Maybe it’s simply because I’ve been reading a book about complexity theory over the weekend, or maybe it’s because I just have a weird way of looking at things, but following the recent turn of events in Iraq (and especially of course Najaf), I can’t help noticing how something which in the grand scheme of [...]

Lot’s of bits and pieces of news in from Germany today. Volkswagen one more time threaten to get tough with the unions, the Federal Statistics Office confirm yet another time that it is exports which are driving the German economy, whilst domestic demand actually fell (0.1%) during the second quarter. Meantime a 668-page report from [...]

This is creepy.

The bath in question here is not of the kind brought to mind by a recent popular film with a similar title, but rather a deeper, broader (more historical?) one, the kind of bath which might even have appealed to good old Hegel himself: when learning to swim what you need is not a [...]

Every now and again, posts on afoe have given rise to a lively discussion about European power projection capability. Usually, in the wake of the Iraq induced “rift through the West” and in the spirit of Robert Kagan’s quip about “Paradise and Power“, these discussions focused on the relative military strength of European forces.
But once [...]

Sorry for long hiatus recently — I’ve been quite busy with the restaurant these last few months.
In the meantime, however, two Eastern European governments have fallen, and nobody really seems to care. In Prague, the ineffectual Vladimir Spidla resigned as Prime Minister in late June. Most of the country was too wrapped up in [...]

Leaving aside political considerations (I would certainly fast-track Turkey’s EU accession process for many, many reasons), the economic attraction of Turkey as an EU member state is rapidly making itself felt. Just look at these numbers from Morgan Stanley’s Cerhan Sevic:
According to our estimates, Turkey?s overall productivity growth accelerated from an average of 2.1% a [...]

Inflation in the 12 countries of the zone euro slowed for the second consecutive month in July as weak consumer demand seems to have deterred companies from passing on higher energy costs.
Details released today from the EU’s Eurostat show that consumer prices fell 0.2 percent in July, cutting the annual inflation rate for the [...]

I’m not sure how much the international press is covering the recent racist violence in Lyon. A Google News search shows only the New York Times offering coverage in English.
The salient facts: Late Saturday night, a 24 year old man surrendered to police in Paris, claiming responsability for the cemetery desacration in Lyon [...]

Barroso has announced who will get what portfolio in the new commission (they won’t take office until november)
EUobserver reports.
The top economic posts have gone to people who favor market liberalization, and Barroso signals he’ll proritize “economic reform.” This represents a break with the past. Previous commission’s were more completely non-partisanpolitical. The leftwing parties dissed [...]