Category Archives: Germany

A weekend European roundup

Posted on by

The Economist’s Edward Lucas’s [tag]central Europe[/tag]an diary is well worth a read:

“it is odd that Poland gets so much mockery. There is a kind of snobbish disdain for Europe’s east rooted very deeply in the British psyche. Before writing this diary, your correspondent was trying to do his expenses—a task that represents a weekly high-water mark for a journalist’s numeracy (and, it is rumoured, creativity).

“The Economist’s internal expenses form allows claims in Zambian Kwacha—but not Estonian kroons, or lats (Latvia) or litas (Lithuania). These countries may be members of the [tag]EU[/tag] and NATO, but for all that they are just not important enough. To say nothing of pipsqueak countries such as Ukraine.”

Heading a bit further east, La Russophobe reounds up the ever-growing story of [tag]Russia[/tag]‘s apparent continued use of murder as a political weapon in the post-Cold War world, while Siberian Light reports on Russia’s widening investigation into Alexander [tag]Litvinenko[/tag]‘s death. Oddly, they seem to be focussing their efforts on London, not Moscow, in the search for the killer…

Back in Europe proper, the French right seems to be pulling together, with overtures to [tag]de Villepin[/tag] being made, and only Jacques [tag]Chirac[/tag]‘s final intentions as yet unclear (hell, even his wife doesn’t know yet – and he is on record as saying he’s “thinking about it”). If Chirac stops being a dick and the right continues to unite, [tag]Sarkozy[/tag]‘s position should get far, far better – even with the disunity the polls still put him bang on 50/50 with Socialist candidate [tag]Ségolène Royal[/tag]. Now the propaganda machine is in also full swing to paint him (actually, quite fairly) as a different sort of French politician, just as (valid?) criticism of Royal starts kicking into gear, it’s entirely possible he could yet secure the presidency.

Meanwhile in [tag]Brussels[/tag], the formation of a new far Right grouping of MEPs in the [tag]European Parliament[/tag] is being blamed on the EU’s New Year expansion – which could be yet another reason for the EU to start playing a part in the [tag]French election[/tag] campaign, as both Sarkozy and Royal will need to undermine any chances for the National Front’s [tag]Jean Marie Le Pen[/tag] to build up his own far-right support. Still, despite the fascists and nutters (against whom the left is uniting, fighting fascism by trying to ban the buggers and evidently not seeing the irony), the EU has been proving itself a positive thing for the likes of [tag]Bulgaria[/tag] – although considering the shift away from national towards continent-wide identity identified in that article, the rise of the nationalistic far-right in eastern Europe starts to become rather more understandable.

While all that’s going on, in Brussels the wheels of diplomacy continue their daily grind, the EU Observer providing an intriguing insight into the niceties of [tag]European Union[/tag] protocol:

“Looking at the picture of the 27 EU leaders taken at the end of the December summit – the “family photo” – it is clear the host, the then Finnish EU presidency is in the middle. But it is less clear why Finland is flanked by France and Poland or why EU top diplomat Javier Solana is hanging around on the front row.

“The answer is an occult system of diplomatic values which assumes that: the closer you stand to the current EU presidency the more important you are; the second most important figure is the next incoming EU presidency and a national president is always more important than a prime minister.”

With all those complex relationships, it’s little wonder that current EU presidency holder [tag]Germany[/tag] is taking a rather more informal approach:

“German interior minister [tag]Wolfgang Schaeuble[/tag] told journalists in Berlin on Thursday (11 January) that he is setting his hopes on informal chats with colleagues from [tag]France[/tag], the UK, Spain, Italy and Poland to reach EU deals in this sensitive policy area – which includes illegal immigration, cross-border crime and the exchange of citizens’ personal data.

“The so-called G6 meetings, which have been taking place since 2003, are disliked by some smaller member states who feel sidelined by the secretive gatherings, which essentially pre-cook the formal EU meetings.”

Nonetheless, on the other side of the world, the EU is being immitated:

“Southeast Asian leaders gathering in the central Philippine province of Cebu for the annual summit meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or [tag]Asean[/tag]… They say that they are confident their dream of regional integration — to become the EU of this part of the world — may not be that difficult to attain.”

And no, by “the EU of this part of the world” they don’t mean “riven by petty factionalism, squabbling and distrust and ruled over by a sprawling, largely unaccountable bureaucracy”. They mean it in the positive sense, OK?

To wrap this up, as I’ve just about reached my news and opinion ingestion limit for the day, have a long and seemingly well-considered analysis of [tag]blogs[/tag] and [tag]blogging[/tag]. One of the most wide-ranging and intelligent I’ve seen for quite a while – albeit going a little too far down the path of academia-speak for a hung-over Saturday morning. One to return to and read later, methinks.

A quick European roundup

Posted on by

The BBC has a handy press summary of Europe-wide reactions to the EU’s mind-numbingly tedious and unproductive summit last week (which, like DJ Nozem, I simply couldn’t bring myself to pay any attention to, I’m afraid). EU Observer has a fairly telling paragraph in its summary, though:

“‘There is not yet agreement on the best way to move forward,’ said commission president Jose Manuel Barroso but added that there was consensus that something needed to be done.”

In other words, erm… no progress has been made at all in the last year and a half. Arguably, not since Maastricht, as the problems trying to be solved now are the same as were meant to be tackled with the Treaty of Nice six years ago…

Mark Mardell also has a good overview:

“Thanks to an agreement reached by foreign ministers on Monday, the word “Turkey” was not formally uttered at this summit. But that is what it was all about.”

Also on the Turkish front, some vaguely promising indications that we are not a continent of bigots, a poll suggesting that although support for further EU enlargement is falling, it is not thanks to the prospect of a Muslim country joining (hell, we’ve already got an ex-Muslim country as a member, and umpteen different brands of Christianity, many of which have had much fun killing each other during various religious wars over the years, why should there be any problem with another bunch of God-botherers joining in?) Meanwhile American Prospect has a quick book review/article on Muslim assimilation in Europe, which may be of interest.

Oh, and this article on US involvement in post-Soviet Eastern Europe from the Monthly Review is worth a gander, as the American angle usually seems to be ignored by most coverage of the EU’s newest members, not to mention the various Eastern European wannabes.

Over in France, meanwhile, the presidential race continues to heat up, with the spectre of Jean Marie Le Pen’s National Front raising its ugly head once again – something the socialists need to remember about, considering Le Pen beat them to the final two last time around…

Those who know more about energy markets and economics than me might be able to explain the significance of the Norwegian oil/gas merger. Likely to be moderately significant, though, considering the various difficulties the EU’s having thanks to the growing reliance on Russian gas supplies and all that…

Utterly unrelated, but this made me chuckle – a bunch of Germans expelled from Poland after WWII are apparently trying to seek, erm…, compensation for their loss… Up next: Germany claims compensation from Britain, France, America and Russia for the death of so many of its citizens, and from the Jewish people for the extortionate gas bill run up during the early 1940s… Oh, and should you even vaguely care, EurActiv has a run-down of the priorities for the German EU Presidency, taking over on 1st January. (Update:More on German aspirations at Atlantic Review.)

Almost finally, new discovery The Evil European has the perfect paraphrase of some of the nuttier anti-EU types’ general worldview which bears repeating following the news that EU Referendum won the “Best UK Blog” category in the Weblog Awards:

“If you correct people on the factual information, as in the European Union is not being run by Hitler’s re-animated corpse which seeks to force evil communist-fascist agenda like making all British people drive on the left side of the road or only eat straight bananas, you are being an arrogant snob and elitist liberal blah blah blah.”

The thing to do, old boy, is try to ignore them. Much as our dear leaders were trying to do with that damned summit last week. Maybe this is the way forward for the EU – we all try to pretend that it doesn’t exist, and they in turn pretend that we don’t exist. Everyone’s a winner.

Finally finally, via Erkan, EU Digest (which I’d forgotten about due to their RSS feeds seeming to be screwed, but is rather good) has a run-down of the European politicians who made an impact in 2006. That they can only come up with three names – one of whom some would argue is not “European” anyway – speaks volumes about the waste of time 2006 has been for the EU…

“Europe has lost its focus”

Posted on by

Has anyone got the full version of Menzies Cambell’s speech on Britain’s relationships with the EU and US? Because this looks to be the second speech by a relatively minor British politician (with a certain amount of influence) in a matter of a few weeks which is pushing for the kind of more pragmatic, less ideologically-charged approach to the EU that I reckon is needed.

Ignore the guff about how “Britain should distinguish its own foreign policy from that of the United States”, and the standard, oft-repeated line “We can more effectively lead the way from within Europe than we can on our own, whether in carrying weight in the wider world or in influencing our ally, the US”, there are a couple of others in there that seem to echo the line taken by Gordon Brown’s right hand man Ed Balls a few weeks back.

Namely, despite reaffirming the Britain needs to be more involved (standard Lib Dem line for a while now), old man Campbell’s also started publicly saying what many loosely pro-EU types have been saying for decades:

“We need a Powers Audit of the European Union. And that Audit should take place on the basis of a simple principle: only where issues are most effectively addressed by collective action, should the EU act.”

And there, in those two simple sentences, is the single best way for the EU – and Britain’s relationship with the EU – to progress. As I’ve been saying for years, the major problem with trying to defend the EU – let alone press for further involvement – is that nobody can really keep tabs on just what benefits the EU brings, or even quite what it’s responsible for. (Largely due to the difficulty of deciding precisely what “the EU” is, considering the bizarre power struggle between the Commission, Council of Ministers, Parliament and the courts – which part should be blamed and which praised is never clear…)

He also, according to the BBC, seems to have utterly rejected the EU constitution – which would tend to suggest that now all three major parties in the UK are against the thing. Which rather buggers up any plans from some of our more determined continental cousins to push ahead with ratification, as there’s no way it can come in to force without unanimous support from all 25 member states.

Although this is, after all, only the leader of the Lib Dems speaking (and let’s face it, who ever listens to them?), as the party which has been the focus of most pro-EU hopes in the UK for the last couple of decades, if the Lib Dems shift towards a more honest, rational take on EU policy, it’s just possible that other parties might start to do the same, rather than leap to either extreme on the EU (and then act exacly the same way as each other anyway).

Politics.co.uk has more, including the prescient line, “An unpublicised meeting here, a lukewarm press report there. These are no substitute for public recognition of the salience of Europe, and the potential it offers for British leadership and the furtherance of British interests” – which is spot on, considering the lack of coverage this seems to have got, even for a Campbell speech.

He also, again quoted in that Politics.co.uk piece, used the (spot on) line “Europe has lost its focus”. Which is an effective – if possibly accidental – paraphrased translation of French Foreign Minister Catherine Collona’s take, covered back at the end of August, not to mention German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s declaration, back in May, that “Europe needs a new reason for its existence”.

So, the French situation could change come the Spring, but Merkel is going to be heading up Germany for a while. Menzies Campbell will never see power, but his words seem similar to those of Ed Balls, whose boss/buddy Gordon Brown should be inside No. 10 in less than a year. Ignore Merkel’s desire to press ahead with the constitutional ratification process – that’s largely through desperation to see some kind of progress. The important thing is that, within the next year, we could see a situation in which the big three of Europe, Britain, France and Germany, could all be of a similar mind that a genuinely radical rethink is necessary.

And, on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome next year, when could be a better time to revise the EU’s entire raison d’etre?

That damn constitution

Posted on by

I was going to do something on the EU constitution again the other day, as Angela Merkel’s recently reiterated her intention to use the German presidency of the EU to kick-start the stalled talks when she takes over the reigns on 1st January. (Not that this means anything much, mind – that’s what every incoming EU president’s said since the “no” votes in the French and Dutch referenda last year…)

In the end, I honestly couldn’t be bothered. Luckily, now Richard Corbett’s come out with the most succinct explanation of why the constitution was important that I’ve seen in quite a while:

“The EU’s machinery has not yet been adapted to having nearly 30 Member States. The constitutional treaty was intended to do that… It is in Britain’s interest to support changes such as streamlining the size of the European Commission, re-weighting the votes in the Council of Ministers better to reflect the size of each country, enhancing parliamentary scrutiny, and many other of the useful reforms contained in the constitutional treaty.”

It doesn’t have to be that constitution but – as unweildy and tedious as it may have been – the constitution rejected by France and the Netherlands did, at least, suggest (moderately) sensible solutions to a lot of the problems. Corbett may be a Labour MEP, and the site he links to giving a run-down of the possible ways forward may be from the Labour Movement for Europe, but this is all sensible stuff.

God and the EU

Posted on by

Colman is spot on about Angela Merkel’s suggestion that God should have a place in any new EU constitution. Merkel contests that

“[the constitution] should be connected to Christianity and God, as Christianity has forged Europe in a decisive way”

As Colman points out, this means

“we should include references to absolute monarchy, discrimination against women and anti-semitism, all of which have also forged Europe in decisive ways.”

Why must we always have such second-rate minds in charge of working out where to go with the EU project?

God can only be a unifier when everyone’s worshipping the same one. So let’s ignore the Reformation and the countless variations of Christianity that arose following Luther’s piece of petty vandalism (sparking a good few centuries of violence, bloodshed and persecution). Ignore the lack of doctrinal agreement even within the Roman Catholic Church, let alone the Church of England and all the various Protestant offshoots.

What’s more, by codifying a Christian god into an EU-wide constitution, how exactly are community relations with non-Christian groups going to be helped at this time of ever-growing religiously-inspired division, mistrust and violence?

The EU is – in its idealised form – supposed to STRENGTHEN the ties that bind us, to emphasise and build upon the areas of similarity amongst a culturally-diverse continent which has seen more than its fair share of mistrust, division and war over the centuries.

All religion has ever done – and in Europe’s history more than that of pretty much anywhere else in the world – is enhanced the “us versus them” idea, heightening perception of differences, and created hostility through the insurmountable believers versus non-believers dichotomy.

We already have enough alienated and annoyed non-believers in the EU – they’re called Eurosceptics – let’s not add to their number, eh?

Merkel on Europe

Posted on by
This deserves more than just a short post, but sadly I’m rather busy.

“Angela Merkel has said that Europe needs a new reason for its existence”

Merkel’s election always had the potential to be significant. Is this the first sign that she may actually be about to start shaking things up? From today’s speech to the German parliament it looks like it may well be:

“We absolutely need the constitution to ensure the European Union is effective and capable of action… We need to think about how we make the constitution a success. I want the constitution, the German government wants the constitution and I think a majority of this parliament wants it too… If it’s not tackled before, you can be sure that the German presidency will focus on this.”

Carnival of German-American relations

Posted on by
Sixty years ago today, Germany declared war on the United States. To mark the occasion, check out the Carnival of German American Relations – lots of interesting stuff.

Alternatively, check out Britblog Roundup 43, over at DK’s place. (Although amongst his 10,000 words per hour blogging output it’s very easy to miss it – prolific or obsessive compulsive I have yet to decide with that one…)

Germany update

Posted on by

In case you missed it, they (again) finally seem to have sorted out a compromise cabinet, plus a few policy agreements which many are predicting are likely to lead to the coalition’s (and perhaps the country’s) imminet collapse – largely thanks to the guaranteed popularity-winners of a 3% VAT hike, raising the retirement age and cutting public spending all at the same time. Nice.

As such, Anatole Kaletsky of The Times (about whom I keep hearing good things, though will admit to rarely reading) is also predicting disaster (via) -

“Germany�s plan to cure its self-confessed economic failure by doing exactly the opposite to what modern economics would suggest is certainly a bold and novel idea. Jim O�Neill, the chief international economist of Goldman Sachs, remarked on television last week that German politicians are acting as if they had never seen an economics textbook, much less understood one…

“the Merkel tax hike will probably condemn Germany to depression for the rest of this decade and quite likely trigger an Asian-style financial crisis in much of Eastern Europe some time in the next year or two.”

Hurrah!

Power shifts

Posted on by
Looks like the balance of power in europe has shifted – Angela Merkel to take over the German Chancellorship.

So, the left(ish) anti-war, pro-France leader of Europe’s largest economy is replaced with a right-wing, pro-war, pro-Busher who has hinted at trying to break up the old Franco-German axis within the EU – quite possibly by looking to the new member states to the east, what with Merkel’s East German origins and recent attempts to befriend Putin and all. This could alter things significantly. Or it could all just collapse as soon as the cobbled-together coalition falls apart and leave Germany impotent and unstable for a while – a tad early to say… especially as under the terms of the deal four of the major ministries – foreign, finance, justice and labour – will remain under the control of the SPD. All very interesting…

Kroes, Merkel and Commission impartiality

Posted on by

German elections: Controversial Dutch EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes (who caused a bit of fuss a year ago during the confirmation hearings for Barroso’s Commission thanks to her links to umpteen business interests and unproven allegations of shady dealings) has arguably broken Commission guidelines by publicly declaring her support for Angela Merkel in Sunday’s elections.

It is, however, a bit of a grey area, what with it not being the politics of her own nation in which she has become embroiled. Especially as the new codes of conduct for Commissioners state that it is even permissible to “be active members of political parties or trade unions, provided that this does not compromise their availability for service in the Commission”.

Nonetheless, it is also a – perhaps contradictory – general rule that EU Commissioners should remain “completely independent” (hence the fuss over Kroes’ business links in a role which involves a vast amount of interaction with business). And in any case, her assertion that “The election of this excellent politician would be wonderful for the whole of Europe” is far from certainly the case, and demonstrates – in the eyes of some – a lack of judgement which is somewhat concerning for somebody holding such an important post. But then again, Peter Mandelson is also a Commissioner…

Kroes claims that her support for Merkel is because, basically, it would be good for women’s lib and stuff for a woman to hold high office in Germany. Unsurprisingly, however, this hasn’t gone down too well, Schr�der ally and leader of the European Parliament’s Socialist group Martin Schulz (unsurprisingly not a fan of the conservative Merkel) stating that “This is an unacceptable interference in the internal affairs of a member state, regardless of Ms Kroes�s motivation. As we know, Ms Kroes stands for ultra market-liberalism, so it is not surprising that she supports Ms Merkel who shares the same values.”

Even so, this could spark a few interesting questions about the extent to which Commissioners should be allowed to express personal views. Remember the US presidential elections? Practically no world leader expressed any opinion as to who they would prefer in charge – Japan’s Junichiro Koizumi even going as far as to publicly deny that he backed Bush after rumours circulated that he had given George his backing.

I doubt there are many who would argue against introducing a hard and fast rule about EU Commissioners stating categorically that they should shut the hell up when it comes to their personal preferences for national governments within the EU. After all, how could Kroes work impartially and without any ill-feeling with a Schr�der government, should the near-incredible happen and he manage to hang on to power?

They really do themselves no favours, this lot…

German elections roundup

Posted on by

If you know nothing about what’s going on in Germany or why it’s important, you could do worse than start with Sign and Sight’s handy and succinct overview.

First up, is Merkel going to push for an extra round? She’s been dropping in the polls of late (which may be worrying the markets, plus getting into trouble over her flat tax proposals, recently so popular in the UK blogosphere – with more in-depth looks at her economic policy woes at Der Spiegel.

Meanwhile, the Guardian (or is it theguardian?) looks at what went wrong in Germany and why “Everyone is afraid”, even though the Financial Times reckons that Schr�der’s legacy will be a good one and Der Spiegel reckons Germany’s a lot better off than it thinks it is in a nice comparison of Merkel and Maggie (as in Thatcher, natch).

(As an odd aside – largely for the eurosceptics to get heated up – the eurosceptic Times wonders if the Turkish vote will save the pro-Turkish entry Schr�der, while Newropeans magazine bemoans the inability of non-German EU citizens to vote on Sunday, and in national elections full stop.)

Over at Fistful, Alex gives an overview of the squabbles over potential coalitions following Edward’s look at the implications of Merkel missing an overall majority and Tobias’ top-notch look at the problems with her campaign. It’s one of the better places to keep up with what’s going on.

As I finish up I also notice North Sea Diaries also has an election roundup with much good stuff – a bit of overlap, naturally, but certainly worth a look.

German elections: less than a week

Posted on by
German elections: Less than a week to go, and Schr�der seems to be making a last minute comeback. There’s a good overview of the complexities of the German voting system at European Tribune, explaining the potential coalitions (also discussed – in a bite-sized, easy-to-understand post – at Fistful), while Der Spiegel looks at Schr�der’s chances. Meanwhile Deutsche Welle looks at whether Dresden could tit everything up thanks to the death of a Nazi delaying the vote – just as indications that there could be a fair few disputes over the count increase by the day.

German elections roundup

Posted on by
German elections: North Sea Diaries on the “shadowy, chimeric thing” that is German conservatism, Jerome a Paris on yet another glimmer of hope for Schr�der as Bloomberg and others report on a poll which sees his popularity rise – and Merkel predicted to be unable to gain a majority. Meanwhile the International Herald Tribune ponders what’s in store for US-German relations if Merkel forms a government? Oh, and fxstreet.com has very good overview of the issues in the upcoming German, Norwegian and Japanese elections – a good place to start if you have no idea about any of those countries’ politics.