EU-DIGEST

Five Aspects of the Conservative State - by Tom Frank

Everyone's a change-bringer this year. Everyone's a reformer. Even the improbable Sarah Palin tells us she intends to clean up not only Washington but to "stop the greed and corruption on Wall Street" itself. What's more, she wants to do it on behalf of--her own term--the "working class." There are several reasons to cheer for this development. With the Republican standard-bearers now tacitly acknowledging that the Bush administration and the Republican congress were episodes of unexampled misgovernment, much of the right's exculpatory rhetoric can now be dispensed with. The verdict has hereby been reached on Bush, DeLay, Gingrich, and maybe even on Ronald Reagan himself. The case is closed. All that remains is to understand the causes of the catastrophe.

This is an astonishing reversal. It was just ten years ago that CNBC used to run a "CEO wealth-meter" feature so that viewers could track the daily ups and downs of their favorite mogul; today, faced with a $700 billion Wall Street bailout, the public screams for the billionaires' heads. It was just two months ago that, in a review of the book we are preparing to discuss, the New Yorker magazine suggested that to criticize capitalism was the act of a "neo-Marxist"; today, even Republicans are doing it. Things are changing fast.

Labels: Conservatives, Politics, Republicans, The Senate, US Congress

Financial crisis analysis: Europe's centrist parties are crumbling - by Damien McElroy

The trap for Europe's centrist parties is strengthened with each spell in power. "They can't stop the foreigners coming, they can't provide the revival that would come from new jobs and they can't give people the voice they want," said a former EU official. "Every upheaval only entrenches the system." The turbulence in the financial markets compounds the trend, though it has revealed winners among the established parties as well as manifest losers. As governments reach for a strong statist response to potential collapse, there is reward for those who demonstrate a firm grip. Opposition parties unable to match an incumbent government's mastery of interventionist policies, even if they are leftist like the French Socialists, are being eclipsed.

Labels: European Economy, Politics

Britain - Why Miliband was right - by Denis MacShane

Labour must embrace English culture which today is as much Salman Rushdie as it is Shakespeare. There is plenty in the English canon of culture and political science to be inspired by without importing modish American theories about nudging or the latest Heritage Foundation paper regurgitated by Cameron’s millionaire frontbench.

Ministers are trapped administrating – that is where the word comes from. But they are politicians and must do politics again. Not the disastrous politics of briefing against Brown nor the disastrous politics of attacking Miliband because he manages to sneak an anti-Tory article into the Guardian. Of course personality counts. But none of our great prime ministers – from Gladstone, to Attlee to Thatcher – had smoothie-chops Old Etonian charm, rather the opposite. They had ideas and vision and worked in a team of like-minded visionaries and believers in policy. Labour needs to do likewise.

Labels: Britain, EU, Politics

Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. is disappointed by a recommendation that a $35 billion U.S. Air Force tanker contract that it won with an American partner be reopened for bidding, the company's chief executive said Wednesday. The US Government Accountability Office said it found "a number of significant errors that could have affected the outcome of what was a close competition between Boeing and Northrop Grumman." The GAO decision is not binding, but it puts heavy pressure on the Air Force to reopen the contract and could help Boeing capture part or all of the award.

Note EU-Digest: one can only hope the EU takes good note of this US Government intervention on behalf of Boeing when Boeing or US Aircraft builders try to sell their aircraft in Europe.

Labels: Airbus, Airbus Tanker, Politics, USA

Eurovision: pop or geopolitics, asks Terry Wogan

The Russian nation celebrated its first Eurovision song contest victory last night. I celebrated the 30 quid that I won in a Eurovision party sweepstake. But Terry Wogan found little to be cheery about.With the contest's expansion into the newer states of eastern Europe, the long-standing tradition of Cyprus giving Greece 12 points and vice versa has now spread around much of the continent. The Balkan nations - who, remember, have been squabbling and separating for hundreds of years - certainly like to support one anothers' musical offerings. Last night saw the Slavic and Baltic nations join the former Soviet republics in their fulsome support for Dima Bilan and his power ballad, Believe.

Labels: EU, Eurovision Song festival, Politics

British elections: Brown's party routed in UK elections, loses London - by Tim Castle and Katherine Baldwin

"If the economic crisis continues through 2010, Brown's dead in the water," MORI pollster Robert Worcester told Reuters. The Conservatives, the once dominant party of Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill, were in buoyant mood after more than a decade in the political wilderness.They scored victories in the north of England where they have struggled and in Labour heartlands in Wales. Labor lost Reading council, its last remaining stronghold in the wealthy southeast of England.

Labels: Britain, Elections, EU, Gordon Brown, London, Politics

Putin beats Bush on points in the battle of the legacies - by Bronwen Maddox

Putin beats Bush on points in the battle of the legacies - by Bronwen Maddox

President Putin was the first winner from the Nato summit in Bucharest, and he wasn't even there. The Nato-Russia Council begins only today, but Putin, who has played the Western alliance with obsessive skill in his last months as President, ensured that relations with Russia dominated the earlier gathering. For him and George W. Bush, Bucharest was a battle of the legacies, and on points Putin won. The summit failed to give a date for Ukraine and Georgia to join, which Bush had forthrightly declared it should, but which Germany and France blocked, partly to avoid antagonising Russia. Gordon Brown yesterday said that “no one outside a Nato meeting could influence it”, but Russia's threats and courtship seem to have done just that.

Labels: Bush, EU, Nato, Politics, Putin

Suriname prosecutors say 1982 massacre by Bouterse and his supporters was no military operation, but a criminal act

Dismissing arguments from defense lawyers prosecutors in Suriname said, that the December 1982 slaying of 15 government opponents was not a military operation. Military prosecutor John Mohamedamin told a three panel military court that, although the killers might have used military weapons to commit the crimes, this doesn’t make it automatically a military operation. Not only army officers took part in the slaying said the prosecutor but also civilians. “This makes it an ordinary criminal act.” Mohamedamin argued. Dismissing arguments from defense lawyers prosecutors in Paramaribo said, that the December 1982 slaying of 15 government opponents was not a military operation.

On December 8, 1982, 15 men including lawyers, army officers, university lecturers, businessmen and journalists were rounded up by army personnel, tortured and shot dead in the Fort Zeelandia military headquarters in Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname. Bouterse, a two-time coup leader who remains a powerful political figure in Suriname, did not attend the court session at a naval base near the capital, Paramaribo. The former dictator seized control of Suriname by a coup in 1980, five years after the country gained independence from the Netherlands. He stepped down in 1987 under international pressure, but briefly seized power again in 1990.

The military legal panel has scheduled another hearing for Feb. 29, when defense attorneys and prosecutors will be allowed to present additional motions ahead of the trial, expected to begin sometime this year.

Labels: Desi Bouterse, Politics, Suriname, The Netherlands

EU far-right groups to form party

Far-right political leaders from four EU nations have unveiled plans to form a pan-European "patriotic" party. The heads of far-right parties from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria and France said their aim was to defend Europe against "Islamisation" and immigrants. At a news conference in Vienna, they said they expected to launch the party by 15 November.

Labels: EU, Politics, Right-Wing

France begins to grow weary with the Sarkozy soap opera - Alex Duval Smith

Smooching their way through a five-course lunch yesterday at an exclusive Paris restaurant, President Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni made it clear that they care nothing for what anyone thinks, including their gooseberry guest of honor, Tony Blair. The former PM was invited to the five-star Hotel Bristol after addressing a rally of Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement party. But all eyes were on the 40-year-old Bruni, who every now and again lifted her sunglasses to lean in and nuzzle the presidential cheek. Sarkozy reciprocated with kisses and cuddles, oblivious of any uncomfortable fidgeting from those around them.

with six Paris-Match covers to his credit since his election in May, Sarkozy is winning the nickname 'President Bling-Bling', as suspicions grow he may be more style than substance.

Labels: Bruni, EU, France, Politics, Sarkozy

"Lover President" Sarkozy uses billionaire's jet for getaway to Egypt"

President Nicolas Sarkozy, in Egypt with new girlfriend Carla Bruni, came under attack at home for flying on his Christmas holiday aboard the private jet of a billionaire businessman. Opposition political parties accused the president of compromising his office, and asked what the plastics-to-media magnate Vincent Bollore can expect in return for his generosity. "As soon as the President makes himself dependent on the favours of billionaires, inevitably there will be qui-pro-quos and we would like to know what they are," said Socialist Party deputy Arnaud Montebourg. "This mixing of private and public interests damages the impartiality of the state," he said.

Labels: Carla Bruni, Egypt, France, Politics, Sarkozy

EU 'most popular superpower'

People across the world like to see the European Union become more influential, a large-scale study has found. The study, which quizzed 57,000 people across 52 countries, found that the EU was "unique among the four big powers [China, the EU, Russia and the United States] in that no one wants to balance its rise". According to the European council on foreign relations (ECFR), which sponsored the research, 35 per cent of world citizens want the 27-member bloc to grow in power. In contrast, China and Russia emerged from the research with a net balance of six per cent and eight per cent of respondents wishing to see their influence decline respectively.People in Turkey and Russia were found to be most against a rise in Washington's supremacy, closely followed by Canadians and Latin Americans. Of the 52 countries polled only Senegal and Hong Kong wanted to see Tehran's global standing increase, with Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the US most anxious.

Labels: EU, Politics, Super Power

Ecuador poll backs the Chavez route to reform - Rory Caroll

Voters in Ecuador appear to have backed an attempt to redesign the country along socialist lines, giving fresh impetus to the surge of Latin America's "pink tide". Exit polls showed President Rafael Correa's coalition heading for a majority in an assembly which is to write a new constitution. If confirmed, it would bolster his leftwing agenda and give Washington another Latin American headache. Several projections predicted that Mr Correa's National Alliance slate would win more than 70 of the 130 seats, putting his supporters in the driving seat of a plan to transform one of the region's most politically volatile countries.

The charismatic economist turned president is a scathing critic of the Bush administration and an admirer of Venezuela's outspoken socialist leader, Hugo Chavez. He has promised not to renew the lease on a small US military base.

Labels: Ecuador, Politics

Merkel consolidates power as Bavarian rival steps aside

A longtime rival of German Chancellor Angela Merkel exited the political stage at the weekend, leaving her more powerful than ever but faced with mounting tensions in her ruling coalition. Edmund Stoiber stood down as Bavarian state premier and head of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the regional sister party of Merkel's conservatives and a member of her government, after 14 years at the helm.

Stoiber, 66, who unsuccessfully ran for election as federal chancellor in 2002 after beating Merkel for the conservatives' nomination, will now work in Brussels as head of a group charged with cutting European Union red tape.

Labels: EU, Germany, Merkel, Politics

The following views reflect France's official position and were made available to us by the Embassy of France Press and Communications department in Washington.

Q: Does France consider, as the White House has just said, that Paris and Washington are on the verge of a new era in relations? What are
the issues France and the U.S. are working on most closely together?

A: "France and the United States closely share views on a number of subjects, whether they be terrorism, Lebanon, Iran or Afghanistan, to mention but a few. As for the statement you mention, I would simply say that France and the United States have been linked for more than two centuries by History.

In a letter of engagement
from M. Nicolas Sarkozy, President of the Republic, to M. Jean-Claude
Mallet, Member of the Conseil d'Etat, Paris, July 31, 2007 he states: "Today, some critical decisions will have to be taken regarding the country's (France) defence and be reflected in the next military estimates Act. This Act must establish the
credibility of our defence, whilst respecting the State's financial
constraints. To take account of all these parameters in a coherent approach, I have
decided to launch an in-depth review of our general defence policy. It will have to lead to a new White Paper. This review will be conducted under the auspices of a commission of which I have decided to appoint you chairman. The future White Paper will define a comprehensive concept of our country's defence and its interests. It will focus on the areas of defence and security. It will have to cover the next 15 years or so, whilst being regularly up-date-able.

"I ask you to pay special attention to strengthening the European dimension of our defence and security policy and our contribution to the security of the Atlantic Alliance as a whole."

Labels: EU, France, Politics, US

Pure theatre from two master illusionists - by David Gow

"I don't think we were diddled, fooled, done over," said a sombre Joaquín Almunia, EU economic and monetary affairs commissioner, summing up on the day after the blitz visit of Sarko to the 13-strong "Eurogroup" of finance ministers on Monday night.The workings of the pact - revised in 2005 - are arcane because they are politically devious and have been subject to chicanery in recent years, allowing Germany and France, the eurozone's two biggest economies, to escape without fines despite busting the rules for four years in a row. Now virtuous Germany, in the person of ultra-orthodox finance priest Peer Steinbrück with his projected 0.5% deficit this year, is admonishing Sarko to set an example, stick to the rules and deliver on time.

Almunia, the pact's stern guardian, said he had lectured the French president that budgetary discipline and reform were not irreconcilable but went hand in hand and ensured growth and jobs.

Labels: Economy, EU, Politics

Governing Liberals Now Second in Denmark

The Social Democracy in Denmark (SD) remains ahead of all other political parties in the Scandinavian country, according to a poll by Catinét Research released by Ritzau. 26.6 per cent of respondents would vote for the main opposition party in the next general election, up 1.1 points since mid-June.

In the February 2005 election, the Liberals received 29 per cent of the vote and elected 52 lawmakers to the People’s Diet—four less than in the 2001 ballot. The governing centre-right coalition remained in place with the support of 92 legislators. Liberal leader Anders Fogh Rasmussen has acted as prime minister since November 2001. In April 2005, Helle Thorning-Schmidt became the new leader of the Social Democrats, replacing Mogens Likketoft. Denmark has never had a female head of government.

Labels: Denmark, EU, Politics

Labels: Islamist, Politics, Turkey

Race to Succeed Bush Already Rivets Attention Around Europe and the rest of the World by ames G. Neuger and Gemma Daley

From Australia's outback to the salons of Europe to the eateries of Sao Paulo, the early start to the U.S. presidential campaign is captivating the public. The spread of the global electronic village is one reason. Another is the star appeal of the candidates best known outside the U.S.: onetime White House resident Hillary Clinton, rising star Barack Obama, war hero John McCain and 9/11 redeemer Rudy Giuliani.

Clinton is the favorite of more conventional bettors, too. Ladbrokes Plc, the world's largest publicly traded bookmaker, is quoting 2-1 odds on Hillary Clinton the first lady turned senator, with Giuliani at 7-2, Obama at 4-1 and McCain at 6-1.

Labels: Europe, Hillary Clinton, Politics

How to get France's left-wing party back in business

To begin, the left-wing party does not seem to harbor any rancor. The party’s leader, Francois Hollande, seemed to be quite positive of his party’s current situation. Indeed, he told journalists the night of the elections Royal fought hard in the campaign - which is true-, and she had done an excellent job - not so true. After all, the French did choose Sarkozy to take the lead. But, the left-wing party needs to be “renovated”. Overhauling the entire party is needed, according to some socialists, such as the famous Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

The party needs a centre program. Of course it must keep its left-wing ideas, but it should also accept today’s world is free trade, and not socialism. By mixing liberalism with socialism, the left-wing party could have a chance to gain some ground. By doing so, it might steel the centre-wing concept (pulling in liberals and socialists). Yet, because the centre-wing concept isn’t quite understandable, the left-wing party has quite of a good opportunity to seize.

Labels: France, Politics

What Pelosi's road to Damascus means to Bush- by Mark Tran

Nancy Pelosi's trip to Damascus is not so much freelance diplomacy - something no president likes to see and which is forbidden by the 1799 Logan Act - as another telling sign of ebbing presidential power. Through her peregrinations - Ms Pelosi was in Iraq in January - the House speaker is saying to Mr Bush that the balance of power is shifting away inexorably away from the White House and the Republicans to Congress and the Democrats.

When Mr Bush stands in the White House rose garden and rails about mixed messages, the subtext is that he has been confronted by yet another intimation of political mortality and - understandably - he does not like it one bit.

Labels: Bush, Middle East, Pelosi, Politics

European Shell and Choren Industries turns to wood chips and straw in search for the road fuel of the future - by Carl Mortished

A new road fuel made from wood chips and straw will be launched in Europe later this year from a pilot plant developed by Shell and Choren Industries, the German biofuel company. The synthetic diesel, made using a novel biomass-to-liquids (BTL) process, will shift the biodiesel industry into a higher gear by using waste plant material instead of valuable food crops.

The pilot plant, near Freiberg, will produce 15,000 tonnes per year of synthetic diesel, which Choren has dubbed Sunfuel. Construction of a much bigger plant in Schleswig-Holstein, costing €500 million and capable of producing 200,000 tonnes of BTL, will begin next year in an effort to quickly bring the product up to commercial scale. Massive political and regulatory pressure is building on energy companies to find low-carbon alternatives to conventional road fuels.

All the technologies are based on the Fischer-Tropsch process, invented in Germany in the 1930s to synthesise liquid fuels from coal. Shell is already the biggest biofuel distributor in the world.

Labels: Alternative fuels, EU, Politics, Shell

Romania political row worries EU officials

The European Commission is concerned about Romania's political instability that is slowing down judiciary and anti-corruption reforms, Brussels media said. Romanian Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu has fired government ministers who support Romanian President Traian Basescu, thus ending a center-right coalition after months of political disputes between the two men that has nearly paralyzed the country, the EU Observer said Tuesday.

Labels: Calin Popescu, EU, Politics, Romania, Traian Basescu

Why We Should Rejoice After Fifty Years Of The EU - without unity in Europe even the Germans would be eating with chopsticks-Chris Davies

So the EU is 50. It's not a bad age and its future looks secure. Recent concerns about global warming and future energy supplies have reminded governments of their dependence on one another and reinforced the desire to move forward together."Think of the improvements to water and air quality, cleaner beaches, protected habitats, more recycling, better waste management, banning of dangerous chemicals, and now the raft of measures designed to slow climate change." Pollution pays no respect to national boundaries and this is action most people welcome.

Do you have a mobile phone? In 1987 the EU introduced a common standard for digital mobile telephones.It created a huge market for manufacturers and gave a massive stimulus to innovation - a good example of Europe at its best.

Can you imagine any European country trying to negotiate alone with the emerging superpower that is China? Even the Germans would end up eating with chopsticks!

Labels: Environment, EU 50, European Unity, Future, Politics, World Trade

France cries out for change. But not now - by Geraldine Baum

EVREUX, FRANCE — The French want change. They need change. Well, maybe just a bit of change. Or maybe none at all.

"France needs reform," Lage says of a system hampered by overregulation and an inflexible economy. "Everyone agrees. But when you tell a Frenchman that the coming reform is intended for him, well, he is conservative, and he doesn't want it anymore."

Labels: Economy, Elections, EU, France, Politics

Europe is increasingly fading away - by Honor Mahony

Joschka Fischer, ex-German foreign minister-turned-Princeton-professor has a very sober view of the European Union's position in the world as it dusts itself off from recent 50th birthday celebrations. "This is a development which is definitely accelerating, so when you talk with the [US] political elite, the weaker Europe is, the less interest you will find.

"Relating a recent incident where a former Indian foreign minister came to lecture at Princeton and said that the 21st century will see three superpowers – India, China and the US – Mr Fischer said "I was sitting there and I thought, 'why the hell is nobody in Europe realising what is going on!'" Note EU-Digest: "The reason Mr. Fischer is that most of the European politicians are looking inward, consider unity a dirty word and are overcome with a feeling of self importance."

Labels: EU, Integration, Politics, Unity, World Trade

Armenians aim to destroy Turkish- US relations - Proposed genocide resolution naming Turkey risks damage to U.S. security, says Rice, Gates

The U.S. secretaries of state and defense contend that the security of the United States is at risk from proposed legislation that would declare up to 1.5 million Armenians victims of a genocide on Turkish soil almost a century ago. In joint identical letters to the speaker of the House of Representatives and two other senior members, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the resolution also could inflict significant damage on U.S. efforts to reconcile the long-standing dispute between the West Asian neighbors. The appeals went to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Rep. John Boehner, leader of the House's Republican minority; and Rep. Tom Lantos, the Democrat who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of one of the letters Wednesday. It was dated March 7, two days after Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian was in Washington to visit Rice and said afterward that "Turkish lobbying at a government level" threatened to scuttle the resolution. Comment EU-Digest: It seems like the well financed and ferocious Armenian lobby is finally getting some Turkish "counter-action", thanks to invigorated world-wide Turkish grassroots political support networks.

Labels: Genocide, Politics

The European Union is ailing? If you think so, look again - by Giles Merritt

As the European Union prepares to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome later this month, the EU is widely perceived to be on its knees. European integration is felt to have somehow met its Waterloo in 2005, when referendums in France and the Netherlands unexpectedly torpedoed the draft EU constitution. Media stories have focused on the paralysis that is said to have gripped EU decision-making, but the reality is different. Far from suffering an irreversible decline in its fortunes, the EU has been conducting business as usual, quietly getting on with the job of constructing new policies and pursuing new projects.

Take a look at some recent headlines. The EU is putting together an energy and environment strategy that aims to end the self-defeating competition within Europe for oil and gas, while also establishing Europe as global leader in the effort to halt climate change. The union's common foreign and security policy may not yet mean that Europe speaks to the world with one voice, but this unity is taking shape and has already healed some of the wounds inflicted by disagreements over the war in Iraq. Of equal importance, Europe's economic integration continues to move ahead, with the euro's value buoyant and a single marketplace for financial services now coming into sight.The global pressures pushing European nations closer together are as strong as ever, so the impasse over the EU's constitutional treaty was never going to push Europe off course for very long. The EU's problem is not its so-called "constitutional crisis," but rather its lack of a recognizable political identity.

Labels: Politics

Commentary: Europe and the Caribbean: What is the people's view? - by Sir Ronald Sanders

Wouldn’t it be great if ordinary people in the Caribbean and Europe had a say in the future partnership between the two regions that is now currently being negotiated by government officials?

Just as in the past when decisions of great moment were taken in the Caribbean , Commissions were established to hear views and accept memoranda from the public, so too could a specially appointed Caribbean-EU Commission now listen to wider views in both regions.

The current negotiations might benefit enormously from it, and the structure of the future relationship between Europe and the Caribbean might be laid on a more broadly acceptable foundation.

Labels: Politics

French intellectuals abandon Royal at critical juncture in presidential race - ANGELA DOLAND

One by one, several French writers and intellectuals are making the startling confessions. After decades as committed leftists, they are defecting to the right -- many saying they've lost faith in Socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal.

With just 10 weeks to go until the election's first round, Royal still has no platform. She has made gaffes on international affairs, and her popularity with intellectuals and ordinary voters alike has slipped, leaving conservative candidate Nicolas Sarkozy at the top of the polls. Royal, 53, will take a big gamble Sunday in unveiling, at last, some of her plans for France in a platform speech that will be judged by especially tough standards because she has waited so long to make it.

Labels: Politics