Hot on the heels of yesterdays report that road maps using miles instead of kilometres are now in danger, Tim Worstall tells us the story of the Belgian town council which is trying to implement standardised clothing rules. As I suggest in comments this issue is not as trivial as it seems, and Maaseik is far from the only municipality across Europe to try to implement dress regulations.
Author Archives: Edward Hugh
Higher and Haier
Standards that is. The Chinese domestic appliance manufacturer Haier just got voted into the number one slot by FT readers in a survey which included quality, trustworthiness, innovation and management, together with branding. Haier recently hit the headlines when it unsuccessfully tried to buy Maytag – owner of the Hoover brand – now it looks like it may not have been worth the effort. Long live learning by doing.
Not So Trivial Pursuits
[The observant among you may have noticed that two earlier post-ettes have suddenly disappeared. The even more observant will have noted that they are now over at our sister blog – A Few Euros More – where they should have gone in the first place. I’ve picked up some bug or other and am a little groggy today, I hope it doesn’t show up too much in my argument :).]
Now, yesterday I focused on some relatively trivial examples of inflexibility on the part of the Commission, decisions I argued that did not really serve the interests on the Union itself. Today I have two more to add to the list (one in this post and one in the next), but these have a rather greater import.
Firstly there is the question of formally opening negotiations with Turkey, negotiations over an accession which would take place ten years from now at the earliest. However in recent days it has become evident, to say the least, that not everyone is happy with the conditions as already laid down for the start of negotiations with Turkey.
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Here We Go Again
The Financial Times is running this story this morning:
“Britain is coming under pressure from the European Commission to say when it will honour its 25-year-old promise to go fully metric, converting miles to kilometres and pints to litres.G?nter Verheugen, EU enterprise commissioner, says he wants clarity on the issue, claiming he is facing pressure from British pro-metric campaigners to act.”
Isn’t this really the kind of silly non-issue the EU could safely live without? UK consumers and citizens have every right to purchase their beer in pints or measure their journeys in miles if they chose so to do. Trying to force them to change is not non-intrusive government. And the argument about pressure from the ‘pro-metric’ lobby is a canard: if they want to lobby, they should lobby inside the UK, and try and convince public opinion there, while Verheugen should have the strength of character to tell them to get lost in the meantime.
Incidentally, on this issue I have no strong feelings personally, since frankly my dear I couldn’t give a damn.
Update, here’s another example:
“The decision by the Netherlands to lock up 5.5m free-range birds as a precaution against the spread of avian flu may have breached European Union rules, it was claimed on Friday. The European Commission said its lawyers were studying whether the unilateral action was legal, since animal health is an EU matter and the Dutch action was taken before EU animal health experts had co-ordinated their response. Commission lawyers are also considering how long Dutch free-range egg producers should be allowed to market their products as such, following the decision to confine all poultry to sheds last week.”
It seems little has been learned from the referendum ‘sebacks’. What we are in danger of creating is an intransigent’s paradise. If the Dutch government can’t take the measures it sees fit to protect its citizens because it’s against the rules then it’s time to ammend the rules in question and not castigate the government of the Netherlands. This is the case whether or not it could be claimed that the government have ‘overreacted’.
How Quickly We Forget
Coincidences never cease to surprise me. Last Friday I mentioned the work of Brookings analyst Fiona Hill on Afoe. Well today she writes in the FT (with Sara Mendelson) alerting us to the continuing problems of the North Caucasus and our continuing neglect (subscription only unfortunately).
This week, the one-year anniversary of the hostage siege and massacre of children and parents in the Beslan school gym is tinged with a specific sorrow; it could happen again. The political situation in Russia?s North Caucasus region is dangerously unstable but few outside the region are paying attention.
Beslan was an especially depraved example of what has spread well beyond Chechnya. Acts of intra-communal violence, brutal assassinations, explosions and armed clashes are the norm in places such as Dagestan and Ingushetia. Local politics is circumscribed by corruption, incompetence and a lack of interest in the wellbeing of ordinary people. Many regional leaders are running their fiefdoms into the ground. While some in the Russian government claim that the situation has ?normalised? (the Putin administration plans ?parliamentary elections? in Chechnya this November), a recently leaked document from the Kremlin?s own representative to the North Caucasus asserts that the situation is perilous.
Tell Me Why
Tell me why I should be bothered about ‘x’. This is an agument you often hear when proactive policies are proposed in connection with looming problems. Well a good example comes to mind today. The arrest in June on a Belgrade railway station of Abdelmajid Bouchar, a Moroccan, wanted by Spanish police for alleged involvement in last year’s Madrid bombings draws attention to the way some Balkan states can be used as ‘safe havens’ by would be terrorists. Of course there are many reasons why we need a Balkans policy in the EU, but if self-interest is what moves you, then here’s an important one.
A Certain Irony
In a post back in May about the bloody repression in Uzbekistan I noted that Crooked Timber’s John Quiggin was suggesting that US troops should be withdrawn immediately (I didn’t agree if you read the post). Well he seems to have got his way, and the reasoning behind the Uzbekistan parliament decision is of course interesting. The parliament has backed a government order which gives the United States six months to vacate the Karshi-Khanabad airbase. The suggestion is that this order is not entirely unconnected with the U.S. decision to join international demands for an independent investigation into May’s bloody crackdown.
While I’m up posting on Uzbekistan,
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One Important Detail
Back briefly to the July 7th London bombings. Many details still remain to be clarified, but bit-by-bit things are falling into place. The Chemist, for example, turns out to have been wrongly suspected. On the other hand, the suicide issue may well be finally receiving confirmation. The Guardian is running a story which suggests the bombers detonated the bombs themselves by pressing a device similar to a button, and did not use mobile phones as one senior New York police officer suggested. In fact there was quite a flurry of material at the time trying to tell us they were dupes more than fanatics. The Guardian say they have this on confirmation from several separate senior police and counter-terrorism sources, and they do repeat themselves on this, so while nothing here is guaranteed fact it seems they are aware of the disinformation charge and the role of the press in spreading this, and do seem to be trying to say ‘hey guys, this one is for real’. Anyway, judge for yourself.
Missing The Bus
Or if not the bus, certainly the bus driver. According to the latest UK Home Office estimates almost a quarter of a million (232,000) Central and East European workers have arrived to work in Britain over the past year, and everyone seems very content. Which has to lead you to ask: didn’t the German government make a major error in turning its back on this potential inflow of energetic young citizens? One more time New Economist has the full story.
Menarché and Low Fertility
Earlier this morning I read this intriguing paper by US researchers Robert Drago & Amy Varner. The title of the paper is “Fertility and Work in the United States: A Policy Perspective” and it addresses the important issues of gender equality and the historical trend towards declining fertility in the United States. Now while I was thinking of how to write a post on this general topic I wandered over to Brad Delong’s blog and found he had this highly relevant post entitled Menarché vs Monarchy.
OK, what’s this all about.
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