12/10 Gavin Hewitt| The Reporters

Gavin Hewitt| The Reporters         The un-European December 9, 2010 at 11:44 PM   As a student of American history, I was always intrigued by the House Committee on Un-American activities. The search for disloyalty. The taint of being a dissenter. The fear of subversives. The list of spies brandished by Joseph McCarthy, the Senator from Wisconsin. McCarthyism had its roots in the paranoid strain of American politics. I was reminded of this when I heard Jean-Claude Juncker, the Chairman of the Euro-Group, brand German thinking as un-European. His ire had been stirred by Berlin's quick rejection of his advocacy of euro-bonds. Now I am not suggesting for a moment that Mr Juncker is seeking to expose those he deems disloyal to the European project. His appeal, I suspect, was to "solidarity". But to be labelled un-European is not a light jab. The German paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, as quoted by the think-tank Open Europe, asked "is it European to bend the EU treaties and break the bail-out plan?" And that is the difficulty in assessing who is the good European. The longer the crisis in the eurozone defies solution the more deep-seated the tensions that emerge. The President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, recently opined that Euroscepticism led to war. Extreme nationalism, of course, has resulted in terrible European tragedies. But Euroscepticism? His comments came just days after David Cameron had declared himself a Eurosceptic in Brussels. On clarification, President van Rompuy was referring to those who were against the EU. The fact is there are different visions of what makes for a "good European". Helmut Schmidt, the former German Chancellor, recently scolded the Bundesbank for being opposed to European integration. At the same time he said it was a mistake for some of the peripheral countries to join the euro in 1999. It raises the interesting question as to whether those who pushed for the wider eurozone were the "good Europeans" or those who pointed out the risks of such different countries sharing monetary union. It is part of the culture of Brussels that people are labelled as either with the project or against it. More often it is just that people have different visions for Europe. But, as I say, these various comments reflect anxiety and tension. All of this was in the Brussels buzz on the day when Greenpeace and Avaaz handed in a petition signed by over a million people under the new citizen's initiative. One of the reforms embedded in the Lisbon treaty was to close the "democratic deficit" by enabling citizens to collect over one million signatures and so exercise the right to put forward initiatives. Avaaz and Greenpeace had collected the signatures to back a halt to genetically-modified crops until safety testing is made thorough, independent and scientific. The legislative process for the citizens' initiative has not yet been finalised and this particular petition may well fail but there is a wider issue at stake here. This act of direct democracy must be treated seriously, according to the Greens. Avaaz Executive Director Ricken Patel said: "This is a massive step for European Democracy. The rapid response shows that citizens are excited to engage with this new democratic instrument to re-insert a democratic voice into EU policy." Of course one million signatures does not guarantee the Commission will change its mind. But this will be an interesting area to watch. Will these initiatives influence thinking? Consulting the people does not have a happy history in the EU. Negative votes on the Lisbon Treaty were side-stepped. Referendum is a dirty word for many officials; a process that at all costs must be avoided. But the period of the citizens' initiative has arrived. All you need is a million signatures from across several states. Comissioner Dalli said: "I can assure you that there is a political will to listen to everybody and one million signatures is a voice that we should listen to." Perhaps that will be one of the tests of being a good European.         Where now for the euro? December 8, 2010 at 6:05 PM   Another round of meetings concludes. The limousines carrying Europe's finance ministers head to Brussels airport. Only to return next week. No one believes the eurozone crisis has been fixed. Some band-aid is in place.That's all. The search is on for the holy grail - the formula that fixes the single currency and returns it to stability. The head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has attacked the current "piecemeal" approach. "The EU," he said, "needs a comprehensive solution to the debt crisis. It can't be done on a country-by-country basis." Yet the differences between members of the eurozone are real and cannot easily be smoothed away. Take the idea of a eurobond (E-bond). It is a suggestion that has been around before. Using an article in the Financial Times the chairman of the 16-nation Eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker, and the Italian Finance Minister, Giulio Tremonti, tried to engineer it onto the agenda. Not surprisingly the Portuguese came out as enthusiasts for the E-bond. "Europe's monetary union," said Portuguese Treasury Secretary Carlos Pina, "is missing solidarity mechanisms between countries and we consider that the mechanisms are insufficient ". It remains true that the weak and vulnerable like to appeal to "solidarity" while the strong are less persuaded. The Germans were quick to reject the E-bond. They saw it as a way of enabling debt-prone countries to avoid the judgement of the markets. Juergen Stark, a German board member of the European Central Bank (ECB), pointed out that "each country needs to be held responsible for its own debt". The German paper Bild ran a headline that said "EU wants to make euro soft". All of this has clearly irritated Mr Juncker. He said "Germany's thinking is a bit simple on this". He went on to say that the "proposal is being rejected before it has been studied". There were similar divisions over whether to increase the bail-out fund, the European Financial Stability Facility. The IMF - among others - believed a bigger pot would dispel fears that there wouldn't be enough resources to help Spain if it cried out for help. Interestingly, it was not just Germany who opposed adding to the fund. The Dutch, the Austrians and the Finns were all decidedly reluctant. Within those countries there is increasing opposition to supporting bail-outs. The mood is disturbing some in the Brussels hub. "I am worried," said Economy Commissioner Olli Rehn, "about the divergence in the public debates between the northern and southern countries". So where does this leave the euro crisis? The pressure will remain on Spain and Portugal to reduce their deficits. Eurozone ministers were quick to applaud Spain for increasing the retirement age, hiking the tobacco tax and selling a significant share in the state-owned lottery and in a couple of airports. Ministers hope the ECB will continue buying bonds, particularly if either Italy or Spain come under pressure. But this is seen as more of a "holding tactic" rather than a solution. There will be a further round of stress tests of the banks in February. There is always the hope that growth will gather pace and ease the pain, but many believe that 2011 will actually see growth slacken. None of these measures, of course, addresses how some of the weaker countries will bring down their debts. Austerity measures will surely dampen demand and will herald a tough decade of low growth and wage restraint. Greece almost certainly will be granted more time to pay back its loans. Even then it is hard to see where the growth will come from to significantly pare down its debts. That is why many observers believe that some restructuring of sovereign debt is inevitable. That move is not even countenanced by Europe's finance ministers, but the markets believe it will happen. The argument over the way forward will be had most keenly in Germany. Yesterday the former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt lashed out at the Bundesbank, which he called "reactionary" and opposed to European integration. He said Chancellor Angela Merkel was "not acting very cleverly". But Helmut Schmidt comes from a generation when it was much more accepted that the German and European interest were entwined. A debate is under way in Germany over how to stabilise the single currency, but at heart this has become an examination of what an increasingly confident Germany wants from Europe.         What the cables tell us about Europe December 6, 2010 at 4:52 PM   All that gathering. All that note-taking. Hundreds of thousands of cables arriving electronically in Foggy Bottom in Washington. On the surface the Wikileaks revelations are the stuff of asides at diplomatic receptions. President Sarkozy has a "thin-skinned and authoritative style". Chancellor Merkel is "risk-averse". David Cameron is seen as "lacking depth". Prime Minister Berlusconi is regarded as "vain". As for Vladimir Putin, well he's the "alpha dog". The United States has always attached great importance to understanding leaders. The CIA employed for many years - and probably still does - a team of psychiatrists whose job it was to analyse the inner lives of men like Cuba's Fidel Castro and former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. They wanted every detail about what they ate, who they loved, about the state of their health. It was a question of "know your enemy". Even with friends, Americans have an insatiable appetite to know. More often than not what is delivered are snap judgements that diplomats, politicians and journalists make all the time. Whether it was right to publish is a separate question. We often have no way of knowing the context in which these notes were made. Some flesh out character. But contained within these diplomatic sketches are serious issues, and in Europe there could still be fall-out from these revelations. The Americans clearly see Angela Merkel as by far the most important leader in Europe. There has not been a German leader as powerful and influential probably since World War II. Yet the cables don't warm to her. They find her "risk-averse and rarely creative". She is the "ultimate Teflon politician", who seems to avoid bad news sticking to her. Less flatteringly, one cable says that she "promotes incompetent people to make her look better". She is "circumspect" and "unimaginative". Certainly her style is to move cautiously, as was revealed at the start of the eurozone crisis, when she hesitated over whether to abandon the EU's "no bail-out" commitment and help Greece. When cornered, the American diplomats say, she can be tenacious. The eurozone crisis has revealed her taking a tough line but retreating under pressure. But step-by-step she is moulding Europe to the German way, where countries have to live within their means or face severe consequences. Apart from the fact that the chief of staff in her foreign minister's office was passing information to the Americans she, on this viewing, will not be unhappy with what has been revealed so far. An early judgement going back to 2005 is that Nicolas Sarkozy is pro-American. He is "very much unlike nearly all other French political figures, Sarkozy is viscerally pro-American," reads one cable. There is a revealing passage where Sarkozy talks about himself to a diplomat. "They call me Sarkozy the American," he said. "They consider it an insult but I take it as a compliment." The cable goes on to say that "Sarkozy said how much he 'recognised himself' in America's values". But for that, the Americans are wary. "Just being in the same room with Sarkozy is enough to make anyone's stress levels rise." He is described as autocratic, over-sensitive to criticism and surrounds himself with "yes" men. He is an emperor without clothes. It is not a damning assessment, but these portraits will feed into the minds of the voters when they decide whether or not to re-elect Sarkozy in 2012. The American assessment of Italy's Silvio Berlusconi is more serious. On the one hand a charge d'affaires notes that he has a "penchant for partying hard (which) means he does not get sufficient rest". They see him as "physically and politically weak". He is seen as " feckless, vain and ineffective". But there is much more here than a pencil-sketch of another leader. The ambassador to Rome, Ronald Spogli, reports two years ago that Berlusconi has taken "single-handed" control of Italy's dealings with Moscow. He is described as the "mouthpiece of Putin". The Putin family is reported to be "spending long visits at the Berlusconi mansion in Sardinia at Berlusconi's expense". The two men are seen as "tycoon oligarchs". The Italian leader is portrayed as championing every Russian initiative. He consistently "rejects the advice of a demoralised, resource-starved and increasingly irrelevant foreign ministry, in favour of his business cronies". And then a suspicion. A US diplomat wonders whether Berlusconi was "personally and handsomely" profiting from from energy deals with Moscow. These are serious issues and come at a dangerous time for the Italian leader. Next week he faces a vote of confidence. The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, tried to soften the damage by describing him as "the best friend of America", but the cables are out there. If he has to resign it won't be because of the cables, but Italians will feel a pang of embarrassment at how outsiders see their leader. Then there is a meeting between a US ambassador and Herman Van Rompuy, just after he has been appointed President of the EU Council. Van Rompuy says the Europeans have all but given up on the Afghanistan mission. He says the EU no longer believes in success in Afghanistan and that troops are there "out of deference to the US". "No one believes in Afghanistan anymore," he continues. And the he adds that "if a Belgian gets killed, it would be over for Belgium". It is hard to know the full context of this conversation, but it raises disturbing questions: the implication that servicemen and women are giving their lives for a political gesture; that troops are being deployed on a mission no one believes in; that a nation might cut and run after a single casualty. Herman Van Rompuy was dismissive of the current climate change conference in Cancun. "It would be a disaster as well (as Copenhagen)," he predicted. His concerns about Copenhagen were less about what had been achieved for the planet but more that Europe had been "totally excluded" and "mistreated". "Had I been there," he continued, "my presidency would have been over before it began". The EU leadership does not like large multi-national conferences but would prefer a world where the EU and US reach an understanding and then talk to the Chinese. What this brief cable underlines is the determination in Brussels to promote Europe as a player on the world stage. Van Rompuy told the ambassador that he "planned to take control of getting Europe on the same page". And, of course, that won't be easy. Why? Well, the answer lies in the other cables that reveal Europe's leaders as big personalities who very much follow their own agendas.             This email was sent to asad.ali2.mirjat@blogger.com. Delivered by Feed My Inbox PO Box 682532 Franklin, TN 37068 Account Login Unsubscribe Here