EU Sanctions against the block's own citizens and residents are a horrible development toward a totalitarian future. Their extralegal nature is what gives them their force. An explanation attempt.
And the same EU oligarchy wants to send European teenagers to die in the east attacking Russia, and their parents to die under the bombs that will get sent to Europe in retaliation.....in what these elites says an existential battle against countries that are "autocratic", "don't share our love of democracy" etc.
What democracy? And what is the war actually in service of?
Later note: I now also recall something that might be a hint as to why anti-war voices could be supressed.
Your interview with Dr Hofer was very enlightening in this respect. It underlined that the EU, supposedly built around achieving the ideals of liberal democracy and human rights, is institutionally captured by autocrats, with not a shred of values, principles, ethics or morals. They are deliberately aiming to degrade standards of governance, to "enshittify" it.
If this does not wake up the masses, I don't know what will. But there is no way anyone can actually believe any further that even they themselves believe the narrative they have been running for a decade now about defending democracy and rights.
I don't think that is what they want. My guess is that "they" have this "great strategy" to showcase military preparedness and the ability and willingness to build a military machinery that can put the Russian army "in their place". In order for this to work it cannot be about theoretical capacity, the Russians must believe that it is or can be real if they do not play ball. It is of course not thought through and it will not work. In particular, they have not thought through what this will do to Europe and where we end up should Germany or France or both fall to the populist right. If the EU breaks up, a war between Germany and Poland is much more likely than a war between Russia and NATO, given that there is a worrying number of crack-heads both in Poland and in Germany who drive a conflict.
Absolutely - this is all driven by the oligarchy aiming to puff up the profits of the killing-for-profit aka "defence" industries that they own and control.
Chris Hedges covered this well in two of his recent episodes:
The real issue here is whether this is good for business. The defence industries all depend on government spending - and that depends on taxation. Without the latter, the system falls apart, as is happening in the UK and the US as we speak.
Driving censorship will only hide the realities from those who don't take the time to work out what is going on for themselves. Or, for that matter, listen to those who already have in one way or another.
Exactly. Not only that - it also explains where their priorities lie. The PMC (Political Managerial Class) have a job to do and they are doing it. This has nothing to do with politics as in polis or democracy as in demos, and everything with corporate interests and keeping things going to avoid a reckoning.
It’s a tortuous, slippery slope, pray Russia soon defeats NATO and their E.U, the UK and their U.S as arch protagonists conflagration… then and only then will sanity return, perverse and ironic that once again, the supposed free world, the citizenry of the vaunted “Garden” rely upon Russia as they did 85+ years previously to extract freedom loving peoples from fascist tyranny… amazing if not so true… just saying
I’m uncertain as to the meaning of your retort… Russia cares because the6 have been targeted incessantly for centuries by those who especially in these latter days culminating the moustache challenged one, backed Western Financial Elites and Zionists, as well as their successors presently, the financial bankers, corporates and billionaires who covet her resources because they know, understand and accept their economies have been plundered past the point of no return, ref: the present and most recent announced rounds of money printing, the repo rates and M1 and M2 money supply issues, the huge indebtedness threatening to bring down their economies, economies that are nothing better than a managed Madoff scheme on steroids… that essentially see her peoples as “un European, animals, the detritus of humanity”
As a result The Russian Federation wants to end this warmongering, being the whipping boy of every wet dream of global dominance held by these globalists as they juxtapose between playing with themselves as they orchestrate attack after attack against Russia all whilst doing all they can to ensure peace never comes, THENST going into fits of apoplectic rage amongst themselves as they all self flagellate, sphincters sweating, twitching uncontrollably with the realisation following each Russian victory taking city after city in the most heavily defensive zones the world has ever experienced… a Russian Army persistently dealing to them, beating their Western Flag Officered and Commanded Militaries.
Meanwhile Russia insists upon a new Security Architecture that encapsulates all of Europe, especially themselves and why not, they have done more than any nation upon this earth to save humanity from the very worst of human excess, of human depravity, of ungodliness and ungodly acts, they are the last totally majority Christian Nation State upon the planet, another reason they are hated by the WEF, New World Order, Rules Based Order, Liberal Globalists and that is what they are as a nation for, God, Faith, Family, Nation in that order, just as they have stated and enunciated innumerable times since 2008 when the West began encircling them as a nation always under benign pretexts of innocent activity, facilitating the very first coup de tat against a legitimate government in the Nazi shithole the West encouraged and re-created, Ukraine, presided over the drug addled pervert and illegitimate President Dictator Elinsky, he who made illegal the use of the letter “Z” go figure. Russia have been stating unequivocally their need for Western restraint, all to no avail, try having any NATO, Western State accept Russia or China establishing similar alliances, arming neighbors on their borders, fat chance, the entire thing is a Western last act of desperation and when overlaid the Geo economic issues faced, it’s all to readily transparent S to actuality’s persisting and pervading the geo political landscape more so Russia the West.. personally if I were Russian, I would be acting no differently and indeed would have taken the gloves off long ago given the provocation contended with, however patience being the virtue it is reputed to be also has its limits, pray they’re not reached insofar as Russia is concerned.. literally speaking the west is f..led, they know it, Russia knows it, one would think they’d reign in the hubris, but nope, still talking it up… fools the lot of them and they expect us to blindly follow them… fat chance.. pray Russia continues as they are, have been, then at least we ought have the semblance of a world so many wish and opine for… just saying
And nowhere is the hubris warmongering threats worse than in the imperial psychopathy and provocations of the UK and its ruling class. Inversely at the same time displaying the most craven posturing imaginable to ensure their vassalage status as the preeminent bootlicker of the US! If any rabid attack dog of the Imperial hegemon needs putting down its the UK before it starts WW3 ahead of the US!
Your post is so accurate on the points you enunciated with your reply… my post previously made.. Not much else to add save as you state… the Brits need saving from themselves.. the basis of the argument made cannot be refuted one iota… Best to you..
Keep it coming, Pascal. It is important to know exactly what we are up against.
This post is a concise review of what is known so far about this matter, and I hope you, Pascal, will follow up with more analyses and interviews. We need these tools to organize resistance against this reckless attack on the principle of the Rechtsstaat.
The European Council has become judge, jury and executioner. But resistance against these totalitarian tendencies is growing in the blogosphere, so it is important to keep up the momentum and engage more people in this resistance. Your blogs and videos are helping keep this momentum going.
Cheers from the European province of Denmark, formerly a sovereign nation, now a client region in the totalitarian federation of the EU.
I live in the UK, where the forces that created the EU are rampant. If there is one thing that is true, it is that countering such force is impossible.
In the UK our democracy is so weak that half of the population are not even registered to vote - leave alone not troubling themselves to.
Hello Pascal, I can't thank you enough for your courages action in this matter. Although we knew vaguely these things happen, it has been your post and the interviews that brought it to the forefront. If you ever hear of actions we can take, connecting points or the like, let as know. Until than we will try our best to fight from the inside... Regards and happy new year nonetheless...
Hallo Pascal, noch eine Frage. Wäre es OK wenn ich diesen Post ins deutsche übersetzte um ihn hier einer breiteren Öffentlichkeit zugänglich zu machen? Oder möchtest Du das (als ebenfalls Muttersprachler) selbst übernehmen? Nochmals vielen Dank für diesen Beitrag und Deinen generellen Einsatz für Frieden und Verständigung! Ich bin schon lange treuer Höherer Deiner Posts in YouTube. LG aus Deutschland
Thank you so much, Pascal, for all the work you have been doing to shine a light on this issue. Your podcast is one of the best out there. I am an American living in Germany, and I can't tell you how often I am approached by acquaintances with concerned expressions, asking me sympathetically how I am holding up with all the terrible things Trump is doing back home. I reply, yeah, but I am not so excited with the way things are going in the EU either, and when I bring up the sanctions as an example, I am met with blank stares. A freind's elderly mom insisted that such things could not be happening here, and was particularly offended when I suggested that the German press might not be so "free" if a well-educated person such as herself has never heard of this. Ugh.
Thanks a lot Pascal, for this is a very illuminating piece, especially in clarifying the extrajudicial nature of EU sanctions and the way they bypass classic rule-of-law safeguards.
One point, however, seems crucial and could perhaps be explored further: the political mechanism that makes unanimity in the Council possible for such measures.
The repeated achievement of unanimity on sanctions targeting legally innocent individuals — sometimes EU citizens or residents — raises a fundamental question. This unanimity is not a procedural detail but appears to be the main institutional lock that stabilizes the entire system, yet it remains largely implicit in the analysis.
A second, related issue concerns the structural limits of this regime. As long as these extrajudicial measures are applied to peripheral figures (journalists, analysts, activists), political costs remain low. But the same logic, if ever extended to European or national political figures, would make isolated or unanimous decisions far more difficult. The possibility of vertical spillover introduces a latent instability that seems essential to understanding both the apparent strength and the underlying fragility of this sanctions regime.
These two dimensions — unanimity as a negative political mechanism, and the risk of vertical contagion — may be key to fully grasping how this system functions and where its limits lie.
Nothing says “rule of law” like freezing bank accounts, silencing voices, and destroying livelihoods — without crime, without trial, without defence. An uncomfortable text, precisely because it exposes the growing gap between the values the EU proclaims and the practices it adopts.
True. Greece showed that when democratic outcomes clash with institutional interests, legality becomes flexible. The precedent was set long before — today it’s just being normalised.
Thank you Pascal. The voice of humanity and reason. I moved to France from UK because of the ignorant mindset and what I saw as political threat. I'm pretty sure I would be stopped if I tried to go back, whichever papers I travel on (Czech/UK) - a friend says I'm over-reacting, but even people here sometimes guess my name is Russian. I no longer post on social media. "First they came for..." .
Thank you for your work. Stay safe. Happy New Year.
If the EU wants to keep calling it the “rule of law,” then it cannot sanction first and explain later. All it would take is something radical: clear criteria, a right of reply before the decision, and genuine judicial oversight. Without that, sanctions are merely political punishment wrapped in bureaucratic language.
Exactly. When principles are invoked without clear rules, due process, or consistent application, they stop being law and become narrative. At that point, “rule of law” functions much like the “rules-based order”: flexible, selective, and ultimately defined by power rather than constraint.
It is kind of a "Feminine Toxicity" logic driven by the line of argumentation
"If you don't agree with me, you don't love me, you are bad, evil and need to be punished"
"Because we say so!" No "due process", no legal recourse, no appeal.
It the same argumentation that drives Ms. Kaja Kallas to argue (not as a Female, or as a person but as Leading Diplomat, who's job description should be to negotiate with opponents) that "You don't talk to a War Criminal. Her argumentation is not only contradicting diplomatic concept, but
- plainly breaking the Rule of Law principle of "Innocent, until proven Guilty in the Court of Law";
- using transparent double standards (talking to Israelis).
Let us not even talk about the Western principle of "Sovereign Immunity".
This line of sanctions uses the same line of argumentation as during the medieval "Malleus Maleficarum" (witch-hunting and execution) or "Lèse-majesté" (offense of Majesty).
"Guilty because we say so" without a chance for "due process" and appeal.
Outrageous, Inhumane, uncivil.
I just wonder who are those "humble servant" "legal scholars" that create such legal argumentation to excuse "medieval style" brutality to abuse human rights and civil liberties?
I think we have descended into "magical thinking" since fake news and cancel culture took hold. Facts became irrelevant and AI is going to accelerate this trend.
However, it also seems to be very skilfully manipulated. After all, we pay the bills.
Yes, "Magical Thinking" that confuses Reality with Narratives.
The development of the culture of "Assertive Communication" is in part driving this misleading phenomena of "The Story is the Truth".
This "Magical Thinking" is then combined with the culture of "Win by all and every Means, while the Ends (to win) justify/sanctify the Means". ... "The Art of the Deal" ... Playing "Karate" with Words. Not the same as Fighting in Reality.
As Mike Tyson (boxing Champion) once said: "Everyone has a Plan, until they get punched in the Nose".
Such "Magical Thinkers" and "Strongly Assertive Communicators" (male, female, lgbtqias2+, etc.) often confuse "narratives" (story telling) with Reality. Yes, "Magical Thinking".
In Reality, not even the best Narrative can change the Real trajectory of a 7.62 projectile.
In Reality the Military say only once "Stop or I shoot". No "Self-Assertive Negotiation" there! No "Art of Deal"! STAY AWAY FROM ICBMs! Full stop!
Some cannot accept that "Reality". They will kill us all!
Hi Pascal, I think public commentary and activisim is missing an important aspect of the Baud case. There is certainly an infringement of the rights of Mr. Baud. When it comes to legal redress, one of the problems is that he is not a EU citizen. The elimination of Mr. Baud from public debate is however at the same time a potential infringement of the fundamental democratic rights of German citizens. I am a German national and my constitution and the EU treaties confer a right on me to use generally available sources of information. There can be limitations but this require express authorization by a constituionally compliant law. The German constitutional courts have held in 2020 in relation to the ECJ's upholding of finalcial stabilization measures affecting the German budget, that the german constitutional court while generally not interfering with EU measures has jursidiction where the EU is acting outside the scope of its competence. I can imagine there is a prima facie case that any German citizen can bring a complaint against the Government. This comes withi the disclaimer that I am just a regular lawyer practicing business law and I am not an expert on constitutional matters and I have spend a day or two reading on this only and more preparation would be needed. This said, I wonder if you could find an expert who is willing to speak on your podcast on this.
For this one, you need to follow the case of Hüseyin Dogru. He is a German national, no other nationality. The sanctions list falsely claims he is Turkish. He himself says „no, I‘m not“. So his case one of a German in Germany being put under this horrible regime. I talked to him on my podcast youtube.com/@neutralitystudies but I think he is still in the stag of fighting at the ECJ. This is all so new that we don‘t know where we can fight this.
Great work, one additional insight worth underscoring is that this sanctions regime exposes the EU not as a failing democracy, but as a post-democratic administrative empire functioning exactly as designed. As I argued in my essay last August “Why Europe’s Democracy is an Illusion Built on Empire and Control” (link below), Europe’s liberal institutions were never meant to constrain power internally but only to legitimize it while coercion was exercised externally. What we are witnessing now is not a legal anomaly but an imperial tool turning inward once external domains of control shrink. Sanctions against journalists and analysts are not excesses but the logical extension of a system built on managerial rule, elite consensus and the suppression of dissent when narrative control becomes strategically necessary.
Any neutral post here would, to my view, negate our own nature as humans and indirectly condone such inhumane behavior of a so-called civilized society.
This isn't about Jacques Baud's views, but whether any EU citizen can be economically strangled before trial and without any due process. Never mind that he supposedly has free speech rights in Europe (that seem dead too).
The sequence matters: when the state freezes your assets upon accusation—not conviction—and forces you to beg for bread while fighting to reclaim your rights (without access to your money), it is getting uncomfortably close to Europe in the Middle Ages.
Back then, a person declared "vogelfrei" was banished, lost all rights, and could be killed without consequence (1507 Bamberg Penal Code).
And the same EU oligarchy wants to send European teenagers to die in the east attacking Russia, and their parents to die under the bombs that will get sent to Europe in retaliation.....in what these elites says an existential battle against countries that are "autocratic", "don't share our love of democracy" etc.
What democracy? And what is the war actually in service of?
Later note: I now also recall something that might be a hint as to why anti-war voices could be supressed.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pentagon-fails-eighth-audit-targets-2028-pass-pentagon-says-2025-12-19/
https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118371/documents/HHRG-119-GO06-20250611-SD004.pdf
This giant ooutflow of money from taxpayers to the weapons merchants, is surely a hint of the incentives going on for EU bureacrats too?
Exactly. They want 18 year old kids die for their sick fantasies, and Ursula will say „La Démocratie, c‘est moi“.
Your interview with Dr Hofer was very enlightening in this respect. It underlined that the EU, supposedly built around achieving the ideals of liberal democracy and human rights, is institutionally captured by autocrats, with not a shred of values, principles, ethics or morals. They are deliberately aiming to degrade standards of governance, to "enshittify" it.
If this does not wake up the masses, I don't know what will. But there is no way anyone can actually believe any further that even they themselves believe the narrative they have been running for a decade now about defending democracy and rights.
I don't think that is what they want. My guess is that "they" have this "great strategy" to showcase military preparedness and the ability and willingness to build a military machinery that can put the Russian army "in their place". In order for this to work it cannot be about theoretical capacity, the Russians must believe that it is or can be real if they do not play ball. It is of course not thought through and it will not work. In particular, they have not thought through what this will do to Europe and where we end up should Germany or France or both fall to the populist right. If the EU breaks up, a war between Germany and Poland is much more likely than a war between Russia and NATO, given that there is a worrying number of crack-heads both in Poland and in Germany who drive a conflict.
What do you mean by "populist"?
Remember that the European Union is European in name only. It really stands for the corporate interests that have overthrown the US and UK.
Understand that and you will understand why they don’t care.
Absolutely - this is all driven by the oligarchy aiming to puff up the profits of the killing-for-profit aka "defence" industries that they own and control.
Chris Hedges covered this well in two of his recent episodes:
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-trillion-dollar-war-machine-w
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/francesca-albanese-and-the-lonely
It is that machine that is driving this censorship and sanctioning of anti-war voices.
The real issue here is whether this is good for business. The defence industries all depend on government spending - and that depends on taxation. Without the latter, the system falls apart, as is happening in the UK and the US as we speak.
Driving censorship will only hide the realities from those who don't take the time to work out what is going on for themselves. Or, for that matter, listen to those who already have in one way or another.
Censorship cannot stop the rot.
Exactly. Not only that - it also explains where their priorities lie. The PMC (Political Managerial Class) have a job to do and they are doing it. This has nothing to do with politics as in polis or democracy as in demos, and everything with corporate interests and keeping things going to avoid a reckoning.
In the sense of balance sheets.
Perfectly advocated and written Pascal
It’s a tortuous, slippery slope, pray Russia soon defeats NATO and their E.U, the UK and their U.S as arch protagonists conflagration… then and only then will sanity return, perverse and ironic that once again, the supposed free world, the citizenry of the vaunted “Garden” rely upon Russia as they did 85+ years previously to extract freedom loving peoples from fascist tyranny… amazing if not so true… just saying
Kia Kaha (stay strong) From New Zealand
Thank you!
What would Russia care?
I’m uncertain as to the meaning of your retort… Russia cares because the6 have been targeted incessantly for centuries by those who especially in these latter days culminating the moustache challenged one, backed Western Financial Elites and Zionists, as well as their successors presently, the financial bankers, corporates and billionaires who covet her resources because they know, understand and accept their economies have been plundered past the point of no return, ref: the present and most recent announced rounds of money printing, the repo rates and M1 and M2 money supply issues, the huge indebtedness threatening to bring down their economies, economies that are nothing better than a managed Madoff scheme on steroids… that essentially see her peoples as “un European, animals, the detritus of humanity”
As a result The Russian Federation wants to end this warmongering, being the whipping boy of every wet dream of global dominance held by these globalists as they juxtapose between playing with themselves as they orchestrate attack after attack against Russia all whilst doing all they can to ensure peace never comes, THENST going into fits of apoplectic rage amongst themselves as they all self flagellate, sphincters sweating, twitching uncontrollably with the realisation following each Russian victory taking city after city in the most heavily defensive zones the world has ever experienced… a Russian Army persistently dealing to them, beating their Western Flag Officered and Commanded Militaries.
Meanwhile Russia insists upon a new Security Architecture that encapsulates all of Europe, especially themselves and why not, they have done more than any nation upon this earth to save humanity from the very worst of human excess, of human depravity, of ungodliness and ungodly acts, they are the last totally majority Christian Nation State upon the planet, another reason they are hated by the WEF, New World Order, Rules Based Order, Liberal Globalists and that is what they are as a nation for, God, Faith, Family, Nation in that order, just as they have stated and enunciated innumerable times since 2008 when the West began encircling them as a nation always under benign pretexts of innocent activity, facilitating the very first coup de tat against a legitimate government in the Nazi shithole the West encouraged and re-created, Ukraine, presided over the drug addled pervert and illegitimate President Dictator Elinsky, he who made illegal the use of the letter “Z” go figure. Russia have been stating unequivocally their need for Western restraint, all to no avail, try having any NATO, Western State accept Russia or China establishing similar alliances, arming neighbors on their borders, fat chance, the entire thing is a Western last act of desperation and when overlaid the Geo economic issues faced, it’s all to readily transparent S to actuality’s persisting and pervading the geo political landscape more so Russia the West.. personally if I were Russian, I would be acting no differently and indeed would have taken the gloves off long ago given the provocation contended with, however patience being the virtue it is reputed to be also has its limits, pray they’re not reached insofar as Russia is concerned.. literally speaking the west is f..led, they know it, Russia knows it, one would think they’d reign in the hubris, but nope, still talking it up… fools the lot of them and they expect us to blindly follow them… fat chance.. pray Russia continues as they are, have been, then at least we ought have the semblance of a world so many wish and opine for… just saying
Kia Kaha from New Zealand
And nowhere is the hubris warmongering threats worse than in the imperial psychopathy and provocations of the UK and its ruling class. Inversely at the same time displaying the most craven posturing imaginable to ensure their vassalage status as the preeminent bootlicker of the US! If any rabid attack dog of the Imperial hegemon needs putting down its the UK before it starts WW3 ahead of the US!
Thank you Rick,
Your post is so accurate on the points you enunciated with your reply… my post previously made.. Not much else to add save as you state… the Brits need saving from themselves.. the basis of the argument made cannot be refuted one iota… Best to you..
Keep it coming, Pascal. It is important to know exactly what we are up against.
This post is a concise review of what is known so far about this matter, and I hope you, Pascal, will follow up with more analyses and interviews. We need these tools to organize resistance against this reckless attack on the principle of the Rechtsstaat.
The European Council has become judge, jury and executioner. But resistance against these totalitarian tendencies is growing in the blogosphere, so it is important to keep up the momentum and engage more people in this resistance. Your blogs and videos are helping keep this momentum going.
Cheers from the European province of Denmark, formerly a sovereign nation, now a client region in the totalitarian federation of the EU.
I live in the UK, where the forces that created the EU are rampant. If there is one thing that is true, it is that countering such force is impossible.
In the UK our democracy is so weak that half of the population are not even registered to vote - leave alone not troubling themselves to.
Thanks for this realistic note. We need to know what we are dealing with.
Hello Pascal, I can't thank you enough for your courages action in this matter. Although we knew vaguely these things happen, it has been your post and the interviews that brought it to the forefront. If you ever hear of actions we can take, connecting points or the like, let as know. Until than we will try our best to fight from the inside... Regards and happy new year nonetheless...
Hallo Pascal, noch eine Frage. Wäre es OK wenn ich diesen Post ins deutsche übersetzte um ihn hier einer breiteren Öffentlichkeit zugänglich zu machen? Oder möchtest Du das (als ebenfalls Muttersprachler) selbst übernehmen? Nochmals vielen Dank für diesen Beitrag und Deinen generellen Einsatz für Frieden und Verständigung! Ich bin schon lange treuer Höherer Deiner Posts in YouTube. LG aus Deutschland
Ja gerne!!
Thank you so much, Pascal, for all the work you have been doing to shine a light on this issue. Your podcast is one of the best out there. I am an American living in Germany, and I can't tell you how often I am approached by acquaintances with concerned expressions, asking me sympathetically how I am holding up with all the terrible things Trump is doing back home. I reply, yeah, but I am not so excited with the way things are going in the EU either, and when I bring up the sanctions as an example, I am met with blank stares. A freind's elderly mom insisted that such things could not be happening here, and was particularly offended when I suggested that the German press might not be so "free" if a well-educated person such as herself has never heard of this. Ugh.
Thanks a lot Pascal, for this is a very illuminating piece, especially in clarifying the extrajudicial nature of EU sanctions and the way they bypass classic rule-of-law safeguards.
One point, however, seems crucial and could perhaps be explored further: the political mechanism that makes unanimity in the Council possible for such measures.
The repeated achievement of unanimity on sanctions targeting legally innocent individuals — sometimes EU citizens or residents — raises a fundamental question. This unanimity is not a procedural detail but appears to be the main institutional lock that stabilizes the entire system, yet it remains largely implicit in the analysis.
A second, related issue concerns the structural limits of this regime. As long as these extrajudicial measures are applied to peripheral figures (journalists, analysts, activists), political costs remain low. But the same logic, if ever extended to European or national political figures, would make isolated or unanimous decisions far more difficult. The possibility of vertical spillover introduces a latent instability that seems essential to understanding both the apparent strength and the underlying fragility of this sanctions regime.
These two dimensions — unanimity as a negative political mechanism, and the risk of vertical contagion — may be key to fully grasping how this system functions and where its limits lie.
The EU is an abomination. I worry about you, Pascal, and other analysts that live, work, or have assets within the clutches of the EuroGestapo. 😞
Im ashamed for being European due to Evil Ursul, ashamed to be Dutch due to Rutte.
But when i see people leave i really wonder why they dont see they just move to a different tyranny.
Nothing says “rule of law” like freezing bank accounts, silencing voices, and destroying livelihoods — without crime, without trial, without defence. An uncomfortable text, precisely because it exposes the growing gap between the values the EU proclaims and the practices it adopts.
True. Greece showed that when democratic outcomes clash with institutional interests, legality becomes flexible. The precedent was set long before — today it’s just being normalised.
Thank you Pascal. The voice of humanity and reason. I moved to France from UK because of the ignorant mindset and what I saw as political threat. I'm pretty sure I would be stopped if I tried to go back, whichever papers I travel on (Czech/UK) - a friend says I'm over-reacting, but even people here sometimes guess my name is Russian. I no longer post on social media. "First they came for..." .
Thank you for your work. Stay safe. Happy New Year.
If the EU wants to keep calling it the “rule of law,” then it cannot sanction first and explain later. All it would take is something radical: clear criteria, a right of reply before the decision, and genuine judicial oversight. Without that, sanctions are merely political punishment wrapped in bureaucratic language.
Agreed. The "rule of law" is analogous to the undocumented US "rules based international order".
Exactly. When principles are invoked without clear rules, due process, or consistent application, they stop being law and become narrative. At that point, “rule of law” functions much like the “rules-based order”: flexible, selective, and ultimately defined by power rather than constraint.
It is kind of a "Feminine Toxicity" logic driven by the line of argumentation
"If you don't agree with me, you don't love me, you are bad, evil and need to be punished"
"Because we say so!" No "due process", no legal recourse, no appeal.
It the same argumentation that drives Ms. Kaja Kallas to argue (not as a Female, or as a person but as Leading Diplomat, who's job description should be to negotiate with opponents) that "You don't talk to a War Criminal. Her argumentation is not only contradicting diplomatic concept, but
- plainly breaking the Rule of Law principle of "Innocent, until proven Guilty in the Court of Law";
- using transparent double standards (talking to Israelis).
Let us not even talk about the Western principle of "Sovereign Immunity".
This line of sanctions uses the same line of argumentation as during the medieval "Malleus Maleficarum" (witch-hunting and execution) or "Lèse-majesté" (offense of Majesty).
"Guilty because we say so" without a chance for "due process" and appeal.
Outrageous, Inhumane, uncivil.
I just wonder who are those "humble servant" "legal scholars" that create such legal argumentation to excuse "medieval style" brutality to abuse human rights and civil liberties?
Masculinity without the male mindset.
Yes, one can have
- direct male aggressive brutality, or the more feminine
- "passive-aggressive" form of indirect brutality.
The result is the same: death, destruction, suffering, The veils are slightly different.
I think we have descended into "magical thinking" since fake news and cancel culture took hold. Facts became irrelevant and AI is going to accelerate this trend.
However, it also seems to be very skilfully manipulated. After all, we pay the bills.
Yes, "Magical Thinking" that confuses Reality with Narratives.
The development of the culture of "Assertive Communication" is in part driving this misleading phenomena of "The Story is the Truth".
This "Magical Thinking" is then combined with the culture of "Win by all and every Means, while the Ends (to win) justify/sanctify the Means". ... "The Art of the Deal" ... Playing "Karate" with Words. Not the same as Fighting in Reality.
As Mike Tyson (boxing Champion) once said: "Everyone has a Plan, until they get punched in the Nose".
Such "Magical Thinkers" and "Strongly Assertive Communicators" (male, female, lgbtqias2+, etc.) often confuse "narratives" (story telling) with Reality. Yes, "Magical Thinking".
In Reality, not even the best Narrative can change the Real trajectory of a 7.62 projectile.
In Reality the Military say only once "Stop or I shoot". No "Self-Assertive Negotiation" there! No "Art of Deal"! STAY AWAY FROM ICBMs! Full stop!
Some cannot accept that "Reality". They will kill us all!
Hi Pascal, I think public commentary and activisim is missing an important aspect of the Baud case. There is certainly an infringement of the rights of Mr. Baud. When it comes to legal redress, one of the problems is that he is not a EU citizen. The elimination of Mr. Baud from public debate is however at the same time a potential infringement of the fundamental democratic rights of German citizens. I am a German national and my constitution and the EU treaties confer a right on me to use generally available sources of information. There can be limitations but this require express authorization by a constituionally compliant law. The German constitutional courts have held in 2020 in relation to the ECJ's upholding of finalcial stabilization measures affecting the German budget, that the german constitutional court while generally not interfering with EU measures has jursidiction where the EU is acting outside the scope of its competence. I can imagine there is a prima facie case that any German citizen can bring a complaint against the Government. This comes withi the disclaimer that I am just a regular lawyer practicing business law and I am not an expert on constitutional matters and I have spend a day or two reading on this only and more preparation would be needed. This said, I wonder if you could find an expert who is willing to speak on your podcast on this.
For this one, you need to follow the case of Hüseyin Dogru. He is a German national, no other nationality. The sanctions list falsely claims he is Turkish. He himself says „no, I‘m not“. So his case one of a German in Germany being put under this horrible regime. I talked to him on my podcast youtube.com/@neutralitystudies but I think he is still in the stag of fighting at the ECJ. This is all so new that we don‘t know where we can fight this.
Great work, one additional insight worth underscoring is that this sanctions regime exposes the EU not as a failing democracy, but as a post-democratic administrative empire functioning exactly as designed. As I argued in my essay last August “Why Europe’s Democracy is an Illusion Built on Empire and Control” (link below), Europe’s liberal institutions were never meant to constrain power internally but only to legitimize it while coercion was exercised externally. What we are witnessing now is not a legal anomaly but an imperial tool turning inward once external domains of control shrink. Sanctions against journalists and analysts are not excesses but the logical extension of a system built on managerial rule, elite consensus and the suppression of dissent when narrative control becomes strategically necessary.
https://open.substack.com/pub/chandragupta/p/why-europes-democracy-is-an-illusion?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
It would be nice to see more Neutrality posts here. But we all can see how busy Pascal is.
Thanks for all the hard work.
Would it be bad if we occasionally post your videos for the time being?
I second that idea to post the Neutrality Studies' videos on Sunstack.
If Pascal agrees, i'd be happy to post, a few each week.
I already did a few, but if he can monetize then i dont want to delete the cheese of his bread.
As I do not monetize US dollhairs.
I could eventually post those that i deem to be essential. And wait for a kick in the nuts. ×{
Any neutral post here would, to my view, negate our own nature as humans and indirectly condone such inhumane behavior of a so-called civilized society.
We need a neutral analysis, guided by an emotional response to the utter lack of decency and humaneness of these measures.
Very nice way of putting it in such a short wording
Uhm i have trouble to figure out what you mean, i think i partly agree, but somehow it sounds like chinese.
No offence, probably a language thing...
We are being trained to muddle things up.
This isn't about Jacques Baud's views, but whether any EU citizen can be economically strangled before trial and without any due process. Never mind that he supposedly has free speech rights in Europe (that seem dead too).
The sequence matters: when the state freezes your assets upon accusation—not conviction—and forces you to beg for bread while fighting to reclaim your rights (without access to your money), it is getting uncomfortably close to Europe in the Middle Ages.
Back then, a person declared "vogelfrei" was banished, lost all rights, and could be killed without consequence (1507 Bamberg Penal Code).