Condoleezza RiceColin Powell, who in all likelihood will renounce to using the phrase “between a rock and a hard place” for the rest of his life, is leaving the US administration, and Condoleezza Rice, currently US National Security Advisor, has been nominated by President Bush as next Secretary of State. Many in Europe, Deutsche Welle, I don’t think it matters if Powell’s departure strengthens hardliners who are insensitive to European sensitivities. Both European and American leaders have by now realized the need to work together, and they have – somewhat – adjusted their sensoric system and significantly reduced their mutual expectations. Pessimists may lead unhappy lives, but at least they are less likely to be disappointed.
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Monthly Archives: November 2004
Europe’s happy because it eats lard
Blood and Treasure informs us of a pressing matter caused by EU expansion – a shortage of lard in British supermarkets. But it may not represent all bad news:
But when you think about it, lard is a great metaphor for the European Union. Wherever you go there?s the same bland, white, fatty mass. But each country brings something special to this bland, white, fatty mass, something that takes it and transforms it into literally heart-stopping comfort food. ?Out of many, one? say the united statespersons. ?Out of one lump of lard ? many pies? respond the Euros.
Mmm, pie.
Twice Bitten Thrice Shy?
It will probably still take some time until another EU referendum will be held in Norway, given the country’s history of rejecting membership in 1972 as well as in 1994. But a new opinion poll suggests that Norwegian membership-proponents have all reason to smile these days. The “yes”-camp is growing as previously undecided voters seem to join in larger numbers – possibly, as Nick and others already suggested, as a consequence of President Bush’s reelection (via EUbusiness/AFP)
Norwegian supporters of European Union membership now outnumber opponents by a wide margin, 10 years after voters said “no” to joining the bloc in a referendum, a poll published in daily Aftenposten on Monday showed.
According to the survey, conducted by the Opinion institute of 1,000 people between November 8-10, 48 percent of Norwegians are in favour of joining the EU, 38 percent are opposed and 13 percent remain undecided.
Die Wacht am Rhein.
Brad DeLong agrees with Daniel Drezner that, in a time in which the world’s news agenda is once again dominated by hatred and violence, it is important to remember that keeping up the hope for a peaceful future is not necessarily in vain.
Let us give thanks that the most brutal and blood-soaked border in the world is quiet – a border inhabited on both sides by those bloodthirsty peoples who have been numbers one and two in terms of the most effective killers of foreigners for centuries: the Germans and the French.
It is now 59 years and 9 months since an army crossed the Rhine River bearing fire and sword. This is the longest period of peace on the Rhine since the second century B.C.E., before the Cimbri and the Teutones appeared to challenge the armies of the consul Gaius Marius in the Rhone Valley.
I’m not sure about those 59 years being the longest period of peace since the second century B.C.E., but having lived on the Rhine’s left bank, close to the westward-watching “Wacht am Rhein” (the Niederwalddenkmal or “Germania” – a monument erected after the foundation of the German Reich in 1871), for most of my life, those 59 years are clearly the ones that matter to me.
Franco-German FriendshipAnd, in light of the recent transatlantic history, let me add that the photo of a French friend and myself in front of the memorial was taken by an American tourist – we do remember which fire bearing army made the Franco-German approchement possible.
Irresistible.
Her Majesty’s government?Some light Saturday reading…
I think Tony Blair will from now on try to leave press conferences before someone gets a chance to ask the last question.
Back in September 2003 in Berlin, a British journalist asked Blair about being embarrassed about being a spokesperson for the American President when talking to Chancellor Schr?der and French President Chirac (afoe post). Blair was visibly surprised by the question, and certainly a little embarrassed that Chirac and Schr?der replied on his behalf.
Yesterday, Mr Blair must thus have sensed some kind of “d?j? vu” when the London Times correspondent asked Mr Bush if he indeed, as suggested by so many British, regarded Tony Blair as his “poodle”, or if he did not think that the US owed something to the UK for Mr Blair’s support. Mr Blair then sort-of-jokingly asked the President not to say “yes”, for that would be, well, difficult, before Mr Bush went on to praise Mr Blair’s leadership and wondered what he should owe a leader “[p]lenty capable of making his own mind.”
Since you’re going to read about this everywhere, you might as well read the original. So in the extended part of this post you can find the (slightly edited by the White House) transcript of that part of the press conference as well as the video footage. For the interesting bits, forward to the last minute or so. Enjoy.
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Irrelevance.
I suppose Yasir Arafat’s death and the reaction on “the Palestinian street” will give rise to a few discussions about the concept of political “irrelevance”. Benny Morris starts.
Writing in the New York Times, the recently turned hawkish Israeli historian and author of “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem“, is already missing the man, in spite of his past.
Mr. Arafat’s death most certainly will result in a succession struggle, between the generations inside the Fatah and between the Fatah and the Islamic fundamentalist parties (which may lead to complete anarchy in the Hamas stronghold of Gaza). But it is unclear whether it will bring the Middle East any closer to peace. His disappearance removes a major rejectionist obstacle from the scene.
But it also leaves us with a paradox. For Mr. Arafat was probably the only Palestinian of our time, given his historical and political stature, capable of persuading the Palestinians, or most of them, to accept the concessions necessary to achieve a two-state solution. On the other hand, his successors – Mahmoud Abbas, Ahmed Qurei and some of the younger Fatah leaders – may be more amenable to a territorial compromise but they lack the stature to intimidate or persuade their people to accept a two-state settlement or to crush their terror-minded colleagues. So Yasir Arafat’s death may have done us no good at all.
Re-pillarization?
Despite having turned Amsterdam’s red light district into some kind of adult entertainment Disneyland, and despite having instituted one of the world’s most relaxed drug policy regimes, the Netherlands were not always home to deep rooted respect of alternative lifestyles.
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Lithuania is the Delaware of Europe
The US state of Delaware uses the name ‘The First State’ because it was the first of the original 13 states to ratify the US Constitution and today, Lithuania earned itself the possible title of ‘First Country’ in years to come as it became the first country to ratify the European Constitution. Unlike the battles in other countries, this was a comparatively easy, and perhaps even popular, decision:
The Lithuanian parliament approved the treaty by 84 votes to four, with three abstentions.
The opposition and some civic groups said the vote was purely political and was approved without any significant national debate, reports Steven Paulikus in Vilnius.
Thursday was the final day of the parliament’s term, raising suspicion that current MPs wanted to take credit for the ratification before leaving office, he said.
Former French President Giscard d’Estaing, who oversaw the drafting of the constitution, sent a message of congratulations to Lithuania.
“This is a brave and a bold step… Thank you, men and women of Lithuania,” he said in a letter read out in parliament.
European Commission spokesman Reijo Kemppinen said: “We congratulate them wholeheartedly for that. It is a very positive development indeed.”
One down, twenty-four to go.
A Tiny Chip On BusinessWeek’s Shoulder?
BusinessWeek has joined the ranks of those in the US who are sulking because of international, particularly European, criticism, concern, laughter, and disbelief about both process and result of the US Presidential election. The magazine’s John Rossant is now beating back in this week’s issue, explaining that – even in today’s Europe – life’s not all beer and skittles.
Quite right.
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Memories of the Wall
I suspect that I’m in a minority of AFOE’s writers and readers in that I actually saw the Berlin Wall in place pre-1989. We were on a school trip to Germany in 1987 and had actually been given permission to travel to West Berlin, so we naturally went to see the Wall. Strangely, though, it’s not the Wall that sticks in my memory from that trip – like most people my chief mental image of it is it being toppled in 1989 – but the journey between Hanover and Berlin, travelling by coach across East Germany on a long autobahn that had been effectively sealed off from the rest of the country, large embankments to either side of the road making it impossible for us to see any of the GDR – and, indeed, for anyone in the GDR to see any of us. I still have my old passport from that trip, complete with a GDR stamp within it.
Fifteen years after that, I saw some of the Wall again – in Rapid City, South Dakota, all of places, where two sections of it are on permanent display downtown. The one thing I do remember of seeing in West Berlin – the layers of graffiti covering the Western side of the Wall – aren’t really shown by the sections Rapid City acquired but then that’s merely a reminder of just how long it was.