Nosemonkey's EUtopia

In search of a European identity

January 1, 2007
by Nosemonkey
5 Comments

And then we were 27…

A New Year, and the [tag]Eurozone[/tag] expands to 13 members (with [tag]Slovenia[/tag] joining), and the [tag]EU[/tag] itself to 27 (with [tag]Bulgaria[/tag] and [tag]Romania[/tag]). Over at Fistful Tobias has a quick overview, noting “that the countries’ accession has caused almost no public debate is probaly a consequence of the limited economic impact the two countries can possibly have“.

Personally, I reckon the lack of coverage and debate is thanks to a profound sense of embarrassment. It’s hard, after all, to feel much enthusiasm about the addition of those particular bastions of economic might, and it’s far too late now to pipe up with “erm.. hang on a minute, chaps – are you SURE we want to let those two in to the club?” (Hence the almost complete lack of coverage on here until now.)

After all, even the countries themselves admit that, well, they’re hardly an addition to the EU which is going to be particularly beneficial any time soon:

“[Romanian] Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu tried to lower expectations somewhat on Thursday, saying it could take up to 40 years for Romania to catch up — economically and politically — with the old members of the EU.”

Yay… Way to make it easy to defend the newest expansion, [tag]Eastern Europe[/tag]an dude…

At times like this, it’s important to remember that the EU is not just about economics – it’s not merely a trade organisation, nor has it ever been. It is an idea, an ideal, a vision of a Utopia (using that term in its true sense of a perfect society that does not – and probably can not – exist, but is worth aspiring to nonetheless).

For the existing members, the accession of Romania and Bulgaria will doubtless cause more problems than benefits – but that is beside the point. As the Evil European elegantly puts it,

“[tag]Europe[/tag] is process, not product; a journey, not a destination….people talk about the EU as a trade zone, as a fortress, as burden or benefit to people and business. Such views are in their own way true, but seen through the lens of human history, interactions and society, it is something entirely different.

“It might be hyperbole, brought on by the coming new year, but what happens in Europe, within the EU, has the potential to re-shape human society. We live in an ever more interconnected and interdependent world. Global challenges are upon us, and the only way though them will be to work together.”

For the people of Bulgaria and Romania, being able to join the EU has, for the first time pretty much ever, after centuries of repression by both communist and monarchical absolutism, given them the chance to really be free, to really meet their potential. The EU has given hope to a part of the world that, for so long, had none, and that – at least, as far as I’m concerned – is worth celebrating:

“Marian Gheorghescu, 33, who carried his 4 year-old son, Bogdan, on his shoulders, said he believed EU membership would secure a bright future for his children. ‘I hope in this country he will have a life a thousand times better than mine,’ he said.”

The EU is – like it or loathe it – bringing stability to a continent which has, over millennia, barely seen more than a few years of peace in a row. Even for the relatively young in Eastern Europe, such stability is an odd – yet very welcome – concept:

“‘We have already had so many currencies here in Slovenia,’ said Anja, a political science student who staffs the hotlines. ‘I am only 23 and have already been through four currencies so imagine how my grandmother feels.'”

Stability, peace, and hope – of which, the hope is most important. It is what mankind thrives on, and without it we are all doomed – it’s that simple.

That the EU has brought hope to the former communist states of Eastern Europe – states that were, but a decade and a half ago, shivering and failing behind the Iron Curtain – its greatest acheivement to date. And – long-term – it will surely bring the older member states their greatest reward as the newer members see their economies grow under the protective EU umbrella.

It may, as Romania’s Prime Minister fears, take decades. But sometimes – in fact, far more often than is usually the case in short-term, election-focussed democracies – such a long-term approach is by far the best one if necessary reforms are ever going to have any hope of coming to fruition.

Yes, the EU is currently not working as effectively as it could. Yes, some countries are currently paying in more than they are (at least, tangibly and recordably) getting back.

In the short-term, the lack of progress on the constitution, the lack of progress on deregulation, the ever-increasing piles of pointless directives, mountains of wasted produce, and continued disasters caused by the Common Agricultural and Common Fisheries Policies – all of these are problems, some more major than others.

But all of these problems are transient in the grand scheme of things. Even if they continue throughout my lifetime, if these initial birth-pangs of an organisation that will only reach its half-century this year are the worst that the EU can produce – after all the centuries of warfare that Europe has suffered to date – then I think we can survive them, if this is what it takes for our children and grandchildren to inherit a better world.

The first of January is always a day for looking to the future, not picking over the past. What’s done is done. The EU exists. It has the members it has. So why not try to make it as good as it can be?

(Here endeth the idealism…)

December 31, 2006
by Nosemonkey
10 Comments

Top five terms for bloggers to avoid in 2007

These poor little buggers have been all but worn out over the last 12 months – let’s give them a break for a while, and use some alternatives, eh?

5) “Tory Leader David Cameron”
– Surely it’s becoming increasingly apparent that – in his professed attitudes, at least – he’s not a Tory, but a Whig? And – potentially – a very good thing too…

4) Blogosphere
– Normally at number one on any list of “crappy terms used by bloggers”, the only reason for it not being higher up the list is because, several years after it was first coined (by some bastard moron who deserves to rot in hell for all eternity), it still shows no sign of being replaced with anything less God-damned awful.

Personally, I’d opt for “the Fifth Estate” (if only to start annoying stuck-up journos from the Fourth Estate, and to underline the distinction between blogs and the press).

Any chance of that catching on? Doubtful… It is, however, if taken back to the usage that Carlyle attributed to Burke, entirely appropriate – just as the Fourth Estate of the press sits in self-satisfied judgement over the “Three Estates” of Parliament, so does the Fifth Estate sit in self-satisfied judgement over the other four. It’s perfect, see?

3) Orwellian
– Yes, we get it, already. Our overlords are a bunch of bastards. But what everyone actually means when they say “Orwellian” is “it’s a bit like Nineteen Eighty-Four – or, at least, those bits of it I can remember, as I haven’t read it for years…” Anyone going on to use the rhetorical “what would Orwell have thought about what’s going on today?” – assuming, naturally, that Orwell would think precisely the same as the writer – is an evident fool, as Orwell’s politics were simply not that simple. In fact, he’d probably have thought that you were an idiot for taking such a simplistic view of his life’s work based on a surface reading of just one (not very good) of his novels, without taking into account all the vast amounts of journalism and the like.

As an alternative, isn’t it about time we started reviving “Kafkaesque” once again? Not in the sense of “turning into a giant insect” or some such, as it is normally used (because, of course, Kafka only ever wrote one thing too, didn’t he?), but in the sense of an overriding sense of unjustified persecution caused by an overweening bureaucratic netherworld, as in The Trial. Because the thing everyone forgets is that, erm… in Ninteen Eighty-Four, Winston Smith is actually guilty of the crime he is accused of…

2) Egregious
– Not only making you sound like a reject from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (think I’m behind the times, mentioning an 80s craze? Get with the programme, dude…), but increasingly being used so frequently to describe our dear leaders that it’s pretty much unnecessary to include it these days. Some alternative, more imaginative, and more precise alternatives to this fancy way of saying “very bad” would be most welcome.

Some suggestions to aid us all on our way: nefarious dastards, heinous miscreants, objectionable reprobates… You could even go down the DK route of elaborate compound swear-words (which is at least entertaining most of the time, and – bar when it comes to Polly Toynbee, for whom it would appear he has run out of new insults, so often is she in his sights – imaginitive) – just please avoid this lazy, pompously pretentious short-hand (especially as “bad person” and “egregious” have exactly the same number of letters, so all you’re saving is a space, and actually adding a syllable… Grrr…)

1) Mendacious
– Well and truly deserving the number one slot, this massively overused word (at least, online – when was the last time you heard anyone use it in polite conversation?) would, in the vast majority of cases (especially when referring to our dear government), be far better substituted with the rather stronger “perfidious”. They went far beyond mere lying years ago, and are well down the path towards treachery, leaving a cloud of dust made of broken promises and liberties in their destructive wake.

(More suggestions in the comments, please – I was originally going to go for ten, but am slightly hungover, so can’t be bothered…)

December 28, 2006
by Nosemonkey
5 Comments

The EU in the next 12 months

The EU’s going to be having a hard time once again in 2007 – but will it be enough to finally kick off the radical reforms that are needed?

Although the Economist notes that “in 2006 the large continental economies had one of their best years for a decade, briefly outstripping America in terms of growth. Since politics often reacts to economic change with a lag, 2006’s improvement in economic growth will have its impact in 2007”, and January 1st will see the Eurozone expand further (and this month saw the Euro overtake the US dollar in terms of the value of notes in circulation), all is very far from well with the EU. Little has been achieved, and external problems (notably Russian-EU relations) are likely to divert the union’s attention from its manifold internal problems over the coming months.

Public opinion in France has turned against the Euro, with both leading candidates for April’s presidential election publicly criticising the European Central Bank for damaging the French economy, and we look to be on the brink of another continent-wide gas supply crisis which could do even more damage.

Meanwhile, the accession of Romania and Bulgaria – also on January 1st – is seen by many as yet another bad move (especially considering that the failure of the EU constitution means that there are still inadequate systems in place to deal with a union of such a wide and economically varied extent), as despite recent economic booms sparked by impending membership, both countries still lag well behind the EU average in terms of economic performance – and, indeed, are doing rather worse than Turkey. Their membership will also will raise yet more questions about what it means to be a citizen of the EU, following the numerous concerns about the “Polish plumber” over the last couple of years.

Are all member states really equal, can they ever be, and should they ever be? These questions need answering, and they need answering sharpish. As the EU hits the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome in March, is anyone (at least, anyone with any actual power and influence) going to finally have the guts to suggest a proper re-think, or are we simply going to be stuck with yet more ill-considered attempts to revive the constitution?

Considering the complete lack of progress over the last few years, there’s little reason to expect any in 2007 either. The most likely outcome, despite all the potential new problems, is not anything significant, but rather yet more pottering along and making do. The end result? Yet more inefficiency, yet more discontent, and yet more people turned off the very idea of the EU. When I find myself largely agreeing with UKIP leader Nigel Farage over the two new EU member states, despite disagreeing with the very basis of his party and being largely pro-EU, how much longer can the Union continue to keep its loose supporters on board with all this prevarication, shoddy decision-making and incompetence?

There’s only so long you can hold on to hope in the face of so much mounting evidence of ever-worsening illness, after all – and no matter how much you may love your dear dog, at some point the realisation has to dawn that it’s so poorly, so incapable of looking after itself, and so unlikely to recover that the kindest thing is simply to have the poor mite put down and go get yourself a new one.

Hopefully 2007 will not be the year that the point of no return is reached – but they haven’t got long to come up with that miracle cure and, from all that’s been said so far, there’s not much sign of a breakthrough just yet. If anything, the arrival of two more member states – and so two more potential vetoes – means that the likelihood of a solution is about to get even more remote…

December 28, 2006
by Nosemonkey
2 Comments

Bibliophilia

Good find in the Fifteenth Century Bookshop in Lewes (a few doors down from Tom Paine‘s house, and up the hill from the best brewery in the country) yesterday:

Not bad for a little over a tenner – and it’ll go nicely with this old find (considering I’ve got the second volume too, both are in good condition, and these 6-inch pocket versions from 1820 are rather rare, probably the most valuable in the modest collection):

Combined with a rather fine turkey and sizable quantities of booze, a rather fine Christmas all round.

December 24, 2006
by Nosemonkey
3 Comments

Peace on Earth (and all that guff)

Christmas, eh? Goodwill to all men?

Bollocks, more like – not historically, at any rate. And let’s face it, Herod’s massacre of the innocents was hardly a great start, was it? Following that, we had this little lot:

800 – Christmas Day – Charlemagne has himself crowned the first Holy Roman Emperor, the result of thirty solid years of warfare

1066 – Christmas Day – William the Bastard is crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey, becoming William the Conqueror in the process, and kicking off a good three centuries of sporadic warfare within what is now the United Kingdom – first suppressing the Saxons, then the Welsh and Scots

1261 – Christmas Day – 11-year-old Emperor John IV of Nicea blinded and deposed by Michael Palaiologos

1481 – Boxing Day – The Battle of Westbroek (Holland vs. Utrecht)

1715 – Christmas Eve – As part of the Great Northern War Swedish troops occupy Norway (and Sweden was, at the time, at war with the United Kingdom, Hanover, Russia, Prussia, Saxony and Denmark – good work…)

1776 – Boxing Day – The (first) Battle of Trenton – the American revolutionaries defeat us proud Brits

1793 – Boxing Day – Battle of Geisberg – the French defeat the Austrians. War continues pretty much uninterrupted for another 22 years nonetheless…

1806 – Boxing Day – Battle of Pultusk and Battle of Golymin – both France vs. Russia, total casualties estimated to be around 13,000

1862 – Boxing Day – The Battle of Chickasaw Bayou begins, kicking off Union General Grant’s Vicksburg Campaign against the Confederates along the Mississippi. It’s safe to say that quite a few died over the coming months… (The same day, Mankato, Minnesota saw 32 Native Americans hanged, in the country’s largest ever mass execution. Christmas spirit, eh?)

1865 – Christmas Eve – that lovely, loving organisation the Ku Klux Klan is formed

1932 – Christmas Day – seemingly annoyed at allowing mankind have all the killing fun, God sets off a great big earthquake in Gansu, China, killing 70,000 (12 years after another earthquake there had killed 120,000. Nice guy, God…)

1941 – Christmas Eve – after 18 days of fighting (with about 8,500 killed) Japan occupies Hong Kong ; the same day they also take Kuching in Malaysia

1943 – Boxing Day – after being hit by the HMS Norfolk and HMS Duke of York, the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst sinks, with the loss of 1,932 lives

1944 – Boxing Day – a German counter-attack kicks of the Battle of Bastogne. When it finally ends three weeks later, between 25,000 and 75,000 had lost their lives

1953 – Christmas Eve – God has a bash again, with the Tangiwai Distaster in New Zealand – 153 losing their lives

1974 – Christmas Day – God gets in on it once more, as Cyclone Tracy pretty much destroys Darwin, Australia

1979 – Christmas Eve – The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan. And, as we know all too well, the aftermath is arguably still being felt to this day. The Soviets lost around 30,000 men during their nine year occupation. No one knows how many Afghans died – either during the Soviet occupation, or during the two civil wars that followed their withdrawal in February 1989, and lasted until the Taleban takeover in 1996

1989 – Christmas Day – sixteen years and one week to the day before the country joins the EU on 1st January 2007, Romania decides that the best way to move from dictatorship to democracy is to execute their former dicator and his wife after a brief show trial

1997 – Christmas Eve – The Sid El-Antri massacre sees between 50 and 120 people killed by terrorists in Algeria

2003 – Boxing Day – God gets in on the act yet again, killing tens of thousands with a devastating earthquake in Iran

2004 – Boxing Day – God evidently had such fun the year before, he decides to kill another 230,000 with a great big tsunami (but he is a loving God, let’s not forget, and he did give up his only begotten son to die for all our sins, after all…)

Peace on Earth? Goodwill to all men? Humbug… If even the big bloke in the sky can’t refrain from raining down natural disasters around the time of his boy’s birth, what hope is there that us mere mortals can refrain from killing each other?

(This has been a partly political broadcast on behalf of the Cynical-Pretty-Much-Atheists Party, whose sole member is now going to bugger off for a few days to indulge in fine food and vast quantities of booze… Have fun, folks…)

December 23, 2006
by Nosemonkey
1 Comment

Another bloody meme

Thanks (really, you shouldn’t have…) to Rachel for tagging me with the “Seven best things of 2006” thing – seems to be “best things you’ve done”, so makes it rather tricky. Had this been “Seven best things of 2005” it would have been a lot easier, as I actually, erm… did stuff that was worthwhile last year. 2006, however, has been packed largely with work. My sole holiday was two days in Devon about six months ago… So this will be excessively boring. Sorry about that – but it is a meme, so you shouldn’t expect too much excitement. Still, I’ll see what I can do… In no particular order:

1) Was made Acting Editor on my old magazine
2) Went full-time freelance (and had a suprisingly – and pleasingly – well-attended leaving do)
3) Triggered a mini-exodus of former colleagues thanks to me leaving (how sweet, etc…)
4) Helped one ex-colleague find and get her ideal job
5) Landed a gig writing for one of the few organisations I’ve got genuine respect for, and wrote several more articles for one of the few publications I respect to boot
6) Worked out a fair few new recepies for really rather tasty food (my sausage casserole may sound simple, but good God damn it’s nice)
7) Liberated Europe from the Nazi menace (not once, but twice – that’s just how much I hate Nazis…)

Here’s hoping 2007 is somewhat less uneventful. (Though preferably not in a bad way…)

As I’m supposed to tag seven people, I’ll go for Justin, Chicken Yoghurt, Mr McKeating, ChickYog, that blog book editor guy, twatfeatures and a beardy northerner – because he loves these things so much. (And yes, yes I do expect you to do it again seven times, you slacker…)

December 22, 2006
by Nosemonkey
Comments Off on Turkmenbashi death follow-up

Turkmenbashi death follow-up

Following yesterday’s welcome news of the death of a dotty dictator, lots of people have begun to realise that the potential for this to be very important news indeed is really rather high. This from the Washington Post neatly explains why:

“Turkmen gas is already an important element in state-controlled Gazprom’s ability to meet customer demand at home and abroad and could become vital as demand rises over the next decade.

“The United States has lobbied Turkmenistan, so far unsuccessfully, to build a pipeline across the Caspian Sea that would bypass Russian territory to deliver gas to the outside world. European countries have quietly supported the idea, which would reduce their dependence on Russia for supplies of natural gas.

“…Any disruption in gas production because of internal turmoil could again affect natural gas supplies to Western Europe, according to an alert issued Thursday by Deutsche UFG, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank.

“Last January, Gazprom temporarily prevented supplies reaching Europe after a dispute with Ukraine over pricing. The standoff was eventually resolved through a murky deal that routed cheap Turkmen natural gas to Ukraine and resupplied the Ukrainian pipeline carrying Russian natural gas to the West.”

It’s all about the gas. The country has the world’s 4th largest reserves – and if that supply gets disrupted, we could all be screwed. There will be much frantic scrabbling around over the Christmas period while the EU, US, China and Russia (not to mention Japan, which has recently been trying to secure a gas deal with the nutty state) all try desperately to ensure that it is their own gupplies which are guaranteed. And it’s a fairly safe bet that some of our nutty Islamist friends from Afghanistan and Iran may be turning their eyes north to see if they can’t get a bit of influence going and all…

For more reactions, check out Registan’s tip-top roundup. Particularly good pieces can also be found at Radio Free Europe: start here and follow the sidebar links.

December 21, 2006
by Nosemonkey
3 Comments

Another psycho dictator now no more

2006 – a good year for dead dictators, first Pinochet, now Saparmurat Niyazov, self-styled “Turkmenbashi” and president for life of Turkmenistan.

He’s the one who renamed the months and days of the week after his friends and family,ordered an ice palace to be built in the middle of the Gobi Desert in the middle of August (just for the hell of it), renamed bread after his mother, re-wrote the country’s official history, re-invented the Turkmen alphabet, banned all recorded music, prohibited female newsreaders from wearing makeup on television, and ordered the closure of all libraries outside the capital, as countryside folk don’t read. He made George III look entirely rational, in fact. (Seriously – check out his Wikipedia entry…).

Central Asia remains remarkably unstable post-USSR, and has been the focus of innumerable Western efforts to get in with the various ex-Communist dictators who run the “-stans”, thanks both to the vast mineral reserves of the region and the handy strategic position Central Asia occupies when you’re fighting a war in the Middle East.

Turkmenistan is particularly strategically important for The War Against Terror – its southern borders run along Iran and Afghanistan, while most of its northern border is with Uzbekistan – former Western ally, now an ever more unstable and repressive regime. With no heir apparent after more than 20 years of Niyazov’s rule, anything could happen in Turkmenistan…

(Registan has more – and will doubtless be worth keeping an eye on over the coming weeks as the uncertain aftermath unfolds, as will Neweurasia.net.)

Update: More from Siberian Light, KZblog (which also has the really rather hilarious official announcement).

December 21, 2006
by Nosemonkey
Comments Off on The EU and data retention

The EU and data retention

(Yep a contender for “most exciting post title of the year”…)

Via the EU Law blog, a PDF of an article due to appear in the Spring 2007 edition of the Chicago Journal of International Law by Professor Francesca Bignami of the Duke University School of Law, “Protecting Privacy against the Police in the European Union: The Data Retention Directive”.

See The Register for handy background on the lovely law, Wikipedia for an even shorter version, or the (now defunct) campaign site against the directive, which explains why it was (originally) likely to be so bad.

The basic fear of the directive’s opponents was that vast amounts of information about each and every EU citizen – mobile phone records, emails, the works – would end up stored on some vast Orwellian database somewhere, freely accessible by any law enforcement agency in the EU and, potentially, even by those from outside the club. The reason it was the fear? Because that was the entire point of the bloody thing.

Did I mention that it was planned out and proposed by the UK, under the direction of dear old freedom-loving Tony Blair, who knew that he’d never convince MPs in Westminster to back such a ridiculous proposal? (Much like when he tried to get ID cards imposed via Brussels, just in case Westminster kicked up a fuss…)

Thankfully, however, MEPs were unconvinced and watered the damned thing down. To quite what extent was less than clear (it’s an EU law we’re talking about, after all – these things make Finnegan’s Wake look like Spot the Dog), but now Bignami’s gone through and done a bit of analysis to work out just what the thing’s impact is likely to be, longer term. Still early days, but she seems to think the privacy safeguards that were introduced should do the job – although not without also recommending an EU Human Rights watchdog to keep an eye on it all to make sure.

The article’s only 22 pages, and surprisingly readable for an academic paper on EU law. If you live in the EU – and yes, that does mean Britain – and are concerned with the whole civil liberties thing, have a gander.

December 20, 2006
by Nosemonkey
1 Comment

Measuring Europe’s Progress in Reform

Via Erkan, the World Economic Forum‘s Lisbon Review 2006 (1 meg PDF) – “Measuring Europe’s Progress in Reform” – is out, seeing how far the EU has got with the Lisbon Strategy, six years in to the ten year plan. The basic aim of the thing was to make the EU the most competitive economy in the world, so very few ever expected it to really come to fruition, but still… Worth a pop, eh?

But then last year the EU bigwigs realised that, erm… hardly any progress had been made, so it was time for a rethink – focussing more on a short-term attempt to boost jobs, with the longer-term goals to follow. It all makes sense, after all:

“The benefits of reaching the Lisbon goals are potentially quite significant. A recent study by the European Commission estimated that, if Europe were able to reach the Lisbon goals, gross domestic product (GDP) could increase 12-23% and employment could increase by as much as 11%. Even if these estimates are highly optimistic, implementing the strategy offers significant potential gains. Given the many demographic and economic challenges facing the EU, and despite recent improvements in Europe’s overall economic outlook, it would seem that there is no time to lose.”

And, as the report is based on interviews with CEOs of various EU countries,

“the results can be interpreted as the business community’s perspective on Europe’s relative performance in meeting the Lisbon goals. Since business leaders make many of the investment decisions in their economies, their perceptions are clearly related to the prospects for economic growth.”

They’ve done all kinds of complex ranking systems to work out each country’s relative competitiveness in eight different areas: Information Society, Innovation & R&D, Liberalisation, Network Industries, Financial Services, Enterprise, Social Inclusion and Sustainable Development. A score of 7 would be perfect – and the EU25’s average is 4.84 (compared to a score of 5.45 for the United States and 5.28 for East Asia (which, for the purposes of this study, means Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore). Six EU countires rank higher overall than the US – Denmark, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany and the UK.

The UK comes top in only one area, Financial Services (with a score of 6.47 – compared to the US’s 5.97, East Asia’s 5.54, an EU25 average of 5.6, and second placed Germany’s 6.39 – and our lowest rank is 9th for Social Inclusion. Overall the UK comes 6th with a score of 5.5 – compared to top-ranked Denmark’s 5.76 and bottom-ranked Poland’s 3.76 (interestingly, Italy – rather than another of the new member states – is second from bottom with 4.17; the highest-ranked new member is Estonia, in 12th place with a score of 4.93). There are also various comparisons to potential future EU members Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia & Montenegro (still assessed together for this report, despite Montenegro’s recent vote for independence).

For statistics freaks, I’ve copied out the tables from the PDF. Only one will fit within this blog’s layout, though, so have that, and the rest as links:

Table 2: Ranking and Scores of EU Countries
Table 3: Lisbon Scores Comparing the EU, the US and East Asia
Table 4: Ranking and Scores of Potential EU Member Countries
Table 5: Comparing the EU and the Accession Countries

And now a brief edited summary of the conclusion, as all those numbers have made my head go funny:

“there continues to be much variation in the performance across the EU25 countries, with the Nordic countries doing very well, while some southern European and recent accession countries trail behind…

the greatest gaps between the EU’s performance and those of the comparators are in the development of an information society, innovation and R&D, and in the enterprise environment, all areas in which both East Asia and the US outperform the EU by a wide margin… With respect to the accession and candidate countries, our analysis shows that much remains to be done to bring all of them up to the average competitiveness level of the present EU membership… Perhaps more surprising, Croatia and Turkey slightly outperform Poland, a current EU member [my emphasis]…

The EU itself noted that it is unlikely that the targets will be reached by 2010, as initially planned. But given the potential benefits, it seems clear that it would be useful to continue to pursue these policies beyond the 2010 deadline. Even if the goals are not achieved within the next four years, the strategy set in Lisbon continues to represent a very useful policy framework in itself.”

So, not a huge amount of progress, but still… And being able to have some kind of ranking system with which to compare the various EU member states (even if it is a ranking based on largely arbitrary, subjective analysis) should prove somewhat useful.

The abject failure of Poland in pretty much every area (her highest score was a mere 4.23 for Financial Services, and even then she came last) – especially considering that it is outperformed by both Croatia and Turkey – is particularly intriguing. How can the continued exclusion of Turkey and Croatia be justified when Poland is already in the club and doing worse than them? More to the point, why was Poland admitted in the first place if her performance is that shoddy? Hell, if the EU seriously wants to be able to compete on equal footing with the US, there surely need to be somewhat tighter policies on who gets in to prevent the likes of Poland dragging the overall effectiveness of the thing down?

Still, too late now, I suppose…

December 18, 2006
by Nosemonkey
3 Comments

A quick European roundup

The BBC has a handy press summary of Europe-wide reactions to the EU’s mind-numbingly tedious and unproductive summit last week (which, like DJ Nozem, I simply couldn’t bring myself to pay any attention to, I’m afraid). EU Observer has a fairly telling paragraph in its summary, though:

“‘There is not yet agreement on the best way to move forward,’ said commission president Jose Manuel Barroso but added that there was consensus that something needed to be done.”

In other words, erm… no progress has been made at all in the last year and a half. Arguably, not since Maastricht, as the problems trying to be solved now are the same as were meant to be tackled with the Treaty of Nice six years ago…

Mark Mardell also has a good overview:

“Thanks to an agreement reached by foreign ministers on Monday, the word “Turkey” was not formally uttered at this summit. But that is what it was all about.”

Also on the Turkish front, some vaguely promising indications that we are not a continent of bigots, a poll suggesting that although support for further EU enlargement is falling, it is not thanks to the prospect of a Muslim country joining (hell, we’ve already got an ex-Muslim country as a member, and umpteen different brands of Christianity, many of which have had much fun killing each other during various religious wars over the years, why should there be any problem with another bunch of God-botherers joining in?) Meanwhile American Prospect has a quick book review/article on Muslim assimilation in Europe, which may be of interest.

Oh, and this article on US involvement in post-Soviet Eastern Europe from the Monthly Review is worth a gander, as the American angle usually seems to be ignored by most coverage of the EU’s newest members, not to mention the various Eastern European wannabes.

Over in France, meanwhile, the presidential race continues to heat up, with the spectre of Jean Marie Le Pen’s National Front raising its ugly head once again – something the socialists need to remember about, considering Le Pen beat them to the final two last time around…

Those who know more about energy markets and economics than me might be able to explain the significance of the Norwegian oil/gas merger. Likely to be moderately significant, though, considering the various difficulties the EU’s having thanks to the growing reliance on Russian gas supplies and all that…

Utterly unrelated, but this made me chuckle – a bunch of Germans expelled from Poland after WWII are apparently trying to seek, erm…, compensation for their loss… Up next: Germany claims compensation from Britain, France, America and Russia for the death of so many of its citizens, and from the Jewish people for the extortionate gas bill run up during the early 1940s… Oh, and should you even vaguely care, EurActiv has a run-down of the priorities for the German EU Presidency, taking over on 1st January. (Update:More on German aspirations at Atlantic Review.)

Almost finally, new discovery The Evil European has the perfect paraphrase of some of the nuttier anti-EU types’ general worldview which bears repeating following the news that EU Referendum won the “Best UK Blog” category in the Weblog Awards:

“If you correct people on the factual information, as in the European Union is not being run by Hitler’s re-animated corpse which seeks to force evil communist-fascist agenda like making all British people drive on the left side of the road or only eat straight bananas, you are being an arrogant snob and elitist liberal blah blah blah.”

The thing to do, old boy, is try to ignore them. Much as our dear leaders were trying to do with that damned summit last week. Maybe this is the way forward for the EU – we all try to pretend that it doesn’t exist, and they in turn pretend that we don’t exist. Everyone’s a winner.

Finally finally, via Erkan, EU Digest (which I’d forgotten about due to their RSS feeds seeming to be screwed, but is rather good) has a run-down of the European politicians who made an impact in 2006. That they can only come up with three names – one of whom some would argue is not “European” anyway – speaks volumes about the waste of time 2006 has been for the EU…