The European Weblog Review

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2007-01-25T16:57:00.000+02:00

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Belarus and Poland

2005-08-07T16:57:00.000+03:00

Some bloggers, though not in abundance probably due to the holiday time in Europe, react to this news. "A leader of an ethnic Polish group in Belarus has been jailed for 15 days for illegally meeting a visiting member of the Polish parliament."

"Is Aleksander Lukashenko so afraid of a tiny ethnic Polish minority that he has to lock them away for merely talking to someone from outside the country?" asks Siberian Light. "Absolutely absurd, and we should be glad that Russia has, so far, not descended to this kind of level."

Broke in Berlin compares Poland and Belarus border crossing to that of Finland and Russia. The difference is striking.

"Poor, poor Belarus," Broke in Berlin writes. "In my harder moments, I have little sympathy, thinking it's up to a nation to set its own fate, and the Belarusians have made their own mistakes, even if getting rid of the dictator is now no easy task (and many don't appear to want to, anyway)."

The beatroot, a journalist working in Warsaw, writes:

What really lies behind the dispute is that the president of Belarus, the Charlie Chaplinesque Alexander Lukashenko, has convinced himself that Poland is leading a campaign to get rid of him and his government, in the same way as what happened in Ukraine and Georgia.

Lukashenko believes that the ethnic Poles in his country are acting as some kind of vanguard in this process.

The beatroot agrees with the clownish Belarussian leader. Lukashenko might not be paranoid, but the CIA really is out to get him!

The Poles did play a major part in the so-called Orange Revolution in Ukraine.

He concludes with this: "So does Lukashenko have a point? Is Poland messing around with another nation's sovereignty? Is the US and EU behind the actions?

Is the Pope a Catholic?"

Robert over at Collission Commentary writes:

What bugs me really about this situation is that when Belarussian media accuse Poles of being imperialist agents Polish authorities prefer to stay wishy-washy. There was no serious reply to Lukashenko's insults. Moreover, our authorities don't want to take any counter-actions, both political and economic (like embargo or freezing EU aid for Belarus), because it'd harm Belarussian society and not its government. Well, they're damn right, but now they are doing nothing concrete totally (not counting asking EU for help). When US government introduced its embargos towards Poland in 1980s after the Martial Law, no one really cared about harming Polish society. And society was pissed, what helped to overthrow communist reign later on :>

Breaking Radio Silence

2005-07-07T23:49:00.000+03:00

EWR has been quiet for some time now, due largely to some other projects we've been working on. In light of the terrible events of today, however, I thought it only right that we point readers to the UK Weblog Aggregator, which has been providing useful up-to-date citizen journalism on the terror attacks in London. I know I speak for all peace-loving people when I say that our thoughts are with Londoners tonight.

Barroso Bummer

2005-04-24T08:43:00.000+03:00

Just as U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is having ethics, umm, "issues" in Washington, EU Referendum Blog brings us word of similar troubles experienced by EC President Jose Manuel Barroso. Yachts and airports, it seems. In the end it probably won't end up causing Barroso the difficulties that DeLay is encountering, but it's probably not what the former needs right now.

Prime Minister Diaries

2005-04-10T17:14:00.000+03:00

As Britain prepares for its election, Labour has made the great leap forward in campaign terms and now features Tony Blair's Campaign Diary, which one supposes is designed to appear to be a non-blog blog, blogging being passe, as all good campaign managers know. An excerpt:

I'd be surprised if the press don't have a fair bit about me and Gordon tomorrow. But as the two of us put the argument about the holes in the Tories' spending plans, I could see a few pennies dropping around the place. The Tories think they can just vacate the field on the economy. They are mistaken. The debate launched today will be central to the outcome on May 5.

Not to be outdone, Guido Fawkes has 'located' Tony Blair's Real Campaign Diary. An excerpt:

Yesterday got buggered up first thing, some no-hoper defected to the LibDems, FT poll shows us 5% behind. Andrew Gowers can kiss his knighthood goodbye. Or does it mean he gets a knighthood? What was it Alan said? "If you want to win handsomely, we have to make it look like we're losing." Well, that's his excuse anyway.

And, as Guido notes, voters in Britain face a bitter choice.

(hat tip to Iain Murray)

Wallström's Blog, Revisited

2005-03-10T13:42:00.000+02:00

When EU Commissioner Margot Wallström's blog opened for business, I reviewed it on this site (the review can be found here). In the original review, I mentioned that the idea of "reviewing" a blog was problematic because a blog has a time parameter, developing progressively as it travels forward in time. When I reviewed it there was only one post on the blog, which rendered a little difficult to judge.

If statically reviewing a new blog is insufficient, this implies a couple of approaches - either a running commentary, a blog in itself devoted to covering that blog, which is an idea so infuriatingly postmodern that I don't want to even think about it, or a repeat review some time later.

So - how has the blog developed? My initial criticism was that it lacked meat - nothing much about policy, not much about personality either (although the snark directed at Jean-Claude Juncker's anecdotes was memorable). I compared this with the natty design of the blog, and in doing so I seem to have coined an unfortunate meme. I described it as "Martha Stewart blogging", which I now rather regret. Looking back, it seems to bear an unpleasantly misogynistic reading and to have enabled quite a lot of frankly unpleasant grunting. I'd like to place on record that I disassociate myself from this. Unfortunately, though, the criticism still stands if with reduced intensity. The content is still a tad anodyne, although it has developed more policy heft over time.

Mind you, anodyne is a general risk factor for blogging politicians; you can't really blog with the same force if the world press are going to hang it round your neck. Tom Watson's tireless Lib Dem bashing is an exception, possibly because only a limited constituency in his constituency seem to read it. It's doubtful in any case whether vituperation is a sufficient condition of good blogging. Certainly, chilli is required, but without the rest of the curry it's unpalatable and hardly nourishing.

Not that this has had any impact on users of the comment threads, though, which have descended into what can only be described as blatant trolling. They are occupied exclusively by a small group (around five) of hard-right British bloggers who spend their time pouring out abuse. Take this, from "John Archer", who politely declines to leave an email address or URL:"Margot: "And I will not cut off the critics! That would go against everything I believe in when it comes to the right of openness, free expression and debate. Well that's not very reassuring. I see that we critics are at the mercy of mere whim, yours in this case, for not being cut off. I can't put my finger on it, but I feel there's something not quite right about that. I onder what it is." So - *not* moderating the threads is evil and wrong. Perhaps John isn't aware that every blog comments service I know of provides the function to edit, delete and blacklist trolls and comment spammers and he really is outraged that anyone would contemplate such a thing. Or perhaps he is simply hunting for an excuse to bash? Whatever, he shows minimal respect for internet tradition.

The only form of responsibility for one's comments on the net comes in the form that people can answer back to you - providing no means of reply, in my view, is grounds for being considered a troll anyway. Below this, we have the following question already discussed on several other blogs:

"Here in the UK, our Labour politicians say that the European Constitution is only a 'tidying up excercise', while on the continent most politicians state categorically that it is the foundation of a Federal Europe. If one is right, then the other must be either lying or ignorant Where do you stand on this issue?"

Presumably the idea that different people might have different opinions - a key plank of democracy in my view - can be ruled out in advance. Again, this kind of "When did you stop beating your wife?" question is in my view trolling, as is the fact it's been spammed onto all threads. On the same thread - wildly disassociated from the topic - we have this little beauty from "John Coles" (pleiades@dsl.pipex.com):

"You won't get a lot of transparency on this site. Instead you have the spectacle of an unelected apparatchik of the EU trying to justify her cossetted, boondoggle existence and the endless intrusion of Brussels' legislation into the daily lives of "europeans", whatever they are. She's away with the fairies, with no real experience of life and a capacity for thinking so limited that I would not wish it on my cat.
The only transparency here is the real and evident contempt for her maunderings posted by people with a mistrust of the EU and all it has come to represent which, sadly, this includes a rabid, instinctive anti-americanism."

We shall let the grammar pass, but where is the relevance of the assertion-only abuse to the topic? More, from anonymous "Sean":

"Margot, it is very brave of you to blog your feelings. At least you are making an attempt to communicate with the great European public - and for that you should be credited. But I'm afraid there is no getting around the fact that you represent an ELITIST, CORRUPT, AND UNELECTED POLITBURO, WHICH FOR SOME REASON EXERCISES ENORMOUS POWER OVER THE LIVES OF MILLIONS.

Why? Why do YOU have this power? Who voted for you? Who gave you this power? Were you elected? When was this election? Why do YOU, an unelected bureaucrat from a foreign country, have power over ME, a citizen of an entirely different country? When the citizens of the Lebanon and the Ukraine are marching for their democratic freedoms, here in Europe, the very home of democracy, we have the most undemocratic system in the Westerm world. Why is this? How has this come about? Why? When? Can someone, anyone, explain?"

Is this the best we can do? British Eurosceptics never tire of Calling For a Debate. We have been debating for years, and this is the level to which we have sunk - when it is offered, the response is a campaign of anonymous abuse. We have folk like Richard North, who recently topped his fictional EU air safety scare with an amusing article for the Sprout in which he argued that Eurocopter's success in getting the contract for the US Presidential helicopter fleet proved that European defence was doomed. That's right. Persuading the most nationalistic US administration ever to buy European helicopters for the president's own transport is a sign of failure. When your answer is the same whatever the facts, it's usually a sign of intellectual dishonesty. Can anyone guess what Dickie would have written, had they not got the contract? Isn't this simply ridiculous? And who is "Sean" anyway? Is he, by any chance, the same delighful character who produced this:

"Here are some words you might like to learn, Ms Wallstrom. 'Voter'. Try it. 'Voter'. It's quite easy. Here's how you spell it. V -O - T - E - R. Here's another one. DEMOCRACY. This is a thing, apparently unknown in the Commission, whereby those who govern are ELECTED by the PEOPLE. Interesting concepts, no? Here are some words I guess you know already. UNELECTED BUREAUCRACY. ARROGANT EXECUTIVE. POINTLESS WASTE OF BLEEDING MONEY."

That little beauty, in a very similar style, comes from the pen of "kissingengland" - google, and you will find this is the title of a novel by one Sean Thomas, quite evidently the Sean we heard from before. Trolling under multiple identities, aren't they grown-up? Here's a sample:

"It is time, time. Now. Yes. She is so small and compact and yet she has all the necessary features. Shall I compare thee to a Sony Walkman, thou art more compact and more. She is his own Toshiba, his dinky little JVC, his sweet Aiwa."

Unsurprisingly that got him a Bad Sex Award, about which he boasted immoderately. For some strange reason, he doesn't like to leave the URL of his blog when he's trolling - perhaps so he can boast quietly to himself as here.

But then, if I ran lists of famous people I've met as blog posts I don't think I'd want to publicise myself. Nor, as it happens, if I'd written this:

"This startling perspective is shared by other Holocaust survivors. Esther Manning is a British Jew. She was living with relatives in Warsaw when the Nazis invaded Poland. For six months she was confined in the Jewish ghetto, then she was transferred to Dachau, near Munich. There she worked in the so-called Joy Division, the part of the concentration camp reserved as a brothel for German soldiers.

For three and a half years she was continually raped by SS officers, on a daily basis. Yet she still remembers her days in Dachau with a certain cheery fondness. 'Oh, it wasn't all doom and gloom, not by any means. I remember one day, when the German guards set an attack dog on a naked Latvian rabbi, we were all standing around watching this dog chew the rabbi, and then one of the sparkier inmates piped up and said: "That's what you get when you stint on the Winalot". It sounds awful, but we had to chuckle. Well you have to, haven't you?"

He follows that up with an appeal to free speech. Indeed. But there does seem to be a slight pattern emerging:

"An intriguing choice of words here. 'Mini-nodule'? 'Little known Cornish novelist'? I feel I have heard these phrases before somewhere. Perhaps during my last visit to the West Hollywood Residential Home for Football-Faced, Snaggle-Toothed, Metallica-Guitarist-Haired Kike Scriptwriters.

The final comment made by Anonymous appeared under the photo of me and Claire. Here is that comment:
'who is the cunt in the hat? Is this an out-take from a Joboxers video? Pathetic.'
Enough already. There's not a lot you can say to someone whose idea of a vivid and timely analogy is to compare something with a 'Joboxers video'. Actually, though, there is something you can say, and that something is:

Zyklon B! Zyklon B! Zyklon BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Link. Pretty rich complaining about anonymous comments, too. And there are the, ah, Hitler photos. And the kike.

Well, eh. Moving on, can anyone explain to me what Worstall is doing talking about us private sector oiks when he finds it impossible to lower himself to use the vernacular? Yes, you know what I'm talking about. "Ceterum censeo Unionem Europaeam esse delendam", which means as far as I know "Tim Worstall is too grand to write in English" or something of the sort. Oiks? Really? Ahem, rough working class Latinist oiks?

TCS Links to EWR

2005-03-08T21:59:00.000+02:00

Welcome, readers of Tech Central Station. Tim "Unio Europea Delenda Est." Worstall (see sidebar left) wrote an article for TCS recently which linked to Alex's (rather than Aleks's) discussion of Margot Wallstrom's blog, a rather fluffy and witless corner of the Blogosphere (but the pictures are great and the layout is... well, the pictures are great!).

To be fair, Ms. Wallstrom probably isn't the only politician-cum-blogger lightweight; she's just one of the most visible.

Kyrgyzstan

2005-03-06T03:30:00.000+02:00

Now I realize that the five-day protests in this Central Asian country may not have anything to do with blog reviews, or Europe. However, I think it's important enough to let others know. Hundreds of protestors took to streets and have been protesting for five straight days since the elections. BBC reports that a few hundred protesters have occupied the offices of the regional governor in Jalalabad in southern Kyrgyzstan.

While it may smell like the Orange Revolution of Ukraine, it is tough to predict where it will go. OSCE says the elections fell short of the OSCE standards. Kyrgyz official news agency Kabar reports that all government offices are now in the hands of the police. That same report denies BBC report that protestors took over the offices of the governor in that region.

For more information in the blogosphere, you can read Gateway Pundit, Publius Pundit blogs the 'democratic revolution'. Otherwise, it's pretty quiet.

Surprisingly quiet.

More on the elections, read here.

It is also interesting to note that according to Kabar the United States requested that aircraft AVAX be placed on a military base at Gansi in Kyrgyzstan. The government of Kyrgyzstan denied the request. Although I have read nothing about this particular piece in the Western media.

Thanks But No Thanks

2005-03-02T21:16:00.000+02:00

Via Siberian Light -- I can't imagine why [ahem, UKRAINE] Moldova isn't interested in Russian election observers.

And yet, oddly, they want the OSCE and the CoE to visit. Wonder if Moskva will get the hint...

What did YOU do for "Defender of the Fatherland" Day?

2005-02-24T21:21:00.000+02:00

Betcha missed it preparing for the Bratislava summit.

Hat tip to Siberian Light for passing on news of an intriguing Russia blog.

Scraps of Moscow provides an interesting photo essay of sorts about, well, several things. You could see it as a manifestation of how little has changed in Russia, you could take away the simmering discontent with Putin, or you could just marvel at the sheer weight of the metaphorical picture of the hammer & sickle reflected in the window of the Sbarro pizza restaurant. Take a look.

...And Now for Something Completely Different

2005-02-22T17:33:00.000+02:00

A pro-American demonstration in Germany? At least two bloggers, David Kaspar of David's Medienkritik and Stefan Herre of the German Politically Incorrect Blog, are planning a demo on the 23rd of February in Mainz, Germany. In classic neo-protestor (or would that be neocon-protestor?) style, both gents have kindly created .pdf posters to print out for purposes of welcoming Dubya to Deutschland (they look ever so similar, don't they?). Setting aside value judgements as to the political motivations and/or appropriateness of such a demonstration, one wonders whether all the assembled will arrive in one Volkswagen camper. And whether the buses have yet been rented for the counter-demonstration.

Somehow I suspect Joschka Fischer will not be protesting with David and Stefan.

Karl Kraus - The Zero Blogger?

2005-02-18T17:44:00.000+02:00

Via Der Schockwellenreiter, this story from Austrian public broadcasting asks whether the Viennese journalist and author Karl Kraus might have been the first blogger. The Schockwellenreiter holds that this is a stupid suggestion; I'm not sure. As the ORF story points out, Kraus's journal Die Fackel had the mission of opposing and analysing the flaws of the new mass media of his day. Kraus savaged the new mass press, the ravings of proto-fascist rabblerousers like Karl Lueger and Georg von Schoenerer, and the corruption of Austro-Hungarian politics.

But, as far as I am aware, he never ran pictures of his cat.

The Fundamental Principles

2005-02-18T16:56:00.000+02:00

An excellent Swiss blog has appeared, here, covering the European Constitution ratifications under the (rather long) title "The Fundamental Principles of the European Constitution". It provides solid and detailed regular coverage of the national ratification campaigns, wrapped in a rather impressive design. Mind you, rather like they said about Lynryd Skynyrd's three guitarists, having at least seven members of a team blog gives you a certain advantage. One of those advantages is that they seem to have at least one member who knows something about every member state, from Sweden's "virtual feminist party" to the exact details of the CGT/Force Ouvriére split and the ins and outs of Finnish integration with the EU.

Mind you, it could perhaps be accused of being a tad stodgy. Here be great, hulking slabs of facty text heavy with authority; if you like "shorters", blog flame wars, troll-bashing, catblogging and links to "amusing" flash games, this is not your place. If you don't believe me, check out the post consisting of a complete and untranslated transcript of a Spanish focus group that runs to at least nine screens of closely packed print. This is one time when I will forgive a blog for hiding content "below the fold", something I usually hate. Cleverly, either the army of bloggers who feed it or some nameless web bunny has rigged the site so that it drills down by nationality/language.

Technote: the engine is a French PHP/SQL blogtool called DotClear.

Foreign Dispatches

2005-02-06T20:48:00.000+02:00

To quote a film character, "allow myself to introduce...myself." Although my name has been on this site for quite some time, this is my first post. I mostly write for All About Latvia, a blog about, well, Latvia.
But for now, here's an interesting blog filled with Foreign Dispatches. Just because.

Just Because I Like the Verbiage

2005-01-27T22:25:00.000+02:00

"...hands down, the shrillest wail to emanate from the far Left this year. A we're-not-worthy caliber tour de force in intellectual sniveling..."

Check out the latest post from the Stockholm Spectator, Scandinavia's answer to Iberian Notes.

Viktor Victorious

2005-01-23T14:00:00.000+02:00

Viktor Yushchenko took office today, and I was trying my best to follow the ceremony on Ukranian TV. CNN had an atrocious simultaneous translation which finally caused me give up and flip over to the Ukranian channel where at least I could see things better even if I was understanding less. During the tedious introduction of all the foreign dignitaries, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski seemed (based on the spontaneous voice vote of applause and cheers) to be the most popular visitor.

Neeka's Backlog is not-quite-live blogging today's events, while Post Modern Clog promises pictures from the celebration later on tonight. Check them out.

Margot Wallstrom: Has a Blog

2005-01-17T15:16:00.000+02:00

European Commissioner for Institutional Relations and Communication, Margot Wallstrom of Sweden, has a blog! This being the European Weblog Review, I thought it wouldn't be such a bad idea to, ah, review it. First impression: well, it's rather pretty, with a tasteful marine colour scheme and a pic of the Commissioner looking bright-eyed and open to Europe's citizens. Aww. Terribly Swedish, you might say - IKEAish and inoffensive. Mind you, the blog content is a little awkwardly placed with half of it "below the fold", which means there's no sign of its presence as it doesn't scroll (perhaps that will improve with more content).

In case you're wondering what all this interior design blabber is about, there really isn't much else to talk about, as there is currently only one post. It concerns the tsunami, fado, and gaining weight over Christmas, and frankly it's so nice I fear I may start floating tealights in my toilet cistern. This is Martha Stewart blogging, and I don't think I like it. The zero blog would consist only of black text organised by chronology and linked to others, but it would have to be sharp and argumentative or it would not be a blog. At least not a good one.

Mind you, at least we have so far been spared Jean Claude Juncker's blog, which according to this would be a shocker:

"The 10th January – the first day at work in the new year – the whole Commission visited Luxembourg. The country now in the presidency of the European Union. Jean-Claude Junker is the chain-smoking, colourful Prime minister. One of the longest serving – or I even think THE longest serving Prime ministers in the European Union. It was interesting to know that he has never written a diary but instead he tells "inside stories" over and over again."

You Say Tomato, I say Slovakia

2005-01-12T21:34:00.000+02:00

It's been a long time since we recognized Glory of Carniola (a Slovene blog), but today's post is lovely. It features the Austrian Motor Service OAMTC mistaking Slovenia for Slovakia.

Now, it's not unheard of for Americans or Europeans, hundreds or thousands of kilometers away, to mistake the two countries -- but Austria? The country that has both Slovenia and Slovakia (or should I say Slowenien and Slowakei) as neighbors?

On the other hand, Vienna is the only place you'll see a sign directing you to Pressburg.

See the whole brouhaha here.

Minor Adjustment

2005-01-10T22:51:00.000+02:00

I thought it was time to change the masthead photo and design slightly, so I've removed the old header (which featured a picture of the Pyrenees) and replaced it with a photo I recently took in Tallinn, Estonia. Besides the obvious reason (variety), I thought the symbolism of using a new EU country's capital would be appropriate. Comments welcome.

Ukraine Update

2005-01-10T21:55:00.000+02:00

Now that the spotlight seems to have passed from Ukraine to Southeast Asia, perhaps some less frenzied thought can be applied to the country's current problems. Postmodern Clog provides regular updates.

Interestingly, notwithstanding the concerns of some (not least The Guardian), Viktor Yushchenko hasn't, at least by first impressions, turned out to be the sort of lap dog to the West that many feared he would be. Critics were fond of pointing out that his "Orange Revolution" was helped at least partly by the EU and the United States, and that his wife is an American citizen (or former?). Nevertheless, Yushchenko announced recently that withdrawing his country's troops from Iraq is a priority. Whatever his other beliefs, not the action of an imperialist stooge.

Pictures of Olomouc

2005-01-10T21:41:00.000+02:00

Petr Bokuvka of the Daily Czech has some excellent pictures of his hometown, Olomouc, Czech Republic (pron. Oh-low-mowts...I think). Although many people only think of the nicer parts of Prague when they think of the Czech Republic, this shows that there are other sections of the country that still have a way to go. Regardless of the political significance, the pictures are great. Check them out.

New Britblogs

2005-01-04T21:19:00.000+02:00

The European Weblog Review welcomes the following additions to the blogroll:

a European - who has lived in Sweden, France and Britain.
John Baker - a published author living in Britain. Also check out his author site.
Eurealist - a confirmed Eurosceptic, Ken Adams provides a fresh look at the EU from a British perspective.

EU Tsunami Relief

2004-12-31T10:44:00.000+02:00

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...

2004-12-22T21:57:00.000+02:00

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

2004-12-15T21:08:00.000+02:00

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

2004-12-13T21:35:00.000+02:00

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

This one's a gem.

Helsinki and the Russophobes

2004-12-13T20:56:00.000+02:00

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

2004-12-13T13:13:00.000+02:00

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

2004-12-12T21:18:00.000+02:00

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

2004-12-09T21:39:00.000+02:00

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

2004-12-08T21:08:00.000+02:00

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...

2004-12-07T21:34:00.000+02:00

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!

2004-12-07T13:59:00.000+02:00

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

2004-12-07T06:35:00.000+02:00

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

2004-12-05T22:30:00.000+02:00

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

2004-12-05T17:17:00.000+02:00

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.

More On Ukraine

2004-11-29T22:31:00.000+02:00

For more atmospherics on what's going on in Ukraine, check out Orange Ukraine (okay, they're clearly with Yushchenko, but at least we're honest about the bias, right?).

Also check out Maidan.org, an "internet hub for resistance to authoritarianism in Ukraine."

The "Other" East European Elections

2004-11-28T09:33:00.000+02:00

While we wait for the outcome of the elections in Ukraine, let's not forget that there are other elections going on next door -- Romania will elect a president this weekend. Flogging the Simian reviews the elections here. Corruption and the economy will feature prominently in this election, according to FtS's analysis. Best quote (Basescu speaking about Nastase):

"In December I'm going to beat Nastase like his mother should've beat him when he was a cheeky brat."

(More) Blogging the Revolution

2004-11-25T14:35:00.000+02:00

Since things seem to be heating up, I thought I'd go looking for some more Ukranian blogs to bring us news of how things are going. One English-language blog, Le Sabot Post-Moderne, passes along some relatively current information about developments in Kyiv. Among other posts, the author, Discoshaman, gives us this abridged version of how the election was stolen.

Neeka's Backlog (noted by Alex yesterday) gives some of the election's (fraudulent, per the OSCE) raw numbers here. Today's post tells us that the Crimean city of Bahcisaray may have recognized Yushchenko, significant in that the rest of the province seems to have gone for Yanukovych.

Notes from Kiev conveys some good atmospherics, noting wryly that the musicians performing at the opposition rally may never appear on Russian television again.

Obdymok tells us about some of the misinformation (disinformation?) that is flying around Kyiv:

The rumors have been shocking. One had Russian special forces hiding in the Presidential Administration premises on Bankova in Kyiv, with orders to start shooting if more than 50 opposition protestors breach the police cordon. Another had Russian troops congregating downtown, wearing Ukrainian uniforms. A third had planes full of Russian troops flying into local airports, ready to crush the opposition here in what political scientists call Russia’s “sphere of influence.”

Let us know if you hear of any other good blog coverage of the events in Ukraine.

Blogs in Revolt - the Ukraine

2004-11-24T13:46:00.000+02:00

Well, clearly you can't have a self-respecting revolution these days without blogs, and down in the Ukraine there's been some excellent bloggery. Several blogs have been operating in and around the demonstrators' tent city, offering reports and also pictures. For a good solid newsdump, though, AFOE has pretty much given over the whole blog to covering the situation. Neeka's Backlog is reporting on the spot, Blog de Connard has provided interesting photos from Kiev but has now Left the Building.

As the situation developed, Blogistan rapidly boosted its target-coverage. As far as general purpose blogs go, as well as AFOE, Victor the Ukrainian commenter at The Periscope has gone full bore on the story, monitoring Ukrainian language news and contacts on the scene.

Europhobia is another high value blog now running nothing but Ukrainian news. Instapundit picked up the story, and - you've guessed it - someone's built a brand new blog, here. This, of course, is a key feature of blogs - like the Kiev tent city, you can rapidly throw up a special purpose blog village at any time. Mind you, some of the blogosphere's typical failings are also in evidence. There is a lot of echo-chambering going on, what with multiple blogs reposting from those mentioned above.

New Links

2004-11-21T07:53:00.000+02:00

Would like to welcome the following new links to the EuroBlogReview Blogroll (in no particular order):

ScottyMac: Czech Republic
Viewropa: General European
Pestiside: Hungary
PetiteAnglaise: France
PoliticaOnline: Italy

If the Americans jumped in the lake....

2004-11-16T17:36:00.000+02:00

would EURSOC jump as well? Apparently trying to make a pitch for the title of Europe's most right-wing blog, EURSOC brings us a passionate plea for a flat tax. Apparently it's a "truly cross-Atlantic idea". The only evidence that it has any relevance on this side of the Atlantic given is the assertion that some "central European EU members are said to be considering a flat tax policy". Which ones? How seriously? Links already!

To me that sounds like the comforting Tory myth that someone - somewhere - in (first) Scandinavia, then Southern Europe, and now Central Europe will agree with them and stand up for a British Eurosceptic shopping list. It's never happened. EFTA is dead. But it doesn't stop them coming up with it again and again and again. Donald Rumsfeld is at least partly responsible for validating it with his "new Europe" crack, but the conservatives who love it so will soon have to find another group of "Atlanticists" or "liberals" or whatever. Stand by for Tim Collins on yer telly in five years saying that as Foreign Secretary he'd form a strategic alliance with Moldova to abolish the CAP.

Exile.ru: How to survive Russian interrogation

2004-11-16T17:31:00.000+02:00

Everyone's favourite Russian site provides this handy guide to surviving interrogation by the Russian police:

"Almost sure you will be beaten, when detained. The very degrees of beating will depend on crime which you suspected to commit. If you are suspected of committing homicide, you will be severely beaten, in order to force you to confess. In Russian law system confession is very important. You should manage do not confess for three days, afterwards you will be released or will be transferred to prison. In prison during investigation you will not be beaten, they will use other means of influence on you. That because, when in prison, you will be under charge of two administrations: prison administration and team of investigators. Each will not be interested to bear responsibilities for your injuries and hematomes"

Three days, right? No names and don't sign anything. Sounds simple, but then the author has plenty of relevant experience:

"I wasn't beaten up when arrested in 2001 at Altai mountains. It explains itself by two reasons: 1) I am too known figure in Russian world; 2) I was a target of interrogators. I was destined to be judged as organizer, leading figure of crime. My second-in-command, Sergei Aksionov, was also left alone, he wasn't beaten up because he was also destined to be an organizer. On the contrary six other men arrested with us were interrogated all night long, beaten up, menaced with pistols (barrel of a gun was puted on forehead), in order to force them testify against me and Aksionov. But all of us, we were arrested by FSB-men, Russian police is more brutal than FSB."

So now you know...

Gosh Darn those filthy filthy Interwebnets!

2004-11-05T18:50:00.000+02:00

Well, here we are one day into the Bush second term and all day, Blogger has been returning 500 Internal Server Errors when I attempt to post to my own blog. Strangely I can still reach the EWR though.

Time for some Buttiglione content

2004-10-29T15:18:00.000+03:00

How have blogs been handling the European Parliament's refusal of the new Commission? It seems the kind of story ideally suited to Blogistan; texty, partisan and containing a time element. Oh yes, and ever so slightly geeky. Yesterday, Henry of Crooked Timber predicted a lasting boost in Parliamentary power and the possible end of the rule that keeps the EP from rejecting individual commissioners, but also argued that the prospect of parliamentary trouble might give the Commission President greater leverage with national governments in picking the commission. Mind you, he also has this to say:

"In political science jargon, he's now the equivalent of a "COG" in a "two level game""

What did I tell you? Just a tad geekocentric? His dear colleague John Quiggin pointed out the apparent lack of national fault lines in the EP's response, here. Where the comments thread will also tell you that Buttiglione is a "gay porn star name". Hmmm....maybe I preferred geeky.

Over on the right, EURSOC is very angry about what it sees as "anti-Catholic discrimination". Strangely, there is no mention of the other 3 commissioners the EP rejected - a Hungarian socialist (incompetence), a Dutch liberal (conflicted), and a Latvian Green(eurosceptic shade) (alleged financial irregularity). Funny that.

Eamonn Fitzgerald's response is very odd indeed, and the Fistful of Euros crew are reliable as usual. Real blogging - means following up your stuff.

Edit - mind you, Crooked's nonstandard characters are annoying.

A European Productivity Surge?

2004-10-24T16:38:00.000+03:00

Here, we have a Morgan Stanley research digest (like a blog, but they pay you 70,000 € a year for writing them) concerning the European economy. They hold that a rapid build-up in European companies' investment in IT may herald a surge in labour productivity similar to that seen in the US in the 1990s.

"Among the factors that could explain the productivity revival we have detected in Europe (see “Productivity Revival,” 18 August 2004), massive investment in information and communications technology (ICT) equipment and software by European companies over the last ten years is the one that clearly stands out, I believe. Why would companies under permanent pressure from shareholders spend so much and with such persistence over time if technology did not deliver what it is made for, i.e., productivity? Unfortunately, disparate and often old-fashioned statistical systems do not give a clear picture of this effort that otherwise would draw considerable attention, in my view. This is why I was intrigued by a report coming from one of my Asian colleagues, Denise Yam, while I was on a West Coast trip, trying to persuade investors that Europe was at a turning point.

This year, or at least up to September, Europe has generated the fastest export orders to Taiwan, beating China and leaving the US and Japan far behind. Last year, Europe was second only to China. The numbers are impressive: European export orders expressed in US dollars have increased 32.3% so far this year, to be compared to 29.4% for Chinese orders, 25% for the US, and 14% for Japan. Over 2003-2004, European orders have grown 50%. Assuming that prices went down 30% over that period, volumes have probably doubled in less than two years."

Mind you, Edward over at Bonobo Land disagrees, on the basis of his long-standing concerns about demographics. Personally, I'm agnostic about this - I usually find the numbers concerning the ageing population surprisingly low in absolute terms - but he covers it more intensely than me, both on his own blog and at Fistful. Read, mark, learn and, of course, inwardly digest.

A Link Policy for Blogs

2004-10-13T14:11:00.000+03:00

Link

The Germans have come up with a neat version of those "link disclaimers" one finds on pompous websites.

"Important Notice: This is a blog. I do not distance myself from any links. It is in the nature of blogs that many links to other web content exist. From such content it is very likely that links may lead to still other content. It is possible that I will link to content that is forbidden in countries such as China, North Korea or Nordrhein-Westfalen."

(My translation. Thanks to Der Schockwellenreiter)

Be your own boss - the Nazi way

2004-10-06T15:47:00.000+03:00

Over at Fistful, Der Speigel get caught putting their foot in it in a big way...

Exile.ru - consistently ex-cellent

2004-10-06T15:37:00.000+03:00

Not precisely a blog, but bloody good anyway. And unlike most of my postings here it's in English. They're reporting on Ukraine's presidential election and the only (relatively) clean candidate, who has some interesting views on international security issues:

"In his most radical proposal, Rzhavsky said that, in exchange for security guarantees from Russia and the US, he'd do away with the entire army......However, Rzhavsky's not content leaving well enough alone. "I would turn Ukraine into an international peace center, an eastern Switzerland," he said on the stump. One time, during a particularly passionate rant, he told me, "If I'd been in office, there'd have been no war in Iraq. I'd've told Saddam, 'You can have whatever you want -- palaces, gold, girls -- just so long as there's no war.'" Apparently, Rzhavsky thinks the diplomatic failure was just a question of using the wrong carrot in the carrot-and-stick game. A couple of long-legged Ukrainian girls and a Crimean dacha would have done the trick!"

Eccentric, certainly, although Saddam has a reputation for a taste for blondes. And clearly an improvement on the competition:

"So, the Yanukovich team has adopted several strategies. The most effective is the most simple: they'll probably just stuff the ballot boxes. Lest anyone doubt his democratic credentials, at the end of August Yanukovich was quoted saying, "I do not believe in exit polls. These are new technologies that will be tested in Ukraine for the first time. We do not know how to manipulate them."

You could hardly disagree with their conclusion, though:

"There's even something at stake in the elections beyond ownership of the country's choicest industrial morsels -- Ukraine's oligarchs are clearly worried that Yushchenko will end their free ride and try to drag the country westward. But a healthy opposition doesn't mean that there's a healthy democracy. That's why these elections should be so easy to steal. Without political parties that represent members with a stake in their functionality, politics remains easy to manipulate. And in Ukraine, from the technological candidates to aferisty like Rzhavsky all the way up to Yushchenko, there are no real parties. So if and when Yanukovich steals the elections, the opposition won't be able to do a thing. Unless, of course, someone's financing them."

Yes, I know it isn't English

2004-10-05T16:40:00.000+03:00

...but I feel it's time we gave the Bildblog, a teamblog operated by five German journalists (does that make it a teamhackblog?) devoted to a daily critique of the Bild Zeitung, Germany's most-read and most sensationalistic newspaper, due credit. Think the Sun but without the hypocritical sense of propriety. These boys printed photos of Princess Diana dying in the wreck of her car within a week of her death. Kelvin MacKenzie, eat yer heart out. They'd probably print that, too. In fact, I'd probably read that, so who am I to criticise? Different standards may apply, of course - not so long ago a German celeb mag ran a detailed story about the actor, Harald Schmidt, claiming that he was dying, barely compos mentis, of extreme alcoholism and had lost the power of speech, and got in a lot of trouble when he turned out to be hale and hearty. But I digress.

Today, for example, they pick up the BZ for apparently republishing articles from the Observer as their own (can't see the Sun doing that, mind you), and go on to explain exactly why Bild reports so enthusiastically about a German pay-TV station's subscription figures - because free trial subscriptions to the channel, part-owned by the paper's owner, are being given away on its website. Nice.

Great blog. Even in German. Sorry.

Onslaught of the Epic Blog

2004-10-05T16:34:00.000+03:00

Der Schockwellenreiter links to an interesting article on blogs in Der Tagesspiegel, here. Apparently, "online diaries, known as blogs, are spreading out". Like a green, slimy mass from space, comments the Schockwellenreiter.

Chechnya in Lithuania

2004-09-27T22:49:00.000+03:00

Notwithstanding a few browser issues (at least on my computer), All About Latvia mentions something that I should have weighed in on myself (being as how I live in Vilnius), notably Lithuania's taking action to shut down a Chechnyan web site which was resident in Lithuania. This is one of those sticky situations when free speech and Western-style democracy run up against the idea of rule of law and modern-day counterterrorism actions. It's a yelling-fire-in-a-crowded-theater vs. I-may-disagree-with-what-you-have-to-say-but-I'll-defend-to-the-death-your-right-to-say-it moment.

More Russia Ruminations

2004-09-16T16:27:00.000+03:00

Some others have weighed in on Russia since the last post. I won't quote Gandelman's widely-read piece, but you can read it here, in the Moderate Voice. Peter Lavelle at Untimely Thoughts has some insights, particularly since he is a freelance writer living in Russia, about Putin's electoral reforms. One key point:

My major concern is not over-centralization of power as such. I worry who will carry out this centralization -- the security forces? the military? These folks aren't the best administrators. The security forces have proven very able when in pursuit of a well-defined mission, i.e. the whole Yukos ordeal. In other areas I have doubts -- most importantly their ability to police themselves, let alone policing everyone else and combating terrorists. I sure would like to see more political backing for Defense Minister Ivanov -- let the military do what is supposed to do -- and not be overly politicized in the daily administration of the country.

Separately, via email from North Sea Diaries, we see commentary from OxBlog, which begins with an interesting literary technique (convincing the reader at the beginning that the writer is talking about America in Iraq):

We are losing the war on terror. In the name of security, we deprive our citizens of their constitutional rights. In the name of democracy, we enforce a hostile occupation. In the name of human rights, we brutalize countless prisoners. And day by day, our soldiers get shot down one by one in the futile hope of winning a war we never should have started.

That is what I would say to Vladimir Putin if I were a Russian citizen. Putin's war on terror is a sick and perverted mirror image of America's just cause. In the aftermath of Chechen terrorists' horrific attack on the children of Beslan, we stood as one with the Russian people. And now we must stand with the Russian people against the government whose authoritarian deception and incompetence has left them increasingly to terrorist attacks.

Back to the Future in Russia

2004-09-14T13:20:00.000+03:00

I don't often do this (in fact this is the first time), but I'm going to link to my personal blog, CaptiveNation(s), on the European Weblog Review. I tried to find some other views on Putin's governmental changes, but was only able to find news stories so far amongst Europe-based blogs. If you see other thoughts, feel free to email me.

Hunting the Hunters

2004-09-13T11:21:00.000+03:00

Both SpyBlog and Samizdata have none-too-complimentary entries about the UK's new hunting bill. Amongst the cleverer bits of the bill is the provision that cameras will be installed in trees to enforce a ban on fox hunting. SpyBlog points out that the hunting bill's penalties bring it into conflict with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which allows video camera surveillance to deter/detect serious crime (is fox hunting, while illegal, now also 'serious?'). In addition to catching the bill out on a number of other glaring inconsistencies and lorry-sized holes, SpyBlog asks,

So is David Blunkett planning on tweaking RIPA to lower the threshold of state surveillance, something which would affect many more people than the fox hunting community ?

Samizdata wryly observes,

They used to warn that 'walls have ears'. Now walls will have eyes as well. I suppose the panopticon countryside is nothing more than a logical extension of our panoptican cities. It is merely a matter of time before every workplace and every home is wired up to the Big Eye of Big Brother. Then the nightmare really begins.

Sauseschritt (Vienna/Central Europe)

2004-09-12T17:05:00.000+03:00

Sauseschritt's photoblog on Central Europe (and points east) has an excellent post about learning French here. Apparently, one of the first lessons involved selecting which of a range of photos represented France best. Unable to decide between cheese, paintings, the Louvre, Obelix, or a flask of perfume, she picked the photo of a demonstration. Clearly, the answer was revolution.

Did I Read That Right?

2004-09-10T17:14:00.000+03:00

Could it really be true that, per Spiegel quoting The Independent, 20% of Germans want to bring back The Wall? We are talking about the Berlin Wall, right?

(The article referred to by Spiegel is a "premium" piece at The Independent.)

- via Sodazitron

Jacques Supports Volodya

2004-09-02T16:56:00.000+03:00

Siberian Light notes that while the US and EU expressed misgivings about the way the Chechnyan elections took place, Jacques Chirac stood by Putin.

Is Sweden Ripe for a Change in Govt?

2004-09-01T17:33:00.000+03:00

Stockholm Spectator speculates that Sweden's Social Democrats may fall victim to the anti-incumbency trend first hinted at during the European Parliamentary elections earlier this summer -- though whether this is merely exhaustion with the incumbents or chafing at 63 years (of the last 72) of Social Democratic rule may be in question.

Best quote award goes to the Expressen editorial:

"Vilhelm Moberg once described the Social Democrats as an ideas party with two ideas: to take power and to hold onto it."

Hijab Help!

2004-08-31T14:39:00.000+03:00

I was hoping for some pithy quotes on the France hostage mess from No Pasaran!, but (apart from a pithy and not very polite reference to the French Foreign Minister) NP appears to be covering the anti-Bush protesters in NYC (David's Medienkritik carries a larger discussion -- with photos -- of this tangential but entertaining topic).

Instead, we turn to Fistful of Euros, which tells us of how local authorities in the Reunion region of France (which apparently has a disproportionately higher percentage of muslims than the rest of France) are interpreting the wearing of the hijab. I was unaware that the local authorities are responsible for determining what constitutes "ostentatious" or "excessive" headcovering in violation of the law; the Reunion authorities have come up with an interpretation which, if not acceptable to everyone, at least offends the smallest number of people.

The larger issue here, though, is this: the government of France has stepped in it from so many different directions on this question that it's understandable they now find themselves in a virtually impossible position. Do they:

(1) Abolish the hijab legislation (which should never, for reasons of liberte, egalite et fraternite have been enacted in the first place) and appear to be caving in to hostage takers and terrorists?

Or, do they:

(2) Do they continue to insist (oh, and by the way, continue alienating the Islamic world) that the law was a good one in the first place and inflame public sentiment in France when/if the hostages are killed?

It's a difficult calculus, to be sure, particularly when there are lives in the balance.

Sex, Russian Style

2004-08-30T13:27:00.000+03:00

Siberian Light has a lighthearted look at some issues of sexual import for today's Russia. SL's discussion includes talk of Russians floating down a river on their inflatable girlfriend, why the Belarussian population seems to be declining, and also how Shamil Basaeyev (Chechen commander) can rehabilitate his image among Europeans. It also happens to be SL's 150th post -- what better occasion to talk about "the Anna Kournikova of Chess?"

Decline of the American Empire?

2004-08-26T10:54:00.000+03:00

EUROSOC provides a lengthy discussion of a Guardian article by Polly Toynbee, in which the latter contends that the decline in enrollment by European students in American Studies programs equates to the decline of "the American Empire" more generally. (In case you're not familiar with Toynbee's work, her title -- "A degree in bullying and self-interest? No thanks" -- gives you some idea where she's coming from.) EUROSOC contends, if I follow the discussion correctly, that in fact the decline in enrollment in American Studies actually reflects America's dominance rather than its decline because America's superpower status is becoming interwoven with daily life globally. Whether that's a good thing or not is of course subject to debate, but EUROSOC makes a persuasive argument. On the question of whether a win by someone other than Bush in November would turn the tide, the author makes an interesting point about the entrenched nature of European cultural life:

Would a Kerry presidency turn the tide against anti-Americanism? Do we really believe that a win for John Kerry in November would destroy at a stroke the huge and highly lucrative academic, cultural and media industries that have developed to support and exploit anti-Bushism? It's hard to say. Like American Studies courses, chances are they'll continue as normal, having already been accepted into mainstream culture.

UKIP: Hold the 2012 Olympics in Paris

2004-08-25T08:18:00.000+03:00

EU Referendum Blog has an excellent piece, entitled "UKIP Does Something Right," in which they highlight the British political party's contention that past Olympics have brought economic ruination on the countries that have moved heaven and earth to stage them.

On Monday, Greece's accounting office showed Greece's public debt for the first half of 2004 rising by 10 percent year-on-year to 195.7 billion euros (240 billion dollars) -- well above 100 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).

So, instead of supporting London for the 2012 Olympics, as the mayor would prefer, UKIP is actively campaigning for Paris' 2012 bid.

Swedish Welfare Cheaters

2004-08-25T07:54:00.000+03:00

The groupblog Stockholm Spectator discusses a Svensksa Dagbladet hash-job on the Swedish welfare state.

This is what it amounts to: 19.6% of working age Swedes are fully provided for by the taxpayer. Looking up at the rosy cheeks of Mother Sweden, one in five of her adult children tugs at her apron strings and eats from her table.

Welcome to the Party

2004-08-24T08:49:00.000+03:00

New at the European Weblog Review:

Slovenia Bulletin (SLO)
Frans Groenendijk (NL)
EU News from Iceland (IS)
Flogging the Simian (RO)
DW (FI)

EU Gets Cold Reception in Rejkjavik

2004-08-17T11:07:00.000+03:00

New blog Blog.Central.Is (on and from Iceland) tells how Icelanders are nearly as excited about joining the European Union as Norwegians.

(via EU Referendum Blog)

Spanish National Traits

2004-08-17T10:48:00.000+03:00

Iberian Notes last week (we've been amiss during summer holiday season, I know) talked at length about Spanish national character traits and questions of political legitimacy compared to the United States and other, more northerly, sections of Europe. Of particular interest is the section on religion; supposedly hyper-Catholic Spain appears far less religious than many, if not most, other parts of the world.

Overarmed, Overeager, But Not Over Here

2004-08-17T10:34:00.000+03:00

As always, David's Medienkritik steers clear of controversy in his discussion of the Bush Administration's announcement yesterday of a planned withdrawal of up to 100,000 troops from overseas bases.
But...but... this means job losses in the tens of thousands in Germany!! You can't do this! Germany is broke by all definitions and needs help, not another devastating blow to the job market! We're already struggling to sustain our 6-week-annual vacations and the 35-hour week, not to forget our generous welfare state - we simply can't afford even more job losses! We need US taxpayer dollars to keep our standard of socialism!

Hubschrauber mit Muskelkraft

2004-08-12T14:23:00.000+03:00

Der Schockwellenreiter berichtet hier über einen leider fehlgeschlagene Versuch, mit menschlicher Kraft und riesige Rotoren abzuheben.

Vodka, beer, vodka, beer

2004-08-12T14:18:00.000+03:00

Good post here from the Russian Dilettante on Russia and alcohol, especially the economics of central planning and its connection with drinking. (When the price of vodka was put up, a shortage of sugar and other homebrew supplies instantly emerged..)

Enough already....

2004-08-12T14:15:00.000+03:00

.....Speaking as a Germanist, I'm beginning to think there is absolutely nothig in the world that bores me more than German spelling reform. A rather better post than usual on this at Fistful.

Germanistisch gesehen, gibt es aus meiner Standpunkt gar nichts Langweiliger in der Welt als Rechtschreibereform....

Get Your Approval Now

2004-08-12T11:17:00.000+03:00

God Save the Queen has some thoughts on the Approved Method(tm) for genocide. Lest there be any misunderstanding that this is fine satire, here's a teaser:

"Despots, are you tired of untidy ethnic minorities using up resources that properly belong to the master race?
Do you have longstanding grudges against near neighbours?
Or maybe you just want to engage in a bit of mass murder for fun and profit...."

Sweden Steps In It

2004-08-12T11:11:00.000+03:00

A contributor at Airstrip One is campaigning to have Swedish EU membership suspended. Sean Gabb, also communications director of the Libertarian Alliance, sent an open letter to the Swedish Ambassador to the UK expressing outrage over Sweden's treatment of a priest who denounced homosexuality in a church sermon. Is this infraction sufficient to warrant such serious action by the EU? Read more here.

Europe Catching Up?

2004-08-03T13:54:00.000+03:00

Fistful of Euros carried an article last week in which they noted that the European economy may be starting to rebound from its weak spate of the last year or two. There are a number of factoids in Matt's piece which were of interest, not the least of which was the notation that Europe has been behind the US economically since the 1870s. The article also notes that one reason Europeans' per capita GDP is 77% of America's has to do with the fact that Europeans "work less hard." Matt's posting refers to a study by American economist Robert Gordon; the commentary section of the blog notes that further information on Gordon's work can be had here. The study referred to may be this one(.pdf file).

Prime Minister's Questionable

2004-08-02T12:41:00.000+03:00

UK Commentators' Laban Tall has an amusing MP3 on his website which mixes sound bites from Britain's PM's Question period with a euro-poppy piece of music which I recognize only insofar as it's been featured in an odious theme park commercial in the United States. While the tune is annoying, the mix is entertaining. After you check out UK Commentators, download the MP3 here.

Lives Lost in Translation

2004-07-30T16:18:00.000+03:00

From the Guardian via Naked Translations blog: Apparently getting European patent law into 20 languages is impeding the flow of drugs to Third World countries where people are dying. No doubt there may be some other bureaucratic impediments as well, but it's interesting (not to mention sad) that such a banal thing can have such a profound effect.

Hrvatska: Bechtel Brouhaha

2004-07-29T15:03:00.000+03:00

Draxblog brings us the latest manifestation of anti-Atlanticist rhetoric on the European continent, this time in Croatia. The American firm Bechtel received a contract from the government of Croatia to build a road, which otherwise would have been unremarkable. But because it is an American firm, there has been a backlash within the Croatian political elite. And Prime Minister Sanader has gone to the European Commission for validation of Bechtel as his choice. Draxblog points out the parallels between the way party bosses made decisions in the "old days" and the scandal over Bechtel today. See a little more in English here.

Solana's Statements

2004-07-28T11:28:00.000+03:00

Erstwhile EU Foreign Minister Javier Solana, per EU Referendum Blog, is off in Rome flogging an EU foreign policy with force projection capabilities. It's hard to say whether Solana's secondary theme, "equal partnership with the United States," is designed to play to his audience or a serious proposal. Look forward to hearing elaboration of how he plans to get everyone in the EU (or even a majority) to subscribe to, much less participate in, a common foreign policy with commensurate military capabilities.

Spanish Banking Wonders

2004-07-27T21:10:00.000+03:00

Not, as Samizdata correspondent Jonathan Pearce says, to read to much into it, but Santander's bid to buy out Abbey plc is noteworthy, if only insofar as it means that the recent change in government leftwards in Spain doesn't necessarily mean that business has been squelched. Forgive me, but can anyone tell me what extraordinaries are in a financial context? I assume it's a Brit-ism of some sort.

Notes from/on the Revolution

2004-07-26T11:21:00.000+03:00

God Save the Queen provides a discussion of how and why revolutions succeed, referencing (and largely refuting) an earlier article by Peter Tatchell (in the Guardian) about Iraq and the alleged "third way" (which, we'd note, had been to some extent tried earlier and failed). GStQ notes, in recapping the high points, that "a popular revolution is only possible if the regime is either (a) internally divided and infirm of purpose or (b) stupid enough to lose the loyalty of the security forces."

The Guardian is Out Front

2004-07-23T14:32:00.000+03:00

I may be coming a tad late to this party, but I've recently discovered that The Guardian (UK) has an excellent and ongoing section on blogging. This is as good a place as any to start. It naturally pays particular attention to BritBlogs (of which our blogroll provides only a select number), but others are covered as well. To my knowledge, The Guardian is the only newspaper to provide this type of section. If you know of others, write us.

Austro-Hungarian forces struggle on

2004-07-23T14:23:00.000+03:00

The Glory of Carniola has a fascinating post on the tragic end of an Italian farmer who may be the last man killed by the Austro-Hungarian army, and the lost diversity of a really united Central Europe...here

Why, O Why Do We Do It?

2004-07-23T14:21:00.000+03:00

Loic Le Meur, Grand Poobah of Corporate Euroblogging, provides (from earlier in the week) the reasons why Americans read blogs. Presumably there hasn't been a similar study done in Europe, but it might provide at least some insight into the EU blog market (or potential thereof) anyway. In particular, note that just over half of the people who look at weblogs do so because of their transparent biases.

Straighten Up and Fly Right

2004-07-22T12:42:00.000+03:00

EU Referendum Blog discusses Durrao Borroso's impending "coronation" to EU Commission president, and the leader of the Euro Greens Cohn-Bendit exhausts Durrao Borroso's plane metaphor. Durrao Barroso's (I'm gonna get sick of typing that name, I'm already sure) comments to the parliament, while flowery and oozing democratic rhetoric are, I'm afraid to say, rather bland and anodyne. One could imagine the same statements coming out of the mouth of everyone from Jose Maria Aznar to Tony Blair to Jacques Chirac:

"Europe needs a strong, credible and independent Commission," he told the assembled MEPs. "I pledge to work actively for a Europe which is much more than only a market: I want Europe which is also social and cultural ... Let us together open a new chapter in European integration," he added.

Still Skewering Spiegel

2004-07-22T12:31:00.000+03:00

Medienkritik notes today that German newsmagazine Spiegel, besides demagoguing Vietnam as a metaphor for Iraq, is recycling its own material. Shouldn't come as a surprise -- recycling is the "green" thing to do.

The Wonders of the East

2004-07-21T22:06:00.000+03:00

This conversation at Glory of Carniola will seem hauntingly familiar to anyone who's lived or spent any moderate length of time in Eastern Europe. My theory is that, while this type of thing does happen in the West, it's more prominent in the East because of the historical lack of need to concentrate on things like... oh, I don't know... customer service? Still and all, one the inimitably charming aspects of life in the post-Soviet sphere.

Edelweisspiraten

2004-07-21T18:06:00.000+03:00

Der Schockwellenreiter brings up an interesting piece of German history here, referring to the groups of angry young Germans who rejected the official culture of Nazi Germany and pursued their own subculture. Known by names such as the Edelweiss pirates, they reached a maximum of independence during the war but were then trashed by the Gestapo.

There's an odd echo of the story in the Stasi records of incidents where "youths" got out of hand shouting things like "We don't want Walter Ulbricht, we want rock and roll!" Resistance, of course, but in a sort of negative sense..

Administrative Issues

2004-07-20T22:34:00.000+03:00

Brit Blogs were becoming a bit too prominent (don't want to give short shrift to the rest of Eurolandia). Moved them to the bottom of the Euro-blogroll. All in the name of equity, what?

Pete Townshend's Temperature

2004-07-20T11:42:00.000+03:00

Couldn't resist posting this, from the London News Review, although it's from last week. Michael Moore apparently asked for Pete's permission to use "Won't Get Fooled Again" on the soundtrack to Fahrenheit 9/11, which Pete denied (initially) because he was in support of the war. But Dear Peter seems to be getting somewhat indecisive and apologetic in his old age. The author makes liberal and excellent use of the word "pooterish."

Kissingerian Politics and the EU

2004-07-20T10:56:00.000+03:00

Airstrip One has a cerebral discussion of a Townhall article by American reporter Tony Blankley, noting the ongoing argument over whether the EU will ultimately decentralise itself in favor of being a countervailing influence against the United States -- or not.

Best new term: the environmentalist/peace political complex.

Best intelligent but dense thought (italics added):

If one looks at the public pronouncements of European politicians advocating a role for Europe, this is often cast in realist terms as a rising power providing support for other states in a multipolar world as a 'counterweight' to the United States. Disguised in a hypocritical concern for international law, the political elites of Europe are insulating themselves from democracy through Weberian institutions, cast in the Bureaucratic-rational mode, disenfranchising their pacifistic publics, and wondering how to gain financial muscle, whilst their armies devolve into the Home Guard. This is one circle that cannot be squared.

France vs. Israel Match Ends in Draw

2004-07-20T10:33:00.000+03:00

No Pasaran has several posts detailing the spat (or diplomatic incident, if you prefer) between France and Israel; the former's President apparently just canceled the visit of the latter's Prime Minister after said PM encouraged his coreligionists to exchange arrondisments for kibbutzes. (for a good laugh, note the fact that the coverage cited in NP is from Al-Jazeera)

Norwegian Wackoes

2004-07-20T10:21:00.000+03:00

Dispatch from the UN Human Development Report's Most Developed Country: Lest we believe that all Scandinavians are reasonable, kind, generous humanitarians, Bjorn Staerk comes up with a political party that wants to ban Islam. To be sure, they're on the fringe. But some of the stuff they say makes Jorg Haider's buddies look moderate.

Turkey and the EU - Is There A Future?

2004-07-20T10:11:00.000+03:00

Fistful of Euros examines a piece by Stephen Kinzer from the NY Review of Books on Turkey's chances at EU membership and the pitfalls involved along the way. Particularly noteworthy is the section which describes a speech by Chris Patten, the EU Commissioner for External Affairs -- Kinzer reads between the lines, noting that a "no" vote in December on EU membership for Turkey might (in fact very likely would) have the effect of radicalizing the Islamic population in Turkey and elsewhere. One wonders if certain other countries have considered this possibility?

It's Not Censorship -- Really

2004-07-19T11:27:00.000+03:00

EUROSOC discusses how one UK media regulator wants to put "health warnings" on "dodgy foreign news channels." Perhaps a warning notice on the BBC is warranted?

More on Human Development

2004-07-19T11:17:00.000+03:00

Fainting in Coyles observes that having a constitutional monarchy may be the best guarantor of personal and economic freedoms. Is this a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy? Or is there more to it?

Adam Smith vs. The Guardian

2004-07-19T11:09:00.000+03:00

The Adam Smith Institute's blog has a response to a Guardian piece which asserts that the further integration into the EU is what the UK needs most (and less Atlanticism, by the way). In fact, per the ASI (quoting Eurostat - pdf), the UK and Denmark actually have the highest earnings.

Have They Heard About the Weather?

2004-07-16T11:52:00.000+03:00

Norway tops the list of countries on the UN's Human Development Index. To see how your country did, see the UN site here or just let the Norwegians brag here.

Those Cheesy Croats

2004-07-16T08:09:00.000+03:00

Hat tip to Blognor Regis for this article from the Daily Telegraph on newly-converted Eurosceptics on the Dalmatian Coast.

Avoid Stale Conversation and Canapes

2004-07-15T09:53:00.000+03:00

Metamorphosism in Vienna carries a few hints on how to act the next time you go to a diplomatic reception. The Reader's Digest Condensed Version - be yourself, don't badmouth your employer, and try to get the canapes while they're fresh.

Classical Liberalism Lives

2004-07-15T09:52:00.000+03:00

Iain Murray at England's Sword passes along news from an anonymous MEP of the formation of the European Democratic Group, an Atlanticist free-market oriented group of like-minded parties from Europe. It seems that they're looking to expand eastward, to Poland and the Baltics, among others.