Portugal is weeping, Geert Wilders Says Netherlands Would Be Better Off if It Left 28-Nation Bloc, France can't compete with Germany, Merkel is pissed at Obama, Belgium is ousting Afgans. Is anybody happy?

In train news:

The Swedish government announced on Thursday (23 July) night train routes that will link the cities of Stockholm and Malmö with Hamburg and Brussels, in the latest indication that sleeper services are on the cusp of a renaissance in Europe.

A couple years of #flygskam and a pandemic has to be good for something. Now all that remains is not to end up at your destination station at four in the morning or afternoon, or leave at half past one.

 The only really good night train was the one between Amsterdam and Prague. Perfect timing.

Perfect it was't, but I liked the Scandinavian system for night trains between Oslo, Copenhagen and Stockholm. They all left for Gothenburg late evening (11-ish). Then, when in Gothenburg, they rearranged the train cars (ka-KA-klang-KANG!) to go to Oslo/Copenhagen/Stockholm, so depending on the car you were in you'd end up in either one of the destination cities.

As a life long railway (and rail simulator) fan most interesting news!

The Swedish government announced on Thursday (23 July) night train routes that will link the cities of Stockholm and Malmö with Hamburg and Brussels, in the latest indication that sleeper services are on the cusp of a renaissance in Europe.

I remember very well the Wagon-Lit service. We had it abroad the Lusitania Express.

Overnight trains never ceased to be a thing in Russia. You're all welcome to go try them out.

You're all welcome to go try them out.

Better to send Rjhowie first.
I'm certain it will be a wonderful experience for him with all the love he feels for Trains, Putin and Mother Russia.
Kind of an Holy Trinity.

Me? thanks but I'm not masochist.

Yeah dear man I would say you are not masochistic enough to cope with being Portuguese!

Clever you worked out I liked Putin and by the way Tsarism as well - last Tsar is on my wall.....! 

Clever you worked out I liked Putin and by the way Tsarism as well - last Tsar is on my wall.....! 

This one?

I do make allowances for your limitations ersi seeing you are European.

nodded to my imperial picture (next General Robert e lee the impressive army commander of the Confederates during the civil war in nutjobland - opps America.

It looks like another stunning victory in Belarus for Alexander Lukashenko, his sixth. Preliminary results have it that he won 80% of the votes, while his main opponent, the recent Lithuanian resident Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, got 10%.

Possibly due to poor handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, his popularity has slipped notably compared with his fifth victory in 2015, when he got 84.1% of the votes.

It would also be worse than his fourth victory in 2010 (80.4%) and his third victory in 2006 (84.4%), but better than his second victory in 2001 (77.4%), and far better than his first victory in the first democratic election in Belarus in 1994, when he only got 45.8% in the first round, though 80.6% in the second round.

From 2006 or so:

Lukashenko later stated that he had rigged the election results, but against himself, in order to obtain a majority more typical of European countries. Although he had won 93.5% of the vote, he said, he had directed the government to announce a result of 86%.

Might a similar statement appease everyone this time too?

I do not have much time for the man as President but I think the woman who led opposition and now left the place should try to indicate what the wrongs are instead of just claiming something.

On that passing picture from ersi which stole the last Tsar's corner at least Nicholas 2 was a decent man. The stuff we constantly get here in the West about Putin is a groan i must also say.

Another informative broadcast about the (north-)eastern parts of Estonia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ltZR9IWXaE

Never mind about the attrocious pronunciation of place names such as Jõhvi, Pääsküla or Sillamäe. They are unpronouncable in English. E.g. for Jõhvi he keeps saying "jovee" but "yuffy" would be much closer.

Russia humiliates Borrell in Moscow

In hindsight I can somewhat forgive to Merkel and Hollande when they sucked up to Putin some ten plus years ago. It was still stupid and dangerous to suck up to Putin, but times looked bright, particularly in the Western Europe, so their ignorance was somewhat understandable.

But Borrell's behaviour is dangerous and absolutely unforgivable. He is straightforwardly treasonous, because everybody should understand that this is a time of near-war wrt Russia. In order to restore the credibility of the EU, Borrell must be deposed swiftly.

EU to impose sanctions on Russians over Navalny by March summit, diplomats say

Borrell is still in business with his all-inclusive agenda, particularly inclusive of Lavrov and Putin. With this guy as the top representative of the EU foreign policy, we can rest assured that the EU foreign policy has as much backbone as jellyfish.

Being the "foreign minister" of the EU is kind of a weird position in that the EU doesn't really have a foreign policy. We absolutely should, but foreign policy is one thing the member countries don't want to give up. That said, I think his predecessor, Federica Mogherini, did a pretty good job in this role.

I don't have an opinion on Borrell yet. The Kremlin went out of their way to humiliate him. Whether that was a good move remains to be seen. He seems to have been somewhat miffed by it.

My visit to Moscow and the future of EU-Russia relations

I went to Moscow this week to test, through principled diplomacy, whether the Russian government was interested in addressing differences and reversing the negative trend in our relations. The reaction I received points visibly in a different direction. So, as EU we will have to reflect on the broader implications and chart a way forward. We are at a crossroads. The main parameters of the geopolitical landscape of the 21st century are being drawn.

 But ultimately it's not up to him, but the member countries, particularly France and Germany. 

But ultimately it's not up to him, but the member countries, particularly France and Germany.

With the UK out of the equation it is only about France and Germany. One has the money, the other has the nuclear power.
The rest it's just countryside. It was always like this with the UK being the only ones facing French and Germans.

The EU has no parallel with any other world power regarding its internal composition and dynamics, so we often need to present to the world with this kind of soft-power diplomacy that some can think that it is a weakness. It is not.
,

The Soviet-beloved troika, and before the Roman triumvirate, were not that great or stable a power structure. Still, the troika London-Berlin-Paris could have had more life to it than it got. Oh well. Berlin and Paris are fairly aligned on Russia anyway.

They might be aligned of course but too many are maligned to the US of A which is farcical.

(From the mouths of babes... :) I suspect you think you know what you said; no worries, RJ: Others do!

Ah Oakdale the way your country treats the citizenry strains getting full democracy.  Although I am no fan of the EU there is wider politics in it so catch up boy!

the way your country [The USA] treats the citizenry strains getting full democracy

Blessed be the strong of heart, the humble of mien, and the stout of convictions!
(D'ya still maintain your "Quit you like men" doesn't mean "Turn tail an run, from anything you didn't learn a'fore ye lernt ta spell?

Well when it comes to language Yanks are regular at when speaking often splitting words as if a hyphen in the centre (proper spelling). I have been in America twice, France once and the Netherlands twice, Found the Dutch very experienced when tto English so you might catch up on them one day.
ps. I actually have a picture of a very outstanding man from over your way over the pond and was a great military man. Curious? 

Re: your p.s., yeah, I'd like to see who you mean ("to whom you are referring" would be proper grammar...) Pardon -if you note it- the delay in my responses: It seems my Logitech keyboard doesn't like coffee as much as I do... I gave it the merest taste up near its on/off switch and now it pays me little mind. (I'll soon buy another; and in the meantime I've decided to use my old iMac's keyboard! Of course, it still works!)

(Remember the TV show, Laugh In? It featured a Bell Telephone operator (played -and well!- by Lily Tomlin!); her signature line was "Is this the party to whom I am speaking?" Funny stuff, back then.
To reprise a topic you've only dangled like a tired worm in the placid waters, did you ever read U.S. Grant's memoir, mostly about soldiering? (Very good,! Or George Custer's, mostly about how hard it is to live a civilized life "On the Plains" (Mostly tedious.)? America still has many first-rate military historians...when politics is shelved for serious work.
You might read, also, the book Jeff Davis "hisself" wrote, after the war... (Lincoln was overly generous with the southern die-hards. :(

Digital euro could take four years, says ECB president Christine Lagarde

"The whole process [of launching a "digital euro"] -- let's be realistic about it -- will in my view take another four years, maybe a little more. But I would hope we can keep it within four years," [ECB prez says] ... "Because it's a technical endeavor as well as a fundamental change because we need to make sure that we do it right. We owe it to Europeans, they need to feel safe and secure."

Well, since all money, not just euro, is mere fiat these days, an accounting unit that is already entirely in the air and mostly in digital form, there is actually no fundamental change and no technical endeavor involved. It will only be a matter of political courage to state the fact that yup, euro has been digital all along and let's call it that now henceforth.

But in the EU, some facts never get acknowledged for the sake of keeping up appearances. E.g. that Greece went bankrupt big time.