New Europe?Late Thursday night, the European Council approved, as widely expected, the Commission’s recommendation to open membership negotiations with Turkey, largely without imposing additional conditions to be met prior to the beginning of the talks on October 3, 2005. “The time to start negotiations with Turkey has come,” Commission President Jos? Manuel Barroso said. Council President, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, will discuss the EU proposals Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, over breakfast on Friday.
Continue reading
Author Archives: Tobias Schwarz
Cheekshake
Today, la petite Anglaise, one of the weblogs I found out about because it was nominated as best expat blog for the 1st afoe European blog awards, deals with the complexities of interpersonal courtesy in France, partcularly la bise.
La bise is second nature to the French. For a foreigner like myself it is a minefield. First of all, there is the matter of how many kisses you are supposed to bestow. In Paris the norm seems to be two. In certain Parisian suburbs however you are expected to give four (which must be time consuming when you have to take your leave of a party of ten people). In some regions three is the customary number. Many a time I have proffered my cheeks twice, only to find that I was expected to go two full rounds.
Marching in Blue & White?
Significantly trailing in the polls for the repeated Presidential election on December 26, the Ukrainian “establishment candidate” Victor Yanukovych, declared today that reports about his urging the use of violence are wrong. According to the BBC –
Mr Yanukovych says he merely urged Mr Kuchma to restore order according to the constitution. ‘This information is false. There was no talk of bringing in troops,’ Mr Yanukovych said, according to the Interfax news agency. ‘It was about ensuring order properly and observing the Ukrainian constitution,’ he said.
Wideface.
… or maybe ‘black paint’? Acouple of days ago, my sister told me she had a topic I could write about on afoe. It had occured to her that all continental names, except Europe, start with an ‘a’, and she wondered why that might be the case. A quick check at wikipedia revealed that her statement is only correct when using a (although perhaps still the most common?) five-continents classification system and when referring to ‘Oceania’ as ‘Australia’. Moreover, there are a number of naming schemes for continents, which, while always featuring a majority of continent-names starting with an ‘A’, also consist of continents beginning with other letters – eg North, and South A-merica.
Despite the wikipedia-induced realization that any continental naming-scheme conspiracy theory was stillborn, I became interested in the etymology of continents, Europe in particular, only remembering that ‘Europa’ was a Phoenician princess Zeus kidnapped by transforming himself into a bull. But it took only a modest amount of further googling to find out that the left-leaning German newspaper taz had also, quite recently, been interested in the subject.
Continue reading
Happy End?
We mentioned on Tuesday that some analysts of Russian foreign policy had suggested President Putin’s harsh words about “veiled Western colonialism” were an imlicit concession that he would not get the “Ukraine-deal” with the West terms he had hoped for. Simlpy because there was nothing “the West” or any consituent parts thereof had to trade in this respect, even had they wanted to. It seems, those analysts were right: Reuters reports –
“Former Cold War foes NATO and Russia on Thursday played down weeks of tension over rigged presidential poll results in Ukraine and issued a joint call for free and fair elections at the end of the month.
…
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov repeated accusations of western meddling to deprive Yanukovich the office. But both Lavrov and NATO insisted there had been no confrontation and pointed to new cooperation pacts as a sign of good ties.”
News About The Rift.
David at Dialog International has an interesting review of a new book by Anrei S. Markovits, Karl W. Deutsch Collegiate Professor of Comparative Politics and German Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, The book is called “Amerika, Dich hasst sich’s besser” (America, it’s easier to hate you) and tries to give the popular recent Bush-related European “anti-americanism” (and anti-semitism) some historical context. Apparently, the core arguments of Mr Markovits’ book are available to English readers in this Harvard European Studies working paper.
Continue reading
Package Deals.
Earlier today, in slightly surprising move after days of gridlock, the Ukrainian Parliament finally approved a package deal of electoral reforms and constitutional changes in a 402-21 vote with 19 abstentions. President Kuchma immediately signed the compromise into law. In addition to the package elements already known, President Kuchma apparently agreed to dismiss the prosecutor general, while the parliament voted in favor of – apparently substancial – devolution measures to break the separatist/irredentist momentum in the East, and the opposition agreed to lift the blockade of government buildings at 6pm CET (via Le Sabot) – also – see Nick’s post below.
While Yuchenko must have come to the conclusion that, despite his recently aggressive rhetoric, a prolonged stand-off would weaken his position in the run-off more than a compromise about the future President’s powers, the Guardian reports that his camp’s support for the agreement is lukewarm at best.
It is unclear right nowto which extent the compromise has popular support – Some of those tired and freezing on the streets may be relieved, yet the IHT mentions that some protesters aren’t happy about the developments and still want to truly change Ukraine’s power structure.
But Yushenko ally Yulia Tymoshenko, the warrior Audrey profiled below, who once portrayed Mr Yushenko as “soft politician”, is unhappy with the compromise – her party accordingly voted against the measure -, speaking of a capitulation, and seems to be considering some kind of legal action against it. The Times Online quotes her saying “[t]his is a victory for Kuchma[, t]his vote helps reduce the powers of a president Yushchenko… [w]e could have won without it.”
In a related legal development, according to Radio Free Europe, ITAR-TASS and dpa report that Interpol temporarily removed the warrant for Yuliya Tymoshenko’s arrest from its official website (http://www.interpol.org) pending further information from the Russian authorities who accused her of bribing Russian military officials (while keeping one for her husband). Interfax reports that Russian prosecutors will keep up their charges against Mrs Tymoshenko.
I’m sure all this can also become part of a package deals.
Doctors DO NOT confirm poisoning!
UPDATE: This is getting stranger by the hour. According to the AP,
“the director of the Austrian hospital said the cause of the illness that left Yushchenko’s face pockmarked is still not known, rejecting a report that doctors had come to a conclusion that the presidential candidate was poisoned.
…
Zimpfer rejected as “entirely untrue” a story in Wednesday editions of the London daily, The Times, which quoted Dr. Nikolai Korpan — the Rudolfinerhaus physician who oversaw Yushchenko’s treatment — as saying that the candidate had been poisoned and the intention was to kill the candidate. Korpan also was quoted as denying making the remarks. “The suspicion of poisoning has until now neither been confirmed or excluded,” Korpan said, according to the Austria Press Agency. He could not be reached for further comment.
EARLIER REPORT: The Times Online reports (via Instapundit) –
Medical experts have confirmed that Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine’s opposition leader, was poisoned in an attempt on his life during election campaigning, the doctor who supervised his treatment at an Austrian clinic said yesterday.
The Warrior Audrey.
Yulia Tymoshenko2004 may be well the year of Ukraine’s warrior princesses. First, singer Ruslana managed to put Ukraine on Europe’s musical map by winning the Eurovision song contest with her Wild Dances in May, and now, in early December, it doesn’t seem unlikely that the other warrior princess, Yulia Tymoshenko, one of the most mysterious political figures in Ukraine, will become Prime Minister.
The Guardian’s Nick Paton Walsh claims that, “while for the time being she is proving a great and popular rebel leader, no one really knows what she stands for,” and, on Neeka’s Backlog, Veronica Khokhlova confirms The Economist’s warning (via The Independent) that, “though she may look like Audrey Hepburn, anyone who has got this far in a country where politics often resembles a Jacobean revenge tragedy must have an edge” by wrinting about Mrs Tymoshenko that
“she’s an awesome politician – full of dignity, full of class, soft yet has some very deadly poison hidden underneath, very convincing when she speaks, prepared wonderfully to any kinds of questions, be it about the opposition’s plans, her own finances or her alleged radicalism. She’s beautiful, too, but her looks are as much of an asset as they are not.
Spheres of Influence.
The Ukrainian parliament remained deadlocked today with respect to the issue of linking electoral rules and constitutional changes to limit the future President’s powers (Reuters), despite the alleged agreement in yesterday’s round-table talks.
Hoping to be able to avoid the constitutional curtailing of the future President’s powers, Yushchenko’s supporters insisted on two separate votes today. The Kyiv Post quotes Yulia Tymoshenko –
“We won’t vote for any package deals,”
In addition, President Kuchma declared that the Yushenko camp stalled the negotiations by insisting on the government’s dismissal, before making a half-hearted move in that direction. Reuters notes that he issued a decree on Tuesady appointing Finance Minister Mykola Azarov as acting premier, due to Mr Yanukovich’s “decision” to concentrate on campaigning for the run-off election. The Kyiv Post speculates this might be a move indicating Kuchma’s willingness negotiate the opposition’s demand to fire Mr Yanukovich, quoting Mikhail Pogrebinsky, an analyst with supposed close ties to the outgoing President.
“Kuchma … has been slowly taking a step back every day.”
Although the newspaper also notes that, despite increasing lack of political allies, there might be an unexpected legal obstacle to Mr Yanukovich’s removal: apparently Ukrainian law bans the dismissal of presidential candidates from their jobs.
While legal issues are certainly important, they aren’t the only locus of political power in Ukraine these days., in fact, not even the most important. The prosecutor general?s office might threaten Yushchenko with an investigation for treason with respect to his aggressive interview in the British Sunday Telegraph (Maidan), but how much weight does that carry in light of his supporters’ determination to eventually end the deadlock, on way or another (Kyiv Post)
“We have been peaceful so far, [but if Yushchenko wants to force Kuchma to concede defeat] we are ready.”
Meanwhile, the OSCE’s ministerial meeting in Bulgaria saw a clash of Russia and the US over Ukraine, and accordingly failed to even reach the consensus needed for a final declaration (despite reaching agreement on 20 specific, low-profile, proposals). In light of the events in Ukraine, Russia refused OSCE demands to honor pledges to withdraw its troops from Moldova and Georgia. Accordingly, Powell reiterated that the US would not ratify the 1999 treaty about mutually agreed reduction of conventional forces in Europe (CFE), until Russia withdraw its troops from Georgia and Moldova. (AFP)
The Russian foreign minister repeated the Russian dissatisfaction with the OSCE’s role as election monitor. He could not resist to mention the many irregularities in recent American elections, stating that the OSCE was guilty of a double standard.
Trying to put the row into perspective, speaking to AFP, Dmitry Trenin, deputy head of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace’s Moscow office, remarked that Putin
“ha[d] suffered a personal political setback in Ukraine and he is very angry … I do not think this can be a good thing for anybody.”
Mr Tremin interprets yesterday’s angry statement by Mr Putin as a veiled concession of defeat. He may have hoped to be able to reach an agreement with the West, particularly the United States, profoundly misjudging the West’s ability to trade anything in this matter. Mr Trmin blames the current Kremlin’s decision making structure that he claims is “restricted to a narrow circle” for much of the recent Russian lack of geopolitical realism. The Kyiv Post has more thoughts on this matter.
The FT notes that, despite growing concern with respect to Russia’s Democracy, Washington still believes Mr Putin had not yet crossed a red line, understanding – used to President Bush’s often blunt statemtents aimed at a domestic audience – that much of President Putin’s harsh words is not just informed by his personal disappointment and KGB-socialisation, but also by the need to keep Russian conservatives happy by restating their believes about American meddling in allegedly Russian affairs.