Author Archives: P O Neill

About P O Neill

is Irish and lives in America.

Does God love Romania?

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It would take a stand-alone blog to track the daily utterances of George Bush but here he is in St Louis today talking about his visits to Romania —

And they had just been accepted into NATO, and the President asked me and Laura to go, and there was 225,000 people, more or less, in the town square to see the American President. And it was raining.

Now, the interesting thing from my perspective was that I was here, and there was a balcony lit in the town square, and I was told this was where the tyrant Ceausescu and his wife had made their last public appearance. And the story has it that he — somebody started chanting, “Liar,” and he realized his power was slipping away, and then he tried to get out of there, and anyway, he was done in by the people. They were tired of him; he was a brutal guy.

And so that was my line of sight. And the President introduced me, and just as I got up to speak, a full rainbow appeared. And it was a startling moment. And I turned back — Laura was like — I went, look, baby, look up there. And so when I pointed up, 225,000 heads flipped around to look at the rainbow. I then ad-libbed, “God is smiling on Bucharest.” And the reason I did is because the rainbow ended right behind the balcony where the tyrant had given his last speech. Liberty is transformative, and it will yield the peace we want.

There’s a lot of Bush’s personality in that little anecdote: a self-serving mysticism, his remembering that he had departed from his script (which must therefore be a rare event) and linking God specifically to political freedom.  One wonders if God left Bucharest the same time he did. 

Adriatic Surprise

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The International Monetary Fund has released a staff analysis of economic competitiveness in the southern Euro area — France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain.  It’s a fairly technical document – written as a series of papers with a brief overview chapter at the start, which probably means that many of its messages will be missed.  But the bottom line is that all five countries are found to have done badly in most areas of competitiveness, meaning loss of export shares in global markets, lack of specialization in rapidly growing products and markets, and only limited success in services.  

Whether you’re surprised will depend on what you expected going in but for me the main news was the relative success of Greece, which rarely merits a mention as an EU tiger.   Greece seems to have 3 factors in its favour: a trade orientation towards its northern neighbours (who have been growing while still low profile in terms of competitor countries), tourism, and transport — all that Greek-owned shipping has been in heavy use around the world.   The world may be ever more mobile, but history and location still matter.

Letting Serbia decide for itself

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This analysis from Reuters of the dynamic between the EU and Serbia in the run-up to Serbia’s general election 3 weeks from now points to an extremely ham-handed attempt by some EU countries to influence the outcome, which seems like a strange way to handle an election in any country, let alone one with as fraught a regional situation as Serbia.  The issue is whether the EU should offer a Stabilisation and Association Agreement, but the incumbent PM Vojislav Kostunica has made clear that he wants no part of it and views it as an attempt to get Serbian ink on a document that would implicitly recognise the independence of Kosovo —

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There are quite a few of us

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In today’s Wall Street Journal Europe, Gareth Harding does a nice job describing the frustration of a UK citizen who has lost the right to vote as a result of long-term residency outside the UK — a feature that only dates from 2002 legislation.  It’s little consolation, but the Irish voting regimen for its many emigrants is even harsher, with voting eligibility gone as soon as you’re off the register in your former home county, and that happens once you no longer live there.   As Harding points out, the situation leaves emigrants without a vote in either their country of citizenship or residence.  Of course the counterarguments are well known, ultimately relating to whether someone living abroad is truly a participant in domestic politics.  It certainly tests the notion of what the European Union is supposed to mean to the citizens of its member countries.

His favourite talking point

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George Bush to Romanian Prime Minister Popescu-Tariceanu right before his departure for Zagreb —

I also congratulate the Prime Minister on having a 16 percent flat tax. I’m a little envious. I would like to have been able to achieve the same objective for our tax code, and it was a smart thing to get done, because I think those kinds of policies will enable the Romanian folks to have a bright future.

Bush had the same obsession on a visit to Estonia a while ago and it appears to be part of his bond with eastern European countries.  The trouble is, as a supposed ingredient of his own policy objectives for the USA, it’s delusional.  He never made any concrete proposal for a flat tax, and his own tax cuts have made the tax code less flat: dividends and capital gains are taxed at a far lower rate than wage income (added: and there are no payroll taxes on capital income).   The 16% is also fantasy.  The federal government spends about 21% of GDP — and that’s before housing finance got socialised! 

Today’s events in Ireland

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AFOE readers interested in following the fallout from the resignation of Taoiseach (PM) Bertie Ahern and not familiar with the usual Irish sources may want to consult my post a couple of days ago for a little background (mostly in the Lisbon context) and then head to RTE, the Irish Times, and the Irish Election blog for continuous updates and commentary.  Bertie will be taking questions in Dáil Éireann (lower house) this afternoon (1545 BST — during the soccer) and it will be carried live here.

Will the Irish tail wag the Lisbon dog?

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It’s shaping up to be an important week in Ireland for the prospects of Treaty of Lisbon ratification.   As EU-watchers know, Ireland is the only country planning to ratify the treaty by popular referendum (although events in Poland could add a referendum there too).  While the treaty should in theory have little problem passing, there’s a history of hiccups going back to the initial rejection of the Maastricht treaty by the public before they were persuaded to reconsider.  But the backdrop is getting more ominous for this one.

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