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#8 MEPS... SAY WHAT!? EUROPEAN TWEETS OF THE WEEK

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Politics

Who says EU politi­cians are a bunch of face­less bu­reau­crats? They're peo­ple just like us, and here's the proof. Each week Cafébabel will be bring­ing you a se­lec­tion of the weird­est, whack­i­est and most touch­ing Tweets from Eu­ro­pean par­lia­men­tary can­di­dates. We'll bring you bright ideas, bril­liance and loonies, and above all we'll bring you rea­sons to vote in the May elec­tions.

Trans­la­tion: #Merkel meets #Obama: “Like this we will at least lis­ten to me.”

Ever since Ger­man chan­cel­lor An­gela Merkel’s phone was tapped, we imag­ine she gets these ak­ward feel­ings when she’s on the phone. The at­mos­phere wasn’t too jovial when she vis­ited Obama last week in Wash­ing­ton for the first time since the scan­dal. Obama is not known for tak­ing a par­tic­u­lar in­ter­est in Eu­ro­pean heads of state, so Merkel has to try hard to be heard by her Amer­i­can coun­ter­part.

The old dog is still at it. If only Jean-Marie Le Pen's crim­i­nal record was as clean as his car. His il­lus­tri­ous ca­reer of racism boasts six con­vic­tions. He was pun­ished for dis­miss­ing the holo­caust gas cham­bers as a "de­tail in the his­tory of World War II". He was sus­pended from the Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment for at­tack­ing a so­cial­ist. He's been ac­cused of en­gag­ing in a touch of tor­ture dur­ing the Al­ger­ian War. But he's still an MEP, still racist, and still look­ing great.

Guy Ver­hof­s­tadt vis­ited Google and tested their new glasses. It left a mem­o­rable im­pres­sion on the Bel­gian lib­eral. Recently we saw him de­bat­ing the other candidates for Pres­i­dent of the Eu­ro­pean com­mis­sion where he made the best im­pres­sion on the au­di­ence. If eco­nomic growth in Eu­rope will re­ally be gen­er­ated by an Amer­i­can firm that has data shar­ing agree­ments with the NSA re­mains ques­tion­able. On his web­site you can win a day with Guy Ver­hof­s­tadt if you take the best selfie that shows you with what you like about Eu­rope. Dream come true?

This mar­vel­lous ad­vert touches on a con­tro­ver­sial Eu­ro­pean issue. In Feb­ru­ary the Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment flashed its green cre­den­tials with a deal to com­bat de­for­esta­tion in In­done­sia. But the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion's si­mul­ta­ne­ous drive for "greener" agro­fu­els is fu­elling mas­sive de­for­esta­tion. So the EU de­stroys with one hand what it builds with the other. On a lighter note, what do a priest and a Christ­mas tree have in com­mon? The balls are just for dec­o­ra­tion.