THE HAGUE: Polls opened in the Netherlands on Thursday to kick off four days of voting in European Union parliamentary elections across the 27 member states that are expected to deliver gains for the hard right.
Estonians can cast their ballots across six days that started Monday, but the Netherlands is the only EU country to start its single-day vote so early, followed by Ireland on Friday and the rest of the EU nations over the weekend. Europe-wide results will be announced Sunday night after all member states have completed voting.
The Dutch voting comes six months after Geert Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom sent shockwaves around Europe by becoming the biggest party in the Dutch national parliament. Polling suggests Wilders will build on that popularity and set the tone for much of the bloc.
Since the last EU elections five years ago, populist, far-right and extremist parties are leading governments in three EU nations, are part of governing coalitions in several others, and appear to have surging public support across the continent.
The EU elections are the world’s second-biggest exercise in democracy behind the election in India, and the stakes are high.
Almost 400 million voters will be electing 720 members of the European Parliament from beyond the Arctic circle to the edges of Africa and Asia. They will have an impact on issues ranging from global climate policies and defense to migration and geopolitical relations with China and the United States.
Since the last European elections in 2019, war has broken out on the fringe of the bloc following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a country that desperately wants to join the EU.
A founding member, the Netherlands was long unwavering in its support of EU policies. Research from the Clingendael think tank, though, suggests dissatisfaction with the EU among Dutch people, and that while most believe that the Netherlands should remain in the bloc, many also believe it should be more self-sufficient.
While many voters are predicted to lurch to the right, the Christian Democrat-dominated European People’s Party led by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, is currently the EU legislature’s biggest bloc and is bound to be the coalition kingmaker when the dust settles on the election results.
In the Netherlands, Wilders’ PVV could build on its domestic success and surge, possibly overtaking the combined Labour Party and Green Left. Labor topped the Dutch EU Parliament election in 2019 with 19 percent of the vote for six seats while the Greens took 11 percent and three seats. Wilders’ party at the time only managed 3.5 percent and no seats.
Wilders and one of his likely coalition partners, the Farmer Citizen Movement, are popular among farmers in the Netherlands who have staged regular protests to call for an easing of EU legislation they say is crippling their livelihoods.
Wilders has in the past called for the Netherlands to leave the EU as Britain did, but his party’s manifesto for the election starting Thursday makes no mention of a so-called Nexit. Instead, it urges voters to back the PVV so it can change the EU from within, similar to plans of many other hard right parties across the bloc.
The number of members elected in each country depends on the size of the population. It ranges from six for Malta, Luxembourg and Cyprus to 96 for Germany. In 2019, Europeans elected 751 lawmakers. Following the United Kingdom’s departure from the EU in 2020, the number of MEPs fell to 705. Some of the 73 seats previously held by British MEPs had been redistributed to other member states.
The lawmakers, known as Members of the European Parliament of MEPs, can vote on a wide range of legislation laws relating to climate, banking rules, agriculture, fisheries, security and justice. They also vote on the EU budget, which is crucial to the implementation of European policies, including, for instance, the aid delivered to Ukraine.
After the election, MEPs will elect their president at the first plenary session, from July 16-19. Then, most likely in September, they will nominate the president of the European Commission, following a proposal made by the member states. In 2019, von der Leyen narrowly won a vote to become the first woman to head the institution.
Netherlands kicks off 4 days of European Union elections across 27 nations
Netherlands kicks off 4 days of European Union elections across 27 nations
- Europe-wide results will be announced Sunday night after all member states have completed voting.
Seven dead in small plane crash in western Mexico
- The aircraft, a Cessna 207, was flying from La Parota in the neighboring state of Michoacan
The aircraft, a Cessna 207, was flying from La Parota in the neighboring state of Michoacan.
Jalisco Civil Protection said via its social media that the crash site was in an area that was difficult to access.
Initial authorities on the scene “reported a preliminary count of seven people dead,” who haven’t been identified yet, according to the agency.
“A fire was extinguished and risk mitigation was carried out to prevent possible additional damage,” it added.
Authorities said they were awaiting the arrival of forensic investigators to remove the bodies and rule out the presence of additional victims.
Canada’s Trudeau losing support within his party: MPs
- Ottawa area MP Chandra Arya: Dozens of Liberal MPs want the prime minister to go
- Trudeau has huddled with advisers to contemplate his future ahead of elections set for October 2025
OTTAWA: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s support within his own party appeared to falter further on Sunday, as former loyalists said growing numbers of Liberal caucus members wanted the premier to resign.
Trudeau has suffered a series of blows in recent days, spurred by the surprise resignation of Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who clashed with her boss over incoming US president Donald Trump’s threats to impose 25 percent tariffs on Canadian imports.
Freeland’s exit, after nearly a decade at Trudeau’s side, marked the first open dissent against the prime minister from within his cabinet and has emboldened critics.
Ottawa area MP Chandra Arya told the public broadcaster CBC on Sunday that dozens of Liberal MPs wanted Trudeau to go.
Arya was interviewed a day after Liberal MPs from the province of Ontario held a meeting that addressed Trudeau’s future.
Multiple outlets, including the CBC and Toronto Star, reported that more than 50 of the 75 Ontario Liberals in parliament declared in Saturday’s meeting that they no longer supported Trudeau.
Asked about those reports, Arya said a “majority of the caucus thinks it is time for the prime minister to step aside.”
Anthony Housefather, a Liberal member of parliament from the province of Quebec, told the CBC on Sunday that “the prime minister needs to go.”
“We’re in an impossible situation if he stays,” Housefather said, arguing the party would be hammered in an election that amounted to a referendum on Trudeau’s leadership.
Trudeau has huddled with advisers to contemplate his future ahead of elections set for October 2025 but expected much sooner. He changed a third of his cabinet on Friday.
Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the small leftist New Democratic Party in parliament, declared Friday that he would join with other opposition parties to topple Trudeau’s minority government early next year.
The NDP had previously opposed a series of non-confidence votes brought by the opposition Conservatives.
A change in the party’s position would almost certainly bring down Trudeau’s government if another non-confidence vote is held.
Trudeau swept to power in 2015 and led the Liberals to two more ballot box victories in 2019 and 2021.
But he now trails his main rival, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, by 20 points in public opinion polls.
Trump names former staffer Katie Miller to Musk-led DOGE panel
- Katie Miller will soon be joining DOGE! She has been a loyal supporter of mine for many years, and will bring her professional experience to Government Efficiency, Trump posts
WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday named Katie Miller, who served in Trump’s first administration and is the wife of his incoming deputy chief of staff, as one of the first members of an advisory board to be led by billionaire allies Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy that aims to drastically slash government spending, federal regulations and the federal workforce.
Miller, wife of Trump’s designated homeland security adviser Stephen Miller, will join Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an informal advisory body that Trump has said will enable his administration to “slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”
“Katie Miller will soon be joining DOGE! She has been a loyal supporter of mine for many years, and will bring her professional experience to Government Efficiency,” Trump posted in a message on his social media platform Truth Social.
Musk and Ramaswamy recently revealed plans to wipe out scores of federal regulations crafted by what they say is an anti-democratic, unaccountable bureaucracy, but have yet to announce members of the DOGE team. Musk has said he wants to slash the number of federal agencies from over 400 to 99.
Katie Miller had served in the first Trump adminstration as deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security and as press secretary for former Vice President Mike Pence.
She is currently a spokesperson for the transition team for Trump’s designated Health and Human Services secretary, Robert Kennedy Jr.
Panama rejects Trump’s threat to take control of Canal
- Trump also complained of China’s growing influence around the canal, a worrying trend for American interests as US businesses depend on the channel to move goods between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
PANAMA CITY: Panama’s president Jose Raul Mulino on Sunday dismissed recent threats made by US President-elect Donald Trump to retake control of the Panama Canal over complaints of “unfair” treatment of American ships.
“Every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent areas belongs to Panama and will continue belonging to Panama,” Mulino said in a video posted to X.
Mulino’s public comments, though never mentioning Trump by name, come a day after the president-elect complained about the canal on his Truth Social platform.
“Our Navy and Commerce have been treated in a very unfair and injudicious way. The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,” he said.
Trump also complained of China’s growing influence around the canal, a worrying trend for American interests as US businesses depend on the channel to move goods between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
“It was solely for Panama to manage, not China, or anyone else,” Trump said. “We would and will NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands!“
The Panama Canal, which was completed by the United States in 1914, was returned to the Central American country under a 1977 deal signed by Democratic president Jimmy Carter.
Panama took full control in 1999.
Trump said that if Panama could not ensure “the secure, efficient and reliable operation” of the channel, “then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question.”
Mulino rejected Trump’s claims in his video message, though he also said he hopes to have “a good and respectful relationship” with the incoming administration.
“The canal has no direct or indirect control from China, nor the European Union, nor the United States or any other power,” Mulino said. “As a Panamanian, I reject any manifestation that misrepresents this reality.”
Later on Sunday, Trump responded to Mulino’s dismissal, writing on Truth Social: “We’ll see about that!“
Musk, president? Trump says ‘not happening’
- Trump: “He wasn’t born in this country”
“He’s not gonna be president, that I can tell you,” Trump told a Republican conference in Phoenix, Arizona.
“You know why he can’t be? He wasn’t born in this country,” Trump said of the Tesla and SpaceX boss, who was born in South Africa.
The US Constitution requires that a president be a natural-born US citizen.
Trump was responding to criticism, particularly from the Democratic camp, portraying the tech billionaire and world’s richest person as “President Musk” for the outsized role he is playing in the incoming administration.
As per ceding the presidency to Musk, Trump also assured the crowd: “No, no that’s not happening.”
The influence of Musk, who will serve as Trump’s “efficiency czar,” has become a focus point for Democratic attacks, with questions raised over how an unelected citizen can wield so much power.
And there is even growing anger among Republicans after Musk trashed a government funding proposal this week in a blizzard of posts — many of them wildly inaccurate — to his more than 200 million followers on his social media platform X.
Alongside Trump, Musk ultimately helped pressure Republicans to renege on a funding bill they had painstakingly agreed upon with Democrats, pushing the United States to the brink of budgetary paralysis that would have resulted in a government shutdown just days before Christmas.
Congress ultimately reached an agreement overnight Friday to Saturday, avoiding massive halts to government services.
