CityLab: Stockholm Isn’t Buying This Apple Store

Last month, Stockholm announced that it would block plans for a new Apple Store in the city’s center, overturning the agreement of a previous administration following widespread public outcry. As this article in The Guardian notes, the objection wasn’t against Apple as such (the company already has three Swedish stores) but against the site they chose. Had the company’s plan gone through, the electronics giant would have been camped at the end of Stockholm’s oldest, most central park: a lovely oblong oasis of greenery and paving called the Kungsträdgården, or King’s Garden. In doing so, Apple would have also taken over (but not necessarily built on) 375 square meters (4,037 square feet) of the park surrounding its store—a small chunk of the park’s overall footprint, but a sizeable privatization of public space in such a key, pivotal site.[...]

You might assume locals would thus be less bothered about what came afterwards. The sheer force of resistance—a public consultation received not a single petition in Apple’s favor—shows that there’s something more at work here than a simple debate over shopping space. Stockholm’s resistance is powered, it seems, by widespread concern about corporations taking over public spaces.

Indeed, Apple’s Stockholm plans form part of an international pattern. The tech giant has sought to set itself up in key public areas across the world’s cities, often taking over previously non-commercial spaces such as, in certain cases, former library and museum sites (more of which in a moment). They then present their store facilities as natural extensions of this public space, even as cultural institutions that provide unique opportunities for social exchange. These are not electronics stores—they are “town squares,” places where, according to Apple retail chief Angela Ahrendts, “everyone is welcome.” [...]

The problem is the ground ceded to Apple and corporations like it by the state, which (partly under corporate pressure) is relinquishing its role as place-maker and ensurer of democratic access to public space. Apple’s ability to plausibly present their stores as new town squares rests on a tacit, erroneous assumption that the old, existing town squares are gone or broken. There’s no consideration, for example, that a new, truly public function for an underused library could be found.

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Politico: Macron criticizes ‘ultra-liberal’ Europe

In his first appearance on a radio talk show since he was sworn in, the increasingly unpopular French president came out swinging against an EU he is better known for defending against opponents such as Matteo Salvini, Viktor Orbán and Vladimir Putin.

The EU is letting down its middle classes, ignoring their legitimate fears and exposing itself to a populist wave that could ultimately submerge the bloc, Macron told Europe 1 radio a few months before his centrist La République En Marche starts campaigning for the European Parliament election.[...]

His target was not the right-leaning populists who oppose him face-to-face. By railing against European “ultra-liberals,” Macron was pointing to all the factions that have resisted his plans, articulated during his presidential campaign and during a landmark speech at the Sorbonne in Paris, to make the EU a more “protective” bloc via tighter security cooperation, taxes on digital giants and tougher restrictions on state-aid takeovers. [...]

An example of “ultra-liberal” resistance was on display this week in Brussels, where Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire was pitching a French plan to impose a 3 percent revenue tax on companies like Google and Facebook. After more than a year of high-level diplomacy, the best Le Maire was able to extract was a vow from Germany to consider enforcing the tax from 2020, only if and when the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development was unable to come up with its own solution for taxing digital companies.

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Politico: Inside the EU, eastern approaches diverge

The formerly communist members of the EU club — from the Baltics in the north to Romania and Bulgaria at Europe’s edge — are diverging on big issues such as the rule of law and defense.

The weakening of their close ties could most immediately impact the negotiations over the next seven-year EU budget. The last time around, the Eastern bloc took a common position with other like-minded countries on regional funds, wresting billions from the EU in aid.[...]

The splits have emerged markedly only in recent months. A year ago, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán called the Visegrad group — a club founded by Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary to advance the eastern cause in Europe and known by the acronym V4 — “one of the poles of the European Union.” Yet as the Hungarians and the Poles have since repeatedly clashed with Brussels over their alleged democratic backsliding, and Orbán resorts now to calling the EU “an empire,” Prague and Bratislava have been notable in their moderation. [...]

Tomáš Petříček, the Czech Republic’s newly appointed foreign minister, has distanced Prague from Orbán’s vision of “illiberal democracy” and pledged not to shrink from from criticizing other Visegrad group members. “Among partners and allies, it’s good practice not just to assure each other of mutual support but also to talk about things that we don’t just see as positive,” he told Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper last month.

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Vox: Colorado passes Amendment A, voting to officially abolish prison slavery

More than 150 years after the ratification of the US Constitution’s 13th Amendment, Colorado has officially abolished slavery. Coloradans voted Tuesday for Amendment A, a measure removing language in the state constitution that allowed prison labor without pay.

Colorado is one of more than a dozen states whose state constitution technically still allows involuntary servitude as a form of criminal punishment. The state’s language closely resembles a contested passage that remains in the US Constitution 13th Amendment, which outlawed chattel slavery, but allowed those convicted of crimes to be forced into labor.[...]

The Tuesday result makes Colorado one of the first states to remove this language from its constitution. Governing magazine notes that bills “with similar goals failed this year in Wisconsin and stalled in Tennessee.”  

But this wasn’t the first time that such a proposal has appeared on Colorado ballots. In 2016, with the backing of state politicians and various local advocacy groups, a similar measure called Amendment T aimed to remove the “slavery as punishment” language from the state constitution. But the amendment was rejected by the state’s voters, a development experts like University of Colorado Law professor Melissa Hart blamed less on overt racism and more on the confusing way the amendment was written.

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Bloomberg: Populism Hits Home for EU Party Papering Over Its Orban Problem

“This resolution is definitely aimed at Orban and is a balancing act in trying to explain why the EPP accommodates an illiberal party within its ranks while confronting populists elsewhere,” said Julian Rappold, an analyst at the European Policy Centre in Brussels. “But this debate won’t go away as long as Fidesz belongs to the EPP.” [...]

The EPP members will choose between two contenders: Manfred Weber, who backed triggering a sanctions mechanism against Hungary but who nonetheless said he supports dialog over punishment for Orban; and Alexander Stubb, a former Finnish prime minister who has said he would expel Fidesz from the EPP if it violated the group’s values. Orban backs Weber, the EPP’s current chairman, in Thursday’s vote. [...]

At the same time, Orban has ruled out trading his seat in the most influential group in the EU Parliament for one in the populist camp before the elections, which might help explain why the party may ultimately sign the anti-populist resolution. Fidesz would sign the text in its present form, according to a party official who asked not to be identified because no final decision has been taken.

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