Tag Archives: Political issues

Mr Potato Head

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Sometime during the group phase of the last World Cup, a lefty German newspaper, the Berlin-based taz, compared Poland’s current president to a potato. I’m sure that there was more to it than that, but the original version has disappeared into pay-per-view is here, and my reading knowledge of Polish isn’t what it was a decade ago. If yours is better, there’s a Polish version is here, do let me know.

Anyway, the satire was part of a series called “Rogues Who Want to Change the World,” and Kaczynski was in there with other figures you’d expect from an alternative daily, including Chancellor Merkel and German President Köhler. Whether the comparison was apt in Kaczynski’s case will be left as an exercise for readers.

I would think that the occasional irritating comparison is part of the price of being president, and you’d probably think the same, but maybe that’s why Mr Kaczynski is president of Poland and we’re not. Plus the matter of being Polish. Because being president means that there’s a law that says insulting you is a crime. Up to two years in the Polski pen, and Warsaw prosecutors are, even as I write this, investigating whether to take out an EU arrest warrant for the Berlin-based satirists. The smart money is on no, but smart has not exactly been the controlling adjective in what has the makings of a good silly-season story. (Quite a number of European states have these “don’t insult the president/state/ruling house/whatever laws,” and they are usually defended with the assertion that they are never used. Well.)

Godwin’s law, of course, has long since been violated, by Poland’s foreign minister no less. The president skipped a meeting with German and French leaders just before they went to the G-8 summit, though he quickly denied any connection with the satire. Said he had stomach trouble. Not due to tubers, surely. And the new prime minister, not coincidentally the president’s twin brother, saw no need to change course. “We haven’t insulted anybody.”

On the other hand, amidst all the foolishness, President Kaczynski did manage a cruel blow. He said, according to the weekly Zeit, “even in the history of this peculiar newspaper” the potato portrait was an unprecedented insult of a foreign head of state and a criminal act. If in thirty-plus years of lefty alternativeness, the taz has never done anything more tasteless than call a jumped-up szlachta a lumpen-potato, they have seriously missed out on one of the perks of being lefty and alternative. I think Kaczynski’s been clever here and cast aspersions on their capabilitieis as caricaturists and satirists. But for all I know, these aspersions will harm their business and professional reputations. Maybe the taz should consider a counter-suit?

Turkmen Gas and Chinese Bombs

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After the Russian gas showdown with Ukraine, the Turkmen gas showdown with Russia. Two can play at that game, it seems. No doubt a lot of this is motivated, like the Ukraine crisis, by the decision makers’ own corruption interests in their Austrian, Swiss or God knows where nominee companies and numbered accounts. No doubt the futility of refusing to sell one’s only product will be apparent soon enough.

But it does point up something-first of all, despite the apparent ebbing of US influence in central Asia (airbase agreements being allowed to lapse, etc), the ‘Stans are very far from a calm hinterland for Russian energy geopolitics. Another thing is that the wider version of this politics – the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, aka “OPEC with Bombs” or the Dictators’ Club if you want to sound Hollywood – might not be as stable as its creators would like to believe. This cuts both ways.

One view of the SCO’s future is that of a gas and oil-empowered alliance of Russia, China, central Asia and maybe Iran, or rather, of their elites. Dedicated to staying that way. It’s not a nice thought, and is certainly one that should inform the debate about the British nuclear deterrent. Another version of it is as a club of toughminded realpolitiker dedicated to keeping the jihadis away from the pipelines, and in the near future the railways. Bolshy independence within it could weaken both these scenarios, although (given the traditional Russian and Chinese approach to central Asian Muslims) that might be quite a good thing.

Taxi! For Nöel Forgeard

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Well, it looks like one of the questions from this post may have been answered indirectly. It now matters little whether or not the Clearstream affair is ever cleared up, as some of the people most responsible for it have anyway been disgraced. Since the last post, the only real news on the Clearstream story is that the allegations by General Rondot (that the government wanted him to investigate Nicolas Sarkozy for partisan reasons) were confirmed, by the top EADS executive Jean-Louis Gergorin, although he continues to deny being the corbeau.

However, the Clearstream story has largely been overtaken by events. One explanation for it was that it began as part of a scheme by a faction at the huge Franco-German aircraft and armaments company in order to prevent the head of Thales (another French defence contractor, specialising in electronics and shipbuilding) from becoming the boss. Their alternative candidate was almost certainly the choice of the French government, being a personal friend and political compadre of Jacques Chirac, one Nöel Forgeard. This chap had a good claim to the job anyway, having run the EADS division that builds the Airbus civilian airliners and culminated his time there by overtaking Boeing in sales for the first time and seeing the A-380, the world’s largest passenger aircraft, to its first flight. He also promised to maintain French primacy of influence, which is important as EADS’s structure gives it two co-chiefs, in practice one French and one German.

Forgeard today resigned in disgrace as chief executive. Like Clearstream, it was an overdetermined event. For a start, there was the lingering scandal-Gergorin being an old pal of his. But there was also trouble at the mill. The A380′s delivery timetable has slipped after problems were discovered with the electrical systems of several airframes, beginning with serial no. 013, and requiring a temporary halt to work at station 40 on the assembly line. This has caused trouble with some of the buyers, who have threatened to invoke penalty clauses.

But that wasn’t the real problem. It flies, after all, and has passed its safety certification (something which escapes those journalists who have been claiming Boeing’s Dreamliner project has overtaken it – the 787 has, I think, yet to fly let alone be type-approved). The real problem was that Forgeard exercised his stock options immediately before the public heard about the cock-up on station 40. He denied vigorously that he knew of the problem, without credibility – the director of production for the A380, Jean-Claude Schoepf, had informed union representatives of the problem as early as the 24th of February. This perceived dishonesty, stacked atop the Clearstream muck, left him shaky, and Jacques Chirac’s response didn’t help. Chirac (and presumably the government) wanted to replace him with the current head of the French railways as a new single chief.

Enter Angela Merkel. The German government wanted, rather than more centralisation, to see more EADS stock in free float. Putting the SNCF in charge, possibly sensible given their reputation, was not going to grip them. But – without a major change in EADS’s charter – sacking Forgeard would require the German co-chief to step down too. It now seems that the Germans are willing to accept the railroad tycoon, Louis Gallois, instead of Forgeard, even at the price of dropping Gustav Humbert – the new head of the Airbus division – in favour of an exec from Saint-Gobain. This means, of course, that there is a need for new German appointments.

The Germans have therefore thrown out the bums, got rid of responsibility for the trouble at Airbus, replaced the French co-CEO with someone apparently competent, and kept their own rights of appointment. Advice: don’t get into an argument with Angie Merkel. It’s like the EU budget all over again, when she essentially pushed Tony Blair out of the presidency chair to close the deal.

Meanwhile, a French government commission on official secrecy is said (by the Canard Enchainé) to have advised the Ministry of National Defence to open the files seized from Rondot on the rest of Clearstream, including the infamous investigation by Gilbert Flam into Chirac’s alleged bank accounts in Japan. It doesn’t end for the General, either. He’s being sued by Carlos “The Jackal” from his prison cell, over his arrest in the Sudan back in 1994. Rondot traced him to a clinic there where he was undergoing medical treatment, had him arrested and flown to Paris in a sack, where he went on trial for various terrorist acts. Now, after Rondot spoke about the – well – very extraordinary rendition in an interview with Le Figaro on his retirement, he’s suing. Cheeky old bugger.

Hirsi Ali’s shadow brings down Dutch cabinet

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The Dutch government has handed in its resignation after coalition partner D66 withdrew its support. Lousewies van der Laan, chairwoman of D66, had asked for the resignation of VVD minister Rita Verdonk because of her handling of the Hirsi Ali naturalisation case. The initial vote of censure* by Femke Halsema (GroenLinks-GreenLeft) that inspired Van der Laan’s resignation plea received no majority in the Dutch Lower Chamber and Rita Verdonk refused to quit on her own. D66 cabinet members Laurens Jan Brinkhorst, Alexander Pechtold and Medy van der Laan consequently resigned and, by doing so, pulled the plug on the whole cabinet.
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Overdue Evaluation (The Prize, by Daniel Yergin)

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There is not much market for reviews of books published almost a decade and a half ago, so without further ado, my thoughts on The Prize, by Daniel Yergin. This evaluation is overdue because I started reading the book when I bought it, back in 1997. I put it down around page 400 (which is a little more than halfway), so this review is likely, very likely, to be stronger on the second half of the book.

Yergin’s subtitle is The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power, which gives both theme and thesis. The title, if I am remembering an early part of the book correctly, comes from a statement made about oil by Winston Churchill: “The prize was mastery itself.” The argument is that understanding oil is central to understanding the twentieth century and, by extension, the world today. To complaints that the war in Iraq is “all about oil,” the only proper answer is “Of course.” The last century’s major conflicts, and many of its smaller ones, were driven by oil, determined by oil, or both. Without an understanding of oil, much of the period will remain opaque.
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Closer than you think

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Remember this post, about Sweden’s new year’s resolution to give up oil by 2020?

According to Jeremy Faludi at Worldchanging.com, it might not be as difficult as you think.

For example, currently, 6% of Europe’s electricity generation is from renewable sources. If they wanted it to be 100% by 2025, they should expand renewable energy generation by about 15% per year, every year, compared to other power sources. (This does not mean 6% now, 21% next year, 36% the year after, etc. It only means 6% now, 6.9% next year, 8% the year after, etc.) This sounds small, and in fact is less ambitious than their current plan to grow renewables from 6% to 12% by 2010. That would require increasing renewables’ share by 17% per year. But if Europe kept growing its percentage of renewables by 15% per year until 2025, they would be at 100% green power. Perhaps such a policy would be both more ambitious and easier to achieve.

Who’s in?

Political Tide Still Flowing Leftward in Italy

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Prodi’s majorities in Parliament are still slim, and factional infighting is likely to remain Florentine, but Berlusconi’s political fortunes continued to float away in municipal elections just passed.

The municipal elections held in Italy from May 28 to 29 did not offer Berlusconi the revenge he was seeking. Massimo Giannini, the daily’s deputy editor, looks at the results and at a missed opportunity for the former prime minister. “The revenge, the dirty trick, the stiff uppercut, whatever the precise lexical nuance, Berlusconi’s political sally has failed. The municipal elections as an instrument of grass-roots ‘Jacquerie’ that was supposed to definitively deprive the centre-left government of its legitimacy – this strategy did not work. … And the 15 million Italians who went to the polls did not change the result of April 9 to 10 [legislative elections]. Much to the contrary. … The centre-left no longer has an alibi; it now has no choice but to govern. It can count on a new base: the roughly three million young people who massively voted for it.”

From La Repubblica via Eurotopics

Meeting Up Again in Europe

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Europe’s newest state, Montenegro, has just been given the go-ahead for the first step towards EU membership, as Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn agrees with the Montenegrins that a Stabilisation & Accession Agreement could be signed by the end of the year. Rehn is due in Belgrade next, although you’d have to be very optimistic to expect anything concrete.

It certainly looks like a certain theory of post-cold war Europe is being born out. As early as 1996, Tim Garton-Ash was arguing that perhaps the international community’s failure in Bosnia was down to trying too long to keep a unitary state in being, or in slightly different terms, that diplomats tended to assume any move from bigger to smaller units decreased stability. Perhaps it would be better to accept that the genie was out of the bottle and instead seek peaceful separation, with an eventual view to reintegrating all the units into the European Union.

Well, here we are. The last domino has clattered to the ground, and we’re already talking about agreements with the EU. It’s just a pity about the blood and treasure lost before then. Realistically, there’s probably a preliminary, “little EU” stage of regional integration to go through – getting the quango count down somewhat by sharing some of the new “entities” and states’ responsibilities, whilst also starting the process of making the borders less relevant – before looking at EU membership for the lot. Fine. If France and Germany could be in the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation and the European Payments Union by 1948, the ECSC by 1950, NATO by ’55 and the EEC by 1958, thirteen years from the end of the war, surely intermediate integration is possible before 2009 – ten years from war’s end.

The Edwyn Collins option – rip it up and start again – does pose some serious questions. If anything, if peaceful separation was a good idea in 1995-6, it would have been even better in 1992. But equally, if the eventual solution is to get back together and melt the borders in the EU, couldn’t we have skipped the whole horror show? Doug Muir’s last Montenegrin post caused a thread that with luck should yet reach the half century. In that thread, the point was raised that during the 1980s, Yugoslavia – the old full-cream version – actually made noises about joining the EC (as was) before being dissuaded.

A fine counterfactual question, no? What would have happened had Yugoslavia joined the EC?

Liesl Prokop: Intellectually Dishonest

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No doubt the usual suspects will be hugely enjoying the claim by Austria’s hard-right interior minister Elisabeth (Liesl) Prokop that 45 per cent of Muslims are “unwilling to integrate”. In fact, it’s more than a claim – as well as rhetoric, she’s got a “study” to support her election positioning. Unfortunately, the study still isn’t complete – its leader, one Prof. Matthias Rohe, has yet to draw conclusions from the data. Not only that, there are some serious concerns regarding the methodology – at the link, it turns out that the study included, as well as a mixture of questionnaires and focus groups, a “consideration of media reports”.

Ah. I think I get it. Someone like the emetic FPÖ goon Andreas Mölzer has his pet newspaper (Zur Zeit) rant about TEH TERRORISTS, and this is duly marked off by the responsible minister’s pet academics as evidence for Mölzer’s policy. But there is much, much worse.

According to her spokesman, “20 per cent of Muslims had difficulties with integration for religious reasons and 25 per cent with the cultural background”. So, obviously 45 per cent of them REFUSE TO INTEGRATE AND MUST BE ELIMINATED! Errr..well. Perhaps if religious and cultural differences were mutually exclusive, that might approach the truth or something akin to it.

But of course they are not. In fact, I’d argue that in this case they are barely distinguishable, which implies epic double counting and a truly mendacious misuse of statistics. After all, I suspect that not far off 100 per cent of them agree with me that the current Austrian government is a bunch of racists and cheap-arsed hacks with their fingers in the till, and using the same class of mathematics, we can therefore conclude that 145 per cent of Muslims in Austria are dangerous non-integrators.

Updated: Well, the study was eventually presented, and it doesn’t contain either the phrase “unwilling to integrate” or the figure of 45 per cent. How strange. It’s almost as if someone was lying.

The Accordion Strategy

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And so it begins. Back in Italy, the Left has comprehensively disrupted the Right’s systems by folding Massimo D’Alema’s candidacy (German link) and producing a surprise candidate, the 81-year old Democratic Leftie Giorgio Napolitano. The effect has been to split the Right coalition, with ex-cause célébre Rocco Buttiglione annoucing that his neo-Christian Democrats will back Napolitano, the Northern League announcing they will oppose him, whilst Forza Italia and the ex-fascists hold their peace – perhaps for lack of a decision on what to do.

Fascinatingly, as yesterday blogged, part of the problem is managing the vote so the Democratic Left’s honour is maintained. Apparently, if it looks like Napolitano won’t make it, the Left will spoil their ballots rather than submit him to a defeat. However, the split on the Right raises another possibility: in the first three rounds of voting, a two-thirds supermajority is needed to elect a president, but if there is no agreement by then, in the fourth round only a simple majority, 504 votes, is needed. It might pay to keep the Left vote down for three rounds, then plunge for the 50%+1..

Update, 1700BST: The voting has begun. Unione candidates are apparently going to cast a blank ballot in the first round. Are they pursuing the AFOE strategy?