Odd, But Interesting

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Gregg Easterbrook of the New Republic writes:

MOSCOW LOST THE COLD WAR, BUT DREAMS OF WINNING THE GLOBAL WARMING WAR: Why won’t Russia ratify the Kyoto Treaty? It would seem very much in Moscow’s interest to do so.

The United States has dropped out of Kyoto negotiations, but most other Western nations remain in. Russia now holds the swing vote on whether Kyoto goes into effect for most Western nations except the United States. If Kyoto actually did take effect, requiring most Western nations to make dramatic reductions in greenhouse gases, Europe would inevitably end up involved in “carbon trading” with Moscow. The European Union would invest in modernization of Russian industry, in order to reduce Russian greenhouse-gas emissions; then Europe would buy the reduction credits so created. The European Union also would reduce its use of greenhouse-offender coal, substituting lower-carbon natural gas from Russia. Thus it seems Moscow and its industries would come out a winner under a Kyoto regime. Yet the Duma has been resisting ratification of Kyoto for two years, and yesterday, Vladimir Putin said he is also opposed.

Possible reason for Russian resistance–Moscow wants global warming! Much of the world might suffer, but the freezing former Soviet states might be better off. The agricultural region of Russia might expand significantly, while Siberia became reasonably habitable. If Siberia and other ice regions became reasonably habitable, global warming would effectively be expanding Russian territory by climate change, not war. And what government doesn’t want more territory?

Sidelight: Why does Germany favor the Kyoto Treaty? Not so much for greenhouse reasons but so that Berlin can shut down the country’s subsidized, politically powerful coal-mining industry. German leaders have wanted for decades to cut subsidies for coal production–even the presumably pro-labor current government wants this–because coal mined in Germany costs more than twice the world price, mainly owing to featherbedded work rules. Every move to reign in the German coal industry has been greeted by public howls. But if Berlin could blame a coal shut-down on an international obligation, and polls show the Kyoto accord is very popular among Germans, the equation would change.

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The sidelight is even odder and even more interesting. Hmm.

Quiz time

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Bored? Think you’re an expert on EU matters? Then try the BBC’s Brussels Brainbuster quiz. OK, it’s just 10 multiple choice questions, not really a true brainbuster, but it should fill a minute or two of your time. You can even share your results with everyone else in the comments section – especially if you beat my rather pathetic 7/10 and want to gloat.

Berlusconi’s Road to Damascus?

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The Italian unions are threatening to strike against pension reform, while Berlusconi says government plans to reform Italy’s expensive welfare system are “necessary, fair and wise” (Silvio ‘el savio’?). The Unions say: “There is no pensions emergency. The government…is dramatizing the pensions problem. It doesn’t correspond to reality,” while Corriere della Sera finds a new Berlusconi, one who is a ‘reformed’ character who “For the first time…..turned his back on the miraculous optimism and creative economic recipes of the last two years and smiling persuasively,……tried to reassure people, to win more of their trust”. Meantime one Bank of America economist is reported as saying that “the reform is very weak. They should have gone for something much stronger but that’s more to do with internal opposition rather than the union threat”.

So where are we, is the pension reform question simply an excuse to have a battle with the unions, or is there a real problem in Italy? My own feeling is the latter. In a way I find myself agreeing with Pedro Solbes (which is why, pragmatically I would prefer him not to resign over the Eurostat scandal, although ethically I think he probably should). We have focussed too much on the question of the 3% limit on the decifit, and not enough on the level of the debt (Italy’s debt is currently over 100% of GDP). Even with this small reform Italy’s financies still look very precarious. But cutting pensions, as we can see, is not popular. So which is it? Can Europe reform itself and face up to its demographic reality, or are we going to have to go for ‘fiscal trainwreck’ US style? Do our politicians have more in common with the US ones than we like to imagine?

Libert?, Egalit?, Fraternit?. And, of course, Credibilit

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It might not be the obvious comparison, but Scott’s ponderings about the state of transatlantic breast relations and the state of French feminism made me remember another Franco-analogy that recently crossed my mind: I believe the current relationship between many countries, certainly in Old Europe, and the US of A has a lot in common with the relationship between the Third Estate (aka “the people”) and Louis XVI in the time immediately preceding July 14th 1789, the date usually considered to mark the beginning of the French Revolution. And no, I am not attempting to compliment President Bush for his fashion sense…

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Sturm, Drang and Laetitia Casta’s breasts – or – Why France bashing is a feminist issue

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[Nota Bene: Due to the deeply inane nature of JavaScript, clicking the “continue reading” link may not display images linked to posts. It doesn’t work for me in Mozilla or IE. If you click on the permalink, you will see all the content.]

Reader Christophe Kotowski sends a link to today’s International Herald-Tribune (a.k.a. The New York Times in Paris), in which New York Times reporter Nina Bernstein offers an solution to my earlier confusion about American policy towards France and Germany:

Meet Mr. Germany and Ms. France

It was on display again last week, that old double standard. On camera, Germany’s chancellor got a muscular handshake from America’s president and a meeting that let bygones be bygones. France’s president got the official cold shoulder and columnists’ heated denunciations.

Yet France and Germany had taken the same position on the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq. Both were offering to help train Iraqi security forces, but not to send soldiers. Both argued that only accelerated Iraqi sovereignty and a larger UN role could secure peace.

Apparently, it sounded different in French. Somehow, to American ears, it always does. At this point in strained trans-Atlantic relations, an obvious explanation comes to mind: In the American imagination, France is a woman, and Germany is just another guy.

The French themselves depict La Belle France as a bare-breasted “Marianne” on the barricades. They export high fashion, cosmetics, fine food – delicacies traditionally linked to a woman’s pleasure. And French has always been Hollywood’s language of love.

Germany, meanwhile, is the Fatherland, its spike helmets retooled into the sleek insignia of cars like the Mercedes and the BMW. It also exports heavy machinery and strong beer – products associated with manliness. Notwithstanding Goethe, Schiller and Franka Potente, German is Hollywood’s language of war, barked to the beat of combat boots in half a century of movies.

Such images simply overpower facts that do not fit the picture – like decades of German pacifism and French militarism since World War II. So what if France was fighting in Vietnam, Algeria and elsewhere in Africa and deploying a force of 36,000 troops around the world, while Germans held peace vigils and invented Berlin’s Love Parade. For Americans, it seems, World War II permanently inoculated Germans against “the wimp factor” and branded the French indelibly as sissies. […]

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A Fistful of Analyses, or

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A shameless plug:

The Center for Applied Policy Research, a think tank attached to the University of Munich does good work on the nuts and bolts of a large number of EU issues. In particular, their Bertelsmann Group for Policy Research will be covering the IGC as thoroughly as it covered the Convention and the previous summits. Their analyses – usually also available in English – get into the inner workings of the machinery and tell who will benefit from, for example, adapting different forms of qualified majority voting in post-enlargement Unions of 25, 27 or more. Their staff advises the German government fairly regularly, so if you want to see where the main stream of German debate on EU is flowing, this is a good place to look.

Plus, they’re outside the Brussels beltway, and indeed outside the occasionally fevered atmosphere in most national capitals. The distance tends to lend a cool, analytical slant to their writing on the EU.

If you happen to read German, their main page follows key developments on constitutional reform, defense policy and enlargement closely. The summary of the convention, Mutige Einschnitte und verzagte Kompromisse – das institutionelle Reformpaket des EU-Konvents, is a good example.

(Full disclosure: Some years back, I worked full time for the Center’s Research Group on the Global Future, and I continue to write, edit and translate for them. Take a look, and form your own opinion.)

Thank God for government by our betters

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Via Crooked Timber and Mark Kleinman, I’ve just read this utterly stupid column from Forbes:

Europe’s Utopian Hangover

The EU is built on a fantasy–that men and women can do less and less work, have longer and longer holidays and retire at an earlier age, while having their income, in real terms, and their standard of living increase. And this miracle is to be brought about by the enlightened bureaucratic regulation of every aspect of life.

The EU is a French concept and is still largely run according to French ideas. And France is the archetypal EU country. If you have a regular job in France, your life is, in theory, lyrical. You work 35 hours a week. You generally get four weeks of holiday in August, plus a further three weeks throughout the year, in addition to 11 state holidays. Full medical care is provided, even in retirement. Retirement age varies, but it is now typically 55. Pensions may be two-thirds to three-quarters of a person’s salary at the time of retirement. […]

Americans should count their blessings, above all the supreme blessing of having an economy that is run by businessmen not bureaucrats, or that–under wise governance–runs itself.

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