Tag Archives: EU

Very Difficult Negotiations Lie Ahead

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This was Tony Blairs view, that ‘very difficult negotiations lie ahead’ on the EU budget. You bet they do. Just look at the list of proposals:

– a cut in the seven-year EU budget to roughly €850bn, or 1.03 per cent of the union’s GDP;
– Britain would give up part of its rebate: €6bn-€9bn is the working figure used by officials;
– cuts of “no more than 10 per cent” to the €160bn of EU aid earmarked for new members in eastern Europe;
– cuts of about €5bn to rural development aid;
– a review of all EU spending in 2009, including farm support.

Robin Hood Or The Sheriff of Nottingham?

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José Barroso, European Commission president, yesterday advised Tony Blair not to act like the Sheriff of Nottingham, taking from the poor to give to the rich. I don’t know whether Tony’s been taking his advice, but this decision seems significant, and seems to reflect a willingness to try and get a deal. I don’t know what will eventually happen to the badly needed reform of the CAP though.

UK prime minister Tony Blair has signalled London will agree to cut its rebate from the EU budget, without a link to common agricultural policy (CAP) reform but through excluding new member states from contributions to the “British cheque.”…

London had, until now, insisted that a complex reform of EU spending, mainly on farm subsidies, is needed if the UK is to give up the rebate, which was negotiated in 1984 by Margaret Thatcher.

However, with France unlikely to agree on any farm cuts at the December summit, UK officials have revealed they will offer to freeze the UK’s €5.6 billion annual rebate at something close to the current level.

The solution is similar to one which London rejected in June, but the proposed British rebate cuts are less severe.

Orange Market Status

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The European Union has agreed to accord Ukraine market economy status, a move that recognises Ukraine’s reform programme and will obviously mprove the trade relations with the 25 EU member nations.:

The agreement, which will help Ukraine’s steel producers gain access to European markets without being subjected to anti-dumping measures, was announced at a meeting in Kiev between Tony Blair, the British prime minister, Jose Manuel Barroso the European commission president, Viktor Yushchenko, president of Ukraine, and other EU and Ukrainian leaders.

EU Suspension?

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This was unexpected.

Franco Frattini, the European commissioner for justice and home affairs, warned that any countries found to be allowing the CIA to operate the detention centres – part of a global secret gulag used to hold al-Qa’ida suspects and other “ghost detainees” – could have its voting rights suspended.

I don’t think it’s going to happen, though it’ not wholly inconceivable. It probably should. In any event, cheers to Frattini for raising the issue.

….Henry Farrell comments.

Kurdish TV in Denmark

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One of the many reasons I continue to support the Turkish EU accession process is because I think it will be good for human rights and democracy in Turkey, and good for the Kurds. This latest spat between Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan and his Danish hosts, is simply another good example of this at work. The pressure is constantly on Turkey.

Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan boycotted a joint press conference with the Danish leader in protest at the presence of a Kurdish TV station on Tuesday (15 November), highlighting European values on free speech.

“There is a fundamental difference between Turkey and Denmark in matters of freedom of expression,” the Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said at the press conference his Turkish counterpart avoided.

The Turkish prime minister was visiting the Danish capital Copenhagen as the first stop in a tour around EU capitals to discuss the prospects of Turkey’s EU membership. Mr Erdogan stayed away from the press conference in protest at the presence of a journalist from the Danish-based TV channel Roj TV.

Turkey has repeatedly urged Denmark to close the channel, which sends news, entertainment, debate and children’s’ programs to Kurds in Denmark, arguing it is financed by the Kurdish rebel party, the PKK, which is on the EU’s list of terrorist organisations. Danish police are investigating the station, but have not found evidence of links to forbidden organisations so far.

Source: EU Observer

Are They Really Sure About This?

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According to the EU Observer this morning:

“The new German government plans to use its 2007 presidency of the EU to revive the ratification of the EU constitution, according to a coalition deal struck on Friday (11 November).”

“We pledge to continue the ratification of the European constitutional treaty after the first half of 2006 and to give new impulses to [the ratification] under the German presidency in the first half of 2007,” the deal reads.

I’ll believe it when I see it, but the unreality of all this really dopes make one want to ask questions about the viability of what’s in the rest of the agreement.

The Choke Point

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Well following my speculation yesterday that the suggested de-coupling of the UK rebate issue from agricultural reform might be connected to the implications of the Doha round, news is in today that France last night called for an emergency meeting of European Union ministers to discuss “growing concerns in Paris that Europe will concede too much ground in the Doha round of trade talks“. The FT quotes Mandelson as saying:

“We are rapidly approaching the choke point where the different pieces either fall together or fall apart”

Avian Flu

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It has been confirmed that the variant of avian flu found in Turkey is the H5N1 high pathogenic virus. Obviously on reading this one is caught between a feeling of panic and a desire to stay calm. Frankly the stay calm bit should win out, in all of us. Panic only makes things worse.

Clearly were some of the worst fears to be realised this would be a grave situation, but hopefully they won’t. One key point which needs to be made is that there still isn’t a H5N1 strain that is readily transmitted among humans, hopefully there won’t be, even if this may be hope against hope.

The WHO have an informative update on the Geographical spread of H5N1 avian influenza in birds. If you look at this report from the WHO on the situation in Indonesia (where three people have died) or in Vietnam (where 21 of the 64 cases proved fatal) you will see that even when the virus does cross species it is containable. So while the possibility of a pandemic exists we are not there yet, and possibly never will be. It’s quantifying the *possibly* part that is difficult. Basically I have put this post up in case any one else wants to voice an opinion. Clearly we at Afoe will try and monitor this situation from now on.

UPDATE (by Doug Merrill): Good sense from a biologist on what is likely to be helpful and what not can be found here.

Go West Young Man

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My preocupations about the impact of demographic change on German society are already pretty well known. Well if Germany as a whole has a sizeable problem, the former East German Lande have a huge one. The state-owned KfW development bank project in a report out today (German only unfortunately, an English version of the press release is here) that the while the population of the old West Germany will drop by six percent between 2002 and 2050, that of the six eastern states will decline by a whopping 25%. Not to mention the fact that those who remain are likely to be even older on average than their Western counterparts. As a consequence the available workforce is likely to fall by a staggering 55%.

The issues raised by this research are large and important. Is, for example, East Germany now in irreversible decline? Can this process repeat itself elsewhere (including between rather than within nation states) as younger, more highly skilled and more mobile workers leave ageing and relatively more depressed areas etc?

The issue of migration from East to West Germany been receiving attention for some time now. Frank Heiland in a survey “Trends in East-West German Migration from 1989 to 2002” (follow the link and go to Volume 11 article 7) argues that there have been two waves of East-West migration The first one, 1989-1990, was triggered by the opportunities and uncertainties before the Reunification; the second one, since 1997, coincides with economic stagnation in the East and improving job prospects in the West.
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