The sensitivities of German officials with respect to the alleged British obsession with the Nazi era have surprisingly often seen the public limelight in recent years, the most recent example being the British tabloids’ reaction to the election of Joseph Kardinal Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI.
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Author Archives: Tobias Schwarz
Heeding Henry.
Joschka Fischer, the German foreign minister, may be coming out of the dog house – if only conceptually.
After even the left leaning German daily taz recently began publishing political obituaries for the man who more than anyone represents the political maturing (or not) of the generation of ’68 (following the affair about problematic political guidelines leading to criminal exploitation of German visa policies in Eastern Europe and in light of the looming federal election that will likely lead to a government without a Green party participation), Mr Fischer may have decided that it might be worthwhile to spend his remaining time in office not just by campaigning for a permanent German seat in the UN security council but by heeding Henry Farrell’s advice about the opportunities of a dieing European constitution and going back to his own foreign policy ‘roots’: In May 2000, he used a speech at Berlin’s Humboldt University to sketch out his ideas for ever closer union, “From Confederacy to Federation” (pdf available).
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Irritation.
Over on Crooked Timber, Maria Farrell is being haunted by the sheer gaul of them, and consequently expressing her irritation with France and the French, not just
[f]or falling asleep at the wheel in 2002 and letting back in to the Elysee a fraud who has no vision for France, no values apart from expediency, and whose number one professional objective was using the office to stay out of jail.”
But also for pretty much everything else imaginable – so go read her post.
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Anatomy of a “Non”
It’s in French, but it’s mostly figures – IPSOS has published the detailed results of their post-referendum survey.
Interestingly, the ‘yes’-camp seemed to fare well among those voters who made up their minds shortly before voting.
Cheesy.
I don’t think it’s fair to talk about European regulatory madness as long as there isn’t a directive handling… Cheese Rolling (from the BBC, hat tip to viewropa)
“Cheese Rolling is one of the oldest customs to have survived in Great Britain. It’s been going on for hundreds of years and some say it has its roots in pre-Roman times.
Today it is as popular as ever and the crowds turned out in large numbers at Cooper’s Hill in Gloucestershire to watch yet more brave souls risk life and limb chasing after a 7lb Double Gloucester cheese. The winner gets to keep the cheese they’ve chased after!”
Over on Publius.fr
No one’s asking me, but I’d vote “oui”. Should you be interested to know why, I’ve laid out my reasons in luckily idiomatically edited French in my replies to publius’ questions, which they posted yesterday. They also posted the Eulogist’s replies as well as a plethora of their own reasons for their personal final decisions (publius).
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La R?volution continue.
Edward has already pointed to an interesting post by Henry Farrell regarding European politics in the last post, but I think the argument is important enough for a separate pointer and a little more explanation.
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La R?volution continue.
The Guardian Newsblog has a nice summary of the reasons Why the French are saying ‘non’. I’m not sure they will in the end, but in case they do, it will be a political earthquake. To help us understand the near B-plan European future, Janis A. Emmanouilidis and Bettina Thalmaier from the Center for Applied Policy Research and the Bertelsmann Foundation have put together an executive summary of their thoughts on this issue (that is also available in German).
A Fistful of Readers.
I know that web statistics are inherently unreliable. I have seen server statistics that differ from each other to an extent it raises important epistemological questions. However, in the blogosphere, sitemeter figures are the most common currency – and by that standard, we at afoe at some point earlier today welcomed our 400,000th unique visitor since the day that will live in infamy.
I would like to take advantage of this brief moment of reflection to thank all of you, our gentle readers, for your continuing interest in the fistful and, of course, for your immensely valuable contributions to the debate!
The French Press reviewed in German
The French embassy in Germany (which just relaunched its website) offers a
German review of the daily French press (and as well a French review of the German press) but unfortunately not as RSS streams.