Tag Archives: europe

No Really, It’s a Helpful Suggestion

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This was just too perfect not to pass along:

Rosbalt
Opinion: Europe Is Too Weak to Be Russia’s Ally

MOSCOW, September 25. ‘The US and Russian presidents have an opportunity to
take a big step towards closer bilateral integration,’ Sergei Karaganov,
president of the Council for Foreign and Defence Policy, told a Rosbalt
correspondent yesterday. He suggested that they may even ‘discuss the
possibility of an informal strategic alliance’ when they meet at Camp
David. In his opinion, both countries are ready for this.

‘Most Russians are beginning to accept the importance of close strategic
collaboration with the US,’ the political scientist said. ‘At the same time
the US is starting to accept that it can not face the challenges in the
Middle East alone. This became most apparent after the military operation
in Iraq. In addition, the US has been disappointed by its former allies who
are no longer capable of supporting the US in its bid to modernise the
Middle East.’

Despite the fact that Russia is continuing to integrate with Europe Mr
Karaganov believes Europe is incapable of being an effective ally for
Russia. He called for a more pragmatic approach to foreign policy saying
‘we must cooperate with the US as Europe is too weak now to bring us any
serious political advantage.’

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Iraq really has shuffled the cards.

And beyond Karaganov’s apparent absurdity, I draw two points: the European commentariat spends a lot of energy on EU navel-gazing, while the world speeds onward; excessive concentration on transatlantic relations will miss the point of what those relations are for.

What kind of Europe?

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The Guardian recently hosted a debate on ‘What kind of Europe do we want?’ between writer (and Guardian columnist) Timothy Garton-Ash and Daily Telegraph editor Charles Moore. The full transcript of the debate is available in pdf format, but there’s also a shorter summary that covers most of tha min points the two made. Given that most would label Garton-Ash a ‘europhile’ and Moore a ‘eurosceptic’, it’s interesting to see that there is quite a lot of common ground between their two viewpoints.

Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee also makes similar points to Garton-Ash, addressing the problem that many of us who are ‘pro-Europe’ face – that the ‘Europe’ of our ideals is not lived up to by the EU of reality:

The limping Britain in Europe campaign now needs to reform itself into a radical anti-government voice, not the pet of ministerial patronage. Time to lay into both Brown and Blair with full euro knuckledusters. Time to attack Brussels, too, and lead the charge for reform; it will never be credible to defend the inadequate status quo.

The European idea is magnificent, but pretending that current reality matches the rhetoric only heightens scepticism.

The combination of EU expansion, the constitutional proposals and the advent of the Euro have brought us to a ‘where do we go from here?’ moment. 50 years on from Schuman and Monnet, there is now a concept of ‘Europe’ as an entity that there wasn’t back then. However, the question of what that that entity will be in practice has still not been decided (and probably never will entirely be) but the onus is now on all sides of the debate to actually think about where we’re going and how to get there.

Calling Europe?

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You might remember Henry Kissenger’s famous quip about his decision making weakness with respect to the then European Community -

“If I want to talk to Europe who do I call?”

Well, the introduction of a European Foreign Minister in the forseeable future will probably solve this problem for the likes of Mr Kissenger. But what about the rest of us? Whom do we call when we want to talk to Europe because we don’t like the latest directive regarding the amount of bubbles in sparkling wine, or to cheer up Romano Prodi after the latest insult from Mr Berlusconi, or simply to chat about clever ways for extracting money from the EU film fund by presenting our latest holiday video from Spain as a culturally vitally important common European film production?

Well, gentle readers, search no more. Here’s your answer (I accidentally stumbled upon it while looking for EU press statements regarding today’s referenda). We can call the citizen support center called “Europe direct“, open on weekdays between 09:00 and 18:30 CET.

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The European Military project at a cross-roads

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There’s a good article in today’s Le Figaro (a conservative French national newspaper) about the recent summit on a European military project in Arcachon. It’s titled L’Europe militaire ? la crois?e des chemins, and it is pretty pessimistic about the whole project.

A l’actualit? d’une loi de programmation militaire tangible, g?n?raux, ing?nieurs, chefs d’entreprise, parlementaires et experts en strat?gie ont pr?f?r? consacrer leurs interventions ? une Europe militaire encore tr?s virtuelle. C’est le seul consensus qui ait ?t? d?gag?. Car les Etats-Unis n’ont pas de souci ? se faire: si la r?union d’Arcachon devait servir de barom?tre ? l’Europe de la d?fense, l’avenir de celle-ci appara?trait des plus maussades.

Given the present lack of any tangible legal mandate for a military programme, the generals, engineers, CEO’s, members of parliament and strategists prefered to focus on a still highly virtual European military. That was the only consensus to come of all this. America has nothing to worry about: if the Arcachon conference is any measure, the future of a common European defense is gloomy indeed.

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Transatlantic Trends

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The 2003 Transatlantic Trends survey , conducted for the German Marshall Fund, Compagnia di San Paolo and Fundacao Luso-Americana, has recently published and the results from it make for some interesting reading. Some of the findings confirm what you might expect, while others confound expectations somewhat.

There’s a key findings report available in English, French, German, Italian and Portuguese (English and Italian in pdf only, others also available in Word). There’s also coverage of the report from EUObserver, The Guardian, BBC News, Yahoo! News and The Hindu, for a perspective from somewhere non-Atlantic.
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Creating Europe through tourism?

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One of the long-running stories in the British media over the summer has been the antics of British tourists in the Greek resort of Faliraki on the island of Rhodes. Stories of the misadventures of ‘Brits abroad’ have been a staple of the British media over the last few years, fuelled by TV programmes like the Uncovered series that’s highlighted various resorts over the year such as Ibiza and Ayia Napa, but this year there’s actually been a real story for them to focus on. First, a British tourist was killed in a bar brawl and then others were arrested for lewd conduct and indecent exposure, giving the media a chance to moralise and ‘why oh why?’ about what goes on when British youth meets the Mediterranean.

However, while the existence of resorts like Faliraki is often portrayed as a new development, it can be seen as merely the latest incarnation of the British experience of the rest of Europe as a location for escape from the realities of life at home.
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