The unfortunate coincidence of the G20 Conference falling to London in 2008 during the even more unfortunate Brown premiership just as the world went to hell in a handcart (the last two being perhaps more than coincidence) continues to cascade down the years. Germany and France, unable to stomach the style in which perfectly sensible policy choices were made (and claimed) held separate press conferences in which they asserted not just the rejection of the manner of presentation but its content.
Saving the world required very basic economic understanding; it was accompanied by policy rough edges and inadequacies equally well known, understood and correctable. The prime-ministerial bombast displayed in the inevitable recovery of those economies practising keynesian responses became insufferable, driven by political need to hide responsibility for the disaster that had been wrought on the UK economy by poor grasp of powerful economic understandings; thus more primitive economic policies from which flowed different political necessities were adopted and reinforced in Europe.
It is a banal observation that economic policies interact with political objectives in their implementation. It is erroneous to associate economic policy schools of thought with particular political outcomes. The use of keynesian growth/demand management policies should never have been associated with brownian political virtue or that of social democratic progressivism. The use of Hayek-Friedman employment/wage-level policies should never have been associated with Merkozy commonsense centre-rightism. Without political exhibitionism growth and recovery could have been achieved by now.
When the President of the European Central Bank responded to questions about the German Finance Minister's aims during the latest round of the Greek crisis he remarked that his job was to secure the euro not to respond to politicians' current objectives. Quite right. The sooner politicians learn what is their area of expertise (we hope) and that they cannot allocate to themselves the achievements of distinguished academics and technicians the sooner inappropriate over-reactions to events might stop causing unnecessary havoc.
Sunday, 19 July 2015
Monday, 13 July 2015
Greek Free for All
Greece is now to be given 90 billion euros of which 16 billion will come from the IMF. (Tass at 8.15 this morning) As Greece is defaulting on payments to the IMF in a matter of days - it's already 'in arrears' for billions - the 'how can this be?' sensation grows by the passing hour. No country can be permitted to default on IMF repayments and gain access to further loans, yet accepting IMF further involvement in the management of 'Greek' debt is now a major part of the undertakings to which Greece is required to submit in return for the release of its banks from being taken hostage.
Whatever reality these negotiations are taking place in, it is not the reality of laws and practice, treaty and rule that we are led to believe govern our world.
The question put in the New York Times seems central now.
"Can Greece pull off a successful exit? Will Germany try to block a recovery?"
Whatever reality these negotiations are taking place in, it is not the reality of laws and practice, treaty and rule that we are led to believe govern our world.
The question put in the New York Times seems central now.
"Can Greece pull off a successful exit? Will Germany try to block a recovery?"
Sunday, 12 July 2015
EU Collapsing Into Incoherence and Illegality
The Greece/Europe (Europe, that is, of various internal bodies, both eurozone and EU hierarchy) negotiations are almost unintelligible at this point. Wildly undeliverable proposals - Greece to leave the Eurozone for 5 years, Greece to accept administration from Brussels, Greece to alienate state property to a 50 billion eurotune called by some EU nation states, Greece to pass 'restructuring' laws dictated by some eurozone states within 72 hours before any talks can continue, Greece to receive 85 billion euro bailout........
There are national parliamentary consents to negotiate, laws and treaties to comply with for all and any of these.
The latest report appears in Tass at 20.45 today.
There are national parliamentary consents to negotiate, laws and treaties to comply with for all and any of these.
The latest report appears in Tass at 20.45 today.
'BRUSSELS, July 12. /TASS/. The
Eurogroup has recommended the EU summit to endorse the allocation of an
aid programme to Greece worth from 82 to 86 billion euro or temporarily
exclude it from the Eurozone, according to draft agreement between
Greece and its creditors.
If efforts to reach an agreement with the Greeks fail, the Eurogroup says it would be expedient to exclude Greece from the Eurozone for a term of up to five years.
The third aid programme is to include up to 25 billion euro from the European Stability Mechanism and financing from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The Eurogroup has ruled out possible writing off Greece’s debts.'
At least when Russia announces direct energy supplies to Greece that is at least deliverable and is within Russia's remit.
If efforts to reach an agreement with the Greeks fail, the Eurogroup says it would be expedient to exclude Greece from the Eurozone for a term of up to five years.
The third aid programme is to include up to 25 billion euro from the European Stability Mechanism and financing from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The Eurogroup has ruled out possible writing off Greece’s debts.'
At least when Russia announces direct energy supplies to Greece that is at least deliverable and is within Russia's remit.
Tuesday, 7 July 2015
Not Enough Information
Naming the nation-state of any EU person quoted in the news would be enormously helpful. Then it's easier to understand where they're coming from. At the moment readers are having to guess, from the name, or be bothered to google the speaker, to find out who they are. If the national press can give the age, and house-value of everyone mentioned in the news so that we're all oriented, failing to provide the nationality of an EU speaker seems part of an orchestrated 'approach' to presenting the official, EU progressive stance.
Identifying the Greeks is relatively easy, with their extraordinarily beautiful names, but Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese (to name the larger nation-states with those kinds of surnames) are difficult, and the Baltics, the Balkans, eastern European nations, the Irish and Scottish names all present irritating effort to work out who these people are. It isn't helpful to be told that Merkel is German - we know that - and at a pinch we can probably manage Holland not being Dutch; but the unspeakable (unspellable?) real Dutchman who sounds like a German, the bastard from the Baltic who keeps creeping to powerful northern European countries' leaders and condemning Greece's 'attitude', most of the Austro-Hungarians who can sound anything from Venetian to Russian?
Readers need name, gender (given or adopted), age, nationality and (where appropriate) where you were and what were you doing before 1989, or 1956, or 1945. The value and whereabouts of main (or highest value) residence would be interesting too.
Thank you.
Identifying the Greeks is relatively easy, with their extraordinarily beautiful names, but Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese (to name the larger nation-states with those kinds of surnames) are difficult, and the Baltics, the Balkans, eastern European nations, the Irish and Scottish names all present irritating effort to work out who these people are. It isn't helpful to be told that Merkel is German - we know that - and at a pinch we can probably manage Holland not being Dutch; but the unspeakable (unspellable?) real Dutchman who sounds like a German, the bastard from the Baltic who keeps creeping to powerful northern European countries' leaders and condemning Greece's 'attitude', most of the Austro-Hungarians who can sound anything from Venetian to Russian?
Readers need name, gender (given or adopted), age, nationality and (where appropriate) where you were and what were you doing before 1989, or 1956, or 1945. The value and whereabouts of main (or highest value) residence would be interesting too.
Thank you.
Saturday, 4 July 2015
Beware Europeans Bearing Gifts
Almost exactly two years ago this letter was printed in Le Monde.
'Dear Nicolas, very briefly and respectfully,
1) I am by your side to serve you and serve your plans for France.
2) I tried my best and might have failed occasionally. I implore your forgiveness.
3) I have no personal political ambitions and I have no desire to become a servile status seeker, like many of the people around you whose loyalty is recent and short-lived.
4) Use me for as long as it suits you and suits your plans and casting call.
5) If you decide to use me, I need you as a guide and a supporter: without a guide, I may be ineffective and without your support I may lack credibility.
With my great admiration, Christine L.' *
This, by the woman who called Tsipris and Varoufakis children and demanded that decisions on Greece be taken by grown-ups? Further: the repeated recognition by the IMF (the latest published a couple of days ago) that Greek debt is unsustainable and that entirely incorrect policies have been pursued by the IMF (as well as the ECB and the EU); the loading of 32 billion euros of debt onto Greece by Dominique Strauss-Kahn (when he was head of the IMF); the billions and billions of Greek bonds bought by Jean-Claude Trichet when President of the ECB - and all this passed via the Greek banks (with various skimmings en route) to pay off the exposure of French and German banks. The socialisation of debt onto the Greek people. How much more of 'Greek' debt has less well-known sources and uses, none of which are to do with the Greek economy, or with any improper consumption by Greeks of an 'unearned' welfare state.
At the time of his 32 billion euro payment Strauss-Kahn had the presidency of France to gain; how much of a driver behind the actions of an IMF head is once again the seeking of office? At least he didn't call others children and consider writing cringe-worthy begging letters to be grown up. Others' insistences on forcing cuts to public expenditures rather than cutting the deficit by raising and collecting taxes are motivated by political forces within Greek society and by a general ideological desire to enforce a particularly hyper-liberal economic view emanating from their backers within the EU.
The barely-legal, if that, show-of-force and thus self-revelation displayed in the treatment of Greece by the EU is notable. To some extent it is happening by default [sorry, ed.] insofar as Greek elites and hyper-liberal EU ideologists have been needled into exposing their self interest by the democratic weight and the democratic consistency of support for the current Greek government. Evaluations of the various means of, and prospects for regime change must be taking place. The standard, antidemocratic usages of swamping electoral choice and its representatives with laws, regulation and procedures governed by courts and treaties rather than by parliaments and elected governments, are failing. And the spectacle, as they are repeatedly and fruitlessly applied to Greek debt negotiation, is undermining the EU as currently constituted. The EU is extraordinarily old-fashioned, steeped in 20th century power relations and their expression, in a repellent social-democratic, progressive Shirley Williamsy dress.
As Greece considers its (surprisingly many and bright) options in the face of intransigence from past time, much of what held true even at the beginning of this crisis no longer holds. There are new and re-emerging geopolitical areas of pressure and common interest. There are the SCO, the BRICS bank, China, Orthodoxy. The biblical scale of Balkan and Mediterranean migration from Asia and Africa is altering demands from the European receiving countries on the EU and its currency zone, and its moulding by the 'Institutions'.
Greek 'debt' and EU membership status-change is no longer the greatest threat to Greece and its economy and people (indeed to the Balkans in general): once an economy freezes - when normal economic activity ceases - to start it up again takes, bluntly, central planning, particularly where there is under-development (whatever the cause). Greece will be, perhaps already is, in a sort of transition economy condition. Think Poland in the 1990s. And the low level economic and fiscal bullying of the Balkan states (post outright war-making under Blair and progressive Labour) of both Balkan EU members and Balkan applicants is part of the creation of an arc of unnecessary underdevelopment in Europe.
Transition central economic planning is, of its very appropriateness and modern recently-developed competence and technical skills, an extremely attractive option for poor Europe, with its fairly standard problems and requirements. Objections about the role of the state, authoritarianism, the abandonment of the benefits of (hyper-liberal) capitalism are answered by the EU display of authoritarianism and ideological rigidity resulting in economic underachievement, collapse, and social failure. A serious case can be made for the use of central planning and delivery to produce economic growth and acceptable social consumption levels in such countries. With its behaviour towards Greece and the Balkans the EU and the IMF is making it powerfully.
*
"1) Je suis à tes côtés pour te servir et servir tes projets pour la France.
2) J'ai fait de mon mieux et j'ai pu échouer périodiquement. Je t'en demande pardon.
3) Je n'ai pas d'ambitions politiques personnelles et je n'ai pas le désir de devenir une ambitieuse servile comme nombre de ceux qui t'entourent dont la loyauté est parfois récente et parfois peu durable.
4) Utilise-moi pendant le temps qui te convient et convient à ton action et à ton casting.
5) Si tu m'utilises, j'ai besoin de toi comme guide et comme soutien : sans guide, je risque d'être inefficace, sans soutien je risque d'être peu crédible. Avec mon immense admiration. Christine L. "
'Dear Nicolas, very briefly and respectfully,
1) I am by your side to serve you and serve your plans for France.
2) I tried my best and might have failed occasionally. I implore your forgiveness.
3) I have no personal political ambitions and I have no desire to become a servile status seeker, like many of the people around you whose loyalty is recent and short-lived.
4) Use me for as long as it suits you and suits your plans and casting call.
5) If you decide to use me, I need you as a guide and a supporter: without a guide, I may be ineffective and without your support I may lack credibility.
With my great admiration, Christine L.' *
This, by the woman who called Tsipris and Varoufakis children and demanded that decisions on Greece be taken by grown-ups? Further: the repeated recognition by the IMF (the latest published a couple of days ago) that Greek debt is unsustainable and that entirely incorrect policies have been pursued by the IMF (as well as the ECB and the EU); the loading of 32 billion euros of debt onto Greece by Dominique Strauss-Kahn (when he was head of the IMF); the billions and billions of Greek bonds bought by Jean-Claude Trichet when President of the ECB - and all this passed via the Greek banks (with various skimmings en route) to pay off the exposure of French and German banks. The socialisation of debt onto the Greek people. How much more of 'Greek' debt has less well-known sources and uses, none of which are to do with the Greek economy, or with any improper consumption by Greeks of an 'unearned' welfare state.
At the time of his 32 billion euro payment Strauss-Kahn had the presidency of France to gain; how much of a driver behind the actions of an IMF head is once again the seeking of office? At least he didn't call others children and consider writing cringe-worthy begging letters to be grown up. Others' insistences on forcing cuts to public expenditures rather than cutting the deficit by raising and collecting taxes are motivated by political forces within Greek society and by a general ideological desire to enforce a particularly hyper-liberal economic view emanating from their backers within the EU.
The barely-legal, if that, show-of-force and thus self-revelation displayed in the treatment of Greece by the EU is notable. To some extent it is happening by default [sorry, ed.] insofar as Greek elites and hyper-liberal EU ideologists have been needled into exposing their self interest by the democratic weight and the democratic consistency of support for the current Greek government. Evaluations of the various means of, and prospects for regime change must be taking place. The standard, antidemocratic usages of swamping electoral choice and its representatives with laws, regulation and procedures governed by courts and treaties rather than by parliaments and elected governments, are failing. And the spectacle, as they are repeatedly and fruitlessly applied to Greek debt negotiation, is undermining the EU as currently constituted. The EU is extraordinarily old-fashioned, steeped in 20th century power relations and their expression, in a repellent social-democratic, progressive Shirley Williamsy dress.
As Greece considers its (surprisingly many and bright) options in the face of intransigence from past time, much of what held true even at the beginning of this crisis no longer holds. There are new and re-emerging geopolitical areas of pressure and common interest. There are the SCO, the BRICS bank, China, Orthodoxy. The biblical scale of Balkan and Mediterranean migration from Asia and Africa is altering demands from the European receiving countries on the EU and its currency zone, and its moulding by the 'Institutions'.
Greek 'debt' and EU membership status-change is no longer the greatest threat to Greece and its economy and people (indeed to the Balkans in general): once an economy freezes - when normal economic activity ceases - to start it up again takes, bluntly, central planning, particularly where there is under-development (whatever the cause). Greece will be, perhaps already is, in a sort of transition economy condition. Think Poland in the 1990s. And the low level economic and fiscal bullying of the Balkan states (post outright war-making under Blair and progressive Labour) of both Balkan EU members and Balkan applicants is part of the creation of an arc of unnecessary underdevelopment in Europe.
Transition central economic planning is, of its very appropriateness and modern recently-developed competence and technical skills, an extremely attractive option for poor Europe, with its fairly standard problems and requirements. Objections about the role of the state, authoritarianism, the abandonment of the benefits of (hyper-liberal) capitalism are answered by the EU display of authoritarianism and ideological rigidity resulting in economic underachievement, collapse, and social failure. A serious case can be made for the use of central planning and delivery to produce economic growth and acceptable social consumption levels in such countries. With its behaviour towards Greece and the Balkans the EU and the IMF is making it powerfully.
*
"1) Je suis à tes côtés pour te servir et servir tes projets pour la France.
2) J'ai fait de mon mieux et j'ai pu échouer périodiquement. Je t'en demande pardon.
3) Je n'ai pas d'ambitions politiques personnelles et je n'ai pas le désir de devenir une ambitieuse servile comme nombre de ceux qui t'entourent dont la loyauté est parfois récente et parfois peu durable.
4) Utilise-moi pendant le temps qui te convient et convient à ton action et à ton casting.
5) Si tu m'utilises, j'ai besoin de toi comme guide et comme soutien : sans guide, je risque d'être inefficace, sans soutien je risque d'être peu crédible. Avec mon immense admiration. Christine L. "
Wednesday, 1 July 2015
There is Nothing for Greece and its People in the Ostensible Objectives of the European Union
Socialism failed. It failed in every variety of realised socialism enacted. It failed in the central, rugged, soviet format; it failed in worker-controlled (various forms) of Balkan socialism; it failed after the arrival of the market-mimicking wonders of computer modelling so beloved of the Poles. It failed even as it improved and began to deliver goods and growth to consumers.
It failed because capitalism, quite simply, delivered better. Market socialism could never respond fast enough, just plain smartly enough, to human desires. It is first rate in providing food, shelter, education and amelioration of health collapses, at a basic, everyone-in, level. Once that threshold has been passed it becomes irrelevant. Someone somewhere is suffering from the lack of this basic provision? Then they'd better get their skates on and start insisting to their rulers that this lack is the result of non-socialist, 'capitalist' selfishness. Which may be true but is more an argument for economic migrants to stand up for themselves rather than run away to greener pastures.
Most of us have reached the point that we want what we want when we want it. Not the point that we'll be 'disadvantaged'. Necessarily this requires that providers are amazingly fast at providing; which only comes from their profit in doing so. Not some kind of moral satisfaction (though moral claims may well be satisfied by the provision) but by a satisfactory exchange. You want this? Pay that, we accept you are a satisfactory exchange partner (or we wouldn't be dealing with you at all) and there may even be an excess generated by these transactions to cope with failed transactions and their victims.
We cannot go on with the nonsense propaganda that it is co-operation that provides for humanity. Exchange, and forcibly asserting its relevant (to the moment) ownership, moves the world.
It failed because capitalism, quite simply, delivered better. Market socialism could never respond fast enough, just plain smartly enough, to human desires. It is first rate in providing food, shelter, education and amelioration of health collapses, at a basic, everyone-in, level. Once that threshold has been passed it becomes irrelevant. Someone somewhere is suffering from the lack of this basic provision? Then they'd better get their skates on and start insisting to their rulers that this lack is the result of non-socialist, 'capitalist' selfishness. Which may be true but is more an argument for economic migrants to stand up for themselves rather than run away to greener pastures.
Most of us have reached the point that we want what we want when we want it. Not the point that we'll be 'disadvantaged'. Necessarily this requires that providers are amazingly fast at providing; which only comes from their profit in doing so. Not some kind of moral satisfaction (though moral claims may well be satisfied by the provision) but by a satisfactory exchange. You want this? Pay that, we accept you are a satisfactory exchange partner (or we wouldn't be dealing with you at all) and there may even be an excess generated by these transactions to cope with failed transactions and their victims.
We cannot go on with the nonsense propaganda that it is co-operation that provides for humanity. Exchange, and forcibly asserting its relevant (to the moment) ownership, moves the world.
Tuesday, 30 June 2015
Italy's Shame in Once Again Attacking the Greek People
Matteo Renzi had a long meeting with the former president of Italy, Napolitano, yesterday. Then out come all the unacceptable criticisms of the Greek people and their government 'threatening' the eurozone and the European Union project.
Italy's behaviour in Greece (and the rest of the Balkans) is a blood-soaked, vicious, deliberately hidden under the myth of 'the good Italian', horror story of torture and cold-blooded murder. Born in 1925, Napolitano (and a Fascist before he chose the other authoritarianism of communism) is well aware that Italy should keep its opinions on the choices the Greek people make next Sunday to itself.
Italy will never recover the right to any say about anything whatsoever in Greece.
Italy's behaviour in Greece (and the rest of the Balkans) is a blood-soaked, vicious, deliberately hidden under the myth of 'the good Italian', horror story of torture and cold-blooded murder. Born in 1925, Napolitano (and a Fascist before he chose the other authoritarianism of communism) is well aware that Italy should keep its opinions on the choices the Greek people make next Sunday to itself.
Italy will never recover the right to any say about anything whatsoever in Greece.
Tuesday, 23 June 2015
Greece
Pick a European Ellis Island
The identification and classification of migrants is not going well in Italy, Greece, Malta or the Balkans. The EU Dublin Convention, now known as the Dublin III Regulation, states EU (and some other European countries') rules for identifying migrants. Avoiding and evading this identification is a primary goal of migrants to Europe as it determines rights to place of settlement, or even settlement at all. Taken to reception centres on the European mainland after rescue in the Mediterranean, the migrants run away as fast as they can once they've grabbed a change of clothes and a meal.
The proposal of an Ellis Island was always waiting but has been precipitated by the closing of nation state borders to migrants, shutting them off from their settlement objectives, and rendering transit countries' city public spaces, transit hubs, and countryside bordering migrant routes simply squalid. None of the Mediterranean EU member-states is noted for bureaucratic efficiency and some are plagued by corrupt bureaucratic practices. Their islands are particularly lovely, often set in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty (even those that have served as penal colonies in the past; not a happy association for a migrant reception and identification centre). Pianosa, 13 kilometres off Elba is all of these things. As such it shouldn't even be contemplated for reception centre use. The suggestion of Pianosa made in the Corriere della Sera is presumably just a way of getting the policy ball rolling.
So where (see list) should Europe have its Ellis Island, to meet its own Regulations and end the hurried piecemeal imposition (with all its appalling side-effects) of checks here and there across the continent?
The proposal of an Ellis Island was always waiting but has been precipitated by the closing of nation state borders to migrants, shutting them off from their settlement objectives, and rendering transit countries' city public spaces, transit hubs, and countryside bordering migrant routes simply squalid. None of the Mediterranean EU member-states is noted for bureaucratic efficiency and some are plagued by corrupt bureaucratic practices. Their islands are particularly lovely, often set in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty (even those that have served as penal colonies in the past; not a happy association for a migrant reception and identification centre). Pianosa, 13 kilometres off Elba is all of these things. As such it shouldn't even be contemplated for reception centre use. The suggestion of Pianosa made in the Corriere della Sera is presumably just a way of getting the policy ball rolling.
So where (see list) should Europe have its Ellis Island, to meet its own Regulations and end the hurried piecemeal imposition (with all its appalling side-effects) of checks here and there across the continent?
Monday, 22 June 2015
Migration and Settlement
One of the disasters of the 20th century Cold War, the Iron Curtain, did two things: it kept the people of eastern Europe from migrating to the West; it taught how to build a wall (or fence, or other frontier control) that is marked by its efficiency, second only to its cruelty. So when those traipsing through Serbia meet the construct being realised by the Hungarian government they are in for a shock.
Hungary has decades of experience on which to draw to make their physical defence of their country effective. So has Germany (at least the former GDR), not to mention the Balkans. Walls are social structures too, and the societies that were once shut in have not lost the capacity to run an effective barrier to shut people out - this time with brio rather than the resignation of just doing a job.
The UK gave up on its moat, its coastguard, its navy and its long-standing policy opposition to mass immigration under the 1997 and later governments. Other Western European states had large migratory flows as well - Italians to Belgium, to Germany, for instance and, while the Turks to Germany wasn't exactly European, guest workers were useful and temporary. Temporary was the key word. All these European kinds of migrations were reversible as soon as work disappeared, and when out of work benefits were so unenticing. The UK, however, experienced a very different kind of migration; a migration of permanent settlement (as did France, though for different reasons, and earlier). So awful were their countries of origin in terms of opportunity, democracy, cultural normality, that the entrants never return - not permanently. All Italians go home. You would, wouldn't you? Turks didn't even have the choice until fairly recently. But what happened to the UK and France is now threatening to be the norm for Europe.
Those who know how to build a wall (in its full meaning) are going to do so. And maintain it. Meanwhile the transit states, like Italy and Serbia, are joined with the migrants from elsewhere in pushing relatively undefended or inexperienced countries, or countries with large, extant extra European culture settlements to cease even attempting to reinstate border controls against not temporary and desired labour resources but against permanent and unskilled settlers wholly inappropriate to European needs or wishes. Eastern Europe knows what to do, and has perfectly reasonable and acceptable migration patterns for its east European nationals. It's no good trying to turn transit countries into lagers either; these transit countries too have reasonable, settled migration patterns and no provision for settlement of extra-European migrants.
Hence the scenes at Calais, Menton, the Alpine crossing points into Austria and Germany: no experience of keeping people out in continental Europe, and the poor choices made in 1997 in the UK, have now to be remedied.
Hungary has decades of experience on which to draw to make their physical defence of their country effective. So has Germany (at least the former GDR), not to mention the Balkans. Walls are social structures too, and the societies that were once shut in have not lost the capacity to run an effective barrier to shut people out - this time with brio rather than the resignation of just doing a job.
The UK gave up on its moat, its coastguard, its navy and its long-standing policy opposition to mass immigration under the 1997 and later governments. Other Western European states had large migratory flows as well - Italians to Belgium, to Germany, for instance and, while the Turks to Germany wasn't exactly European, guest workers were useful and temporary. Temporary was the key word. All these European kinds of migrations were reversible as soon as work disappeared, and when out of work benefits were so unenticing. The UK, however, experienced a very different kind of migration; a migration of permanent settlement (as did France, though for different reasons, and earlier). So awful were their countries of origin in terms of opportunity, democracy, cultural normality, that the entrants never return - not permanently. All Italians go home. You would, wouldn't you? Turks didn't even have the choice until fairly recently. But what happened to the UK and France is now threatening to be the norm for Europe.
Those who know how to build a wall (in its full meaning) are going to do so. And maintain it. Meanwhile the transit states, like Italy and Serbia, are joined with the migrants from elsewhere in pushing relatively undefended or inexperienced countries, or countries with large, extant extra European culture settlements to cease even attempting to reinstate border controls against not temporary and desired labour resources but against permanent and unskilled settlers wholly inappropriate to European needs or wishes. Eastern Europe knows what to do, and has perfectly reasonable and acceptable migration patterns for its east European nationals. It's no good trying to turn transit countries into lagers either; these transit countries too have reasonable, settled migration patterns and no provision for settlement of extra-European migrants.
Hence the scenes at Calais, Menton, the Alpine crossing points into Austria and Germany: no experience of keeping people out in continental Europe, and the poor choices made in 1997 in the UK, have now to be remedied.
Wednesday, 17 June 2015
John F Kennedy's Demand Needs a Response From Migrants
"Ask not what our countries can do for you - ask what you can do for our countries."
Europe faces nothing but insistence on admittance from African migrants. We are asked "Where is your humanity?" We are told "We must be allowed to pass." We face aggression and insults to our magistrates and their officers when after (in our humanity) fishing them out of the sea, they are offered shelter in 'unsatisfactory' asylum.
And the "...what can you do for our countries"? is never answered.
Europe faces nothing but insistence on admittance from African migrants. We are asked "Where is your humanity?" We are told "We must be allowed to pass." We face aggression and insults to our magistrates and their officers when after (in our humanity) fishing them out of the sea, they are offered shelter in 'unsatisfactory' asylum.
And the "...what can you do for our countries"? is never answered.
Six Hours of the Italian Exams Today.
The examination in Italian is this morning. 490,000 eighteen-year olds have six hours to: analyse and comment on a set text; or write a journalistic-style consideration of a given current topic; or write an essay on a historical given subject; or write an essay chosen on a general subject offered by the examiners [this last is for the truly desperate who can't form an opinion or summon any knowledge of the other questions, ed.]
Six hours. That demands clarity, understanding, organisation of material and of thought, relevance of reference and quotation, elegance of expression... Gosh.
UPDATE
The set text is Italo Calvino's "Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno" (1947) - not an easy work to assess considering Calvino's limpid simplicity in writing which is so sophisticated; offering a young boy's view of an adult world at (second world) war (and a boy in such circumstances) it is distant from any 2015 experience as well.
There are four topics offered for the journalistic piece: 'literature as life experience'; or 'the challenges of the 21st century and citizen's rights and needs in economic and social life'; or 'the Mediterranean geopolitical atlante of Europe'; or 'scientific and technological developments in electronic and information technology that have transformed communication'.
The historical essay asks for a reflection on the [Italian] Resistance.
A quote from Malala Yousafzai on the right to education provides the lead-in for the general essay.
Writing on 'literature as life experience' is easily the safest - and gives the best opportunity to use all those years of study. It might even be fun to write (and the examiners have attached verses from Inferno canto V, out of the kindness of their hearts).
Six hours. That demands clarity, understanding, organisation of material and of thought, relevance of reference and quotation, elegance of expression... Gosh.
The set text is Italo Calvino's "Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno" (1947) - not an easy work to assess considering Calvino's limpid simplicity in writing which is so sophisticated; offering a young boy's view of an adult world at (second world) war (and a boy in such circumstances) it is distant from any 2015 experience as well.
There are four topics offered for the journalistic piece: 'literature as life experience'; or 'the challenges of the 21st century and citizen's rights and needs in economic and social life'; or 'the Mediterranean geopolitical atlante of Europe'; or 'scientific and technological developments in electronic and information technology that have transformed communication'.
The historical essay asks for a reflection on the [Italian] Resistance.
A quote from Malala Yousafzai on the right to education provides the lead-in for the general essay.
Writing on 'literature as life experience' is easily the safest - and gives the best opportunity to use all those years of study. It might even be fun to write (and the examiners have attached verses from Inferno canto V, out of the kindness of their hearts).
Tuesday, 16 June 2015
Migrants Must Be Accepted in European Areas Where Their Communities Are Already Settled
With the closure of the Swiss/Italian borders (hundreds are being removed daily from the international trains at Briga and returned to Domodossola - over 1,700 in recent weeks) non-European Union migrants can no longer traverse Switzerland then try to enter France. The Swiss will not permit a build-up of the kind of trouble afflicting Italian border crossing points where France (and Austria) are preventing entry for those who have been landed in Italy.
For the many people who work across the Swiss/Italian borders, commuting daily, all this kerfuffle is causing serious disruption in one of the most high-tech, economically vibrant and important areas of the EU. Obviously it has to stop; as well international, cross-European trains cannot be held up for hours, nor the Alpine tunnels and passes closed by anonymous threats of explosions and other damage to the trains and the railway infrastructure. The migrants cannot stop where there is no work for unskilled, transient people without even minimal knowledge let alone command of the languages spoken. They are on their way to the large settled communities of relatives and friends in France, the UK, Sweden and the Low Countries, where there is hope of finding work and assistance. It seems heartless for such European countries to deny the refugees access to their own people who have achieved some security and acceptance. Once there is a community of settled migrants there should be recognition that they remain linked to their place of origin by complex ties of kinship and affection and duty. Italy's problem with these migrants is not just the numbers and the depressed state of much of the Italian economy; there is the reality of assimilation having taken place elsewhere, not in Italy, and where naturally the migrants expect to find work and welcome. The migrants are holding placards saying 'we must be allowed to pass' for good reason. There is nothing for them held at border points.
The Italian government has decided on three policies to ameliorate the migrant impact as they journey through the physical and political bottlenecks of the EU. First the ships that are picking them up out of the Mediterranean will not be able to disembark them at Italian ports: the rescue ships are considered as part of the national territory of their registration. Second the Prefects are to be authorised by the Italian Home Office to issue temporary laissez-passer to migrants so that they can move about the EU. Third the migrants will be housed temporarily in disused military barracks which are hurriedly being readied, rather than at international railway stations.
None of these measures are optimal but all are necessary. In refusing to acknowledge the scale of this migratory emergency and the iron conditions that must be met - the migrants must be rescued, the migrants cannot be returned, the migrants must reach their settled communities to have a hope - some countries of the EU, particularly France, have precipitated an emergency towards a disaster.
For the many people who work across the Swiss/Italian borders, commuting daily, all this kerfuffle is causing serious disruption in one of the most high-tech, economically vibrant and important areas of the EU. Obviously it has to stop; as well international, cross-European trains cannot be held up for hours, nor the Alpine tunnels and passes closed by anonymous threats of explosions and other damage to the trains and the railway infrastructure. The migrants cannot stop where there is no work for unskilled, transient people without even minimal knowledge let alone command of the languages spoken. They are on their way to the large settled communities of relatives and friends in France, the UK, Sweden and the Low Countries, where there is hope of finding work and assistance. It seems heartless for such European countries to deny the refugees access to their own people who have achieved some security and acceptance. Once there is a community of settled migrants there should be recognition that they remain linked to their place of origin by complex ties of kinship and affection and duty. Italy's problem with these migrants is not just the numbers and the depressed state of much of the Italian economy; there is the reality of assimilation having taken place elsewhere, not in Italy, and where naturally the migrants expect to find work and welcome. The migrants are holding placards saying 'we must be allowed to pass' for good reason. There is nothing for them held at border points.
The Italian government has decided on three policies to ameliorate the migrant impact as they journey through the physical and political bottlenecks of the EU. First the ships that are picking them up out of the Mediterranean will not be able to disembark them at Italian ports: the rescue ships are considered as part of the national territory of their registration. Second the Prefects are to be authorised by the Italian Home Office to issue temporary laissez-passer to migrants so that they can move about the EU. Third the migrants will be housed temporarily in disused military barracks which are hurriedly being readied, rather than at international railway stations.
None of these measures are optimal but all are necessary. In refusing to acknowledge the scale of this migratory emergency and the iron conditions that must be met - the migrants must be rescued, the migrants cannot be returned, the migrants must reach their settled communities to have a hope - some countries of the EU, particularly France, have precipitated an emergency towards a disaster.
Monday, 15 June 2015
Italy's Government Wobbles As the North Votes for the Right and Separatism
The photographs published by the Corriere della Sera, of trafficked Africans on the summer beaches, and the videos of the French police charging the Africans at Ponte Ludovico in the south of France, driving them onto the rocks, picture a world collapsing. Not just the Africans' world - they're well into the nightmare - but our world. Our world where we drive along the Aurelia with glorious glimpses of the Mediterranean blue and smiling, heading for France and its gardens in spring bloom, for the Balzi Rossi, for lunch at Garavan with its pretty harbour below us. A large part of summer has just gone; and with it a very English culture and history.
It's not just the seaside either; travelling to Milan for an exhibition, a recital, is suddenly a fraught experience struggling from the Freccia Rossa to even leave the station, overwhelmed as it is by others who are travelling nowhere. Rome? Rome has always been an edgy city but recent advances in orderliness, ease, enjoyment of its grandeurs have collapsed into a frightening sense of threat, certainly in the underground and even just walking in some central parts of the city.
The final sets of vote-offs were completed in Italy yesterday. Again the turn-out was very low, well under 50%, and again the ruling coalition of Democratic Party and New Centre Right lost heavily. Notable gains were made by Forza Italia, by the Lega Nord, by 5-Stelle, and by various civic lists. Venice voted centre-right for the first time in almost quarter of a century, joining swathes of the North rising against Roman central government and its noxious combination (over and above corruption) of economic austerity plus migrant-imposition in communities already without work and resources for far too long and for no good reason.
Renzi's government is under severe threat generated by externally imposed, wrong economic and fiscal policies, and external refusal to help with the migrants. For the latter he has stated Italy will supply short term settlement papers to them all, thus allowing travel anywhere in Europe, unless the frontiers are opened and they can be settled in an orderly and decent fashion. For the former the idiocies and rigidities of eurozone policies and its malformed, misconceived currency are beyond Italian solution alone. Greece (and the Africans) will be as nothing if the two trillion* Euro debts of Italy come pouring out with the collapse of the Italian government.
UDATE: Figures issued this evening set Italian public debt at 2 trillion, 194 billion euros. Greek debt? That's just the billions at the end of that immense sum.
It's not just the seaside either; travelling to Milan for an exhibition, a recital, is suddenly a fraught experience struggling from the Freccia Rossa to even leave the station, overwhelmed as it is by others who are travelling nowhere. Rome? Rome has always been an edgy city but recent advances in orderliness, ease, enjoyment of its grandeurs have collapsed into a frightening sense of threat, certainly in the underground and even just walking in some central parts of the city.
The final sets of vote-offs were completed in Italy yesterday. Again the turn-out was very low, well under 50%, and again the ruling coalition of Democratic Party and New Centre Right lost heavily. Notable gains were made by Forza Italia, by the Lega Nord, by 5-Stelle, and by various civic lists. Venice voted centre-right for the first time in almost quarter of a century, joining swathes of the North rising against Roman central government and its noxious combination (over and above corruption) of economic austerity plus migrant-imposition in communities already without work and resources for far too long and for no good reason.
Renzi's government is under severe threat generated by externally imposed, wrong economic and fiscal policies, and external refusal to help with the migrants. For the latter he has stated Italy will supply short term settlement papers to them all, thus allowing travel anywhere in Europe, unless the frontiers are opened and they can be settled in an orderly and decent fashion. For the former the idiocies and rigidities of eurozone policies and its malformed, misconceived currency are beyond Italian solution alone. Greece (and the Africans) will be as nothing if the two trillion* Euro debts of Italy come pouring out with the collapse of the Italian government.
UDATE: Figures issued this evening set Italian public debt at 2 trillion, 194 billion euros. Greek debt? That's just the billions at the end of that immense sum.
Wednesday, 10 June 2015
Greeks? the EU Has More to Fear From Romans
The convulsions in Italian governance, both political and of the State itself, continue growing and are now interacting to increase its fragility. After the regional elections and the abandonment of the ruling Democratic Party by the electorate, the governors of northern Italy have told the government in Rome where to put its attempts to distribute and settle African refugees landed in the South. In Lombardy, Liguria, the Veneto, and Friuli-Venezia-Giulia regional governors, and more local mayors, want no more 'refugees' from Africa, not when the frontiers to France, Austria and Germany are closing. Passing through on their way to greener pastures is one thing: stopping in northern Italy is not allowed. The Italians have pulled them out of the waters upon which they so unwisely cast themselves but there are limits to saving other people from adversity. Adversity has been visiting Italy and Italians for years and its import has to be confronted for them first.
Unfortunately the Italian Home Office, faced with northern intransigence, ordered the northern Prefects to impose the Africans on the North. The Prefects are now in conflict with the elected governors and mayors - elected to prevent just what the Prefects have been ordered to do. The Northern politicians have cut off all funds to any northern community accepting Africans; after all, it was Roman corruption via the oh so socially just Democratic Party government that had realised most of the profit on the funding of the trafficked Africans anyway. Little could make the trafficked more unattractive, but no funding even has succeeded. Northern, newly-elected leaders are urging their electors to protest the attempts of the Prefects to impose their authority and place the Africans; the Prefects are protesting to Rome that their authority and hence their capacity to meet their (extensive) civil duties is being rapidly undermined by this single issue.
Renzi's Executive, already badly damaged by the tide of filth brought upon it by the Roman Democratic party and Mafia corruption (even though it was the Left faction, prior to Renzi's clear-out of what is known as the Ditta, the Firm, that is mafia-involved) is now facing the break-down of the civil power across the whole of northern Italy and, perhaps worse in the longer term, a major conflict between the political and State powers within a profoundly authoritarian state.
What has never been settled in Italy, constitutionally, is Who Rules? Given that the 1946 Constitution was written by old Fascists and old Communists in an unholy authoritarian alliance (indeed often embodied in the same persons - consider the former president Giorgio Napolitano in both Fascist and Communist hats) now is a really, really bad time to choose to find out.
Unfortunately the Italian Home Office, faced with northern intransigence, ordered the northern Prefects to impose the Africans on the North. The Prefects are now in conflict with the elected governors and mayors - elected to prevent just what the Prefects have been ordered to do. The Northern politicians have cut off all funds to any northern community accepting Africans; after all, it was Roman corruption via the oh so socially just Democratic Party government that had realised most of the profit on the funding of the trafficked Africans anyway. Little could make the trafficked more unattractive, but no funding even has succeeded. Northern, newly-elected leaders are urging their electors to protest the attempts of the Prefects to impose their authority and place the Africans; the Prefects are protesting to Rome that their authority and hence their capacity to meet their (extensive) civil duties is being rapidly undermined by this single issue.
Renzi's Executive, already badly damaged by the tide of filth brought upon it by the Roman Democratic party and Mafia corruption (even though it was the Left faction, prior to Renzi's clear-out of what is known as the Ditta, the Firm, that is mafia-involved) is now facing the break-down of the civil power across the whole of northern Italy and, perhaps worse in the longer term, a major conflict between the political and State powers within a profoundly authoritarian state.
What has never been settled in Italy, constitutionally, is Who Rules? Given that the 1946 Constitution was written by old Fascists and old Communists in an unholy authoritarian alliance (indeed often embodied in the same persons - consider the former president Giorgio Napolitano in both Fascist and Communist hats) now is a really, really bad time to choose to find out.
Tuesday, 9 June 2015
Renzi Loses Ground As Italy Displays Multi-Party Corruption at Regional Levels
The low turnouts fell even lower as the electors abandoned the ballottaggi during last week. Consequently the more disciplined factions of the Partito Democratico, the old-style party cadres were able to take more of the contested seats in regional elections than might have been expected. That doesn't mean anything much in terms of national elections, or balance of power within the PD - over-excited claims of confining the Florentines to the banks of the Arno or at least within Tuscany came from mistaking Party commitment as the defeat of the more fluid, Movement-style support available to Renzi when it matters in national elections.
However, the flood of arrests, helping-the-police-with-enquiries, and revelations of the scale of involvement of the PD in 'social' funding expenditures, from the mass subsidy of the 'red' co-operatives, the provision of social housing, to the profits to be made from migrant handling using EU funds, has been horrific to read about. The abandonment of any commitment to the ostensible social justice goals of the PD at local and regional level, particularly in Rome and the South in favour of the mafia-isation, the self-enrichment, and the entrenching of compliant personnel in local, and regional structures still surprises. The Right is supposed to do this sort of thing, and indeed it is through the allies on his right in the current Italian government coalition that Renzi has been bathed in this sewage. But it is his own Party, the Democratic Party in all its miserable compliance with the worst mafia undertakings and practices, that has put his government in question. Not a shift to the Left in the PD but the revelation that while none of them are worth voting for only the Left in the PD can still stomach doing so.
However, the flood of arrests, helping-the-police-with-enquiries, and revelations of the scale of involvement of the PD in 'social' funding expenditures, from the mass subsidy of the 'red' co-operatives, the provision of social housing, to the profits to be made from migrant handling using EU funds, has been horrific to read about. The abandonment of any commitment to the ostensible social justice goals of the PD at local and regional level, particularly in Rome and the South in favour of the mafia-isation, the self-enrichment, and the entrenching of compliant personnel in local, and regional structures still surprises. The Right is supposed to do this sort of thing, and indeed it is through the allies on his right in the current Italian government coalition that Renzi has been bathed in this sewage. But it is his own Party, the Democratic Party in all its miserable compliance with the worst mafia undertakings and practices, that has put his government in question. Not a shift to the Left in the PD but the revelation that while none of them are worth voting for only the Left in the PD can still stomach doing so.
Thursday, 4 June 2015
The Italian Elections Lose the Electorate
The voting in the regional elections in Italy is not yet over: the ballottaggio, the stand-off between any two leading candidates without a sufficient vote for a majority at the first round, takes place this week. However, in broad terms, the assault upon Matteo Renzi's leadership of the Partito Democratico by an entrenched, furious faction of junked senior Party members (located upon various parts of the PD political spectrum but mostly former communists and trade unionists) has failed. The man who junked them, the rottamatore Renzi, increased the number of regions held by the PD (though losing Liguria to the centre right.) Unfortunately lost too was 50% of the electorate.
Italy usually votes, but not this time. So bitter is the resentment of the Bersani-led faction within the PD (the prime- minister-who-never-was after the 2013 elections because he dared not face down the then president Napolitano) it is clear that they have gone much too far. The working-classes are not voting, not least because their party has within it a gelid, old-style authoritarian Left that will do whatever it takes to 'get their party back', ie., back to the economics and politics of the last century. Their central tactic this time was to use their chairmanship of the Anti-Mafia Commission to publish a list of those under investigation for Mafia activities. This list included the names of a number of PD candidates in the regional elections. Not unnaturally, the Chairman - woman actually - who blurted out that restricted list at a press conference only hours before pre-electoral silence fell on the media, thus denying those listed any chance of reply before the vote, is being sued by a number of candidates (successful and unsuccessful) for the obvious - damaged constitutional rights, public reputation.....
Even the current President of Italy has spoken of the damage to the conduct of politics, to electoral involvement, to civic commitment that this overspill of over the top factional fighting has caused. The Prime Minister has been remarkably contained in his expressions of contempt for the destructive behaviours of old men and women, but unforgiving in his condemnation of the instrumentalisation of state and parliamentary bodies for party, factional ends.
The trouble is that, as in the UK, there are the younger Deluded, and the bag-carriers for these old politics; what might be called the 'new' politics of Milibandistas. Fascism is never far away in Italy. Nor is its threat under 'socialist' ideals; it never was the first time round either.
Italy usually votes, but not this time. So bitter is the resentment of the Bersani-led faction within the PD (the prime- minister-who-never-was after the 2013 elections because he dared not face down the then president Napolitano) it is clear that they have gone much too far. The working-classes are not voting, not least because their party has within it a gelid, old-style authoritarian Left that will do whatever it takes to 'get their party back', ie., back to the economics and politics of the last century. Their central tactic this time was to use their chairmanship of the Anti-Mafia Commission to publish a list of those under investigation for Mafia activities. This list included the names of a number of PD candidates in the regional elections. Not unnaturally, the Chairman - woman actually - who blurted out that restricted list at a press conference only hours before pre-electoral silence fell on the media, thus denying those listed any chance of reply before the vote, is being sued by a number of candidates (successful and unsuccessful) for the obvious - damaged constitutional rights, public reputation.....
Even the current President of Italy has spoken of the damage to the conduct of politics, to electoral involvement, to civic commitment that this overspill of over the top factional fighting has caused. The Prime Minister has been remarkably contained in his expressions of contempt for the destructive behaviours of old men and women, but unforgiving in his condemnation of the instrumentalisation of state and parliamentary bodies for party, factional ends.
The trouble is that, as in the UK, there are the younger Deluded, and the bag-carriers for these old politics; what might be called the 'new' politics of Milibandistas. Fascism is never far away in Italy. Nor is its threat under 'socialist' ideals; it never was the first time round either.
Saturday, 30 May 2015
Vote 5 Star Movement in Italy Tomorrow
Italian regional elections are tomorrow. They aren't really like UK local elections because regional governance is extremely powerful; Italy is deeply embedded in the European Union model of governance, of the the state, with regions holding direct and important relations with the EU. So, Italian passport and electoral registration certificate in hand, I will cast my vote for who rules Tuscany tomorrow.
As ever, the political confusion is -well - confusing. The national political parties all have candidates standing, as does the Movimento 5 Stelle, but the statuses of various candidates has been called into question both by the Anti-Mafia Commission and by the conflict between laws and the (remarkably slow) delivery of justice. A recent law made it impossible for those under anti-Mafia investigation and/or convicted at various stages of the judicial process, to serve, if elected. More particularly the Anti-Mafia Commission is required to publish the names of those at various stages in the judicial process. You might think such people would not be put forward for election, considering the inability to serve if elected but No, the Partito Democratico has allowed names on the list to compete in the primaries and, democracy being what it is, some candidates have been 'chosen' in the primaries and are therefore standing.
The PD candidate for Campania (listed, indeed convicted in the first degree but appealing) declared that to stop him standing he would have to be shot in the head. Be careful what you ask for might be the response to that but his view is that he 'won' the Campania PD primary and stands even though if elected he cannot serve. Unless the PD national Executive, Renzi's government, enacts some law by decree altering the current status quo, thus allowing a convicted (in the first degree) contravenor of the Anti-Mafia laws, to take office. Forza Italia has candidates with the same defect.
So, as well as my Italian passport and my electoral registration certificate I shall have to have my conscience with me as well. As far as I can see, only the electors can break through this unholy mess of: judicial slowness; ill-drafted legislation; the instrumentalisation of what should be a super parties anti-Mafia undertaking by a faction of the PD (the old Left faction who want to derail Renzi's government); and the mass corruption of the democratic process in some parts of the country during the primaries.
Any coalition or party with one of these iffy candidates ought to be avoided. So that's the Partito Democratico (centre left), Forza Italia (centre right) and all their bits and pieces unvotable.
Which leaves 5 Stelle, (mass, anti political party movement), Lega Nord, (Italian UKIP), and SEL (Sinistra, Ecologia, Liberta', sort of Greens). There are lots and lots of issues here but only three coalitions meeting the primary requirement that all their candidates are eligible to stand and to serve.
As ever, the political confusion is -well - confusing. The national political parties all have candidates standing, as does the Movimento 5 Stelle, but the statuses of various candidates has been called into question both by the Anti-Mafia Commission and by the conflict between laws and the (remarkably slow) delivery of justice. A recent law made it impossible for those under anti-Mafia investigation and/or convicted at various stages of the judicial process, to serve, if elected. More particularly the Anti-Mafia Commission is required to publish the names of those at various stages in the judicial process. You might think such people would not be put forward for election, considering the inability to serve if elected but No, the Partito Democratico has allowed names on the list to compete in the primaries and, democracy being what it is, some candidates have been 'chosen' in the primaries and are therefore standing.
The PD candidate for Campania (listed, indeed convicted in the first degree but appealing) declared that to stop him standing he would have to be shot in the head. Be careful what you ask for might be the response to that but his view is that he 'won' the Campania PD primary and stands even though if elected he cannot serve. Unless the PD national Executive, Renzi's government, enacts some law by decree altering the current status quo, thus allowing a convicted (in the first degree) contravenor of the Anti-Mafia laws, to take office. Forza Italia has candidates with the same defect.
So, as well as my Italian passport and my electoral registration certificate I shall have to have my conscience with me as well. As far as I can see, only the electors can break through this unholy mess of: judicial slowness; ill-drafted legislation; the instrumentalisation of what should be a super parties anti-Mafia undertaking by a faction of the PD (the old Left faction who want to derail Renzi's government); and the mass corruption of the democratic process in some parts of the country during the primaries.
Any coalition or party with one of these iffy candidates ought to be avoided. So that's the Partito Democratico (centre left), Forza Italia (centre right) and all their bits and pieces unvotable.
Which leaves 5 Stelle, (mass, anti political party movement), Lega Nord, (Italian UKIP), and SEL (Sinistra, Ecologia, Liberta', sort of Greens). There are lots and lots of issues here but only three coalitions meeting the primary requirement that all their candidates are eligible to stand and to serve.
Tuesday, 26 May 2015
Referendum: British Empire 1 - Roman Empire (Holy or Ancient) 0
British citizens, resident Commonwealth citizens and the Irish will be voting in the referendum on UK continued membership of the EU. The protests from people living in the UK with various European nationalities, on discovering there is no such thing as a European passport, were many.
My favourite was the Italians: we're paying taxes in the UK they cried (but tribute never conferred Roman citizenship); had they paid taxes in Italy perhaps they would have been able to stay and work in their paradise of a country and contest the failures of the European Union's economic and political rigidities from there.
As the EU unravels, starting from the fundamentally ill-conceived Eurozone, and continuing through the necessary reassertions of political realities it was supposed to supersede, the limits of 'extend and pretend' are reached. The EU's democratic deficits are exposed in elections in Greece, Spain, the UK and now Poland; its wobbles over migration and settlement mark profound fault lines.
We have Renzi's Partito Democratico, Cameron's Conservatives, Tsipras' Syriza, Iglesias' Podemos, and the new Polish President all calling for a new Europe. But no forum. The European parliament is a fake.
The 'European' electorate does not exist.
My favourite was the Italians: we're paying taxes in the UK they cried (but tribute never conferred Roman citizenship); had they paid taxes in Italy perhaps they would have been able to stay and work in their paradise of a country and contest the failures of the European Union's economic and political rigidities from there.
As the EU unravels, starting from the fundamentally ill-conceived Eurozone, and continuing through the necessary reassertions of political realities it was supposed to supersede, the limits of 'extend and pretend' are reached. The EU's democratic deficits are exposed in elections in Greece, Spain, the UK and now Poland; its wobbles over migration and settlement mark profound fault lines.
We have Renzi's Partito Democratico, Cameron's Conservatives, Tsipras' Syriza, Iglesias' Podemos, and the new Polish President all calling for a new Europe. But no forum. The European parliament is a fake.
The 'European' electorate does not exist.
Monday, 25 May 2015
Schenghen Suspended by Germany for the G7
"The imperative requirements of security measures have forced me to replace the frontier controls at Germany's borders from 26 May to 15 June 2015 in view of the G7 meeting."* (at Elmau castle in Bavaria.)
On 14 April 2015 Karl Ernst Thomas de Maizière, the German Interior Minister, sent this announcement to the EU, suspending the Schenghen Agreement while the great and the good of Europe were exposed to the threats of uncontrolled movements of peoples.
What a pity their concerns about their own security refer only to themselves and not to the populations of European countries stripped of their frontiers (and so many other democratic defences of their nation states.) Recently Bolzano has been transformed into a major centre for the transfer of migrants landed on the Italian peninsula into Austria and Germany - as has Ventimiglia for transfer into southern France.
Attendees at the G7 can hardly consider themselves as threatened economically by these waves of migrants. Perhaps they might care to recognise that resident European populations too are afraid for their personal (never mind economic and cultural) safety.
*"Le impellenti necessità di misure di sicurezza in vista del G7 mi hanno indotto a ripristinare i controlli ai confini con la Germania nel periodo compreso fra il 26 maggio e il 15 giugno 2015"
On 14 April 2015 Karl Ernst Thomas de Maizière, the German Interior Minister, sent this announcement to the EU, suspending the Schenghen Agreement while the great and the good of Europe were exposed to the threats of uncontrolled movements of peoples.
What a pity their concerns about their own security refer only to themselves and not to the populations of European countries stripped of their frontiers (and so many other democratic defences of their nation states.) Recently Bolzano has been transformed into a major centre for the transfer of migrants landed on the Italian peninsula into Austria and Germany - as has Ventimiglia for transfer into southern France.
Attendees at the G7 can hardly consider themselves as threatened economically by these waves of migrants. Perhaps they might care to recognise that resident European populations too are afraid for their personal (never mind economic and cultural) safety.
*"Le impellenti necessità di misure di sicurezza in vista del G7 mi hanno indotto a ripristinare i controlli ai confini con la Germania nel periodo compreso fra il 26 maggio e il 15 giugno 2015"
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