Author Archives: Guy La Roche

About Guy La Roche

Dutch translator and subtitler living in Brittany with his three cats. Has also lived in the Flemish part of Belgium. Speaks English rather fluently and in a former life used to have a decent command of Spanish. Knows swear words in German and Russian. Not quite francophone yet, but slowly getting there. Vaguely centrist observer of the world around him, extremely naive and, sometimes, rather proud of it. Writes Venale Pecus.

Euro in trouble?

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English weblog England Expects has an intriguing post on the vitality of the euro. More precisely, about its lack of vitality:

For the first time, an official French report has criticised the Euro. Indeed, the latest report of the Council for Economic Analysis (CAE) given to the French government on 23 March, “Economic policy and Growth in Europe” and written by Philippe Aghion, Élie Cohen and Jean Pisani-Ferry, draws up for the first time a really tough assessment on the single currency and the actions of the Euro zone.

I have no time to comment, as usual, but the report is definitely worth a read (308 pages). Teaser:

“Economic integration has stagnated and no longer promotes growth. The euro’s creation has not produced the knock-on benefits expected. The increase in trade has been relatively modest and financial and credit markets remain segmented. The single currency even seems to have had a “numbing” effect on the EU members, which no longer need to protect against a foreign-exchange crisis and have become complacent in their efforts to control spending and make structural reforms. Moreover, the euro area’s macroeconomic framework has become obsolete. Furthermore, the Lisbon strategy has become bogged down in procedures and has degenerated into rhetoric. This is because it doesn’t have the means to achieve its objectives, since EU-members remain responsible for supply-side policies and the political economy of reform is still mostly national.”

You can find the report here (pdf).

Dutch (in)tolerance

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Dutch shocklog Retecool has posted an entry containing a link to an episode of the BBC’s Hard Talk in which Stephen Sackur is grilling Dutch right-wing MP Geert Wilders, founder of Group Wilders and the new Party of Freedom.

You can watch the episode by clicking here (RealPlayer, 23 minutes). Before you click, please read what’s below the fold first.
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Open borders and bottleneck jobs

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I have learned via the unlinkable newsfeed site NOS Teletekst that The Netherlands will be opening its borders to East European workers coming from the new EU member states, starting January 1st 2007. Dutch Parliament pushed back the original entry date, May 1st 2006, that was proposed by employers. The big fear is abuse of social security.

In Great Britain, Ireland and Sweden the borders are already open. Portugal, Spain and Finland will follow suit on May 1st while Germany and Austria keep their borders closed for the time being.

In Belgium there was some debate about allowing workers for so-called bottleneck jobs, jobs for which there are hardly any qualified candidates in Belgium.
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Gauging European temperatures

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Discuss, if you like, to what extent the following quote is still applicable today. To what extent is success policy-driven, if there is any success at all, and not the accidental consequence of the actions of a few exceptionalist individuals? Where does Europe stand right now? Should we still count our blessings? Please keep the discussion civil 🙂

Mankind surely does not represent an evolution toward a better or stronger or higher level, as progress is now understood. This “progress” is merely a modern idea, which is to say, a false idea. The European of today, in his essential worth, falls far below the European of the Renaissance; the process of evolution does not necessarily mean elevation, enhancement, strengthening.

True enough, it succeeds in isolated and individual cases in various parts of the earth and under the most widely different cultures, and in these cases a higher type certainly manifests itself; something which, compared to mankind in the mass, appears as a sort of superman. Such happy strokes of high success have always been possible, and will remain possible, perhaps, for all time to come. Even whole races, tribes and nations may occasionally represent such lucky accidents.

From The Antichrist by Friedrich Nietzsche, 1895

Asia beats Europe in education

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From the BBC News site comes this disconcerting news:

Europe is falling behind Asia in terms of education and skills, according to a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
It blames France and Germany which are criticised for mediocre education systems and their inherent class bias.

And further on:

“Europeans from difficult socio-economic backgrounds don’t receive the same educational opportunities as children from rich and middle-class families,” the study said.

It seems we are wasting a lot of potential here, not to mention the loss in future competitiveness and possible social unrest.

Parents of Kurdish political refugee murdered in Turkey

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There is some friction between Belgium and Turkey.

First there was the case of Fehriye Erdal, a far-left militant that was convicted last Thursday in Belgium for being a member of a criminal organisation (Turkish group DHKP-C or Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front). Trouble is, when Belgian authorities proceeded to arrest her she had disappeared. A big fuss ensued with Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül demanding an investigation and the extradition of Erdal to Turkey.

Today another story has emerged in the Belgian press. The unlinkable VRT Teletekst reports on pages 157 and 158 that Flemish Minister of Foreign Policy Geert Bourgeois has written the Turkish ambassador to Belgium a letter asking an explanation for the murder of the parents of Derwich M. Ferho, the president of the Kurdish Institute in Brussels. Ferho’s parents were kidnapped last Thursday in Turkey and killed in what some people, notably the Kurdish Institute, suspect to be an assault by Turkish death squads and local security services. It seems that Ferho’s parents had previously been threatened by Turkish authorities because their two sons, both political refugees living in Belgium, had engaged in, and I quote from the unlinkable news item on VRT Teletekst, “anti-Turkish activities abroad”.

Geert Bourgeois has asked for an explanation and warned that there could be a problem if Derwich’s parents were indeed murdered by Turkish authorities, especially in view of Turkish negotiations to enter the EU. When Bourgeois himself was asked if there could be a link with the missing Erdal, he responded: “It would be too early to say, but I would not rule out that possibility”.

Since nothing seems to be confirmed yet… to be continued

Ilan Halimi: clichés turning lethal

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There was a big uproar in France during the past few weeks caused by the horrifying murder of Ilan Halimi, a 23 year old Jewish shop clerk, by a gang of hoodlums who called themselves, very aptly, “The Barbarians”.

Halimi was abducted by the gang on January 21st. On Monday 13th he was found naked, gagged and handcuffed, his body bearing burn marks and showing signs of torture, near the railway station of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois. Soon after he died.
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EURES: one million job offers within the EU

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The EU launched a new website today, EURES where one million jobs within the EU will be on offer. From the EURES-site:

EURES (EURopean Employment Services) brings together the European Commission and the public employment services of the countries belonging to the European Economic Area and Switzerland. Other regional and national bodies concerned with employment issues are also included, such as trade unions, employers’ organisations, as well as local and regional authorities. (…) EURES is playing an increasing role in identifying the surpluses and deficits of manpower in different sectors, and in overcoming qualification bottlenecks. The network also helps improve employability, particularly that of young people, through the acquisition of professional experience abroad. EURES also contributes to the creation of a common European labour market, as well as, in certain border regions, to the establishment of an integrated regional labour market.

Currently, only 2 percent of 450 million Europeans work legally in another member state. (source: De Telegraaf)

The cartoon row: aiming for maximum shock value

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Iran newspaper Hamshahri came up with an original plan to counter the release of Danish cartoons making fun of the prophet Muhammad and decided to hold a little cartoon contest to test the limits of free speech:

The daily paper Hamshahri said the contest was designed to test the boundaries of free speech — the reason given by many European newspapers for publishing the Prophet Mohammad cartoons.

Fair enough, you’d say? Well, not quite. The theme of the contest is the Holocaust, incidentally called an “incident”:

A serious question for Muslims … is this: “Does Western free speech allow working on issues like America and Israel’s crimes or an incident like the Holocaust or is this freedom of speech only good for insulting the holy values of divine religions?”‘ the paper said on Tuesday.

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The Dutch are going to Afghanistan

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Most of you will have read the news by now, but I need to mention this to complete my earlier post The battle of Wobbly Knee: Dutch troops in Afghanistan. Dutch Parliament voted yesterday, with a substantial majority, to send some 1,200 more troops to Afghanistan. More precisely to the dangerous province of Uruzgan. Only D66, the SP (Socialist Party) and GroenLinks (Green leftist party) voted against, but D66 has already declared it will back the troops regardless. Good on them.

Some 7,500 soldiers will be prepared for reconstruction and stabilisation activities under the umbrella of ISAF (International Security Assistance Force). The first extra troops will be sent in August and the whole operation is slated to be in effect for two years. In the foreign press, on the BBC News site for instance, the extra number of Dutch soldiers to be stationed in Afghanistan is often estimated at 1,400 troops. So far the Dutch press have only mentioned 1,200. To recapitulate: the Dutch ISAF contingent in Afghanistan will be enlarged by 1,200 soldiers coming from a rotating pool of 7,500 (source: the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf). To be continued, for sure.

UPDATE: Salient detail: fraction leader for Democrats 66, Boris Dittrich, just resigned over the Afghanistan debate. Lousewies van der Laan will replace him. Dittrich took responsibility for, and I quote, “political-tactical mistakes”. One of those mistakes was a, later recanted, threat by D66 to let the Dutch Cabinet “fall” if troops were sent to Afghanistan. The reason behind all this manoeuvring? To persuade coalition partner PvdA (Dutch labour party) to vote against. As we know now, that tactic did not work.