There is a well-expressed idea embodied in a dissident shareholder motion for the forthcoming Deutsche Bank AGM, as reported by the Financial Times. It gets at the consequences for and role of shareholders in the global banking crisis. The article explains –
Blogging in the 18th century:
One of the distinctive features of the periodical literature of this era was its discursive, dialogical character. Many of the articles printed in the Berlin Monthly (Berlinsche Monatsschrift), for example, the most distinguished press organ of the German late enlightenment, were in fact letters to the editor from members of the public. Readers were also treated to extensive reviews of recent publications, and sometimes also to lengthy replies by authors with a bone to pick with their reviewers. Occasionally the journal would call for views on a specific question — this was the case, for example, with the famous discussion on the theme “What is enlightenment?” that began with a query posted by the theologian Johann Friedrich Zoellner in the pages of the Berlin Monthly in December 1783. There was no permanent staff of journalists, nor were most of the articles in each issue directly commissioned by the journal. As the editors, Gedike and Biester, made clear in the foreword to the first edition, they depended upon interested members of the public to “enrich” the journal with unsolicited contributions. The Berlin Monthly was thus above all a forum in print that operated along similar lines to the associational networks of the towns and cities. It was not conceived as fodder for an essentially passive constitutency of passive consumers. It aimed to provide the public with the means of reflecting upon itself and its foremost preoccupations.
Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia 1600-1947, p. 249
It was slower, of course, and embedding video would have to wait a while too, but it’s an interesting lineage.
So as not to reflect solely upon times past in states abolished more than half a century ago, there is a NATO summit beginning tomorrow. The most interesting question is whether a concrete path to membership will be opened for Georgia and Ukraine.
“All religions are just as good as each other, as long as the people who practice them are honest, and even if Turks and heathens came and wanted to populate this country, then we would build mosques and temples for them”(1)
As quoted in Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia 1600-1947
Continue reading
It looks like Nicolas Sarkozy’s pet foreign-policy idea has been sporked, good and proper; his idea of a “Mediterranean Union” is now officially an ex-parrot, after it failed to get German support. As we’ve been saying right back to 2005, the key fact of European politics at the moment is that Angela Merkel has achieved a degree of influence that no other chancellor since Willy Brandt could claim; whether it’s over the economy, the Middle East, Russia, the EU budget, or the EU’s internal organisation, all roads now pass through Berlin. Helmut Kohl and Konrad Adenauer both operated in a triumvirate with a very strong and universally respected French president and a very strong (and pretty respected, but far from universally so) European Commission President; there’s certainly an argument that the Barroso commission is the best for some time, but nobody could seriously describe Nicolas Sarkozy as a leading force in European politics. The UK is absorbed by its own self-inflicted crisis; Italy is coming over all Italian; problems go either to Brussels or Berlin for solution.
So what was this Mediterranean Union thing all about? Well, Sarko’s adviser Henri Guaino had this idea, see; it would be a bit like the EU, but would encompass states along the southern shore of the Mediterranean as well as Spain, Italy, France, and Greece – but no other EU members. This would have done a number of things; for a start, it would have created an undemarcated frontier between the EU’s various existing policy initiatives there and whatever the new organisation did. It would also have been potentially in conflict with the EU accession process. Certainly, the new entity would have been politically dominated by France; which, it’s fair to say, was probably why France wanted it.
This could have worked in a couple of ways; perhaps the EU could subcontract its policy in the Mediterranean to the new organisation (or to the French Foreign Ministry), or else the two would work out a division of labour. Alternatively, the freies Spiel der Krafte, the “free interplay of forces”, would have seen them compete until some sort of de facto arrangement emerged. But what would it actually have been doing?
There are two answers to this; one is that it would have been doing the good work of spreading European integration onto the potentially unstable southern rim (whilst also tactfully getting around the special significance of, say, Moroccan membership in the EU). Another is that it would have been a substitute for accession; rather than the real thing with its guarantees, open borders, trading privileges and development funds, warm words (and the special benefits of Francafrique), and probably highly restrictive agreements on nasty things like immigration. (Via Randy McDonald, check out this view from the other side of the table.) Certainly, the British government reckoned it was a way to put Turkish membership off the table.
Yet another unexplained angle was the relationship between the new organisation and NATO; despite the new organisation’s Frenchness, it’s worth pointing out that all its proposed European members would have been NATO member states. In fact, either three out of four or four out of five, depending on the inclusion or otherwise of Portugal, are home to a major NATO multinational HQ; Portugal, Spain, and Greece all have a Joint Subregional Task Force HQ, Portugal is also home to a NATO SACLANT naval headquarters, Italy is home to NATO headquarters for Southern Europe, SACEUR’s southern naval headquarters, the southern air forces’ headquarters, and the US 6th Fleet. NATO has relationships with most of the other potential members under the Partnership for Peace; the interworking between these and the MU was left for the imagination.
So, plenty of problems. Then there was the touchy subject of whether the MU (with a net-recipient membership) would have EU funds; no wonder Merkel wasn’t keen. As always, for EU funds read “net-contributions from the Northern Alliance of Germany, the UK, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, and Slovenia”. Yes, Slovenia – it’s northern, right? No? Well, it is, isn’t it – look at it, it’s parliamentary, it’s a net contributor, it’s got mountains (like Holland…), it’s sort of social-democratic, and vaguely German. Clearly. And so they kiboshed the MU.
But was it a good idea? I think not. The single most effective – almost the only effective – method of EU foreign policy is the enlargement process. So I’m opposed to anything that diverts from it. Our international-society-theory with balls/prototype world government is about the only grand political vision of the last 100 or so years that remains valid; with all its inconsistencies and bizarreries……hold it. The inconsistencies and bizarreries are precisely why it works. A curious combination of bureaucracy, anarchy and diplomacy, it’s not a prototype world government, it’s a world un-government in permanent beta test; we just haven’t invented the right buzzword yet to name it. (Which may be a problem. Successful projects usually breed their own tribe, and hence their own language; we don’t seem to be so good at that. But you’re welcome to try in comments.)
The version of the MU that was actually signed off is considerably more like the EU; it includes all the EU member states, it’s intended to do concrete and practical things, and it actually offers the ‘tothersiders something, namely ERASMUS student exchanges, money, and a higher priority for the extension of the EU free-trade area. I wouldn’t be surprised if Zapatero manages to snap up the headquarters.
In James Gleick’s bestseller, Chaos: Making a New Science, one of the recurring phrases is “period three implies chaos.” Grossly simplified, once things start oscillating among three stable states, chaos is inevitable and ubiquitous. In politics, particularly German politics, three parties did not imply chaos, but rather orderly transitions with the hinge party making a switch from time to time. The advent of a fourth, the Greens, didn’t cause structural problems either. But the fifth, now called the Left, is doing the chaotic trick nicely.
Continue reading
Handelsblatt reports that Germany’s preliminary budget numbers look very good indeed; they’re looking at a budget surplus of a couple of billion euros, the first since reunification (not counting the UMTS mobile phone licence auction in 2000). Real GDP growth of 2.5 per cent is forecast; most of the extra cash came from the rise in VAT and fiscal drag.
It certainly seems a great position to be in at the beginning of a downturn.
The application of 600 police, intelligence agents and other operatives has resulted in the arrest of three alleged violent Islamic extremists in Germany, as has been reported around the world. Other shoes are starting to drop. As could be expected from an investigation of this magnitude, three arrests were just the beginning, and one of the real questions will be how far back German authorities, and the other agencies they cooperated with, were able to trace the purported would-be bombers’ connections, and how far they will be able to pursue the connections. Do the traces lead to areas in Pakistan the government does not actually control? Where does the money trail lead?
In some quarters in the States, it’s thought that in Europe, daycare for kids is plentiful, state-provided and thus inexpensive, one of the positive side effects of high taxes. That may be true somewhere, but it’s certainly not the case in Munich.
My daughter’s school broke the law yesterday. I don’t mind too much, though, as the law in question is stupid and ought to be abolished. Continue reading
Last night I was in the downtown bookstore to pick up some stuff for travel planning, and I glanced over at their bestseller rack. Number one was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In English. The German edition won’t come out until October.
The best-selling book in the store is in a foreign language. That’s some powerful enchantment, Ms Rowling.