Traduit de l’américain par Dominique Perrin.

À l’automne 2018, dans le cadre de la politique de transition énergétique, le président français Emmanuel Macron a annoncé une augmentation des taxes sur les carburants.

Cette mesure a suscité une protestation d’ampleur nationale de la part des automobilistes français, qui se signalaient par le port d’un gilet jaune. Ce vêtement leur a valu le surnom de « gilets jaunes ».

Bien que cette protestation ait commencé comme un mouvement social « populaire et non partisan », les gilets jaunes ont bénéficié du soutien des syndicats et d’un ensemble disparate de cadres politiques, de l’extrême gauche à l’extrême droite.

Le mouvement avait commencé comme une réaction contre de nouvelles taxes. De nombreux observateurs internationaux ont donc cru que les manifestants défendaient la liberté économique. Mais ils réclamaient en réalité un État-providence plus fort, des dépenses plus importantes pour les « services publics » et l’augmentation des impôts pour les plus riches.

Le mouvement a eu un fort impact à l’étranger parmi les opposants aux mondialistes et aux bureaucrates européens, un groupe auquel on peut rattacher le président Macron.

Avec le temps, l’esprit des « gilets jaunes » a commencé à se répandre dans d’autres pays européens. C’est...

In the autumn of 2018, French President Emmanuel Macron announced an increase of fuel taxes as part of his effort to transition to alternative energy.

The move sparked nationwide protests by French drivers distinguished by the yellow vests they wore. The garb gave them the nickname “gilets jaunes” in French.

Although they began as a “grassroots and nonpartisan” social movement, they counted on the support of trade unions and a motley collection of political cadres from the far-Left to the Alt-Right.

Because the movement began as a backlash against new taxes, many international observers believed they supported a free economy. But these protesters demanded a stronger welfare state, greater spending on ”public services,” and higher taxes on the rich.

The movement had a wide impact overseas among those opposed to globalists and EU bureaucrats--a constituency to which Macron certainly belongs.

In time, the spirit of the “gilets jaunes” began reproducing in other European countries. That is the case in Spain, where farmers have employed similar tactics in favor of a more expansive welfare state.

Beginning last month, before the social distancing demanded by the coronavirus made mass protests untenable, farmers launched copycat protests in some...

In May, citizens of the European Union’s current 28 member states voted for members of the European Parliament. Pro-EU parties won the three largest shares of the vote. The center-rightEuropean People’s Party (EPP), Socialists and Democrats (S&D), and Renew Europe (formerly ALDE) will share power among themselves. This triumverate will control the “top jobs” at the European Commission, the Council of Europe, and the European Central Bank (ECB).

Meanwhile, euroskeptics from the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and Identity and Democracy (ID) factions won 62 and 73 seats, respectively - nearly one-third of that supranational parliament. They may be able to play a deciding role on some votes but lack the power to hold sway or make appointments to the top EU positions. 

The people nominated for the leading positions include:

Ursula von der Leyen, new European Commission president

Jean-Claude Juncker has completed his mandate as president of the European Commission. Socialist Dutch politician Frans Timmermans of the Labour Party (PvdA) had sought the office, but he encountered the opposition of the Visegrad Group: Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia.

Ultimately, German Minister of Defense Ursula von der Leyen of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was tapped as Juncker’s successor. She is...

On April 28, Spain held its general election for national Congress and Senate, as well as an election for the regional Corts in Valencia. The current president, socialist Pedro Sánchez, anticipated elections after his partners, the Catalan nationalists, rejected his budget in February.

How is Spanish Parliament divided?

Spain has a bicameral parliamentary system. The lower chamber is the Congress of Deputies, where all 350 seats were contested, and the upper chamber is the Senate, in which all but 58 of its 266 members faced an election. 

In both cases, the legislators are chosen by citizens. However, deputies are chosen from a “closed and restricted party list,” while senators are elected directly. Voters get to vote for one candidate for each senate seat in their region – three in most areas. In autonomous regions, senators are designated by regional parliaments.

The lower chamber has 52 constituencies - one per province and two others for the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla. The Senate is composed of 59 constituencies that belong to the 47 provinces in the peninsula, 10 for the islands, and one per autonomous city.

How do general elections to the Spanish Parliament work?

Spain's general election follow...

Bureaucrats at the European Union steadily struggle for tax harmonization among EU member states. Unfortunately, they do not seek to relieve these nations’ tax burden but rather to warn against “tax havens.” Along these  lines, last year the European Commission (EC) came up with the idea of a “digital tax.”

In the name of pursuing the “fair taxation of the digital economy,” the EC made two proposals: 1) taxing tech companies’ profits “where businesses have significant interaction with users through digital channels,” regardless of whether they have a physical location in that nation; and 2) taxing “the main digital activities that currently escape tax altogether in the EU.”

The lack of consensus among the governments may lead the EC to withdraw those proposals. Whereas countries like Spain and France support the idea (and have advocated similar measures), the Irish, Swedish and Danish governments opposed the “digital tax.” Nevertheless, Brussels supports the OECD’s ongoing work to tax technological companies.

Last January, the OECD announced that “the international community has made important progress toward addressing the tax challenges arising from digitalization of the economy and has agreed to continue working multilaterally towards achievement of a new, consensus-based, long-term solution in 2020.”...