You know, there something puzzling me this morning: if you’re clearly so turned off by French political life, why spend so much of your time studying it?
The French referendum on the European constitution is quickly developing into one of those contests where you dearly wish both sides could lose
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Well timed ahead of the French referendum, Deutsche Bahm AG and la SNCF are demonstrating what “ever closer union” can be about… increased quality of life (AP via IHT):
A new high-speed train line will link France and Germany beginning in 2007, cutting travel time between Paris and Frankfurt to under four hours, officials said Monday. [...]

That’s the current estimate of Morgan Stanley economist Vincenzo Guzzo. And even this he suggests can only be achieved at the price of a series of one-off measures which make the longer term outlook even worse. Just one of the problems:” Labor productivity growth averaged an appalling -0.4% over the past four years”.

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A special commission on the deficit set up by the government of Prime Minister Jose Socrates has just reported that the deficit this year will reach 6.83 % of GDP, that’s more than twice the European Union’s 3 percent limit. Over to you Almunia.
Portugal will have the highest budget deficit of any country using the [...]

Gerhard Schr?der and the SPD have suffered a major election setback in these regional elections. Schr?der’s response it seems has been to suggest he will call an early general election late this year.
Schroeder made his proposal after exit polls showed the Social Democratic Party (SPD) suffered a heavy defeat in a state election in [...]

More from behind the great PPV firewall. Unfortunately only the reproduced extract is available to non-subscribers (like me):
The German economy, once the economic powerhouse of Europe, is stalling. Annual average growth in gross domestic product since 1995 has been just 1.2 per cent, unemployment has increased since 1970 to 11 per cent, the social [...]

The FT asks today (behind the dreaded ppv firewall I’m afraid) whether the current “Kapitalismus” debate in Germany may not represent something more than short-term electioneeering. Could a real shift in the SPD be actually taking place?
The most ignominious defeat of Gerhard Schr?der’s political career may be at hand. On Sunday, in the 12th regional [...]

Mc Masterchef posts his “final draft of a paper on European Muslims at Liberals against terrorism I wrote for my recently concluded class on Islamic Political Movements with Professor Husain Haqqani.” at Liberals against terrorism: Clash of Identities: Integration, Islamism, and the Question of Europe?s Muslims.
The great Brad Plumer summarizes and discusses a survey [...]

As suggested last week on Afoe, the Spanish parliament yesterday voted ‘yes’ to talks with ETA, if ETA is prepared to lay down its arms.
Spain’s parliament last night gave prime minister Jos? Luis Rodr?guez Zapatero the go-ahead to open negotiations with armed Basque separatist group Eta if it shows it is ready to abandon terrorism.
“The [...]

Happy thoght about the British elections. No one else seems to thought of this angle:
Isn’t this like the first time in living memory that a party has made anti-immigration message the centerpiece of its campaign and not only didn’t succeed, but possibly maybe, lost votes because of it? I think in Europe it’s literally [...]