Here’s the link to the EU Energy green paper I mentioned yesterday. As is to be expected, the report is ‘fair and balanced’. The section on nuclear energy focuses mainly on the sovereign decision making process as to its adoption and emphasises the role of Brussels in ensuring environmental safety. It does, however, contain this intriguing paragraph:
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Tag Archives: EU
All’s Well That Ends Well?
So the long-running Russia-Ukraine gas crisis is finally over. It was only the day before yesterday that it got going wasn’t it? The Ukraine will pay Russia an agreed price of $230 per 1,000 cubic metres. More interesting is what is in the fine print:
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Human Victim Of Bird Flu In Turkey?
Well, as we say in Spain: one hot one and one cold one. Last Friday I posted about how Turkey may well be making progress in modernising its legal system thanks to EU pressure. Today the worry is that the information system in Turkey may well still be extremely deficient. This is highlighted by the death of Muhammet Ali Kocyigit and the fact that three more of his siblings were admitted to hospital with symptoms which sound suspiciously similar to flu.
News.com.au suggests that Muhammet died of flu, but the Turkish Health Ministry is at pains to assert that even if the cause of death is to date unknown, it wasn’t avian flu. Let’s just hope they’re levelling with us!
Running On Half Gas
The big news today I suppose is that Ukraine has just received a mid-winter present: someone turned off the gas. The issue here seems to be not the what but the how. Ukraine has been receiving gas at incredibly subsidised rates from Russia, and there is no good reason why this should continue indefinitely. But for those of us who are worried that Russia – as a wanabee rogue state – could present possibly the most important future threat to EU stability, the way this has been done is surely far from re-assuring.
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Something Seems To Be Working
According to the Turkish news agency Hürriet Turkish Deputy prime Minister and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul spoke last night to the NTV news channel regarding:
“the recent wave of legal battles being held against Turkish intellectuals and a senior member of the European Parliament. Gul criticized the actions that were being taken under the controversial article of the country’s new penal code and said, “There seems to be a chain of systematic complaints. There appears to be a mentality deliberately aiming to create chaos.”
The FT quotes Mr Gul as saying:
“There may need to be a new law. As a government we’re watching closely how the existing laws are being implemented.â€
The law in question is the one which makes it an offence to insult “Turkishnessâ€. This law has been highlighted recently by the Orhan Pamuk case and now by the strange threat to prosecute Joost Lagendijk, a Dutch member of the European parliament, for suggesting the Turkish army provoked Kurdish rebels in the hope of extending its influence. Interestingly enough Joost Lagendijk supports Turkish membership of the EU. State prosecutors are reportedly studying the complaint against Lagendjik.
Now I have to say that not of this surprises me. Turkey is a society in transition. Fortunately the transition is from a bad equilibrium to a batter one, and we in the EU are doing our bit. I feel that Gul’s statement confounds the fears of the sceptics. In this case EU pressure will be rigourous, and change will be far reaching, but the process will, obviously, have its ups and downs.
So I was really surprised to read in the FT:
“Turkey knows that gaining entry to the EU will become an increasingly arduous task in the coming years, because of widespread antipathy inside the 25-member club towards future enlargement. “
No! Turkey gaining entry to the EU will be an arduous task because it is good for Turkey and good for the EU that it be so. If some people are using their ‘enlargement fatigue’ as an excuse for trying to make things more difficult, then they are the ones who will end up even more fatigued (and frustrated) as time after time Turkey complies with their demands.
This could be another example of shooting-yourself-in the-footism as in complying with the demands Turkey will become an increasingly modern and economically competitive society, which means, of course, that when it does join in 2014 it will, as the largest member state, have even more influence :).
This Sounds A Bit Pie In The Sky
I have just read this (don’t miss the photo):
Constitution, enlargement and budget: Austria hopes to revive Europe with these themes and infuse it with “energy and confidence” when it takes over the rotating presidency of the European Union on January 1
Am I reading this aright, he says, scratching the dust from his sleep-ridden eyes. Aren’t the constitution, enlargement and the budget three themes which are absolutely guaranteed not to inspire enthusiasm just at the moment (unfortunately)?
As usual the FT takes me back to the hard world of reality:
Austria intends to make the fight against fraud in value added tax a cornerstone of its European Union presidency, in an effort to end billions of euros of losses in annual revenues at a time of stretched national budgets.
Ah, yes, this sounds much more like it.
Merkelmania
As Emmanuel rightly noted, “the other big winner of the (EU) summit is of course Angela Merkel”. As he also goes on to note, “the Süddeutsche Zeitung may be overdoing it with a “the Angela-summit†title, but Merkel has emerged, somewhat unexpectedly considering her lack of experience at the European level….”.
Well, it seems that the snowball-effect is working apace. The EU observer informs us today that “German chancellor Angela Merkel has been crowned the queen of the EU budget by the press”, and in another article asks whether our Angela might not in fact become the saviour of the EU constitution.
My reaction to all this is “now just hold on a minute”. Angela Merkel has just been elected to the head of a pretty complicated coalition government in a country which has some hard problems to solve and some difficult decisions to take. My guess is holding all of that together is going to be occupying a lot of Angela Merkel’s energy and attention by the time we get through to 2007, and discussion of her future role in dynamising EU institutions is, to say the least, rather premature. I don’t know if any of our German based readers have any observations to make about this?
A new hope?
Many thanks to David for offering me a chance to raise my profile just before the second edition of the Satin Pajama Awards with a two-weeks guest-blogging stint here at AFOE.
For the 99% of you who don’t already know me, I usually display my limited knowledge of economics and politics at my own blog Ceteris Paribus and also, though not that often since a certain fateful 29th of May, at the group blog Publius. Oh, and I’m also French, which explains my awful English style and may or may not be a good reason to disregard my analysis about European matters.
Anyway, enough about me, since the quite unexpected European budget deal of last night offers plenty of things to write about.
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A Big Problem?
Just a brief query: Can anyone think of the last time one of the big four countries in the EU — Germany, France, Britain, Italy — had a successful presidency of the Union?
It looks like the UK’s turn at the top will end without a budget agreement, which is fine for Blair’s domestic politics, but not so good for running the 25-country EU. Italy’s last run was marred by an initial spat between Berlusconi’s government and the European Parliament and never really got back into gear. Germany’s last presidency, back in ’99, featured the resignation of the Commission, the resignation of Germany’s finance minister and the war in Kosovo. The French presidency in 2000 ended with the summit in Nice, one of the least productive EU summits in memory. (EU mandarins from Central Europe still haven’t forgotten how Chirac gratuitously slighted them at Nice, setting the tone for his approach to enlargement.)
Breakthroughs seem to come during the presidencies of smaller countries. In recent years, think Ireland and Denmark. In the interests of better governance, maybe the Union should ban big countries from holding the presidency?
Waiting With Baited Breath?
Will there or won’t there be an eleventh hour agreement on the new EU budget. Tony Blair is clearly burning the midnight oil, but the foreign ministers did not seem to be unduly impressed:
EU foreign ministers’ talks on the 2007-2013 budget ended after less than a minute on Monday (12 December), with the UK set to issue new proposals on Wednesday ahead of Thursday’s summit.
Britain is set today to publish revised proposals designed to broker a deal on a seven-year EU budget, with the new offer still expected to include heavy cuts to funding for eastern Europe. According to the FT:
Tony Blair, British prime minister, is expected to soften his proposals at the EU summit starting in Brussels on Thursday, including giving up more of the UK budget rebate and restoring some of the planned cuts in the new member states.
In pushing for a tighter EU budget for 2007-2013, the UK’s inital offer proposed cuts of almost 10 per cent in funding for eastern Europe in a total budget of €847bn ($1,000bn, £571bn).
Tony has also found a new argument, the cuts in Eastern Europe aren’t as bad as they seem, since these countries don’t know how to spend the money even when they get it (hmmmmm).
Britain claims there is little harm in reducing payments to poorer new members because they are already finding it difficult to spend the much smaller amounts they are being allocated in 2004-2006. But central Europeans say the British analysis is flawed because it looks at figures for this year, which give no indication of how well the billions of euros in structural funds will be spent.
Meantime, in a decision which is getting decidedly less coverage, French foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy may have pulled the plug on the enlargement process itself by refusing to approve official EU candidate member status for Macedonia. I’m not sure what this implies. Any comments from our experts out there?