EU Tsunami Relief

Okay, Reuters isn't technically a blog (I'm sure they would be offended at the mere idea), but their "Factbox" section recently carried a list of donations to tsunami relief by country. You can read more about it here, but I'll excerpt some of the highlights below. This list is as of 29 December, so some of it may be outdated (Britain, for instance, has now pledged something in the neighborhood of 95 million dollars equivalent). If you know of a more timely and/or more comprehensive list of donations, email us.

AUSTRIA: Pledged 1 million euros ($1.4 million) in aid to the countries hit. BELGIUM: Military plane due to stop at Dubai to load most of its cargo -- UNICEF aid such as tents, vaccines.
BRITAIN: Pledged 15 million pounds ($28.9 million) to the devastated area and has sent plastic sheets and tents worth 250,000 pounds to Sri Lanka. Contributing 370,000 pounds to EU aid and $100,000 to World Health Organisation.
CZECH REPUBLIC: Sent planes to Sri Lanka and Thailand with drinking water and medicine, part of pledge of aid worth 10 million crowns ($446,000).
DENMARK: Increased aid pledge by maximum 85 million Danish crowns ($15.6 million) after spending almost all initial 10 million crowns pledged. Aid will cover immediate needs -- medical supplies, food, water, shelter -- and reconstruction. UNICEF flight from its Copenhagen depot taking 45 tonnes of supplies to the area, including oral rehydration salts and medical supplies for 150,000 people for three months.
EUROPEAN UNION: Ready to release up to 30 million euros on top of 3 million euros already allocated to IFRC.
FINLAND: Pledged 2.5 million euros spread among World Food Programme, UNICEF, WHO and IFRC. Local aid groups contributed further 75,000 euros. Finnish Red Cross has sent a field hospital with 15 staff to Sri Lanka and 31 aid workers to Thailand.
FRANCE: Foreign Minister Michel Barnier in Sri Lanka, then Thailand. Has earmarked 100,000 euros for relief, sent 16 rescuers to Thailand, 10 tonnes aid to Sri Lanka.
GERMANY: Doubling emergency aid to 2 million euros. Air force medical evacuation plane to set off for Phuket, two more planes chartered to take disaster relief teams, medicines and consular officials there. Germany's largest utility E.ON to donate 1 million euros.
GREECE: Sending C-130 transport aircraft carrying 25 rescue workers to Phuket on Thursday to help with rescue operations. Has sent plane to Sri Lanka carrying five tonnes of food and clothing, and offered 150,000 euros in aid to each of the two countries.
ITALY: Will send 2 Hercules aircraft, one to Sri Lanka, one to Thailand. JAPAN: Pledged $30 million in aid, sent three navy vessels to Thailand to help rescue survivors.
NETHERLANDS: Contributing 2 million euros to Red Cross-Red Crescent appeal, plus participating in EU aid programme.
NORWAY: Preliminary contribution of 50 million Norwegian crowns ($8.2 million) for emergency relief, including basic necessities, medicines, food, clean water and shelter.
POLAND: Earmarked 1 million zlotys ($336,000) for Polish NGOs involved in relief.
SPAIN: Sent aircraft to Sri Lanka with first aid, sanitary equipment and 19 volunteers, promised 1 million euros.
SWEDEN: Sent 2 communications specialists to help U.N. relief efforts in Sri Lanka. Sending tents and communications equipment to the Maldives. Swedish Red Cross to contribute $750,000 to IFRC appeal.

23 and Counting...

Lose the Delusion points out that the ratification of the EU Constitution is going rather less quickly than perhaps the folks in Brussels/Strasbourg might like. To date, only Lithuania and Hungary have stepped up to vote on (and pass) the ratification. Exciting days await us in 2005.

The Rabbit Beats the Bear

Flogging the Simian tells us about Romania's new president, Traian "The Rabbit" Basescu, who defeated Adrian "The Bear" Nastase in a run-off vote. An anti-corruption, pro-EU candidate who has (according to FtS) cried at press conferences as well as cracked jokes, he may be just what Romania needs to get it off the Warsaw Pact dime and move it into the 21st Century. Guess we'll see. Now . . . can he get the parliament to follow him?

Hey -- is that an orange tie he's wearing?

Necessity Being the Mother of Invention

I've resolved to occasionally post news from my current country of residence, Lithuania.

This one's a gem.

Helsinki and the Russophobes

No, it's not a new Swedish Europop band. It's actually a brewing (albeit minor) scuffle between those hotheaded Finns and their more reserved cousins to the East -- or do I have that backwards?

Finland for Thought and The Periscope have posts detailing this unlikely dustup between Russia and Helsinki. Apparently Mr. Yastrzhembski has turned his sights away from traditional targets (like the Baltics) and toward Finland, accusing it of being a "Russophobic" state in Europe. FfT wonders aloud why it should be that the Finns might have a problem with Mother Russia, while The Periscope points us to an article from Helsingin Sanomat that suggests the Finns might have brought it upon themselves.

Conflicted

Back on the 2nd of December I blogged back on my own site about the Guardian's apparent newsroom civil war about the Ukraine. (Es wohnen, ach, zwei Seelen in meiner Brust..) On one side we had the news section and the grand liberal hawks like Aaronovitch and Tim Garton Ash, on the other the conspiracy/nouveau marxist gabblers like John Laughland. Lacking consensus, I opined, the Grauniad had simply let both sets bloviate to their heart's content.

Today, the paper ran this leader, a rather strained effort to incorporate both factions. Almost exactly the first half of the story recognises that the regime are bastards enough to resort to assassination and that the Ukraine will be better off once the bums are kicked out. But then, half-way through the second par, there is a shuddering metallic clunk and bloviation mode is engaged.

"Yet with each seismic tremor in the post Soviet world - the fall of Slobodan Milosevic and of Eduard Shevardnadze in Georgia, and now Ukraine - Washington's presence has become sharper all over Russia's near abroad."

Don't let's be nasty to the old genocidaire, eh? But the piece de resistance is yet to come - the last paragraph declares that

"the question Washington should be asking is whether its new "muscular democracy" helps or hinders the long-term prospects of democrats in Eastern Europe. To what extent do the cold war veterans around Bush and the KGB veterans around Putin merely play into each other's hands?"

Now what the hell does this actually mean? We should refrain from supporting democrats in "Eastern Europe" (which is where exactly?) because it's better for them in the long run if they suffer a few more years? Frankly, who cares about either side's cold war veterans if life is better for those most concerned, those democrats in "Eastern Europe"? This is not good enough.

(Note - French accents removed due to incorrect rendering)

More Ukrainia...Link Craziness

Abdymok links to an interesting piece in Exile.ru which informs us that Donetsk (in Yanukovych territory) is a bona fide fascist city.

Le Sabot Post-Moderne links to a Kyiv (Kiev) Post article on Belarusian activists hoping for the best.

And Notes from Kiev points us to a piece in the Trans Atlantic Intelligencer discussing the Guardian's recent theory of Neo-Masonic Totalitarianism and the Ukranian election.

That should be enough to chew on for the moment. Enjoy and don't choke.

Eurobloggers Going Against the Grain

To be sure, there are plenty of Eurocentric, Brussels-worshipping blogs out there supporting the Euro line. But Tech Central Station just published a piece I wrote about a group of Eurobloggers that are challenging the current European conventional wisdom. If nothing else, I hope it stimulates discussion.

A Little Nostalgia

Thanks to Petr at The Daily Czech for a little nostalgia. You see, I lived in Bratislava a number of years back and fondly remember many things. The bridge a/k/a the Novy Most (New Bridge) was not one of them. Frankly, the thing's an architectural eyesore and goes with the Baroque old town like a fart in church. Word on the street (at least when I was living there) was that it was actually built in the late 60s after the government razed the entire old Jewish Quarter of Bratislava.

When I was there I went to the top -- once, mind you -- to see what I could see. What I saw, besides a decent view of Petrzalka (the scary commie cereal-box apartments on the south side of the Danube), was a window into Pre-NATO, Pre-EU, Pre-Freedom Czechoslovakia. The mylar coating on the windows was peeling, the furniture and carpets didn't look like they had been updated since Dubcek, and the service was reminiscent of the halcyon days of communism -- desultory and slow. Plus I had to pay for the privilege of riding the elevator up and then pay to be overcharged for a drink.

So I'm glad to see it's under new ownership. Perhaps they can make it into a Czechoslovak theme park, sort of a "Bad Old Days (With a View)." Or maybe they can make it into a chic restaurant that everyone can sit in and think about what a great thing it would have been if the communists hadn't destroyed so much of their heritage.

Anyway, it seems like something good should come from it. Vel'a stastia, my friends (good luck).

About That Row...

It isn't like me to step into a foodfight, but since my colleague Alex has opened the subject up to discussion not once but twice (and, since I am also apparently a "comically rightwing American") I thought I'd take this opportunity to both shamelessly promote my writing and also point out how incredibly inclusive we are here at the European Weblog Review.

Turns out, I actually wrote a piece which An Englishman's Castle might even agree with. In Global Politician not so long ago, I indicated that the 2nd Bush Administration could do far worse than leave as its legacy a simpler and fairer tax code. I used the examples of the new EU member states as an argument for pursuing the idea, which is incidentally taking hold in Britain. Notwithstanding the comments of my Yorkshire colleague, I see no reason to change that opinion. Let's take his arguments:

- The Heritage Foundation and Mitchell: Yes, they're conservative. Stop the presses.

- Malta and Cyprus' tax systems and the OECD blacklist: Should it surprise anyone that two developing nations have corruption problems? Shouldn't their entry to the EU be an opportunity to prove that they can reform themselves? And while we're talking about corruption, what about the French and the oil for food scandal recently? And is Britain without its share of corruption scandals (ahem, BLUNKETT)? Glass houses and all that...

- Glassman and Tech Central Station: If you read Glassman's latest piece on Dow 36,000, you'll note that his only regret is the title of the book. His point, that stocks are the best investment over time, has been proven over and over to be true. And thank goodness for that.

- Social security contributions and "New Europe": If you stop and think about it, there are two issues here -- (a) these states are coping with the legacy of communist social security promises and trying not to impoverish their people while maximizing their growth (and they're succeeding -- have you been to Tallinn or Vilnius recently?); and (b) in total Euros (or dollars or kroons or lita or whatever) they're still scraping to make sure their people have something when they get to retirement, so contributions will remain relatively higher until they catch up with the bloated social systems of Western Europe. Oh, and let's not forget that most of these states have actually lowered taxes -- except for the EU-imposed mandatory minimums -- since the introduction of their flat taxes.

We could go on and on about this, I'm sure. Anyone interested in disputing any of this can feel free to move over to the comments section of my personal blog, lest we continue to dilute what would otherwise be useful content in this blog.

As I said, though, isn't the spirit of open debate wonderful?

A Row!

An Englishman's Castle isn't happy about this post of mine regarding this post at EURSOC. (Christ, isn't hypertext long.) Now, my beef was that their contention that a flat income tax - an idea long cherished by comically rightwing Americans - was a "truly cross-Atlantic idea" was unrealistic, and that further this represented a British conservative tendency to hope that any new members in the EU would form a strategic block with the Tories to remake the union in their image. AEC accuses me of insufficient diligence, citing this Tech Central Station article. Now, I grant that Slovakia and the Baltics have (partial) flat taxes, but that ain't much of a strategic block. And AEC's crack about me being "the left wing Yorkshire Ranter" perhaps ought to be balanced by a mention of the TCS author:

Daniel J. Mitchell is a Senior Fellow in Political Economy at the Heritage Foundation and the author of The Flat Tax: Freedom, Fairness, Jobs, and Growth.

Freedom, fairness, jobs and growth? Well, at least they don't underrate their own abilities over at the - ah - right-wing Heritage Foundation. Those would be basically three out of the four main problems of politics, peace being the one not covered, and he seems to think he has them all taped. I also like the characterisation of the Maltese and Cypriot tax systems:

"so attractive that they were blacklisted as part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's anti-tax competition crusade."

I suppose another way of putting that would be "caught letting crooks launder dirty money". Mind you, if you read TCS I think you should consider your wealth at risk. Is this the last paper in the world that still believes the authors of Dow 36,000? They also claim to know who The Smartest Man in Europe is, and unfortunately he says things like this about US politics:

"The U.S. has grown soft. No politician can propose anything that involves sacrifice."

There's also an interesting point here, in the EU's invaluable publication Structures of Taxation in the European Union: those "new Europeans" with their whizzy pro-growth tax structures also lead Europe in - well - heavy social security contributions:

"The low share of direct taxes in the new Member States is counterbalanced by higher shares of social
contributions (+6.9% respect to EU-15) and indirect taxes (+4.1%). Regarding social contribution
the highest share can be found in the Czech Republic (42.4%) Slovakia (41%) and in Poland (40.9%)
while EU-15 average is 31.9%. Lithuania, Malta and Slovenia have the highest share of indirect taxes."

Views of Ukraine: Russia, Baltics

First of all, welcome to visitors arriving via EURSOC. And thanks to EURSOC for the link.

Take a look at Siberian Light, which discusses Leonid Kuchma's retirement options.

Also see Baltic Blog, which reprints a poignant letter from a Ukranian student -- used to living in the fairly liberal Baltics -- returning to Kiev to participate in the demonstrations. An excerpt:

You feel yourself a guest of a biggest party ever, a member of a biggest club of trust, where people are united by the same conviction, are longing for freedom and just out of disgust and anger for the corrupted abusing, and forcing power. Now we are an orange nation and these are not just words. Ribbons, scarves, other elements of clothes, which represent this color, are in extreme fashion nowadays.

Addition to the Blogroll

Transitions Online runs a weblog, Transition Trends, which we've added to the blogroll. Here's their explanatory blub:

Transition Trends is a blog about building democracies. It compares efforts in the post-Communist sphere with similar changes in the wider Middle East and beyond. It aims to be a running how-to guide—and a how-not-to guide—for promoting democracy, bringing together democratization’s practitioners and policy makers, many of whom, like its anonymous author, now work across all these areas and back and forth between them at intervals.

One of their recent posts carried a quote from the always forthright if not always diplomatic Richard Holbrooke regarding the increasing likelihood that Yushchenko will be president of Ukraine -- "Why is it that Putin seems to be the only one who doesn't get it?"

The Other Democracy Deficit

Neeka's Backlog has some excellent discussion of the ongoing situation in Ukraine, but one of her recent posts, ironically about language and translation, reminds us that Ukraine isn't the only country with a democracy deficit in Eastern Europe. Belarus's Aleksandr Lukashenka continues to be one of the baddest of the bad, arguably the last holdout in the European authoritarian club. Read more from Neeka here.