POLITICO Brussels Playbook Plus: Syria’s Got Talent — Liberal Sinatra — Good as gold

‘HERO TO MANY’ OR ‘HOMOPHOBIC TYRANT’? LGBTI rights supporters in the European Parliament have refused to co-sign a letter by conservative MEP Ian Duncan demanding an apology from Jean-Claude Juncker for his warm words for former Cuban leader Fidel Castro. The European Commission president called Castro a “hero to many” but Duncan says Castro was “a homophobic tyrant who abused human rights and degraded human dignity.” Duncan told Playbook that the Parliament’s “LGBTI Intergroup” was letting political sympathies get in the way of its stated mission to defend LGBTI rights: “If you’re going to stand up for human rights and call out abuses, you have to do it all of the time, not only when it’s politically convenient.” As Cuban president, Castro oversaw a regime of internment camps and forced labor for gay men in particular, starting in the 1960s. Mariela Castro Espín, the daughter of current President Raúl Castro, is a globally known LGBTI advocate.

SYRIA’S GOT TALENT: European Parliament activists are holding a concert and debate on December 8, looking at what life is like for Syrian refugees who have been living in Brussels for a year. The performers are refugees and all profits will be donated to help refugees. The venue is Rue du Commerce 51, from 7 p.m.  RSVP to: [email protected]

LIBERAL SINATRA: ALDE’s communications chief Didrik de Schaetzen is an accomplished, and not at all shy, lounge singer. He was belting out the tunes at the Warsaw Royal Castle last weekend during the party’s congress.

OVER THE TOP: European Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan went to hospital on Sunday night with kidney stones, but checked himself out Tuesday morning in order to welcome Juncker to a big agriculture conference … Hogan was back in his hospital bed by 10:30 a.m. for an operation Tuesday afternoon.

GOOD AS GOLD: Trump Tower is just as golden and gaudy as Nigel Farage’s famous elevator photo suggested. Former Danish prime minister and NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen visited recently, and took this beauty of a picture under a Gaddafi-esque portrait of the president-elect. Rasmussen, center, is pictured with Mike Flynn, nominee to be Trump’s national security adviser, and his deputy, Kathleen McFarland.

NIGEL’S KISS OF DEATH: Guy Verhofstadt got a present he didn’t ask for at POLITICO’s annual gala dinner Tuesday night, the endorsement of Nigel Farage. The Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy co-chair isn’t running for Parliament president, but told Playbook that a Verhofstadt presidency would be the quickest way to bring down the institution. That and other gems about Ivanka Trump’s beauty, his belief he is a “true pro-European,” and his view that a gold and diamond encrusted Trump Tower shows Trump is a “man of the people,” led Green MEP Ulrike Lunacek to loudly storm out of the dinner.

A WHITE CHRISTMAS? Hans-Olaf Henkel, a right-wing MEP from Germany, has set the bar high early in the annual Christmas and holiday card race. He mailed 745 of his 750 colleagues (no word on who the unlucky five are) a special Christmas CD featuring Louis Armstrong’s “Christmas Night in Harlem,” Billy Holliday with “I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm” and Eartha Kitt bringing us “Santa Baby.” If you’ve seen other cards worthy of fame or shame, send a photo to: [email protected]

BY THE NUMBERS: Most people would think that increased EU scrutiny of corporate tax, and the LuxLeaks scandal, would lead both companies and governments to tread carefully around the idea of new sweetheart tax deals. Research by the NGO Eurodad into new European Commission data shows the opposite…

547: Sweetheart tax deals in  the EU in 2013 …
972: … the number rose in 2014 …
1,444: … and again in 2015.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “I’m a true pro-European,” Nigel Farage, whom Jean-Claude Juncker might describe as a Brexit “hero to many,” at the POLITICO 28 gala dinner in Brussels.

SEPARATED AT BIRTH

Mayor of London — and POLITICO 28 No. 1 — Sadiq Khan, and Hollywood actor George Clooney.

GAFFES AND LAUGHS

Moscovici as Nostradamus: Taken out of context, European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs Pierre Moscovici’s tweets before 2011 are entertaining, as BuzzFeed France confirmed. The French commissioner might have foreseen Trump’s election judging by his September 2011 tweet, “Polls do not deserve neither too much honor nor too much opprobium.” A month later he might have foreseen Brexit: “Europe is progressing in crisis, but it can also die; tonight I’m worried.” And his tweet “life is complicated,” sent in May 2009 can be applied to almost anything.

What’s in a name? U.K. Labour’s Shadow Minister for Steel is called Gill Furniss.

FEUD OF THE WEEK

Gun owners versus the European Commission: In the early hours of Tuesday morning, the Slovak presidency and a handful of MEPs reached a provisional agreement on new gun controls, proposed in November last year by the Commission in the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks. The gun lobby sprung to life almost immediately, led by Firearms United, whose supporters regularly accuse the Commission of being closet fascists set on disarming European citizens. “There is nothing ‘socialist’ or ‘social’ in the EU,” said Firearms United on its Facebook page. “This is a whole new form of totalitarianism we are witnessing, which has some traits of others we have seen before in the past but not quite. Hence why it is, and it will be, so hard for most people to recognize.”

Click Here: geelong cats guernsey 2019

WHO’S UP: 

Bernard Cazeneuve: The former French minister for EU affairs, budget and home affairs  was promoted again, to be prime minister.

Ska Keller: The German Green MEP and candidate to lead the Commission in 2014 is very likely to replace Rebecca Harms as the co-chair of the Parliament’s Green group as no one else is in the running.

WHO’S DOWN: 

Matteo Renzi: The Italian prime minister and referendum loser resigned after the 2017 budget was passed.

Norbert Hofer: The Austrian far-right candidate lost out on the presidency to former Green leader Alexander Van der Bellen.