Luca

Born 🇮🇹 Lived 🇿🇼🇿🇦🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿
Part 🦊🐐🐿️🐧 Preferred way 💐🥕
"The awful thing about life is this: everyone has their reasons" - J Renoir

[Luca @MonthOfSundaes]

“UK politics is a simple game; a bunch of men and women chase a headline around for 5 years and in the end, Murdoch wins."

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

It always astonishes me how there is virtually ZERO public debate - or even public awareness - in Europe about the decisions that will most shape ordinary people's lives.

These days, the EU is drafting a new anti-China legal framework where - quite literally - the more affordable and competitive Chinese products are, the more illegal they'd become.

You'd think EU citizens would want to be informed about such things - as it couldn't be more consequential for their prosperity.

Yet I bet virtually no EU citizen is even aware of it, beyond a vague sense that there is some sort of trade dispute going on.

So what's going on exactly? It all centers around a new legal instrument the EU is drafting called the "overcapacity instrument" (https://t.co/mNpCMudYyS).

First of all, the very notion of "overcapacity" is pretty ridiculous to begin with, especially the way it's being defined by the EU, as it basically means being competitive enough to export.

By this definition of "overcapacity," pretty much every European industry that's ever run a trade surplus - German cars, French wine, Italian fashion - has been guilty of "overcapacity."

I'm not even exaggerating: if you read this study by the EU Parliament on "Industrial overcapacities, with a focus on China" (https://t.co/TcwEBoL8mD), they define "overcapacity" as building more capacity than your domestic market can absorb. So the moment you build capacity to export abroad, you're in "overcapacity."

Utterly ridiculous.

And what this "overcapacity instrument" is about is creating a permanent legal mechanism for the EU to block Chinese competition across whole sectors of the economy, if they happen to be in "overcapacity."

In effect, this means that if China is competitive globally in a given sector in such a way that it exports a lot, that's proof of overcapacity, and legally it'd mean that the entire sector can be restricted from the EU market.

Which means it really, factually, is a legal framework where the more affordable and competitive your products are, the more illegal they become.

Which is a CRAZY economic concept! 🤦‍♂️

Please note that it's different from the anti-subsidy legal instrument, which the EU has already put in place in 2023 (the "Foreign Subsidies Regulation": https://t.co/SvPKFyN0zo).

This "overcapacity instrument" would be above and beyond this: it wouldn't even matter if a particular sector was subsidized by the Chinese government or not, the mere fact of its competitiveness in exports would be grounds for restrictions in the EU.

It doesn't take a genius to understand how badly this could impact everyday people: this is European consumers being forced to pay more for worse products by law, so that uncompetitive European firms don't have to improve.

Politicians frame it as avoiding a "China shock 2.0" but really this is choosing an even steeper self-inflicted decline than is already the case, where EU citizens would subsidize mediocre EU companies that would have even less pressure to catch up. It's a hidden tax: subsidies for uncompetitive firms paid by consumers instead of governments, which in turn makes them less incentivized to become competitive.

The first "China shock" did de-industrialize Europe somewhat, but at least it made things cheaper for European consumers. If this becomes Europe's response to a second "China shock" not only it'd make everything more expensive but it'd do nothing for EU industry: you don't become competitive by banning the competition...

Look at China itself: the way it industrialized was NOT by banning Western firms but on the contrary by welcoming them strategically and learning from them. You learn to compete by... competing, duh!

What I find most shocking in all of this isn't even the policy itself - you can make arguments for and against protectionism, and reasonable people can disagree.

What's shocking is that virtually no European media outlet is explaining any of this to the public. This is unarguably one of the single most consequential economic decisions the EU will make this decade, affecting the price of everything, and it's being drafted in near-total silence.

No newspaper is running the headline "EU plans to make Chinese goods illegal if they're too affordable" - even though that's essentially what's happening.

But that's what you call a "democracy" with "freedom of expression" these days apparently...

[Luca @MonthOfSundaes]

@Glenn_Diesen Other than that, tho'... what a prize 😂

[Luca @MonthOfSundaes]

@bla_bidza Do you think anyone will do it this year?

[Luca @MonthOfSundaes]

What next? Will they make Antonelli take an oral exam?
F1 is so weird these days?!
#monacoGP

[Luca @MonthOfSundaes]

@Channel4News They now say Ukraine is winning the war. Looks that way...

UK: £0.2467/kWh for April–June 2026 under the Ofgem price cap.
Ukraine: £0.085/kWh fixed residential tariff Jan–Apr 2026.

[Luca @MonthOfSundaes]

@mehdirhasan If the EU was still the body worth rejoining this should be a disqualifying move.
Sadly, neither Europe nor Britain are the free spaces they might once have boasted they were.
So less free speech and more war... What a damned shame

[Luca @MonthOfSundaes]

The ban on #HasanPiker and #CenkUyghur should disqualify Britain from rejoining the EU.

[Jeremy Corbyn @jeremycorbyn]

Banning Cenk Uyghur and Hasan Piker from entering the UK is an absurd and cowardly decision from an increasingly authoritarian government.

Let us call this what it is: an attack on the freedom to criticise Israel, as well as the UK government’s own complicity in genocide.

[Luca @MonthOfSundaes]

@lewis_goodall @MarkSeddon1962 Assange was the canary.
If we're all breathing this stale authoritarian air now you should think back on all the occasions you have had to defend media freedom in the past.
Own it.

[Jack D 🏳️‍🌈 @JackDunc1]

I'm sorry, call me a prick, but I wont stop talking about Arsenal sacking their kit manager of over a decade for sharing pro-palestine posts, only to then go hire an Israeli sponsor. Just wrong.
https://t.co/jnCYebJ7el

[Luca @MonthOfSundaes]

How brittle, insecure and illiberal is Britain today?
Assange was but a canary. We're deep in the coal mine now and the air is... what it is.
Yet again, Labour has chosen to normalise abusive power so Reform can take it for granted tomorrow.

[Aaron Bastani @AaronBastani]

Britain at the height of its power and prestige was home to Karl Marx and Giuseppe Mazzini. It was a refuge for Alexander Herzen and Victor Hugo.

Now, in 2026, it wont allow American YouTubers & streamers to enter because they criticised Israel. 🥀

[Luca @MonthOfSundaes]

How brittle, insecure and illiberal is Britain today?
Assange was but a canary. We're deep in the coal mine now and the air is... what it is.

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

Note that the UK Government just banned entry of two American citizens -- @cenkuygur and @hasanthehun -- not because they criticized or worked against the interests of the UK.

It was solely because they criticize and oppose the one country deemed sacred and off-limits in the UK and so many other wester countires: Israel.

The UK under Labour is also regularly arresting its own citizens for peacefully protesting Israel's genocide in Gaza (including old British ladies and countless Jewish activists at these protests, though they remain free to protest *in favor* of Israel or against any other country).

This is all driven by the same dynamic that caused the Trump Admin -- as one of its very earliest top priorities last year -- to force US universities to expel American students protesting Israel, to deport others who merely criticized Israel, and to implement aggressive speech codes to protect Israel from common criticisms (even though one is free to say all the same things about any other country, including the US).

Why does this one small country command such special, elevated, supreme status and attention in so many western countries? It's way past time to give that question the attention it deserves and to finally put and end to it.

[Luca @MonthOfSundaes]

Where does #Labour find such tolerant freedom loving guys? 🤦

#HasanPiker
#DavidTaylor
#LabourFriendsOfIsrael

[Luca @MonthOfSundaes]

@YvetteCooperMP Have you EVER considered diplomacy?

[Luca @MonthOfSundaes]

It has become absolutely impossible to determine the true progress of the situations in the Middle East (Iran) or Eastern Europe (Ukraine)
Our media has simply abdicated its duty to inform.
It's a disgrace.
+ To hear one must ignore the flotsam on social media is infuriating.

[Luca @MonthOfSundaes]

@cityalan Well, there's every change the country will not be able to afford the pensions and welfare of ordinary people, if it insists on the policies that do not serve the interess of ordinary people.
Let's say we cut out wars of choice for starters.

[Luca @MonthOfSundaes]

@martindvz @dontbrexitfixit Brits voted what was in their hearts.
They should own that, at least.
The problem is that their brains were never adequately engaged.
And the fault for that lies with its dreadful media, dominated, as ever, by the BBC.

[Luca @MonthOfSundaes]

@SkyNews @haynesdeborah Well, we know who she we are obsessively targeting 24/7. So we can only pray the immense cost cost is justified.

[Luca @MonthOfSundaes]

Watching #DearEngland and impressed again by what a stifling, awful handicap the British sports and news media is for anyone trying to make a difference.
Top telly, this, tho'...
#bbciplayer

[Luca @MonthOfSundaes]

A social media four-leaf clover 🍀... is finding two statements together on the time line that you can agree with wholeheartedly 👌

[Luca @MonthOfSundaes]

@anandMenon1 Thought experiment: If Brussels were Trump it might insist on Britain "making sure the Strait of Hormuz is reopened" before it joined.
He would post it on some rando network and it might not even make the news right away.
THAT'S how crazy the world is.
Pse boycott the World Cup.