Nosemonkey's EUtopia

April 22, 2007
by Nosemonkey
Comments Off on Euroblog roundup 3

Euroblog roundup 3

Is up now at Siberian Light (ta Andy!) – loads of good stuff, from Moldovan web awards (yes, really) to the French elections.

Speaking of which, it’s the long-expected Sarko/Sego runoff (my prediction of an additional last-minute surge for Bayrou proving, one again, that political predictions are for poltroons). What happens next? Yet more invective and yet more guesswork, as the two candidates are bang on 50/50 in the polls at present, and the remaining votes are likewise split pretty evenly between left and right.

In other words, the second round of 6th May could go either way – and the next couple of weeks should prove very interesting indeed, not least the impact that Bayrou and his centrist supporters might have. His endorsement could, potentially, shift the entire thing. Or not. Because no one really knows what the hell’s going to happen – and Bayrou’s lot also have the parliamentary elections in June to think about, so can’t risk pissing too many people off…

April 21, 2007
by Nosemonkey
5 Comments

French elections still wide open

The latest polls (also the last, what with voting about to take place in the first round) putting Sarkozy and Royal just 1% apart – and Le Pen overtaking Bayrou.

It’s all still hugely unpredictable, in other words. According to the BBC, a third of voters still haven’t made up their minds – and with only 10% between the top and fourth placed candidate, who can tell what these floating voters my get up to?

More on the results (hopefully) tomorrow.

April 21, 2007
by Nosemonkey
2 Comments

A Holocaust denial quickie and Euroblog roundup update

DK has the best roundup and overview of this latest EU-wide attack on freedom of speech from our dear German chums (60 years on still not realising that you don’t fight fascism by banning things), with the International Herald Tribune providing a nice summary of the issues (with a bit less of the invective).

Personally, I think we should extend this even further – if we’re banning Holocaust denial, let’s ban other forms of denial that contributed to the Holocaust.

So, let’s make it a criminal offence for Germans to claim “yes, I/my father/grandfather was a member of the Nazi party, but I/he didn’t really BELIEVE any of it, honest” – and, while we’re at it, also ban French people from going on about the glory of the Resistance without simultaneously adding the qualifier “but of course the vast, vast majority of the country either just kept their heads down, and did nothing to stop the Nazis from carting off thousands of French Jews, Homosexuals, etc. – or actively collaborated, like the large chunk of the country that was part of the Vichy regime”.

But, of course, as adding on the denial of Stalin’s genocides as an offence was explicitly rejected, there’s not much chance of that. This new law, in other words, merely sweeps the ills of Europe’s recent past under the carpet, and continues to raise the Nazi regime onto an almost sacred pedestal. Hatred of Hitler is in danger of becoming Europe’s new official religion.

In other news, my computer’s still dead, so Andy of Siberian Light will be hosting the Euroblog Roundup this week – entries, as usual, to EUroundup [at] gmail [dot] com – ta! (And yes, I’m fully aware that Siberia is not, by any stretch of the imagination, part of Europe. Shush…)

April 18, 2007
by Nosemonkey
1 Comment

My computer is officially dead

Registry corrupted beyond belief by a nasty trojan thing, and unable to fix it thanks to not having a system disc / Windows CD (the joys of buying from Dell is that they seem not to supply these, and it`ll take 5-7 working days to turn up now, apparently – this on top of the fact that they didn`t even deliver the thing to my house, leaving me to go and pick it up from halfway across London, but still charged me for delivery… Grrr…)

As such, no posting from me for a while until I can get Dell`s tech support lot out in Mumbai to do their jobs properly and send some guy round to revive the thing (still less than a year old and that, so I reckon they have to – and free of charge and all, especially as it`s their fault I can`t boot from a disc).

Which means, of course, that I may not be able to do the Euroblog Roundup this weekend as planned – anyone want to take over? If so, bunk me an email – I`ll be checking intermittently as and when I get a chance (though the main priority is the two deadlines I`ve got tomorrow…)

April 16, 2007
by Nosemonkey
3 Comments

French elections – a mini roundup

The clock’s ticking, it’s still very tight, and deals are being proposed left, right and centre, important issues are being avoided, and the English language press is struggling to explain it all (and sometimes being deconstructed in the process – even the usually reliable Economist and Financial Times).

One of the best roundups of the current standing I’ve seen is over at Deutsche Welle, which stresses again just how utterly unpredictable the whole situation is (once again, a reminder: as many as 42% of French voters have supposedly not made up their minds, and polling for French elections is in addition extremely unreliable – making Nicholas Sarkozy’s apparent 3 to 6 point lead over Segolene Royal, and her 5 to 6 point lead over Francois Bayrou, well within the margin for error…). The Independent is also surprisingly good, in the first of a series of reports they’ll be running on the elections this week.

There’ll no doubt be more from me on this as the week progresses, and likely also on the rather paltry anti-Putin protests in Russia, if they continue. There could be something more than I’m currently expecting behind the things, after all (more from the Washington Post and New York Times). Maybe Berezovsky has more support in Russia than previously thought?

Update: Via Ari’s new blog (formerly guest posting at Aapotsikko) – a test to determine which French presidential candidate is most in line with your views (in French). As vaguely suspected:

So that’s Centrist Bayrou on a 48% match, then a second place tie (with a 40% match) between Socialist Segolene Royal, Communist Marie-Georges Buffet and the significantly more fringe Frederic Nihous of the centre-right “Hunting, Fishing, Nature, Tradition” party. Then Green candidate Dominique Voynet and right-winger Philippe de Villiers each on 32%, then “Revolutionary Communist” Olivier Besancenot and centre-right frontrunner Nicholas Sarkozy jointly on 28%, with nutty fascist Jean Marie Le Pen claiming the penultimate spot with 20%, ahead of yet another nutty communist, Arlette Laguiller, on 16%. A far more interesting field than we’re likely to get in any British or American elections any time soon, it must be said…

April 15, 2007
by Nosemonkey
1 Comment

The weather’s too nice

So no Euroblog roundup this week. I’ve just popped back in briefly on my way between a pub garden and the park. Entries to EUroundup [at] gmail [dot] com, please – a bit of a dearth so far. Next Sunday instead. I would apologise, but I doubt anyone cares anyway…

April 14, 2007
by Nosemonkey
3 Comments

EU membership aspirations – a force for good?

One of my ongoing convictions about the worth of the EU is that its very presence, and the vague carrot of potential EU membership, can be a force for good in the lesser-developed states of the European fringe – following the example of the Council of Europe’s guidelines for a decently-run country, but cranking them up a notch.

Of course, it doesn’t always work (cf. the refusal of Belarus to get involved in either the Council of Europe or basic democracy, or the current Polish government’s apparent hatred of women and homosexuals) but, as a general rule, I reckon this EU carrot is one of the most positive contributions the organisation has made to the world.

But maybe not. Here are two examples of ways to react when the EU’s attention is focussed on you if you’re a struggling post-communist state, hoping either to tighten links with the EU or to be taken more seriously by other EU member states, both of which have cropped up in just the last couple of days:

Uzbekistan

Slovenia

It’s fairly safe to say that neither of these are quite the positive impact that the EU is supposed to have on countries aspiring to reach western European levels of development…

Meanwhile, via Erkan, an intriguing take on what Turkey’s attitude to the EU should be:

“Despite the stubborn Western habit of ignoring it, history records the fact that the Turkish republic has been a free, independent, secular, and mainly democratic state ever since Ataturk created it out of the ashes of the Ottoman empire in 1923. Great Britain aside, thatâ€™s a record very few European states can even approach… I still think the EU should say yes to Turkey, but developments in postmodern Europe â€” illustrated, most recently, by the responses of Britain and the EU to Iranâ€™s brazen Easter parade of British hostages â€” convince me that Turkey should say a polite but firm no to the EU.”

So now I’m confused. Is the EU still valid as an aspirational organisation or – now that it’s expanded to 27 and has member states with governments as nutty as Poland’s and economies as dodgy as Romania’s – has its aspirational value been all but used up? Considering that Turkey’s economy is doing better than those of member states Poland, Romania and Bulgaria (see also), and that human rights abuses are ignored even in leading western European member states (and that’s before we even raise the spectre of the EU’s rather pathetic official response to the extraordinary rendition question and – again – failure to tell Poland to abide by basic rules of civility and decency when it comes to minority groups that are supposedly a condition of its EU membership), is there any reason for the remaining non-EU member states to really aspire to membership any more? The economic benefits are suspect now that Romania and co are in the club, and the failure to punish any of the many member states who have been found to have violated EU-wide human rights laws by participating in extraordinary rendition seems to make the “civilising effect” of EU membership similarly worthless.

So, my fellow pro-EU types, why is this (deliberately pessimistic) take the wrong one? What benefits DOES the EU still have to offer – and CAN it still act as a force for good in the wider world, simply by existing, as I have usually always thought?

April 13, 2007
by Nosemonkey
4 Comments

Berezovsky vs. Putin – the fight escalates

Boris Berezovsky – the exiled multi-millionaire Russian businessman and opponent of the Kremlin whom “poison spy” (i.e. ex-FSB man) Alexander Litvinenko was allegedly ordered to assassinate, prompting his investigations into Putin’s Russia that ended in serious allegations and, presumably, his own death at the end of last year – has apparently decided to get serious, announcing

“I am planning a new Russian Revolution“

This is pretty serious stuff – at least where the rhetoric is concerned:

“We need to use force to change this regime… It isn’t possible to change this regime through democratic means. There can be no change without force, pressure.”

This all looks set to cause a lot of friction – not just escalating the war of words between Berezovsky and Putin, but also the tensions between Russia and Britain, where Berezovsky is currently living as a political asylum seeker. After all, Berezovsky is now again openly advocating violent regime change – and, in a wonderful piece of hypocrisy from one of the main governments responsible for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, when Berezovsky said similar things last year, the official British response was simple: “advocating the violent overthrow of a sovereign state is unacceptable.”

Russia, meanwhile, has vowed to prosecute the “oligarch” for sedition – the latest of many legal attempts to crush this controversial figure, whom some would argue is likely just as corrupt and dangerous as his opponents. After all, how many people made such vast sums of money in 1990s Russia without being involved in some kind of dodginess? And, after all, opponents of Berezovsky have been murdered just as opponents of Putin have been…

Of course, whether Berezovsky actually has enough popular support within Russia to pose a serious threat to Putin’s regime is unclear – and depends entirely on who you talk to. It will be interesting to see if this turns out to be related to this story about the opposition group “The Other Russia” (with whom Berezovsky – plus former chess wizard Garry Kasparov – is associated) and their plans to get a high-profile presidential candidate ready for the 2008 elections.

There may have been a few protest marches organised by The Other Russia of late, but a few thousand on the streets – usually swiftly beaten back by riot police – hardly looks like much more than the very earliest stages of a full-scale popular revolt. Berezovsky may be rich, but unless he can fund an army, his claims that Putin will be overthrown by force look a touch too optimistic. After all, the August 1991 Putsch failed despite far higher-profile and better-placed figureheads than Berezovsky appears to have at his disposal. In short, the chances don'[t look good.

Would Russia be better off without Putin? Well, it all depends on who replaces him really, doesn’t it? Get rid of Putin and replace him with Berezovsky, you could simply be replacing “the grey cardinal” with an even more shadowy and unpredictable figure. Because whatever Berezovsky’s motives may now be, he was more than happy to support Putin back at the 2000 presidential elections – and the Russian people as a whole are arguably better off now than they were then. Was Berezovsky’s change of heart out of concern for his fellow Russians, or pure self-interest? And, of course, with Duma elections not due until the end of this year and presidential elections not until next March, the other big question is “why now?”

April 13, 2007
by Nosemonkey
1 Comment

Shameless movie-related self-promotion

This week’s latest film news gubbins is up at the Pocket Films Blog, with news and reviews about the rather impressive Curse of the Golden Flower (plus its director Zhang Yimou and star Chow-Yun Fat), as well as a bunch more news and reviews on this week’s new releases – Shooter, Perfect Stranger and Wild Hogs – covering Mark Wahlberg, Bruce Willis, Halle Berry, John Travolta, William H Macy, Ray Liotta, Tim Allen and Martin Lawrence.

And if that’s not enough, my book on Tim Burton (with a foreword by the mighty Martin Landau and afterword by the decidedly talented Rick Heinrichs – both lovely chaps) is being reissued this summer, and is now available to pre-order on Amazon (at the very reasonable price of Â£6.59).

April 12, 2007
by Nosemonkey
Comments Off on Another reason for the lack of British politics here of late

Another reason for the lack of British politics here of late

An unsolicited email from the “Labour Supporters Network” (to which I have found myself signed up, despite not being a Labour supporter), purporting to be from General Secretary Peter Watt, and encouraging the Labour party’s members to follow their Chancellor’s example when it comes to their personal finances:

“The Labour Party receives Â£15 for every Co-operative Bank credit card account opened. That could pay for 2,000 campaign leaflets in crucial elections, or allow us to make calls to dozens of voters in key areas who will help decide the results of those elections… For every pound you spend on your credit card (regardless of whether you clear the monthly balance or not), the Labour Party will receive a further contribution”

Ah! Fiscal responsibility!

We’ve buggered up our finances by being rather dodgy with those loans (that may still see charges brought) combined with, erm… spending far more than we can afford. So we need you to bail us out by getting yourselves into debt. Just like wot Gordon’s done with the economy – borrow borrow borrow, spend spend spend, dip into the pension fund (because you can always top that up later, right?) and keep your fingers crossed that it all somehow works out in the long run.

One of the many things that pisses me off about British politics at the moment, that – the pathetic desperation and saleman-like approach to the electorate that seems to be the case with all the main parties. It was only a matter of time before they started flogging us credit cards, let’s face it – it’ll be life insurance next, and double-glazing.

By the by, newsflash to Labour supporters who’ve drifted away during the last few years: no matter who succeeds Blair, nothing’s going to change other than we get taken even less seriously on the international stage. (And that message goes just as strongly for Tories who think Cameron can change things…)

April 11, 2007
by Nosemonkey
2 Comments

French elections: a primer and a prediction

First round this weekend, but most people outside la belle France still don’t know much about what’s at stake, or what it all means.

The best place to start is probably French Ã‰lection 2007’s the French election for dummies and Meet the contenders pages – nice swift overviews of candidates and election procedure.

Then the Economist has a nice run-down of why it’s all so tight – with the New Statesman explaining just why the title of President is so coveted in France (if your guess is “almost unbelievably huge amounts of power” then you’re on to something…)

And, of course, there’s the general excitement. As the election could go any of four ways (far-right, centre-right, centrist or centre-left), the French electorate have genuinely got something to be interested in again, as the Financial Times explains.

For someone British – where in the last three decades a government with no real opposition that lasted 18 years was eventually replaced by a government with no real opposition that has lasted 10 years – the idea of such a close, unpredictable election is practically impossible to comprehend (not least because of our piss-poor electoral system). For Americans and others from two-party states, the idea that it could genuinely go any of four ways (well, three really – if Le Pen gets through to the final round everyone sane will rally against him, just as they did five years ago) must be equally bizarre.

But close and unpredictable it is. According to some reports, up to 18 million voters – 42% of the electorate – are as yet undecided. Which all goes to make these last few days even more hectic and volatile, with the far right Le Pen accusing the centre-right Sarkozy of not being properly French (Le Pen hoping to deport the majority of – especially non-white – immigrants) while others accuse Sarkozy himself of being racist, while everyone attacks centre-left Royal (but not because she’s a woman – OH no…) and tries to ignore centrist wildcard Bayrou.

At this late stage, the fact that as many as 40% of voters are undecided makes predictions very tricky indeed. But although official campaigning only kicked off this week, the elections have been dominating the political scene in France for months now – arguably for a good couple of years, since the “Non” vote in the EU constitutional referendum proved that outgoing President Jacques Chirac was the lamest of lame ducks.

If so many are still undecided after all this time, I reckon that gives a decided advantage to the least-known of the leading candidates – the person few people have a strong opinion about, and so the person most likely to be left after voters work out who they DON’T want to vote for.

The smart money may still be on front-runner Sarkozy, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Francois Bayrou makes another unexpected surge in the final stages. He could certainly – on paper, at least – prove to be the best candidate for France, and possibly (thanks to his farming background giving him the best position any French political leader has had in years to push for serious reform of the Common Agricultural Policy) for the EU as a whole.

In other words, pay close attention over the next few days. The slightest gaffe (at which Royal excels) or revelation about past indiscretions (which seem to keep on haunting Sarkozy) could entirely change the outcome. And then it’ll be on to the next round, where it could all shift again…

April 10, 2007
by Nosemonkey
2 Comments

Slight redesign

I’d got annoyed with the thing, so have made a few changes – some more obvious than others.

The Snap preview things have gone, as even I’d begun to find them irritating. The main column’s got wider, and the font bigger for ease of reading (light text on a dark background not being ideal, after all, but I’ve yet to come up with a colour-scheme I like that allows for dark on light). The header image has changed (dunno if I like it yet, though), and there are a few other little alterations knocking about and all.

Any other requests, let me know. (The tiny font size of comments and blockquotes is a glitch I’ve yet to work out, but am looking into it.)

April 8, 2007
by Nosemonkey
Comments Off on Euroblog roundup 2

Euroblog roundup 2

It’s Easter, I’ve got chocolate coming out of my ears and a big shoulder of lamb (smothered in garlic and rosemary) slowly roasting in the oven, and a huge vat of decent European blog posts wating in the wings. So, without further ado, let’s kick off this bumper Bank Holiday roundup…

For no apparent reason, there’s been a bit of discussion about the differences between Europe and America this last week, Not Saussure reminding us how it’s easy for Brits to forget just how different our American friends can be – with more from Tim Worstall, this time looking on the transatlantic shift in economic attitudes.

France Decides takes a look at the odd change in attitude of the French far right when it comes to the EU – possibly an indication of things to come for proto-fascists (and actual fascists) continent-wide.

Talking of possible ways forward, Fistful (now seemingly back up and running properly after a couple of months of technical glitches) has been looking at the situation in the Balkans following the Serbia / Montenegro split (with a follow-up here).

Erkan (now at a shiny new web address – update blogrolls, people) also looks to the future, specifically the future of the relationship between the EU and Turkey.

Elsewhere, however, people seem to be looking backwards, La Russophobe reporting on Russia’s continuing love-affair with Stalin. Yes – the same Stalin who killed at least 20 million Russians…

But, depending on who you ask, Russia’s not all barking mad – according to Jon Hellevig at the Russia blog, tax reforms under Putin have created not only a thriving economy, but also far greater freedom for the population at large.

This is just part of why Russia is such an enigma – 1948 argues it’s also creating problems for Europe as a whole, with Moscow hijacking the European Court of Human Rights – a situation which could begin to threaten the Council of Europe as a whole.

Still, it’s not just Russia, the Parliament Protest blog reporting on how it is now illegal to argue against government policy even within Parliament’s buildings. Not in Russia, not in Central Asia, not in Belarus – but in Britain.

Still, it’s not like us Brits are going to notice – Croydonian notes that 59% of us have never heard of the Common Agricultural Policy.

Then again, as Stirred Up points out, the EU’s publicity machine may be pretty large, but it’s also stupidly ineffective. Often quite depressingly so for those of us who are pro-EU, it must be said.

Beyond the CAP there is of course the equally controversial CFP – something Strange Stuff looks into, with a few alternative proposals.

There’s still an undercurrent of reformism going on in the EU, even after the damp squib that was the Berlin Declaration. Jon Worth explains how the ongoing hope to expand qualified majority voting in the EU could affect current alliances.

Some, however, are still not convinced of the benefits of the EU itself, let alone EU reform – LFB_UK sets out the reasons for his euroscepticism.

Then, over at the Telegraph, eurosceptic Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan shows how big media blogging should be done with a look at how to reform the EU’s finances to prevent further corruption.

The Conservatives are currently re-thinking their entire approach to the EU. At big-name Tory blogger Iain Dale’s place, a guest blogger explains the Tories’ attitudes towards MEP candidate selection for the next round of Euro elections.

Another big media blog doing stupidly well is the Economist’s Certain ideas of Europe, this post on the economic insanity of (most) EU employment laws being a prime case in point.

Talking immigration, Euromatt waxes lyrical about migration and borders and cows.

But it’s not all borders – there’s also the economics to consider for the EU’s future working, with Eurozone Watch providing a top-notch overview of the economics of the Eurozone, and the challenges that its odd position within the EU present for the Union’s fiscal future.

Plus, of course, there are the challenges to security and privacy, with Spyblog taking a look at the ongoing drive towards providing a controversial EU-wide system for data retention.

But some problems are more immediate – and beyond the EU’s eastern boundary, Neeka’s been provideing some wonderfully human coverage of Ukraine’s current political crisis.

And throughout eastern Europe, the place of the Roma is slowly working itself out – one of the EU’s greatest challenges being to alter the attitudes of centuries towards this sizeable minority, something towards which Transitions Online’s new Romantic blog is hoping to contribute.

Back west, if you fancy making some cash on the French elections, Political Betting has a roundup of where you should put your money.

Finally, some non-English quality blogging (sadly not all of the stuff I was sent by Bengt Karlsson, as the email explaining what it’s all about got corrupted somehow) – this Swedish/English translator may come in handy, as might Google’s translation service.

First up, Blogging Swedish MEP Ã…sa Westlund has called for a European Public Service TV channel, only for it to be criticised by social democrat blogger Jonas Morian.

And more Swedish blogging, with a roundup of Swedish bloggers’ reactions to the Berlin Declaration – like Jonas Jolander (“There is a party and I am not invited” and the researcher to a Swedish MEP who reckons “it’s the Kremlin of our time… it’s enough to make you feel sick”.

Finally, in France Liberation’s blogger Jean Quatremer has been taking a look at dear blogging Commissioner Margot WallstrÃ¶m – most likely the most high-profile Euroblogger of the lot – and doesn’t like what he finds.

And, you see, that’s just what this roundup’s meant to be for – highlighting the blogging quality across the continent, so that everyone can see that the biggest names are not necessarily the best.

This week’s got pretty big, as I’d left it a fortnight. So I’m reckoning weekly may be the way forward – one more here to see how it goes and give me time to organise a moving carnival type thing. All entries to EUroundup [at] gmail [dot] com by next Sunday lunchtime, please – and lets get even more non-English ones in next time, eh? Where are all the French, German, Spanish and Italian bloggers we should be reading? Where are the Dutch and the Czechs and the Poles? Let us know…

April 6, 2007
by Nosemonkey
Comments Off on Euroblog roundup 2 – a call for entries

Euroblog roundup 2 – a call for entries

Come on, chaps – it’s going up in two days time, approximately on Easter Sunday afternoon (rising in glory much akin to that of Our Lord Jesus Christ Who Died For All Our Sins(TM), only without the straggly beard, scabby robes and unfortunate blood-stained holes in its hands and side).

Any more for any more to the current crop? Send links to the best blog posts you’ve read in the last couple of weeks that are loosely about Europe (in its widest sense), European countries, etc., (or by people from said countries) to EUroundup [at] gmail [dot] com.

A major lack of non-English language blog posts so far, which is a shame (come on my French / Spanish / German / Italian / Russian / whatever chums – make some submissions, though preferably with an English explanation…) – and rather politics-heavy. Would be good to get a few lifestyle pieces in there. Or photo-based blogs (phlogs? photogs?).

So come on, help me out here: EUroundup [at] gmail [dot] com