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Polls indicate Estonians will vote yes to EU accession tomorrow.

In Sweden, “polls give widely differing indications as to the likely outcome of the referendum.”

The Economist has a pretty decent primer on our referendum. (Via Crooked Timber)

International Herald Tribune reported yesterday enlargement seems to be bad news for African farmers::

For France the prospect of support from Poland and Hungary is a welcome development.

For years French politicians have feared that the enlargement of the European Union would mean a dilution of French power and influence in Europe. But on the question of farm policy, enlargement could provide much-needed moral and political support.

It is a different story for groups that support a radical overhaul of the E43 billion, or $48 billion, program, for whom enlargement is a worrying prospect.

“The opportunity for reform was this summer,” said Sam Barratt of Oxfam, an aid organization that has been very critical of Europe’s farm policies. “And given the obstinacy that the French had then, when the Hungarians and the Poles join it’s going to make any reform even harder.” The number of farmers in the Union will increase by 50 percent with the admission of 10 new countries into the Union in May.

Blogs:

The indispenable Cosmocrat finds increasingly strong signs that the EU Constitution will be fundamentally re-examined by the Inter-Governmental Conference.

Gary Farber is back!

Stefan Geens blogs about The Wall Street Journal’s comments on Anna Lindh. He was pleasantly surprised, then quite unpleasantly surprised.

Juan Cole on Al-Qaeda’s new geostrategic masterplan

Sweden and the Euro – you decide

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With Sweden voting on whether to join the Euro tomorrow, it’s a good time to test the predictive knowledge of the readers of A Fistful of Euros. So, what do you think the result of the referendum will be? Give us your prediction in the comments box and we’ll announce th winner on Monday, along with a link to your website or blog, should you have one.

This Reuters article gives the latest polling figures, with both sides averaging around the mid-40s and the undecideds seemingly the key to victory.

My prediction? No, by 53%-47% though that’s based on nothing more than pure guesswork. What do you think?

What a day

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As you know, today is the second anniversary of the attack on the WTC, and the 30th anniversary of the coup in Chile.

To all victims of al-Qaida and all victims of Pinochet, to all the victims of terrorism and all victims of state terror, to all victims of war and all victims of political violence; we think of you today.

The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing But The Truth

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Today, the British government has once again been cleared by an Intelligence and Security Comittee (ISC) report [600kb, pdf] of the alligation to have deliberately “sexed up” a report on the state of the former Iraqi regime’s Weapons of Mass Destruction programme. Really? It has? Well, I guess that will depend on what your definition of “is” is…


On a philosophical level, there might be room for discussion regarding the inter-subjective differences of meaning between truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. For any practical purposes, there should not. Obviously, I am saying this against better knowledge: scores of people are making a living by creating precisely this kind of confusion, especially in politics.


Whatever really happened to Joint Intelligence Comittee’s Iraq Dossier – today’s report claims that its chairman, John Scarlett, assured the investigators


“… that he did not at any time feel under pressure, nor was he asked to include material that he did not believe ought to be included in the dossier…’ (page 31) –


has likely already fallen in the cracks between the different versions of truth mentioned above. Legally, the dossier might have been corect. But it was obviously slanted in a way that was supposed to increase the credibility of the government’s rather unpopular Iraq policy. By accident? Well, if it was really just an accident, some organisational changes in the British administration appear to be overdue. In this case the British government cannot avoid to explain such a severe administrational failure in all the detail available. No one on Whitehall can possibly believe they have the benefit of the doubt in this respect. Quite to the contrary – cleared or not, what is one supposed to make of the Comittee’s statement that the dossier’s


“… 45 minute claim, included four times, was always likely to attract attention because it was arresting detail that the public had not seen before. … The fact that it was assessed to refer to battlefield chemical and biological munitions and their movement on the battlefield, not to any other form of chemical or biological attack, should have been highlighted in the dossier. The omission of the context and the assessment allowed speculation as to its exact meaning. This was unhelpful to an understanding of the issue.? (page 43) –

– or that –

“Saddam was not considered a current or imminent threat to mainland UK, nor did the dossier say so. The first draft of the Prime Minister?s foreword contained the following sentence:
?The case I make is not that Saddam could launch a nuclear attack on London
or another part of the UK (He could not).?
This shows that the Government recognised that the nature of the threat that
Saddam posed was not directly to mainland UK. It was unfortunate that this point was removed from the published version of the foreword and not highlighted elsewhere.” (page 43, hightlighted by me)


Unfortunate, indeed. Neither this report nor the Hutton Inquiry are going to end the affair. The Blair government is facing a credibility crisis that spreads like metastasizing cancer. Maybe a quick surgical removal of Geoffrey Hoon, singled out in today’s report for explicitly not mentioning a part of the truth, will buy time. With the next election years away and still no opposition to speak of it is clearly to early to tell what the consequences will be for Labour. Tony Blair still has reason to hope that the cancer of mistrust has not yet spread too far in Britain.


But he will have to seriously change his government’s communication attitude. The British public might not know whether technical details in intelligence reports relate one or another category of weaponry. But it evidently has a very clear idea under which circumstances it should be willing to enter into a philosophical discussion about truth with its government. What might still be acceptable with respect to NHS-waiting lists is apparently not in order when it comes to sending soldiers to the desert.


And rightly so.

Some thoughts

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Scott said in comments to the Anna Lindh post: “They also claim that Sweden has a fairly high murder rate by European standards. Considering how often reports on this murder have evoked how safe Sweden is, and how politicians hardly need bodyguards, I found this claim very surprising.”

It turns out we’re at the EU average, but his comment did spawn these thoughts of mine:

Perhaps it wouldn’t be that surprising. The difference between crime frequency between the US and Sweden surely is huge, but I suspect the difference in how safe people feel is even greater. I know that crime was a much bigger election issue in for example France and other countries than in Sweden last year. It’s possible we have somewhat more crime than a some other countries, but feel a lot more safe and unconcerened than them.

An interesting thing I read is that residents of the poor immigrant suburbs of Stockholm felt much, much more unsafe than residents of neighbouring middle class neighbourhoods, to the point where it was seriously detrimental to their quality of life, even though the incidence of violent crimes was rougly similar.

People’s perceptions are (in this regard) more influenced by the media, by prejudice, and by the mood of the culture, than they are by actual facts.

As to not using bodyguards; we already had the Palme murder, and still it’s only the prime minister that always uses bodyguards. From what everyone tells me, most countries are different, I would guess that includes even ones without comparable experiences. It’s a cultural issue.

Partly it’s a question of our self-image and what I discussed above, but I believe it’s also because in some ways the political elites aren’t as far apart from the electorate as they are in many other countries. And what’s worth noting is that I’m not talking about the electorate’s attitude, but that of the politicians. To stop shopping in department stores and taking the train, etcetera, to stop living more or less like an ordinary middle class person, is an intolerable sacrifice for many Swedish politicians on the highest level. I’m only speculating here, but is that really as true of say French politicians?

This isn’t a minor thing, but a great strenghth of Swedish democracy, and that’s one reason why this is so horrible. On the other hand, again looking at the Palme case, maybe things will mostly stay the same after all.

Anna Lindh 1957-2003

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She passed away in the early morning.

The murderer is still not caught. They have the murder weapon though, so maybe this won’t be another giant screw-up like the Palme investigation.

Apparently they think it was premeditated. The murder may or may not have to do with politics, but the circumstances, especially using a knife rather than a gun, suggest to me a lone perpetrator, nothing organized.

Lindh was seen as an unusually talented foreign minister and politician. Apart from everything else, it’s a great loss for the Social Democrats. For all Swedes, I suppose.

Anna Lindh stabbed

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Anna Lindh, our foreign minister (and G?ran Persson’s heir apparent) was repeatedly stabbed this afternoon in a exclusive department store in Stockholm. She’s seriously wounded. The assailant is unknown and still at large.

Palme all over again. God…..

Update: According to the latest report, “Her condition was serious but not life-threatening, police spokeswoman Stina Wessling told AFP Wednesday.” Thank God.

Update 2: As far as political implications… It will have an effect on Sunday’s referendum insofar that all campaigning is supended for now. I’m sure it’ll boost the yes side to some degree, (she was a leading proponent, and the anti-establishment sentiment that has propelled the no side might be turned to its opposite) but probably only marginally, at least now that it appears she’ll survive.

Update 3:

I don’t really have any idea at all. Whatever.

The UK as number one

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Since the 1960s Germany has had the largest economy in the EU but Nigel Griffiths, the UK trade minister, thinks all that might change :

“I think that construction and manufacturing alone as sectors could ensure that within 10 years we [the UK] overtake the German economy. We’ve got to see whether we cannot become the third biggest economy in the world* in terms of gross domestic product. I think that is feasible.”

Now before our British readers start singing ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ and waving their Union flags, an important point. He’s talking rubbish.
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