Dare we hope?

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Bad news for the old crook.

Through his family-controlled Fininvest empire, Berlusconi runs Mediaset, by far the biggest commercial TV broadcaster in Italy. His empire also runs the biggest national advertiser, the biggest publisher and much else. Given Italy’s long tradition of political interference with public sector broadcasting, this means that when he has been prime minister he has wielded influence over almost everything watched by Italians on TV, from news programmes to adverts.

But on January 31 the European Court of Justice made a first dent in Italy’s unusually concentrated media market when it ruled that the national broadcasting system failed to foster competition. In essence, the court recognised what anyone who has lived in Italy (I did so for five years) knows: the present system is a stitch-up between Mediaset and Rai, the state-controlled broadcaster.

This was an important moment because it reminded Italians that, even if they cannot fix what is wrong in Italy, Europe can sometimes do it for them. Since Berlusconi entered politics in 1993-94, turning his media dominance into a serious national issue, Italy has had two spells of centre-left government – 1996-2001 and May 2006 to the present day. In neither spell did the centre-left succeed in passing laws to reform the media sector or curb politicans’ conflicts of interest.

One can speculate as to the reasons why. In the late 1990s, it was perhaps because former premier Massimo D’Alema was too clever by half and Berlusconi outmanoeuvred him. More recently, Prodi’s government was probably too weak and divided to pass such laws – though it had promised it would.

In any event, the spotlight will now move to Brussels. Buoyed by recent victories such as the landmark Microsoft case, the EU competition authorities have never felt stronger when it comes to taking on corporate power. At some point in Berlusconi’s future premiership (assuming he wins the election), it is a safe bet that a test case challenging his media dominance will under the scrutiny of Brussels.

The credibility of the EU as a regulator with worldwide influence will be on the line. But so, too will the reputation of the multi-billionaire Berlusconi. It will be some spectacle.

Eurovision: The White City in the distance

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Eurovision is in Belgrade this year. Beo Grad, the white city of Serbia! Where the Danube meets, you know, some other river!

Pretty cool, no? It will be the first Eurovision in the former Yugoslavia. (Yes, there was a Eurovision in Yugoslavia in 1989. But it wasn’t former then. Doesn’t count.) Continue reading →

Why you shouldn’t care about Nagorno-Karabakh (and why you might one day have to)

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A while back I started a series on “frozen conflicts” in the former USSR. The first two (on Transnistria) can be found here and here. I was planning to do them in order from least bad to worst (which would put South Ossetia next) but decided to jump ahead a bit to Nagorno-Karabakh.

What the heck is Nagorno-Karabakh, anyway?

Briefly: it’s a small, mountainous territory in the Caucasus, about the size of a small US state or a large British county. Until the USSR collapsed, it was part of Azerbaijan. But the population was mostly Armenians. So there was a vicious little war in the early 1990s, which the rest of the world pretty much ignored.

The Azeris lost, so today Nagorno is almost entirely Armenian. It claims to be an independent country, but nobody recognizes it.
Continue reading →

Your Sclerotic European Economy

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Is doomed to be overtaken by the tech-fuelled surgeosity of US vitality, right?

Well, perhaps. Where would you decide to put a factory for the mass-production of Li-Ion batteries, the key technology in getting oil out of cars? California? China? Brazil? Try France: that’s what Johnson Controls is doing. Or how about launching 150kg satellites into LEO within the hour?

The Bear Blows First

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Last week, the EU peacekeeping force for Chad/the Central African Republic/and anywhere else in the general mess left of Darfur looked all set; after the French government offered to pony up more troops, and specifically enough Transall cargo planes and Puma support helicopters to assure the force’s mobility, the EU foreign ministers signed off the deal. It was settled that a multinational HQ at Mont-Valerien outside Paris, headed by an Irish general, would command the operation, with a French land force commander on the scene; the first-flights were due to arrive on Thursday and Friday, bringing an advanced guard of Irish Rangers and various logistic elements.

However, it seems Chad’s rebels have adopted the bear principle. Remember the man who tried to give the powder to the bear, said Winston Churchill; he rolled it up in a piece of paper, pointed it down the bear’s nose…but the bear blew first. The initial airlift was held on the ground, as a column of rebels appeared at the gates of N’Djamena; instead the French army brought in 150 more troops from their base in Gabon. The rebels, who raided the city last spring and were beaten off with the help of French aircraft are reported to be fighting towards the presidential palace. As Secret Defense (my new favourite blog) points out at the link, it’s in the nature of desert warfare that enemies can appear suddenly almost anywhere, especially when the modern ship of the desert is the Toyota Land Cruiser.

The French troops evacuated 400 or so nationals to Gabon, but the million-dollar question is whether they will support Idriss Deby in trying to stay in power; French forces have been doing precisely that ever since 1986 under Operation EPERVIER. Apparently Deby refused the offer of a Dassault Falcon lift into exile and is fighting it out; the head of the Chadian army was reported to have been killed in action, which argues that this is pretty serious business. For what it’s worth, Bernard Kouchner says France is neutral in this conflict, but we support legality and the powers-that-be.

Pretty clearly, part of the point was to act before EUFOR deployed across the route from the border to the city; the questions are now whether EUFOR will ever move – after all, will there be any peace to keep? – and whether its French elements move to save France’s man in Chad. This only points up the ambiguity in the entire mission; protecting the civilian population and supporting the African Union in Darfur are goals that are easily merged with saving Idriss Deby’s skin and TotalFinaElf’s interests. As Daniel Davies so wisely said, unless you can make it rain as much as it used to, you probably aren’t going to solve Darfur’s problems.

Serbia votes; what happens next?

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Serbia votes tomorrow. Some observers are casting this as a choice between Good (the EU) and Evil (wicked nationalism). Eh, not really. From the point of view of most Serbian voters, it’s more like a choice between “Not so great, stumbling along, more of the same” and “What the hell, this sucks, let’s try something different”.

This is not to say that electing Nikolic would be without consequences. It would be seen abroad as a thumb in the eye of the EU and a return to old-fashioned xenophobic nationalism (even if it isn’t, at least for most Serb voters). It would stop Serbia’s progress towards EU candidacy dead for at least the next year or two. Unless Nikolic starts barking at the moon — and I don’t think he will; if he wins the election, he’ll internalize the lesson that “acting moderate is good” — I doubt foreign investment will suffer much. That said, there will be a lot of people thinking a Radical President equals a return to the good old days of the 1990s. Nikolic would have to fend those people off, because any hint of a return to the cronyocracy of the Milosevic years will cause investors to run away fast. Continue reading →

Serbia: Kostunica would prefer not to

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With three days to go before Serbia’s Presidential runoff, Prime Minister Kostunica has announced that he won’t endorse either candidate.

This is a boost to Radical Tomislav Nikolic — in the final Presidential debate last night, he thanked Kostunica for not taking a side — and a rather large slap in the face to incumbent Boris Tadic. Kostunica’s party is in coalition with Tadic’s; and when the coalition agreed to make Kostunica PM last year, part of the deal was that he’d support Tadic’s re-election. I haven’t yet been able to find what justification Kostunica is giving for reneging (or whether he’s given any at all) — if anyone knows, I’d be interested to hear.

As to why Kostunica did it… well, he hates Tadic. He endorsed him last time, but only grudgingly and at the last minute. This time I guess he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Continue reading →

Albania’s quiet President

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You don’t hear much about Albania’s President, Bamir Topi.

That’s probably a good thing. Topi was a partisan politician — he was the #2 leader of current Prime Minister Sali Berisha’s Democratic Party. But since he’s been elected, he’s acted like a national and mostly nonpartisan figure.

In this, he’s followed the lead of his predecessor, Alfred Moisiu. Moisiu, an elderly former general, had been a compromise candidate for the Presidency. To everyone’s surprise he turned out to be very good — dignified, moderate, and nonpartisan, personally honest, but capable of being very sharp when Albanian officals and politicians were being blatantly dishonest or incompetent. When Moisiu finished his five-year term last summer, there was a broad movement to draft him for a second term. (He refused. He’s nearly 80, and being President of Albania is no sinecure.) Albania hasn’t produced a lot of thoughtful, diligent and more or less honest politicians yet, so having two in a row in the Presidency is good fortune. Continue reading →