Category Archives: The European Union

Inherently Left of Center?

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Romano Prodi, writing in Le Monde, claims that the European Union is inherently a left-of-center project. It’s an interesting claim–certainly one that Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl would probably dispute. But certainly the European institutions have changed since either of those Chancellors’ days, and a contemporary view might lend more strength to Prodi’s views and explain the relative prevalence of anti-EU sentiment on the right side of the political spectrum.

I’m of course relying on the summary from the estimable folks at Eurotopics, but it’s an interesting thought.

Hungary’s Reform Programme

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Just a bit of background info to accompany Doug’s post on AFOE:

“Everybody in Hungary knows that real income will decrease in the next two years … and very significant social groups will feel their interests hurt. If this simple rejection is transformed and mixed with national radicalism and social populism, then this is a dangerous thing,” Gyurcsany (Ferenc Gyurcsany, Hungary’s Prime Minister) said.

He has said that Hungary aims to meet eurozone criteria on the public deficit, national debt and inflation by 2009 and adopt the common currency by 2013.Last week, Hungary submitted to the European Commission a revised plan to prepare for adoption of the euro. Under the plan, the public deficit would be slashed from 10.1 percent of gross domestic product GDP) this year, the highest in the EU, to 3.2 percent in 2009. Although it is an ambitious programme, some analysts have called on the government to cut spending further in social areas such as pensions, in order to tidy up the country’s shaky finances, a recipe Gyurcsany has so far rejected.

The so-called euro convergence programme, not deemed aggressive enough for some, has also sparked protests in Hungary and led to a huge drop in the government’s popularity. The reforms include ending free public university education and overhauling the state-run healthcare system that is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, by introducing co-payments for visits to the doctor and to the hospital, among other things. The aim of the plan is to put a greater financial burden on citizens and curtail the welfare state, which is becoming increasingly hard to finance in a society that, like much of Europe, is growing older.”

This information also has some relevance to the debate which is raging on this thread about reform.

No Way Forward in France?

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An establishment voice casts further doubt on whether French elites see possible progress in the European Union

Jacques Julliard, the weekly’s deputy editor, explains in an interview with François Sionneau that he does not see how the constitution could return to the agenda. “Projecting five to 10 years into the future – the most that is possible – I am frankly not that optimistic about Europe’s political hopes. We have fallen too far behind. We must also remember that an enormous gap exists between the motivations that pushed people to vote ‘no’ – reasons having to do with domestic politics which may be legitimate – and the consequences of this ‘no’, which transcend domestic politics and are not remediable in the short term. The world’s major dates with destiny will proceed without Europe. Large European countries will participate, but not as a Union.”

From Le Nouvel Observateur, via Eurotopics.

The Union’s energy is now mostly coming from the east, but will it be able to overcome blockages from the old members in the west?

After the Revolution

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Germany – Süddeutsche Zeitung. On March 15 the Ukrainian author
Yuri Andrukhovych was awarded the prize for European
Understanding at the opening ceremony of the Leipzig Book Fair.
In a sensational speech, he attacked EU Commissioner Günter
Verheugen who opposes Ukraine’s entry into the EU. The
newspaper publishes extracts of the speech: “European dialogue
has not taken place,” Andrukhovych notes bitterly, and makes an
appeal to EU countries: “It is crucially important for me that
you help this cursed country, in whose language I write and
address you in. And it wouldn’t be so terribly difficult for
you to help this country. It would simply be a matter of not
saying anything that will kill our hope.”

Hat tip: Eurotopics. Original article unfortunately in pay-per-view. Annoying and expensive pay-per-view at that.

Picking Cherries or Dead As A Duck?

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There are opinions to suit all taste this week. According to EurActiv:

EU leaders have almost all declined a proposal by French President Jacques Chirac to save the EU Constitution by splitting it up into single chapters and integrating those into the existing EU framework.

The EU observer puts it more bluntly – The Hague says constitution is ‘dead’:

The Dutch foreign minister Bernard Bot has said the EU constitution is “dead” for the Netherlands, rejecting EU leaders’ recent pleas for a resuscitation of the charter.

So it seems, at the end of the day, there will be no low-lying fruit, like cherries, just there for the pickin. Time to start building some ladders I think.

Austria Presses On

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Not content with simply being the ‘Energy Presidency’, Austria it seems is hell bent on also moving forward the Consitution issue, even if this is only in the rather tame form of a Brussels debate among Europe’s leaders on the way forward for the new treaty. Actually rather than a constitution per-se, what we may see is the consolidation of the “Cherry Picking” model:

One option is to “cherry pick” key institutional aspects of the text such as the creation of an EU foreign minister or greater openness at councils of ministers.

Human Victim Of Bird Flu In Turkey?

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Well, as we say in Spain: one hot one and one cold one. Last Friday I posted about how Turkey may well be making progress in modernising its legal system thanks to EU pressure. Today the worry is that the information system in Turkey may well still be extremely deficient. This is highlighted by the death of Muhammet Ali Kocyigit and the fact that three more of his siblings were admitted to hospital with symptoms which sound suspiciously similar to flu.

News.com.au suggests that Muhammet died of flu, but the Turkish Health Ministry is at pains to assert that even if the cause of death is to date unknown, it wasn’t avian flu. Let’s just hope they’re levelling with us!

Something Seems To Be Working

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According to the Turkish news agency Hürriet Turkish Deputy prime Minister and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul spoke last night to the NTV news channel regarding:

“the recent wave of legal battles being held against Turkish intellectuals and a senior member of the European Parliament. Gul criticized the actions that were being taken under the controversial article of the country’s new penal code and said, “There seems to be a chain of systematic complaints. There appears to be a mentality deliberately aiming to create chaos.”

The FT quotes Mr Gul as saying:

“There may need to be a new law. As a government we’re watching closely how the existing laws are being implemented.”

The law in question is the one which makes it an offence to insult “Turkishness”. This law has been highlighted recently by the Orhan Pamuk case and now by the strange threat to prosecute Joost Lagendijk, a Dutch member of the European parliament, for suggesting the Turkish army provoked Kurdish rebels in the hope of extending its influence. Interestingly enough Joost Lagendijk supports Turkish membership of the EU. State prosecutors are reportedly studying the complaint against Lagendjik.

Now I have to say that not of this surprises me. Turkey is a society in transition. Fortunately the transition is from a bad equilibrium to a batter one, and we in the EU are doing our bit. I feel that Gul’s statement confounds the fears of the sceptics. In this case EU pressure will be rigourous, and change will be far reaching, but the process will, obviously, have its ups and downs.

So I was really surprised to read in the FT:

“Turkey knows that gaining entry to the EU will become an increasingly arduous task in the coming years, because of widespread antipathy inside the 25-member club towards future enlargement. “

No! Turkey gaining entry to the EU will be an arduous task because it is good for Turkey and good for the EU that it be so. If some people are using their ‘enlargement fatigue’ as an excuse for trying to make things more difficult, then they are the ones who will end up even more fatigued (and frustrated) as time after time Turkey complies with their demands.

This could be another example of shooting-yourself-in the-footism as in complying with the demands Turkey will become an increasingly modern and economically competitive society, which means, of course, that when it does join in 2014 it will, as the largest member state, have even more influence :) .

This Sounds A Bit Pie In The Sky

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I have just read this (don’t miss the photo):

Constitution, enlargement and budget: Austria hopes to revive Europe with these themes and infuse it with “energy and confidence” when it takes over the rotating presidency of the European Union on January 1

Am I reading this aright, he says, scratching the dust from his sleep-ridden eyes. Aren’t the constitution, enlargement and the budget three themes which are absolutely guaranteed not to inspire enthusiasm just at the moment (unfortunately)?

As usual the FT takes me back to the hard world of reality:

Austria intends to make the fight against fraud in value added tax a cornerstone of its European Union presidency, in an effort to end billions of euros of losses in annual revenues at a time of stretched national budgets.

Ah, yes, this sounds much more like it.

Very Difficult Negotiations Lie Ahead

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This was Tony Blairs view, that ‘very difficult negotiations lie ahead’ on the EU budget. You bet they do. Just look at the list of proposals:

- a cut in the seven-year EU budget to roughly €850bn, or 1.03 per cent of the union’s GDP;
- Britain would give up part of its rebate: €6bn-€9bn is the working figure used by officials;
- cuts of “no more than 10 per cent” to the €160bn of EU aid earmarked for new members in eastern Europe;
- cuts of about €5bn to rural development aid;
- a review of all EU spending in 2009, including farm support.