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by Jerome a Paris
Fri May 20th, 2011 at 04:34:51 PM EST
For exploration of this new version of the site
by DoDo
Thu Dec 23rd, 2010 at 03:32:30 AM EST
As discussed in Green and Oriental Berlin, the latest round of xenophobia in Germany stood under the slogan "integration": this time, certain self-anointed experts and politicians identified a general unwillingness of immigrants (in particular "Muslim" ones) to integrate into German society. This reached the stage when chancellor Angela Merkel herself declared that "the multiculturalism attempt failed, absolutely failed!" (see Tolerance is dead).
Any sociologist or pollster who conducted actual studies into the state of integration, or anyone who read of the results could tell that of course there are problems with integration which need solving, but they come nowhere near a general problem, much less Germany's most pressing problem, not to mention existential threat to the country (as in the title of the book of a now former Bundesbank board member).
However, the media acts surprised every time an actual study comes around and contradicts the latest common wisdom of the chattering classes. Like now, after Frankfurter Rundschau brought an advance report about a poll on social attitudes conducted by the conservative(!) Bertelsmann Foundation -- finding that residents of Germany with an immigrant background have actually a greater tendency to liberal attitudes than those with native background only...
by Magnifico
Tue Dec 21st, 2010 at 08:08:26 AM EST
A casual and rambling survey of wintery news from across Europe for the month of December 2010.
RadioFree Europe: Europe Battles On Through Winter Onslaught
Northern Europe continues to battle against ice and snow, which have disrupting road, rail, and air traffic. In Poland, where temperatures have fallen to as low as -33 degree Celsius, authorities say 12 people froze to death overnight, bringing the country's overall death toll caused by harsh weather in the past three days to at least 30. Many of the victims were homeless people.
 Heavy snowfall in the Old Town in Gdansk, Poland. (Reuters) |
frontpaged with minor edit - Nomad
by Migeru
Mon Dec 20th, 2010 at 09:11:46 AM EST
Melanchthon pointed out to me the following op-ed by a Franco-German team of European Greens appearing last Saturday in Le Monde. (A German version, under the title Time for a True Economic Union, appeared in the Süddeutsche Zeitung and in Sven Giegold's blog)
| Il faut mutualiser les dettes - LeMonde.fr | | Debts must be mutualised - LeMonde.fr | | Pour sortir de la crise actuelle, nous proposons quatre mesures. Premièrement, la création d'obligations européennes selon les modalités avancées récemment par Jean-Claude Juncker, président de l'Eurogroupe. Les détenteurs d'une partie de nos dettes nationales se verraient remettre une obligation européenne en échange de leurs bons du Trésor. Comme pour les bons du Trésor américain, ces euro-obligations bénéficieraient d'un taux d'intérêt très bas puisque le risque de défaut associé à l'ensemble de la zone euro, et non à un seul pays, est nul. | | To get out of the current crisis, we propose four measures. Firstly, the creation of European obligations according to the models advanced recently by Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the Eurogroup. The holders of a part of our national debts would be given a European obligation in exchange for their [Member State] Treasury bonds. As with US Treasury bonds, these Euro-obligations would benefit from a very low rate of interest as the default risk associated to the whole of the Euro zone, and not to a single country, is zero. |
Earlier ET coverage of the Euro-Greens' positions on the Euro crisis:
by afew
Mon Dec 20th, 2010 at 07:36:59 AM EST
The IMF last Friday brought out a country report on Ireland. In fact it's a report from the "in the field" (as they say at the IMF) team that was in Dublin to save Ireland from a fate worse than death.
It's a hundred pages long, and I haven't read all of it. But a couple of things stand out, or at least are being commented on, by FAZ for example. Ireland will have a job facing up to its commitments, and the government's growth forecasts are over-optimistic. Unsurprisingly, austerity does not, erm, feed growth. From page 12 of the IMF report:
Subdued inflation, below the euro-area average, will help competitiveness but act as a short-term drag on the recovery. Staff and the authorities agree that with substantial spare capacity in the economy and modest external price pressures, inflation rates are expected to be low over the coming years. However, with a continued contraction in consumer spending in 2011, staff projects a further fall in consumer prices of ½ percent. The authorities noted that exchange rate movements and energy price increase would prevent further price falls in 2011. Wage incomes fell on an annual basis by 2½ percent in the first half of 2010, and, looking ahead, are expected to increase more slowly than prices in the medium term, generating a real wage adjustment.
Up to and including now, dear IMF friends (and "the authorities" ie Cowen's government), "subdued inflation" in Ireland is in fact deflation. And don't you just love the craven authorities' craven explanation for why deflation would stop, in spite of a considerable continued decline in real wages: energy prices will go up. "Staff" (that means the IMF team) aren't buying it and foresee further "subdued inflation" aka deflation. And come to the realisation that it will not "help" the recovery. But it will "help" competitiveness, which is what really matters. Nice little "real wage adjustment" there, that's in the right direction, isn't it? And in the long term...trickle trickle...
Before I delicately pick up my keyboard and chuck it at the screen: when do we get some "competitiveness" ie real income decline and higher productivity in the form of a lower ratio of mealy-mouthed euphemistic blather to dumb but toxic content, out of these people ie "staff" and "authorities"?
by Migeru
Mon Dec 20th, 2010 at 06:19:07 AM EST
Except in the European Union, of course...
Colman found this on A Fistfil of Euros today: Sunshine: at the IMF, of all places | afoe | A Fistful of Euros | European Opinion But is anyone at least trying to do something original with the standard toolkit? The DSGE model may be one of John Quiggin's zombies (buy now for Christmas and support Australian professors' lifestyles - what's not to love?), but zombies are notoriously resilient. DSGE stands for Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium, also known as hogwash. However, The answer on this occasion is yes, at least as far as Michael Kumhof and Romain Ranciére, go. In a new paper, they present a DSGE model with the following parameters: the top 5% of the income distribution value wealth more than everyone else, for whatever reason, and specifically, they want AAA-rated assets. Further, these are intermediated through the financial sector. Then, they run a simulation of the macro-economy assuming that there is a negative shock to the bargaining power of labour resulting in a shift in the income distribution. The simulation results were that the financial sector balloons in size, that total private debt in the economy expands hugely, and that credit acts as a substitute for rising average wages in the short run. Eventually, the model produced a massive financial crisis and a brutal recession, followed by a blow-out of the government budget. ... They also argue that the inequality-finance-lending transmission mechanism might also explain the global imbalances, with the emergence of a globalised rich elite driving the demand for AAA-rated assets, the growth of the financial sector, and the emergence of persistent large capital account surpluses and trade deficits. Kumhof and Rancière's is an IMF working paper. Sanity at last?
by Migeru
Sat Dec 18th, 2010 at 06:48:15 AM EST
European Commission: Green Paper on the future of VAT– Towards a simpler, more robust and efficient VAT system The Commission invites all interested parties to submit their contributions in response to the questions raised in the ‘Green Paper on the future of VAT– Towards a simpler, more robust and efficient VAT system’.
All stakeholders affected by this initiative – all citizens, organisations, businesses, public authorities, tax practitioners, tax experts and academics - are invited to provide their views on this matter That's us Period of consultation
From 01.12.2010 to 31.05.2011 That's now.
by afew
Fri Dec 17th, 2010 at 05:04:53 AM EST
Angela Merkel has come under attack for her anti-European attitudes - by Steinmeier and Steinbrück in the FT, and in the Bundestag:
FT.com / Europe - German MPs clash on future of eurozone German unwillingness to bolster the size of the €440bn eurozone stabilisation fund, or contemplate the issue of jointly-guaranteed eurozone bonds, was in danger of turning the European Central Bank into a “bad bank”, said Frank-Walter Steinmeier, parliamentary leader of the Social Democratic party, and former vice-chancellor. Jürgen Trittin, co-leader of the Green party in the German Bundestag, said the chancellor was regarded throughout the eurozone as a “Teutonic savings-monster” whose actions had aggravated the crisis. He accused her of “disorientation”, and being driven by fear of the popular press.
According to (German site) Eurointelligence this morning:
Germany is rising up against Merkel’s euroscepticism For the opposition to break with the chancellor on a European issue so massively, and so loudly, has potentially important implications for Merkel’s negotiating position in the European Council today and tomorrow. It is now clear that Merkel represents the German government, but that broader German opinion is more diverse than it seemed previously.
Update [2010-12-17 5:4:53 by afew]:
Well, no. Merkel remained as unmoving as ever. The European Council did next to nothing, see EUObserver and Euractiv.com reports.
Says Eurointelligence:
Merkel wins – slow motion train wreck can now proceed unhindered Complacency about the nature of this crisis was apparent again at last night’s press conference by Herman van Rompuy and Jose Manual Barroso. The European recipe against this crisis is structural reform, deficit reduction and low inflation, with a minimalist crisis resolution framework. They will pursue this strategy for as long as it takes. Anyone who hoped that the EU summit would do more than implement Angela Merkel’s bail-in mechanism would have been disappointed. Von Rompuy said the question of an extension of the EFSF’s ceiling and remit did not even come up during last night’s dinner.
by Colman
Thu Dec 16th, 2010 at 10:18:31 AM EST
The ECHR has decided that the current lack of an abortion law in Ireland breaches human rights and has to be changed:
The court unanimously ruled this morning that the rights of one of three women who took a case challenging Irish abortion laws were breached because she had no “effective or accessible procedure” to establish her right to a lawful abortion.
The woman – known only as “C” – had a rare form of cancer and feared it would relapse when she became unintentionally pregnant.
However, the woman was unable to find a doctor willing to make a determination as to whether her life would be at risk if she continued to term.
This morning, the court concluded that neither the “medical consultation nor litigation options” relied on by the Government constituted an effective or accessible procedures.
“Moreover, there was no explanation why the existing constitution right had not been implemented to date,” the court ruled.
(RTÉ)
There was a Supreme Court case here that decided that abortion was permitted in the case of the woman's life being at risk, and two referendums designed to restrict that decision failed. The government has failed to give legislative effect to that decision however, because they do not want to be seen legislating to allow for abortion in any case since it would offend their more reactionary constituents.
The timing of this is unfortunate: my headline is intentionally misleading, but is how this is going to be presented by the religious conservatives. Despite the fact that the ECHR is not an EU institution and that this decision is in no way related to the Lisbon Treaty, or any other EU treaty, this will be presented as a side effect of that vote and will be used to muddy the waters in the election, especially, I suspect by Fianna Fail. The electorate is volatile right now and it's possible that this could save a fair number of FFs marginal seats. Sinn Fein have a very unclear policy on abortion, which I get the impression they don't really want to clarify.
by Jerome a Paris
Wed Dec 15th, 2010 at 09:27:02 AM EST
Sigh.
Le Monde has a factually wrong frontpage headline today: "Bad suburbs: 43% of young men are unemployed." The fact (which is indeed newsworthy and depressing) is that the unemployment rate for young men in these suburbs is a rather high 43%.
But the unemployment rate is the ratio of unemployed men to the active population (ie those working or those looking for work) in that category and not the ratio of unemployed men to the total population in that category. Given that typically only 40% of the "young men" are in the active population in France (I don't have the number foe the suburbs) that would mean that the factually correct number in their headline should have been 20% or thereabouts. Still a newsworthy number, but not quite the same thing.
But it's still stunning to see such a basic factual mistake in a front page headline...
See also Soundbite Statistics: the Unemployment Rate
by ceebs
Tue Dec 14th, 2010 at 04:54:25 PM EST
| A Daily Review Of International Online Media |
Europeans on this date in history:1947 - death of Arthur Machen, Welsh author and mystic (b. 1863) More here and here | The European Salon is a daily selection of news items to which you are invited to contribute. Post links to news stories that interest you, or just your comments. Come in and join us! |
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by Nomad
Tue Dec 14th, 2010 at 11:10:11 AM EST
by Nomad
Tue Dec 14th, 2010 at 05:37:19 AM EST
In Italy today, Berlusconi's political fate hangs in the balance because of (yet another) vote of confidence, in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. As outlined last time Berlusconi will first be vetted by the Senate, where he still holds a slim majority, and it is expected he will survive there.
The clincher, however, will lie with the vote in the Chamber of Deputies, where Berlusconi could stand or fall by the presence or absence of three heavily pregnant MPs. It still is possible that Berlusconi will have the numbers to survive another round and take his victory. The BBC points out that, even if Berlusconi loses, President Napolitano could in potential ask him again to reform a new coalition. And if elections were to occur, Berlusconi could still get back to his throne by an electoral win.
Update 11:32 CET: As expected, Berlusconi won his vote of confidence in the Senate. Tthe vote in the Chamber of Deputies is scheduled for the afternoon. (source)
Update 15:45 CET: And he did it again: Berlusconi keeps his throne with a 314 - 311 confidence vote in the Chamber of Deputies. (source)
by Nomad
Mon Dec 13th, 2010 at 06:39:15 PM EST
| A Daily Review Of International Online Media |
Europa on this date in history:1287 - The occurrence of St. Lucia's flood, a storm tide killing approximately 50,000 to 80,000 people in the fifth largest flood in recorded history, and creating the Zuiderzee.
More here and here. 
| The European Salon is a daily selection of news items to which you are invited to contribute. Post links to news stories that interest you, or just your comments. Come in and join us! |
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by afew
Mon Dec 13th, 2010 at 11:58:03 AM EST
by danps
Mon Dec 13th, 2010 at 07:53:49 AM EST
The release of diplomatic cables by WikiLaeaks has provoked a strong reaction from the United States, but perhaps the most interesting part about them is what they reveal about an ally.
For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.
front-paged by afew
by afew
Mon Dec 13th, 2010 at 05:28:02 AM EST
A petition launched by Avaaz and Greenpeace calling for a moratorium on GM crops within the EU reached a million signatures.
EUobserver / EU receives anti-GMO petition amid raging legal battle EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Environmental groups Greenpeace and Avaaz have handed the European Commission a petition with the signatures of over one million EU citizens, calling for a ban on GMO crops until a new scientific body is set up to assess their impact. Behind the scenes however, a battle is raging over the document's eligibility under the EU's new citizens' initiative procedure (ECI).
Barroso wouldn't receive it, shifting it off to the Health Commissioner.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso refused to receive the document on Thursday (9 December), sending the EU's health commissioner John Dalli instead. Mr Dalli welcomed the petition, but warned that the ECI had not been fully set up yet, drawing a question mark over the anti-GMO document.
"We have agreed to receive the petition today but at this point I can't commit on action taken by the commission," said Mr Dalli.
Greenpeace Europe chief Jorgo Riss said the commission could ill afford to ignore the document, born out of the commission's decision in March to grant the first EU GM cultivation approval in 12 years for the 'Amflora' potato.
by dvx
Sun Dec 12th, 2010 at 04:06:52 PM EST
| A Daily Review Of International Online Media |
Space on this date in history:1972 - Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt begin the third and final Extra-vehicular activity (EVA) or "Moonwalk" of Apollo 17. This is the last manned mission to the moon of the 20th century. More here and here.
| The European Salon is a daily selection of news items to which you are invited to contribute. Post links to news stories that interest you, or just your comments. Come in and join us! |
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by In Wales
Sun Dec 12th, 2010 at 10:45:22 AM EST
For one day only
by afew
Sat Dec 11th, 2010 at 04:07:40 PM EST
| A Daily Review Of International Online Media |
Europe on this date in history:1582 - adoption of the Gregorian Calendar meant that this date (and several others) did not occur in France. 
More here | The European Salon is a daily selection of news items to which you are invited to contribute. Post links to news stories that interest you, or just your comments. Come in and join us! |
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