — primarily from France, where nuclear power plants are running at full capacity.
Germany still had its own nuclear production facilities until April 2023, but the left-wing federal government under Social Democrat (SPD) Chancellor Olaf Scholz, supported by the Greens, shut them all down. The move was highly controversial, at a time when energy prices were sky-high due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and European nations were attempting to wean themselves off Russian gas.
Just five weeks before the federal election, the SPD-Green government’s energy policy is under intense scrutiny, with supply risks and skyrocketing prices fueling growing criticism.
Energy expert Prof. Manuel Frondel of the RWI Institute described the situation bluntly.
“By phasing out nuclear power and coal, we have become heavily dependent on foreign countries and accepted higher supply risks.”
This strategic miscalculation is not new. Similar shortages in December saw Germany’s electricity prices surge to record highs, with some businesses forced to halt production due to unaffordable costs. This led to electricity prices on the exchange soaring more than tenfold, reaching as high as €1,156 per megawatt-hour.
Carsten Brzeski, chief economist at ING Diba, warned that prices could continue to rise, despite nuclear imports from France.
“I assume that prices will keep increasing. This does not immediately impact all consumers, as many have fixed-price contracts. However, those on dynamic pricing models will feel the effects.”
Although Brzeski does not expect prices to exceed €1,000 per megawatt-hour, the ongoing volatility remains a serious concern.
With just five weeks until the federal election, the SPD-Green government’s energy policy is facing growing backlash. The decision to shut down nuclear power while depending on expensive imports from France is increasingly viewed as a policy failure, especially as electricity shortages become more frequent.
Opposition leaders have long criticized the decision, including Alternative for Germany (AfD) co-leader Alice Weidel who has pledged to reverse the policy and revitalize Germany’s nuclear energy sector.
“They switched off the last nuclear power plant to even more create a shortage of energy, so either you must be very stupid or you just hate your own country,” Weidel said of the current administration.
Musk expressed alignment with the AfD’s positions, particularly on energy policy. “Germany should really keep its nuclear power plants running. I think that’s extremely important,” he said.
Austria To Nuke 20% Of Green Subsidies In $6.5 Billion Savings Plan
Austria is set to eliminate roughly 20% of all subsidies related to climate change initiatives, as negotiators trying to form a nationalist-conservative government seek to avoid a budget reprimand from the European Union, Bloombergreports.
The EU’s so-called ‘excessive-deficit’ procedure would limit Austria’s budget independence, according to a Thursday statement from Freedom Party representative Hubert Fuchs.
As part of a €6.4 billion ($6.58 billion) budget saving program for 2025, the government would cut €1.6 billion of payouts compensating households for a carbon tax, and slash about €500 million in subsidies introduced to help the economy adopt emissions-free technologies.
The government would also eliminate tax incentives to buy electric vehicles and install solar panels, as coalition negotiators seek €435 million in additional dividends from state holdings that include a minority stake in energy company OMV AG.
Most of the measures on the chopping block were introduced by the previous conservative-green government, however with Austria’s economy in its longest recession since World War II – and may contract again in 2025 if budget steps hurt growth, according to the Wifo research institute.
Meanwhile, Austria’s Fiscal Advisory Council anticipates needing to slash costs by more than €12 billion by 2028, which comes as Fitch lowered Austria’s AA+ rating to “negative” on Jan. 10, pointing to political instability and persistent deficits which exceed the EU’s 3%-of-output limit.
We all know the old joke: when a European referendum delivers the “wrong” outcome, the country votes again until they get it “right”.
The EU thought this would be the case after Brexit. But so far, no one’s laughing.
If anything, things have got worse.
Take Romania, which recently cancelled its presidential election when Călin Georgescu, leader of a nationalist Right coalition, won the first round. Thierry Breton, former French European Commissioner, revealed the EU’s mindset during a damning recent TV interview. “We did it in Romania and we will obviously do it in Germany if necessary,” he said.
In other words, if you can’t beat the far-Right, ban them.
I disagree with almost everything Breton has ever said, but I am grateful to him for stating his case with such revealing clarity. During his time as industry commissioner in Brussels, from 2019 until last summer, when Emmanuel Macron replaced him with a more compliant figure, he was the driving force behind a series of laws designed to keep Europe in the digital dark ages. The most extreme of which is the Digital Services Act (DSA) which compels “very large online platforms”, such as X and Meta, to check facts and filter out fake news.
But, thanks to Breton, the truth is out there. Europe’s ultimate aim isn’t to save public discourse, it is to suffocate far-Right parties by depriving them of the oxygen of information. The DSA isn’t even the last word in the EU’s anti-digital jihad. One of Ursula von der Leyen’s big ideas last year during the European election was the so-called “democracy shield” — effectively launching even more legislation to prevent outside interference in EU affairs. This notion conjures up images of laser beams and light-sabre fights. And in some respects it’s not far from the truth: a frightened bloc needs a shield to protect itself from the encroaching enemy.
Mark Zuckerberg is certainly on the attack. Last week he announced that he is abandoning fact-checking on his platforms — effectively defying the DSA. And he is betting on Donald Trump to protect him from the legal consequences. Given that J.D. Vance, the Vice President-elect, has already threatened to end US support for Nato if Europe tries to censor Elon Musk’s X, surely the same will apply to Facebook. And the EU is far too dependent on the US to be able to mount an effective campaign against any of America’s social media platforms once Trump is president. The DSA, hastily drawn up during the pandemic, not only misjudges the nature of the social media, it misjudges political power. It exposes Europe’s essential weakness before America.
This isn’t just a geopolitical battle, though. It is also a European one. The attempted clampdown reveals that there is something the bloc fears more than free speech: populism. MEPs found it hard enough to stomach Nigel Farage’s brutal outbursts when he was a member of the European Parliament. Now they have Musk breathing down their neck, endorsing candidates from the AfD, a party that sits on the far-Right in the European Parliament’s benches and which supports German withdrawal from the EU.
The German media had a collective breakdown when Musk tweeted an endorsement for the AfD, interviewed Alice Weidel, the party’s co-leader, on X, and then endorsed her in an article for Die Welt. The op-ed editor of the German daily resigned in protest. And an article in another newspaper hysterically described Musk’s intervention as unconstitutional. That journalists would advocate censorship seems shocking, until one understands the role of journalism in continental European society. It operates firmly inside a narrow centrist political consensus, which spans all the parties from the centre-left to the centre-right. Naturally, the AfD does not get much airtime in the German media.
But while marginalised by traditional media, the AfD thrives on TikTok, where it has large following. So what irks the German media, and politicians from other parties, is that the censorship cartel is no longer functioning as well as it once did. In the US and in the UK, the once mighty legacy media have already lost their power. Hillary Clinton expressed the frustration perhaps most clearly when she said that social media companies must fact check, or else “we lose total control”. But Europe still lives in a twilight zone where the traditional media still basks in the dwindling sunset of power, trying to ignore social media rising on the other horizon. Like all the modern political battles in Europe, this is about protecting vested interests.
The Romanian case demonstrates how these restrictions on freedom of speech are the first salvos in a greater war of repression. The presidential elections there were cancelled on the grounds that a Russian-infested TikTok had misinformed voters. I am sure that the Russians were active. But it is shocking to think that an election was cancelled because someone lied on TikTok.
Let’s be clear, there was no suggestion of any vote rigging. Georgescu won the first round of the election fair and square. But as with the laughable misperception in Brussels after the Brexit vote, the presumption behind the EU’s support for the nullification of the result, was that voters were too stupid to make up their own mind. The rerun is to take place on 4 May, followed by a run-off between the most successful candidate two weeks later. Georgescu is still the most likely candidate to win according to opinion polls, but the Romanian political establishment is still determined to find ways to disbar him, the most promising of which is the hope that he may have received undeclared funds.
There are similar patterns elsewhere.
Marine Le Pen faces potential disqualification from the 2027 presidential elections following accusations of irregularities regarding her assistants in the European Parliament. More recently, Brussels was spooked by the victory in Austria of the Freedom Party, which managed to obtain 28.8% of the vote in the September general election. It surpassed a threshold at which point it became politically impossible for the other parties to form coalitions. Herbert Kickl, the FPÖ’s leader, is now likely to become Austria’s next chancellor. Meanwhile, in Germany, a group of 113 MPs has ganged up to ban the AfD. Their story is that the far-Right wants to destroy democracy. While the party is not yet polling high enough to frustrate yet another centrist coalition in Berlin after next month’s elections, Germany may only be a few percentage points away from an Austrian-style impasse.
Surely, though, the sensible approach to the rise of the AfD, the FPÖ and other parties of the Right is not to censor them, but to address the underlying problem that has made them so strong: persistent economic uncertainty, loss of purchasing power, and dysfunctional policies on migration. Failing that, why not co-opt parties of the far-Right as junior coalition partners as they did in Sweden and Finland? If Weidel were suddenly thrust into the job of economics minister, we would see whether she could defend her record in government. But the centrist parties in Germany and France do neither. They have erected political firewalls against the far-Right. And they are doubling down with the same old policies.
It’s an approach that will inevitably backfire. A banned Le Pen would be far more dangerous for the centrist establishment, and possibly even more extreme when she eventually gets to power. Likewise the AfD would surely be radicalised after a ban.
Until then, the EU’s blunt weapons of choice — the legal bans, political firewalls, and censorship — will inflict more self-harm than good. In the pecking order of democratic rights, freedom of speech has a relatively low priority in Europe. Like the creatures in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, I am struggling to spot the difference between the extremists of the Right, and those who are trying to fight them.
