Europe

[Furunculus]

The removal of the commission would severely hamper the work of the EU the reason is the EU MEP's cannot be trusted to follow lines of reasoning that would in the end destroy the Union.

The Parliament would for an example contain many more people interested in curtailing say Britain's financial industry. This would never happen in the commission as each country instinctively knows they might be next so France would shout but not too loudly in case Britain's smaller agricultural base would allow it to scrap the CAP say.

The day the EU Parliament actually means something is the day the EU ends. So Furunculus if you want rid of the EU start to campaign for more integration

i can see the logic in what you say, but i disagree that it is the best way to achieve the end result.

[gaelic cowboy]

i can see the logic in what you say, but i disagree that it is the best way to achieve the end result.

Just thought I needed to give you another plan so to speak

[Furunculus]

Didn't our friendly neighbours from the other side of the mudpuddle re-elect Mr.Bush?

At least Berlusconi's lifestyle only affects him personally, and I, for one don't see how his sleeping or not sleeping around affects his political career, unless he is financing escorts with tax money. If it keeps him happy and ready to do his job, I don't care if it is sheep that make him happy.
And I am really at a loss, with the Mafia, Camorra, unemployement, Alitalia, recession and all other ailments affecting Italy at the moment, the sex life of their president should probably be the far down the bottom of the pile of issues italians should be concerned with. In fact I wouldn't even be too surprised if Il Presitente had staged the whole circus to detract attention from the real issues as politicians have been known to do.

Louis, it was clear from the beginning that nobody from Eastern Europe would be given any responsibility. With the rampant corruption, neo-neo nazi tendencies, health problems, very recent acceptance among The Few, and potential to use the EU to oppose rather than negotiate with Russia, had made it clear that it was just not an option.
Vaira is probably no worse than most, and what is happening in Eastern Europe at large (the polish twin brother-evil alliance from last year, Estonia, Ukraine, Latvia, Kazakhstan and Lithuania forbidding Russian to be taught at schools out of nothing but blind and impractical nationalism, and the return of nationalist-right-wing politicians everywhere including Russia) can be seen as a natural reaction to repression of these local feelings during the communist years, a bit like teenagers acting up against their parents' curfew. As soon as new rules are in place and the novelty wears off, both politicians and their public will become less emotional about these things and begin looking outside.

As far as comparing the EU to the USSR, she is not alone. Mr. and Ms. SwordsMaster Senior, my honoured progenitors, have expressed that opinion many times. I prefer to see it as a Holy Roman Empire, lots of regalia and titles and little real power.
That's the only condition under which I'm prepared to stay.

True, but then again, maybe those americans chose to judge Bush by criteria other than those selected by witheringly scornful europeans, which again would explain the preference.

There is also the abuse of his media empire when it comes to presenting the government message and massaging government failures.
Berlusconi is also a ridiculous figure, who could NEVER get elected in britain, but he also represents a chance to escape the disastrous coalition politics that have dogged Italy's recent political history.

I don't hold Vaira's parents against her.
Nor do i hold against her the fact that she along with many latvians is grateful for the part the Latvian SS played in liberating their country.
I don't even mind that recent history has forced the eastern european nations into a agressive and confrontational nationalism, it is an inevitable result of their repression, and has no bearing on the europe i want anyway; a non political one.

I see the potential for a future to adopt some of the less savoury practices of the USSR.
Because the EU denies the existence of national culture, it will always struggle with percieved legitimacy.
Because the EU consolidates power in Brussels, it further diminishes the link between Demos and Kratos.
Because the EU isolates and insulates its political practices, it has removed the "representation" from democracy.
Because of the wildly different social and cultural histories of the peoples of europe, the EU will never be able to govern to the acceptable satisfaction of its electorates.
Because of all of the above the EU will grow to have contempt for the wishes of its peoples, and vice versa the people will have contempt for their 'masters'.
The only way to govern in these circumstances will to become further removed, and more authoritarian.
All that said, i agree with the sentiment that the only EU i want to live within is one with little real power.

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The Commonwealth rises at the same moment the EU reaches its nadir, do you think this will go unnoticed by the British people?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...tre-stage.html

Commonwealth: Relic of empire returns to centre stage
The once-derided Commonwealth could now wield real influence in the changing landscape of global politics, says Robert Colvile.

By Robert Colvile
Published: 7:39AM GMT 26 Nov 2009

It has welcomed democrats and dictators, Botswanans and Barbadians, but this weekend, the Commonwealth will receive its most unexpected guest of all – a French president.

In a curtain-raiser for the Copenhagen climate talks – and a reversal of centuries of imperial rivalry – Nicolas Sarkozy will join the UN Secretary-General and Danish prime minister in making the case for an agreement on carbon emissions. There have even been excitable reports – swiftly denied – that Barack Obama will jet in, hoping to woo the 53 members before the real bargaining begins.

Such diplomatic hurdy-gurdy reflects the fact that the Commonwealth has a membership unlike any other world body. As Tony Blair said in 1995, it "includes five of the world's 10 fastest-growing economies... It is the only organisation, outside the UN itself, to transcend regional organisations and bring together north and south. The issues that dominate post-Cold War relations are at its heart; refugees, drug trafficking, international crime, terrorism, Aids, debt and trade."

Since then, the rise of India has only increased the organisation's potential significance – especially for a Britain struggling to keep its place in an increasingly turbulent world.

In the old days, talk of the Commonwealth as "modern" or "vital" would have been bizarre. It was sometimes joked that "CHOGM" – the acronym for the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings – stood for "cheap holidays on government money", given that the centrepiece was a weekend retreat at which leaders chatted and negotiated as equals, free from the supervision of interpreters or civil servants.

Which other summit would see Margaret Thatcher waltzing arm in arm with the president of Zambia, the Queen offering cocktails to journalists on the Royal Yacht, or Tony Blair lining up tennis matches against anyone his officials thought he could beat?

It wasn't exactly that CHOGM was just a jolly – apart from the networking, there was serious business to attend to. In Trinidad tomorrow, leaders will discuss the readmission of Zimbabwe, and the arrival of Rwanda, which has proved its enthusiasm for Commonwealth affairs by forming a cricket team.

There will also be warm talk about historic links and shared democratic values. But underpinning it all will be the perennial question: what is the Commonwealth actually for? A report to be published today by the Royal Commonwealth Society warns that it has "a worryingly low profile" among both public and policy-makers: less than a third of people in the Commonwealth could name anything the association did, and the majority of those could cite only the Commonwealth Games.

Certainly, from the British perspective, the organisation has usually played second fiddle. In October 2001, the Brisbane CHOGM was abruptly postponed, partly because of security fears, but mostly because Mr Blair was scurrying around Asia, laying the groundwork for the assault on the Taliban. Given the choice between standing at the head of the Commonwealth or at the side of the Americans, the PM plumped instinctively for the latter.

By his lights, it was the right decision – but it was part of a familiar pattern. In opposition, New Labour claimed that the Commonwealth would be one of its foreign-policy "pillars". Mr Blair insisted that "we cannot let a priceless legacy like this fade into nostalgia" – but nothing happened. Similarly, William Hague recently promised the Tories' "unwavering support" – but specific proposals were thin on the ground.

The Commonwealth's supporters point out that its two billion inhabitants make up roughly 30 per cent of the world's population, and between a quarter and a fifth of its economy – a proportion that can only grow, given the membership of a resurgent India.

The connections between its members – in particular, the linguistic, administrative and cultural legacy of British rule – mean that it costs 15 per cent less to trade within the organisation than with outsiders. So why does Britain not embrace the opportunity the Commonwealth offers?

Part of the problem is that the relationship has always been slightly troubled. While we are rarely now at loggerheads with other members – in contrast to Mrs Thatcher's isolation over South Africa – we still have to perform a tricky balancing act. Do too much, such as chivvying members to improve their human rights record, and we are accused of being neocolonialist. Do too little, and we are accused of neglecting our historic allies.

"From the British perspective, there can be a bit of a mendicant flavour to proceedings," says Richard Bourne, the former head of the Commonwealth Policy Studies Unit. "There are all these small countries, begging for resources and favours."

As it stands, Britain provides the lion's share of the Commonwealth's budget, alongside Australia and Canada. But that budget is relatively tiny, especially compared with French largesse towards La Francophonie, France's rather smaller club of former colonies.

Despite the grandeur of the its headquarters on Pall Mall, in a mansion loaned by the Queen, the Commonwealth Secretariat rubs along on just £14.9 million a year, barely enough to pay for a Premiership footballer. As a result, most of its work is valuable but low level: development, election observation, mutual offers of scholarships and the like.

And despite the criticisms in the new report, the Commonwealth has tried hard to find a role. Back in 1991, after the collapse of Communism, the organisation proclaimed that it was no longer a fuddy-duddy relic of Empire, but a club of democracies. Under this new arrangement – unique among international bodies – the military strongmen who used to populate the meetings would find a bouncer at the entrance: no elections, no entry.

There was, however, the problem of enforcing this – and of massaging the divisions that are inevitable among such a diverse array of nations. Given how touchy former colonies are about their independence, the Commonwealth ethos is, in Bourne's phrase, "one of co-operation where at all possible" – the maximum progress compatible with the minimum offence.

The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG), the rotating committee that monitors breaches of democratic norms, was only given any real authority because it was set up in response to a diplomatic crisis.

It was not just that Nigeria executed Ken Saro Wiwa and eight other environmental activists in the middle of the 1995 CHOGM, but that this contravened promises made to other leaders in private. As a result, John Major denounced it as "murder, callous and brutal", while Nelson Mandela fumed that General Abacha, the Nigerian dictator, was "sitting on a volcano, and I am going to explode it under him".

In general, however, the Commonwealth does not really do volcanic: indeed, Britain has been so hands-off that more than one Foreign Secretary has failed to attend CMAG's meetings, even when held in London.

Yet in the long term, as Amartya Sen writes in the foreword to another new report, Democracy in the Commonwealth: "The evolution of the Commonwealth from an Empire on which the sun used not to set to an alliance of free nations... has been nothing short of spectacular."

The authors of that report would like to see the Commonwealth continue down this road – to focus on development, human rights, and redressing the failure of many members "to encourage, or even countenance, open political competition".

Yet the Commonwealth has another kind of potential, which from a British perspective could be even more valuable. Amid the West's obsession with China, it is easy to forget that India – with its far more savoury political system – is also on the path to becoming a great power, hailed this week by President Obama as a nation whose relationship with the US would help define the 21st century.

"I've been predicting for years that India is going to be the leading player in the Commonwealth," says Derek Ingram, a journalist and leading Commonwealth observer, "and it's now coming to pass. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is putting it at the centre of Indian foreign policy."

Within the organisation itself there has been no struggle for power – it is far too gentlemanly a body for that – but India is nevertheless starting to flex its muscles: it provides the current secretary-general, will host the next Commonwealth Games, and is increasing its funding for a number of the group's initiatives.

"From the Indian point of view, the Commonwealth is an attractive field, particularly in terms of its rivalry with China," says Bourne, "It offers access to raw materials and investment opportunities, especially in Africa, and the ability to connect to the Indian diaspora across the world."

For Britain, a Commonwealth in which India took a lead would be more of a club of equals, a better reflection of the changing world. It would also, economically speaking, be a way to hitch a ride on the back of the Indian tiger – just as in cricket, where India now calls the shots, but the best British players still get a slice of the massive revenues from its Twenty20 competition.

Yet whatever happens, Britain's diplomats can reflect, as they bask in the Trinidadian sun, that what many have written off as an imperial relic has turned out to be a consensual, informal and adaptable organisation – and one that could, if policy-makers show some vision, be uniquely useful in a world whose problems are beyond the scope of individual countries, or even continents.

The Commonwealth is a resource of unparalleled potential, western europe will decline greatly in the coming century, but Britain's decline could be a lot more graceful than most were we to actually make use of the advantages we have.

[gaelic cowboy]

True, but then again, maybe those americans chose to judge Bush by criteria other than those selected by witheringly scornful europeans, which again would explain the preference.

Doubt it because they all regret it now at least the majority do and rightly so.

Sometimes the annoying cowardly neighbour who wont stop complaining about your loud parties has a point.

[Furunculus]

Doubt it because they all regret it now at least the majority do and rightly so.

Sometimes the annoying cowardly neighbour who wont stop complaining about your loud parties has a point.

everyone in politics has a sell-by-date, and bush's term was dogged by a multitude of the most difficult choices in recent history as a result of 911, so he made a lot of hard and unpopular decisions.

[gaelic cowboy]

everyone in politics has a sell-by-date, and bush's term was dogged by a multitude of the most difficult choices in recent history as a result of 911, so he made a lot of hard and unpopular decisions.

They were also incorrect and false as evidenced by the fact's on the ground.

[Beskar]

Furunculus, could you do a Commonwealth thread? (aka, similar to what this has become)

Would be interested in talking about that.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

They were also incorrect and false as evidenced by the fact's on the ground.

Some were, some were correct, and some (such as the Iraq War) we don't know yet either way. A known unknown, so to speak.