The EU Observer has the following:
The President of the European Commission has called for a French yes to the European Constitution, pointing out that there will not be a “plan B” if France rejects the treaty next week……….But Mr Barroso asserted there was no plan B in case the French rejected the treaty.
Continue reading
President Jacques Chirac said there will be no renegotiation of the proposed EU Constitution if French voters reject the treaty in their referendum on May 29.
‘There will obviously be no renegotiation,’ Chirac said at a joint press conference with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski in the eastern French city of Nancy.
‘There is no plan B possible,’ he added, since other EU members will refuse to open new talks on the treaty. ‘We will not renegotiate because we will have nobody to negotiate with.’
Source: Forbes
This is an updated version of an earlier post. I first retain the post as it was, then I have added some reflections in the light of comments received.
The Independent is running the following story:
“Germany is deporting tens of thousands of Roma refugees to Kosovo despite clear threats to their safety and dire warnings from human rights groups that they will face “massive discrimination” on arrival.
Continue reading
Comments are now working.
Reuters is reporting that Uzbek troops have now ‘retaken’ Kara-suu. Mosnews (citing the BBC) say the rebel leader Bakhtiyor Rakhimov has been arrested. Who Rakhimov is, and what he actually represents is far from clear.
Continue reading
The FT asks today (behind the dreaded ppv firewall I’m afraid) whether the current “Kapitalismus” debate in Germany may not represent something more than short-term electioneeering. Could a real shift in the SPD be actually taking place?
The most ignominious defeat of Gerhard Schr?der’s political career may be at hand. On Sunday, in the 12th regional election since Mr Schr?der, the chancellor, scraped back into national office in 2002, polls suggest that his Social Democratic party will be routed in North Rhine-Westphalia – Germany’s most populous state, the industrial heartland of the country’s postwar economic miracle and an SPD bastion for decades.
Defeat would not only turf the SPD out of regional government in the state for the first time since 1966 but would end the last ruling coalition of Social Democrats and Greens in any of Germany’s 16 regions, leaving the federal government in Berlin as the last “red-green” partnership in the country.
The central point is: where is all this leading? It is far from clear. There is a clear danger of electoral setbacks in Germany and a ‘no’ in the French referendum producing an ‘anti-reform’ backlash, with growing protectionism as a backdrop.
This is no joke. The danger of a mutation of the virus is a real and present risk. The EU decision is a prudent and intelligent one.
The European Union will on Friday take another step towards creating an early warning system to prevent, or at least to limit, an influenza pandemic by the launch of a new continent-wide monitoring system. Establishing a round- the-clock surveillance network to identify any European outbreaks will be the first task for the newly created European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which becomes operational in Solna, nearStockholm, on Friday.
Financial Times
If a fistful of euros aren’t quite enough for your daily needs, hop over to A Few Euros More.
A Few Euros More is having a trial run because the authors here wanted more, too. On the one hand, discussion about our posts is one of the best parts of the blog. Talking with our excellent readership, having people react to what we write is one of the most gratifying parts of writing here. On the other, discussion tends to taper off rapidly as a post slides down the page. So sometimes we are reluctant to post a short thought on a news item, or ineed short thoughts on almost anything, because we don’t want to push a good discussion further down the page. Which means we’ve been missing the chance to blog on different things.
Hence, A Few Euros More. It’s in the experimental stage, though it probably won’t stay in beta quite as long as Google products seem to. We’ll find out what we like, what our readers like, and adjust accordingly. Right now, it’s full of quick newsy thoughts just waiting for comments. Thoughts on the experiment itself can come here.
Update: One way reader/bloggers could help is by adding a link to A Few Euros More in your sidebar, and of course, if you like the idea, mentioning it on your blog.
Mc Masterchef posts his “final draft of a paper on European Muslims at Liberals against terrorism I wrote for my recently concluded class on Islamic Political Movements with Professor Husain Haqqani.” at Liberals against terrorism: Clash of Identities: Integration, Islamism, and the Question of Europe?s Muslims.
The great Brad Plumer summarizes and discusses a survey of a bunch of books on judicial systems around the world (the parts dealing wit hEurope.) A couple of days ago, he did the same for a Brookings report on The Rise of Europe’s Defense Industry.
This story from a week ago frightens me greatly. The lack of attention it has gotten is remarkable.
?Until recently we would find giant ?chimneys? in the sea where columns of cold, dense water were sinking from the surface to the seabed 3,000 metres below, but now they have almost disappeared,? he said.
?As the water sank it was replaced by warm water flowing in from the south, which kept the circulation going. If that mechanism is slowing, it will mean less heat reaching Europe.?
Such a change could have a severe impact on Britain, which lies on the same latitude as Siberia and ought to be much colder. The Gulf Stream transports 27,000 times more heat to British shores than all the nation?s power supplies could provide, warming Britain by 5-8C.
Obviously, Sweden would be hit even worse. But the consequences could be severe for the whole world.
Metro-Land links to this cover story for the January 1998 issue of The Atlantic Monthly tells why this is so scary, gives you other reasons to be frightened, and mentions possible ways to counteract a catastrophe. Fatalism is the wrong approach.
Also of interest is the recent articles from the New Yorker and the Wikipedia entry.