C210_Flyer wrote:
I have no idea why Croatia will use the EURO as their currency after Jan 1 2023. I can see entering the EU but using the Euro is akin to asking to be controlled and blackmailed. Just ask the Greeks. Having their own currency the govt can devalue it. Not sure the advantage Croatia has giving up their own currency.
It’s because local currency is totally useless for Croatia. Everything has been calculated in EUR (loans, mortgages, value of contracts, prices etc.) since EUR has been introduced (prior to that everything was calculated in DEM) – we still have laws where penalties are nominally written in DEM. Croatian government and national bank have never known what to do with its own currency except waving with it as a national symbol, sadly named by the currency used in WWII in fascist poppet state established in parts of Croatia and Bosnia and supported by fascist Italy and nazi Germany.
Introducing EUR will lower bank fees and remove exchange fees, everything else will remain the same, including prices. Anybody who tells you different is either nationalist (with sentiment to WWII fascist so called Independent State of Croatia) or is clueless about Croatian economy. Both totally irrelevant.
Since the Covid-19 thread is locked and politics are supposed to go here anyways, I’m posting this in the off-topic thread right from the start:
Is Covid-19 still a major topic in any other European countries domestic politics?
I am asking because right now, in Germany, our minister of health and other assorted politicians are pushing for the re-introduction of more Covid-19 containment measures, allegedly because we’re in the beginning of another huge “autumn wave”.
Note that Germany has at no point scrapped all the measures against Covid-19, e.g. it is still mandatory to wear FFP2/N95/KN95 type masks in public transport (was also mandatory in commercial airplanes until very recently) and hospitals. Upon a positive test, you must still self-isolate for 5 days etc.
So now they are discussing a mask mandate for schools, restaurants etc. again.
However the domestic discussion often goes along the lines that no other European country is still doing anything of the sort, and I kindly wanted to inquire with you, pilots from all over Europe, wheter that’s true and if the pandemic still plays a role in your country’s public discourse?
In France it is still subject to discussion. Most of the political discussion had ended in advice about when and where face masks would be a good idea. (It may still be mandatory on some public transport but not on air travel).
There is however press reports that face mask wearing in particular situations may become mandatory again.
I have not had an invite,yet, to have another Covid jab although I have been invited to have this year’s flue jab.
Definitely true for Estonia. The official prognosis is that there will be no restrictions needed this year and indeed it looks that everybody has either been vaccinated or already had Covid. There is currently ca 200 people hospitalized with covid- but in the majority cases the covid is only discovered during hospital admittance, they are not admitted because of covid.
Virtually absent here… but then again, in the adjacent isle, I think the politicians are a bit distracted – it has started to resemble Italian politics. How I long for the days when we had boring politics run by a dour boring Scotsman.
it has started to resemble Italian politics. How I long for the days when we had boring politics run by a dour boring Scotsman.
Look on the bright side… absent current events, you might have had the PhD-nominees Beth Rigby and Laura Kuenssberg (a man’s nightmare having either for a wife) looking for a real job, serving tea and chips (both have massive pro-socialist chips on their shoulders) at your local garden centre cafe 
Who was the Scot? You don’t mean Miss McTermite ? She’s certainly not boring but I would be concerned going shopping with her; she would be after half my house, half my business, half my plane, would expect me to pay for the border fence (with a claymore -mined strip) after she joined the EU and Schengen, but wouldn’t want to take on any of my debt 
Everyone seems to have forgotten about covid here now. I still have a pile of test kits and have just used one (feel I have a bit of a cold). A few little shops ask you to wear a mask, presumably because somebody there is worried about it and/or thinks the vaccine is a Bill Gates stitch-up (10-20% of people believe that). I am still careful about touching door handles etc.
That thread got locked because it became totally repetitive.
MedEwok wrote:
Is Covid-19 still a major topic in any other European countries domestic politics?
In Sweden, the discussion is dead and has been for half a year, at least. People were recently offered a 4th vaccine shot, but not may have bothered.
Zero political relevance in the UK, zero discussion.
Government infighting and poor management of the economy are top of the agenda. Regardless, I think there is a general consensus that infectious respiratory diseases (Covid-19 included) are a fact of life rather than an emergency situation. If people feel vulnerable they take measures to protect themselves and those who don’t get on with life as usual. I see no rationale for any other approach.
Graham wrote:
Government infighting and poor management of the economy are top of the agenda. Regardless, I think there is a general consensus that infectious respiratory diseases (Covid-19 included) are a fact of life rather than an emergency situation. If people feel vulnerable they take measures to protect themselves and those who don’t get on with life as usual. I see no rationale for any other approach.
I’m absolutely on board with that view but I feel like a significant portion of the German population, and especially those in political office or part of the mainstream media establishment, think differently and still treat Covid like a catastrophic disease.
This contradicts with the facts on the ground however. In my university hospital with 1500 beds, 0 people are on the ICU due to Covid-19 and a grand total of five are on an isolation ward because of Covid-19 (lots of additional patients test Covid positive on admission but are there for unrelated ailments, often having zero Covid symptoms).
I feel like Germany needs to focus on the real problems right now, none of which is Covid. Which isn’t to say it isn’t a disease that can still kill or long-term affect patients, but not the vast majority of them.
