Continuing AFOE’s first point-counterpoint debate between two posters, here’s my final post on Montenegrin independence.
Continue reading
Tag Archives: subsidies
Scott into the breach
Well, I don’t read or speak French, have probably spent less than 30 days in France in my entire life, and I don’t tend to follow French politics much. But what the heck, here I go.
Of leading French politicians, it seems Nicolas Sarkozy has actually made one of the stronger efforts to reach out to the Muslim community…
Continue reading
The Danish Job
This is really a hybrid post, although perhaps the unifying theme – for reasons which should be clear by the end – is Denmark.
In the first place Danish journalist Kjeld Hansen has a hard-hitting article in EU Observer about just what does actually happen to all that money paid-out in the form of agricultural subsidies (hat tip New Economist), whilst in the second one there is news today that the Commission is preparing a position paper on the EU’s social model for discussion at the October 27/28 summit.
Continue reading
China and Protectionism
The Chinese minister of trade Bo Xilai was in Paris yesterday. Most likely this is simply a happy coincidence, but the timing couldn’t have been better. The issue of Chinese textile imports has become one of the issues in the French referendum, and minister Bo was conveniently available to make all the right gestures:
“We want to soften the shockwave that there could be from the rise in Chinese textile exports,” Bo told a news conference after talks with French trade minister Francois Loos…”It is a temporary phenomenon and this phenomenon will weaken or disappear”.
Source: Reuters