Category Archives: Transition and accession

And Macedonia makes 50

Posted on by
10

Montenegro and Macedonia recognized Kosovo yesterday. Coincidentally, this raises the number of countries recognizing to exactly 50.

Macedonia and Montenegro are small countries, but they have outsized importance because (1) they’re neighbors of both Serbia and Kosovo, (2) they’re EU-members-to-be, and (3) they’re former Yugoslav Republics. So while this is no surprise, it’s still interesting.

I had some thoughts on this, but Radio Free Europe has already beaten me to most of them. (Yes, yes, I know about RFE. It’s a good article anyway, check it out.) One particularly interesting point: by co-ordinating their recognition, the two countries have given each other a certain amount of cover, diplomatically speaking.

I’ve said before that I expect a slow trickle of countries recognizing Kosovo gradually tapering off, until a plateau of between 50 and 60 is reached sometime next year. We’ll see soon enough!

Orange to Blue?

Posted on by
3

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has officially dissolved the parliament, and new elections are set for December 7. He made no secret of why he thought the coalition broke up:

The democratic coalition – I am convinced, deeply convinced – was destroyed with only one thing – personal ambition. The personal ambition of one individual which was propelled by the thirst for power, and by a preference for personal interests over those of the country.

The coalition’s understanding and the coalition’s agreements are destroyed; the economic reform is not implemented; the fulfillment of electoral promises has grown into a total social populism, which has caused the largest inflation in Europe and the lowering of social standards of living, as reflected in the salary, pension, and many other social programs.

This really looks like the end of the Orange coalition. In the end, there could be only one. Now the question is whether all three parties will continue in rough parity, or whether one Orange party will decisively displace the other, or go into coalition with the Blues (Party of Regions, Yanukovych).

It’s up to the voters now, but it’s still sad to see so much time and opportunity squandered.

Enlarging the tubes

Posted on by
6

In my work inbox this morning, a message from TeleGeography. Their latest report on IP transit pricing is out. This bit struck me: 1,000Mbits of transit over Gigabit Ethernet in Bucharest now costs no more than it does in London – and only a couple of dollars more than in San Francisco. That’s incredible, and impressive. Talk about returning to Europe. Interestingly, the price is almost identical whether you’re in North America or Europe; but it’s higher by a factor of seven in Sao Paulo.

Join!

Posted on by
6

Canada is interested in a huge bilateral agreement with the European Union, which going by the details given would almost amount to membership in the EEA. Cool.

Ironically, in the years when the British Empire was either trying to recast itself as an EU-like economic union or trying to get into the ECSC/EEC with all its members, Canada was notably the least enthusiastic state – and given that this included South Africa, that was saying something. Had the cards fallen differently, you can almost imagine Canada leading the effort to get the UK to join.l

It wasn’t that long ago that there were people in the Conservative Party who thought the UK should leave the EU and join NAFTA; it’s amazing what a few years’ rampant misgovernment will do. It’s almost a cliche of American discourse that Canada is almost France; you wonder what the Eurosceptics and their creepy ideological friends in the US will think when it happens.

Montenegro: I was wrong

Posted on by
8

A couple of years back, Brussels Gonzo and I had a debate about Montenegrin independence. I did a post saying it was a really bad idea. Gonzo replied with a post saying that I was just plain wrong. Bosh and drivel, I replied a few days later.

Okay, so: two and a half years have passed since that debate. Montenegrin has been independent since May 2006. How does that debate look in retrospect?

Well, it looks like Gonzo was right and I was wrong. Continue reading →

Vote of confidence?

Posted on by
3

The IMF has just released its latest assessment of Hungary (news release, detailed report).  It’s interesting and sobering reading — this is a country where the budget deficit nearly hit 10% of GDP last year and which is still spending 4% of GDP a year on public debt service.  In Ireland we know how this can end badly: if interest rates go up, debt service suffocates everything in the budget and you’re screwed.  Anyway, one bit of uneasy reading comes from the assessment’s assurances that the banking system is “profitable and well-capitalized”.  Isn’t this the assurance that is given to every banking system right before it tanks?  The profits come from huge leverage and “well capitalized” is just relative to the usual standard for thinly capitalized banks.   So good luck to Hungary.  There is a tricky balancing act of getting the public debt under control while not destabilizing the system that has a big share of mortgages denominated in foreign currency.  At least all the USA’s problems are in dollars.

Trying to Rhyme with Orange

Posted on by
16

It isn’t working, and Ukraine’s parliament has 30 days to form a new ruling coalition. Good luck with that, too. If not, elections in December.

The long-simmering feud between Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko has, again, reached its breaking point. Tymoshenko, the current premier, has a month to engineer a new coalition, which would have to be with parties from outside the Orange bloc. So she would have to team up with Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of the Regions, or other, less mainstream parties. I’ll bet on new elections.

Russia has a lot of levers to pull, especially on a winter-time election, and I can’t see Medvedev or Putin having too much need for restraint. Prices on natural gas, export and import restrictions, pipeline transit fees, and much more will probably all be on the menu of blandishments. The Georgian example will also be very much on everyone’s mind.

Eastern policy has not been one of France’s priorities within the EU, so it is ironic that the country’s once-every-two-decades tenure in the EU presidency will likely be bracketed by eastern questions: Georgia at the start and Ukraine at the end. Without strong friends in Europe’s west, Ukraine’s medium-term future looks less like candidacy and more like Finlandization. Maybe Yulia just figured this out faster than the rest of us.

(On the other hand, if the Russian consulate in the Crimea starts handing out passports willy-nilly, something other than Finlandization could be in the cards.)

Jumping the gun

Posted on by
Reply

In an action that may remind the White House why their ally can sometimes be exasperating even to them, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili apparently pre-empted an announcement that George Bush will attend  a special “Summit of Friends of Georgia” in late October – which would be within a fortnight of the US elections in November.  White House press secretary Dana Perino was evasive when asked about the report (see e.g. the Georgian Times) at the just concluded daily briefing.  Yet Saakashvili’s claim  sounds plausible, not least because it’s the kind of thing that Dick Cheney would have promised during his visit there last week.  It also indicates that John McCain is not planning to rely much on Bush in that crucial period — which is perhaps why they would have rather made the announcement at a time of their choosing (e.g. late on a Friday evening).

Rallying ’Round

Posted on by
7

Central Tbilisi is filling up with people coming out for an officially sanctioned (and organized) but also popularly supported rally for Georgia and against Russia. In the main roads, a human chain is forming, one that takes in the main cathedral and Parliament, as well as business areas, residential neighborhoods and bridges across the Mtkvari. It’s a conscious recollection of the human chains and other protest actions in the Baltics in their run-up to independence from the Soviet Union, and the messages are the same: “Yay us!” and “Ivan go home!”

Continue reading →