EU-DIGEST

The Dutch political scene : PvdA party now takes D66 seriously

With support for liberal party D66 growing in the polls, the party is being taken more seriously by coalition party PvdA, says D66 party leader Ivar Manuel (photo) in NRC Handelsblad. “The aldermen have been taking us more seriously for some time, ever since we are growing in the polls.” An example is the debate on the Red Light District, which Alderman Lodewijk Asscher wants to clean up. “Asscher and I have discussed this extensively in private and he has made some concessions to us.”

With the power of D66 growing, car-friendly PvdA council member Myriam Bergervoet sees new opportunities: “Its easier to discuss Islam with a Muslim fundamentalist than to discuss the environment with [green party] GroenLinks. D66 is more pragmatic.”

Labels: EU, Netherlands, Poltical

The "New Great Game" in Eurasia is being fought in its "Buffer Zones" - by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

In each one of these struggles, there is rivalry between a distinctly "Eurasian base of power" and a "Peripheral base of power" that is dominated by Western Europe and the United States. In other words, the struggle opposes Eurasia to the Ocean-based powers of the Periphery. It is in this context that Eurasian powers have always been strong in regards to land power or their armies, while the Peripheral Powers have had superior navies. This is why Britain and Japan had powerful navies historically and why the U.S., on a global scale, has the largest navy. A look at China and Russia will show that they have had and continue to have large and powerful land forces.

Labels: Eurasian Economic Community, Poltical

The rise of political blogs - by Trevor Howell

The pay is terrible. Ideas, no matter how well thought out and crafted, may only draw a readership that can be measured by the dozen. Politicians threaten lawsuits if you outsmart them. In short, even as a hobby, writing a blog isn’t the most prestigious gig.

Blogs, or weblogs, have come a long way since their mid-’90s inception. Back then, they were primarily viewed as online diaries. By the early part of this century, they evolved into effective tools where one could espouse their views and report on issues mainstream media were missing. David Climenhaga, a journalist and self-described unsophisticated blogger, contends incredibly bad management on the part of people who run newspapers is as much to blame as the failing economic model. “I tend to feel that newspaper management drove their core readership onto the Internet rather than people were abandoning newspapers for the Internet willingly,” he says.

Labels: Blogging, Media, Poltical

Kagan’s Mythology of U.S. Exceptionalism - by Jim Miles

"Robert Kagan is a difficult subject to analyze. At times his writing seems to be very honest and directly critical of U.S. intentions as well as being clearly honest about the sometimes “dangerous nation” aspect of its history and foreign policy. Underlying it all however is his own patriotic blindness that ends up always supporting U.S. exceptionalism and uniqueness, always expressing the egocentric viewpoint that the U.S. is the indispensable nation. The U.S. is not indispensable. Nor is it a bastion of “democratic capitalism” that is the only way forward from here, here being a point in renewed history – according to Kagan – in which there are either “democrats” or “autocrats.” Kagan does not see in shades of gray, countries and politicians are either one or the other. His arguments, while seemingly coherent at certain points tend to dissolve into self-contradiction, the main contradiction being the solid criticism that “what you do speaks so loud I can’t hear what you say.” For all that Kagan tries to present as the positives of the U.S., of the underlying good intentions of the U.S. - at the same time recognizing its sometimes hard handed methods of interfering in other countries - he really does not understand that perceptions built on those hard handed actions over-ride all the rhetoric and jingoism about the greatness and indispensability of the U.S. as the world’s guide to a better world".

Labels: Poltical, US

Labels: EU, Immigration, Poltical

Global Economic Crisis Likely To Have Profound Consequences For US Politics, World Relations

In the United States, economic developments have the potential to lay the groundwork for a political transformation with major alterations in both the composition of, and balance of power between, the major political parties. There are "reasons for thinking that the American election of 2008 may be the equivalent of the election of 1932 - an electoral sea change ushering in a new wave of government intervention and, if that intervention is successful, a durable electoral realignment," says Peter Hall, Krupp Foundation Professor of European Studies at Harvard, in a wide-ranging analysis he provided to the Huffington Post.

In Europe, Hall contends, "the political effects are likely to be more diffuse. If the ensuing recession is not too deep, the current crisis may provide Prime Minister Gordon Brown with just enough credit for the Labour party to survive the next British election and Angela Merkel with the wherewithal to remain German Chancellor. But history suggests that electorates tend to punish governments that preside over deep recessions and to look, in some cases, to the political extremes for new faces and voices. Therefore, there is reason to worry about the rise of far right parties in Europe, in particular, where they have already made inroads by running against the market-oriented policies of the European Union. Although enthusiasm for market competition has been waning in European capitals for some years, the current financial crisis will strike it a serious and potentially fatal blow," according to Hall.

"Most Europeans and some Americans attribute the crisis to subprime lending in the US housing market, but that was only the trigger for contemporary events," Hall argues. "The deeper roots of the crisis lie in shifts in banking practices that led many financial institutions to borrow heavily in short-term capital markets to finance the purchase of riskier securities than they once held. The 'financial innovation' behind the development of these securities was said to diffuse risk. Indeed, it did and now everyone is at risk.

Labels: economic meltdown, Poltical, World Economy

Europe's trance of unreality - by van Krastev

There is something unreal and profoundly disturbing about the latest crisis in the European Union. In theory the results of the Irish referendum held on 12 June are a fatal blow to the Lisbon treaty and the prospects of reforming the European Union. In theory the only logical outcome of the referendum should be either a Europe of "two speeds" or a paralyzed Europe. In reality, however, nobody believes that the Irish vote will bury the Lisbon treaty. The only genuine question is when the Irish will be forced to vote "yes" after they were so unreasonable as to vote "no."

European citizens are bored to death with their leaders. The more these leaders are ready to ignore the sense of crisis and disappointment expressed by the voters, the more voters are ready to reject any idea or policy coming from on high. The problem is less that Euroscepticism is on the rise as that Euro-enthusiasm has disappeared. It is safe to predict that if all European Union member-states were to vote on the Lisbon treaty, the result would be an Ireland-style rejection in at least half. The latest version of the dialectic of European integration - its new social pact - proclaims that people can vote "no" only to a certain extent, and that elites preserve the right not to take "no" for an answer. This process of "evasion by trivialization" is the core of the EU's crisis.

Labels: EU, Poltical

Building Economic and Political Systems based on Reality - by Michael Richards

"This is a call for active citizens to build a new community order. A new world order will rise up from the grassroots as we organize sustainable communities at the local level. We will build networks of communication and connection to build the emerging planetary culture. For two hundred years, the human race has been calling for major change. The American Revolution answered the call, however, the admonition from Thomas Jefferson that we “need a revolution in each generation was not heeded. The advances of human liberty have suffered progressively ever since that time. We are now at a crisis in human civilization; are we going to choose the path of liberty again or let fear lead us down the road to totalitarian government?In our current political milieu, Barack Obama may use the word “change” as an empty political slogan, but neither he nor any other present leader is presenting options for real systemic change. All of our present “leaders” are selling some lame version of the status quo that can no longer work. Our present “leaders” are all asleep at the wheel, heading down a one way road to oblivion. We need to have the courage to face the fact that we have no real leaders at present.When there are no leaders in sight, it is time to step forward and lead. A new leader must offer a “new covenant”… a new perception, a way to renew society with methods that work in the real world. Our planet has a clearly defined set of ecological systems that we must integrate with. The problem is, our present leaders are stuck in a past paradigm that is now totally obsolete. They cannot offer any real solutions because they do not have the perception to see new solutions. I step forward as a new leader with a clearly focused new perception. A new way of thinking and a new way of acting. I call out to my fellow evolutionaries to gather in small communities to build a new society from the ground up. Our present economic structures are so corrupt that we must begin anew. We must now create new structures by applying the scientific method to human action and interaction. Our present systems are based on myth, rather than on reality."

Labels: Policy, Poltical

Why EU and China need Russia, 2 - by Anna Zafesova and Francesco Sisci

Now that the political-economic confrontation is over, Russia is an integral part of the global market, but it no longer has a counter-balancing role in a market which is western and which can function without the USSR. Russia is now part of the global circuit and therefore this objectively increases its dependence on seesaw market prices beyond its control. Nevertheless, even though it does not decide prices, the very fact that it has an increased threatening power can influence them much more than when it was an outsider in the game. If this is true in the case of oil, integration is even more important when it comes to gas. With the laying of gas pipelines, ‘necessary’ distribution channels were created. What is more, given the need for long term investment, as well as the need to make decisions regarding price far in advance, gas pipelines stabilize the market for both buyers and suppliers by guaranteeing less volatility. But this is also due to the very nature of the pipelines; pumping a product in just one direction.

We thus return to the central question: too much Russia is bad, just as too little Russia is bad. Too little EU, however, could create the conditions for having too much Russia, something that would also be bad for Russia itself because it would revive its imperial instincts. Today this would be destructive both for Russia and for others, and it would certainly be a destabilising influence. In this regard, however, the opposite is also true: a EU which is too strong politically would be a clear blow to Russia and to America. This means that it is necessary for the EU to go in a different direction, something which is already occurring with the idea of a Kerneuropa, which has its own constellation revolving around it, or the view of the EU as kind of super-market with some responsibilities which are shared and others which are kept rigorously separate. In any case, clarity is needed regarding the direction in which the EU, and not just Russia, is heading.

Labels: EU, Poltical, Russia

Why the “Anglosphere” Is No Alternative for the EU - by John Laughand

Pro-Europeans in France (the majority of the political class) argue that European integration is necessary to make Europe independent of the Americans, while anti-Europeans in Britain argue that it is precisely the danger of European integration that it will undermine the Atlantic alliance. This was one of Margaret Thatcher’s principal beefs with Europe and it remains a cornerstone of British Tory Euroscepticism to this day. For such people, the alliance with America is the sine qua non of British foreign policy. They believe that this is threatened by Europe. The most pronounced expression of this idea is support for the so-called “Anglosphere”, for which John O’Sullivan (a British expatriate in the United States) argued again recently in the Daily Telegraph. Far better than the current entanglement with France, Germany and other continental countries, they say, would be an alliance with like-minded English-speaking nations, the US in first place but also Australia, Canada, India and the Commonwealth. These countries are united, the argument runs, by an attachment to “individualism, the rule of law, honouring contracts and the elevation of freedom” and the implication is that these values are not shared by the corporatist, socialist, corrupt and even authoritarian political cultures prevalent on the European continent, and of which the EU is itself an expression.At a deeper level, however, the “Anglosphere” proposal illustrates the fatal intellectual flaws of British Tory Euroscepticism. In spite of all the rhetoric about national sovereignty, what most British Tory Eurosceptics are basically expressing is their dislike of Catholic countries. If Carl Schmitt was right to say that all political concepts are really secularised theological concepts, then the “Anglosphere” is nothing but old fashioned anti-Popery, with all the humbug and dishonesty which that cultural movement contains.

The argument that Britain and other English-speaking countries embody the values of liberalism is also highly tendentious. Samuel Huntingdon attacked “Caesaro-Papism” in his Clash of Civilisations, saying that division between the temporal and spiritual power was the key to Anglo-Saxon liberalism, but of course there is only one country in the world where the king is head of both the temporal and spiritual power – England – while the Pilgrim Fathers who founded America itself were fundamentalist theocrats.

Labels: EU, European Unity, Poltical

Leading Russian businessman warns Europe from growing xenophobia, anti-Semitism and tolerance towards Iran - by Viatcheslav Kantor

Europe paid a high price for its tolerance for other people’s Intolerance – 50 million Europeans were wiped from the face of earth, including 6 million European Jews. While the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has existed for nearly 60 years, Europe still has no tolerance laws, pan-European laws to counteract xenophobia and anti-Semitism. Of course, we live in a world where not all are equal. Those who are more equal than others make the rules of the game. They make sure others follow the rules, and they change the rules when they feel they have become out of date.We live in Europe, and Europe is diverse. There is the European Community, comprising Old Europe and New Europe. There are Western European states that are not EU members, for instance Switzerland. There is a mosaic of Balkan states, some of which Europe is happy to admit or is prepared to admit on certain terms; others, perhaps, will never be accepted.

Labels: EU, Poltical

Serbia considers retaliatory steps against West if Kosovo breaks free

Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica condemned the United States on Wednesday for supporting the independence of Kosovo as Parliament debated a measure that would sever diplomatic ties with Western countries that recognized the province's statehood.The measure in Parliament, proposed by Kostunica's government, rejects the idea of the European Union's setting up a mission in Kosovo before the status of the breakaway province is resolved. The resolution threatens to halt Serbian integration into the European Union if Kosovo gains statehood, and denounces NATO and the West for their alleged support of separatists in Kosovo.

Ethnic Albanians, who make up about 90 percent of the two million people in Kosovo, have said they will proclaim independence early in 2008.The leader of the opposition Liberal Party, Cedomir Jovanovic, who does not oppose Kosovo's independence, said the resolution represented "a blow to Serbia's ambitions to become a EU member."

Comment EU-Digest: Mr. Jovanovic is right and on top of that the Serbs have also not delivered Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic and Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic to the International Court of Justice. Serbia's war against Bosnia and Croatia between 1991 and 1995 was characterized by appalling acts of systematic violence against civilians. The use of ethnic cleansing and other genocidal tactics by Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic as a policy tool for partitioning Bosnia and Croatia and establishing a new population balance favorable to the Serbs in ethnically-cleansed territories shocked the international community.

Labels: EU, Genocide, Kosovo, Poltical, Serbia, US

Race and politics in France - Trouble in the court of Sarkozy

The first Muslim to hold such a top government job, and a woman to boot, Ms Dati has become emblematic of an effort to open up the French elite. This makes her controversial judicial reform a test of the new France in more ways than one.She was adopted by Mr Sarkozy when he was interior minister (she had written to him cold, and demanded a meeting) and has worked in his team ever since. Since she was appointed rather than elected, Mr Sarkozy's centre-right party is seeking to boost her standing by putting her top of the list for the next municipal elections in the bourgeois 7th arrondissement of Paris. Ms Dati's ascent prompts as much admiration as it does resentment. Her appointment did not prevent another eruption of street violence in the heavily Muslim banlieues last month. In the same week that rioters torched cars, the country's justices also took to the streets during a strike to protest against her plans to amalgamate courts.

Dominique Sopo, head of SOS Racisme, an anti-discrimination group, says hostility to her reform is because she is “young, a woman, and of North African origin. Unfortunately, this profile creates resentment among a French elite made up of white men over 55.”

Labels: EU, France, Immigration, Poltical

Poland vows new era in relations with EU and Russia - by Renata Goldirova

In an effort to put Poland back on the European stage, the country's new leadership is set to be the first to ratify the EU's Lisbon Treaty, the bloc's new institutional set-up agreed in October.

"I hope that Poland will be the first country to ratify the treaty. This would be a symbolic gesture, signifying Poland's return to the heart of Europe", speaker of the Polish parliament Bronislaw Komorowski said on Thursday (22 November).

Labels: EU, Poland, Poltical, Russia

A Peaceful Revolution: What's the Economy For, Anyway?:"U.S. under-performs almost every EU nation" - by John de Graaf

Thomas Pynchon once wrote that if you can get people to ask the wrong questions, you don't have to worry about the answers. In some ways, American conservatives have been masters of that. "Wouldn't you like a tax cut?' "Do you trust the government?" "Can't you spend your money better than government can?" These are the kind of questions they ask and for many Americans, the answers seem deceptively simple -- "sure I'd like to have more money, who wouldn't?"

What we've found is shocking: in almost every area of quality of life, health outcomes, economic fairness and sustainability, the U.S. under-performs almost every western European nation and many poorer nations as well. Moreover, the U.S. has seen significant relative declines since the mid-1970s, the beginning of our slide into right-wing economic policy. Unfortunately for some strange reason, maybe not so strange to those who understand how the global economic system works, the EU feels it has to emulate the US. "

Labels: EU, Poltical, Quality of life, US

Labels: EU, Poltical

Segolene Royal, the French Socialist candidate for president, pledged to maintain defense spending and nuclear weapons, a rare moment of agreement with her main electoral rival, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. In a speech last night in Paris in front of three former defense ministers, she said military spending should be kept at least at 2 percent of gross domestic product, the same figure mentioned in a speech by Sarkozy last week.

Defense spending ``may seem an excessive effort when we have peace on our borders,'' she said. ``But menaces haven't gone away, they've just changed. It's the price of our liberty.''

Labels: Military, Poltical