I think this charade parade is both a play to his MAGA base and a sort of loyalty test to see who in the military goes along with him.

On the one hand, I share your doubt, which is justified in the face of all the deceit and mismanagement that Merz in particular and the CDU and CSU in general engage in and their disdain for the public good. On the other hand, the fact that the Sovereign Tech Fund / Agency survived the German budget crisis gives me some hope that it will at least stay.

Although they could do more, I wouldn’t say they don’t care. For instance, Germany established the Sovereign Tech Agency.

On Reddit someone posted a parody of the whole affair. I believe it was originally posted on r/wallstreetbets, but it has since been deleted.

Donald Trump did indeed write at least the first three sentences back in 2018. I couldn’t find a source for the rest of the quote, but (a) I wouldn’t put it past that man to utter such nonsense and (b) it’s only fair we indulge in some stretching of the truth, given the extent to which he and his lackeys disregard it.

For anyone who doesn’t know: this is a clever reference to the myth of Midas’ Touch that I’m totally stealing.

I was thinking about this earlier and I’m scared about what this might mean for the future of the Pebble Mine, […].

Industry executives presumably interviewed or at least consulted by the Financial Times believe the Pebble Mine will be approved:

The Pebble Project in Alaska, a copper-gold project owned by Toronto-listed Northern Dynasty Minerals, is also expected to get its final approval under the new administration, according to industry executives.

Rio Tinto’s CEO certainly expressed optimism about the prospects of the Resolution project, which has been similarly blocked so far:

“I do think that we have really good chances now to progress that project,” said Jakob Stausholm, chief executive of the London-listed miner, in an interview with the Financial Times, which will be broadcast on Wednesday. “We have made a lot of progress.”

Given the current price of copper and its expected future demand, both the Pebble Mine and Resolution are worth a fortune. Given the current geopolitical climate, both are strategically located too. They even sit in red states: Alaska and Arizona, respectively.

Indeed; the title confused me too. I guess they assumed the connection with Europe to be implicit, given they are the European Center for Digital Rights and use a .eu domain.