A greener Germany
FREIBURG, Germany:
It's possibly my imagination, but the air here seems to taste cleaner. This pretty city nestling between the green hills of the Black Forest definitely does sound different. You can hear birdsong and the skittery clatter of bikes on cobblestones. The noise of a delivery lorry pulling up outside the rather magnificent town hall is a startling intrusion.
What is missing is the constant low thrum of traffic in the background. It's not that cars are completely banned from the city, but most of the centre, rather than the odd street, is a pedestrian zone. You pedal or walk to trams or trains. Freiburg can lay claim to being the greenest city in the world, and it's all rather pleasant.
But it is a political act. The city is the largest in Germany where the Green Party are in power. The Greens currently have 43 members of the European Parliament, two of them from Britain, and feel somewhat under pressure with so many other politicians putting the environment near the top of their priorities.
If Greens ruled what would the Green World look like: Freiburg or the more radical vision of the English and Welsh Green party?
Freiburg is not just about cutting the use of cars. It likes to be known as "Solar City". The town hall and the football stadium, swimming pools and the station boast mirrors to create solar power. New houses have to consume a third less energy than German law requires.
Green politicians are in charge and the deputy mayor, Gerda Stuchlick, says: " There are clear consequences. We've reduced CO2 by 40% and we have 10% renewable energy. What's unique is we have institutions, policy and the will of the people coming together."
And she's not worried that other parties have been going green.
"No,no we are really happy that other parties take on board climate change. We actually welcome that other parties have green policies and here all the parties have tried to work with each other. And of course it is all good to have green policies on a local level, but I'd like to see changes happening in European policy. It's very important for instance you have unified green policies, like standards for refrigerators at a European level."
In one suburb that's home to 5,000 people, Vauban, they take things further. The flats are overflowing with quite literal greenness, vegetation tumbling down their outside, and they are green inside as well - low-energy housing. 
Cars aren't banned even here, but there is little space for them. The wide roads are clearly made for trams and bikes and people.
Martin Kummrow moved here from Berlin so he could live the green life. If he wants to drive somewhere he just has to register that he wants to use a pool car and an electronic swipe car lets him in.
He says this is politics working. "It's been a full, complete success. Most people are happy with the things realised here. It's a paradise for the children."
But it's also very pragmatic, almost unpolitical, in that it doesn't seem that contentious. In Britain there are no Green MPs, or Greens in charge of big cities. But the English and Welsh Green Party does have a very radical manifesto.
Whereas most economists and politicians fret about the drop of economic growth in the recession they question traditional targets like GDP, and would like growth reduced to zero. They would encourage part-time, rather than full-time work, preferably done at a household level.
They would rein in lending by banks, which would be placed under local democratic control, and the pound could be replaced in part by local currencies.
Green MEP Jean Lambert says: "The Green Party has always felt we are very limited in the way we look at our economy and that we always look at economic growth as the only measure you can have. It says nothing about the quality of what's going on in your economy; it simply says how much.
"The Greens have always argued you need a range of indicators so you can measure things like jobs and resource efficiency. Then you get a much clearer picture of your economy, rather than this growth obsession, which at the end of the day means you are using up the planet's resources very quickly, with no real thought for tomorrow."
In Freiburg much more modest changes than called for in this manifesto have taken time. I don't think it's too fanciful to feel it is an example of a very deep political culture. "In Freiburg city, it's clean and pretty," a poet wrote more than 200 years ago.
One charming feature of the city is the channels of fresh clean water running beside the pavements. They are meant to cool the air and their pleasant gurgle echoes a forest stream. They are most definitely not gutters: they've existed since the Middle Ages, and even then you could be fined for polluting them with waste.
When I asked the deputy mayor about the zero growth policy she looked shocked and didn't know what I was talking about. Martin does. He says out of power people tend to scream about what they want.
"What should we demand and what should we say to the people when there are elections, what should be promised? This fighting takes place in the Green Party too. Greens are more practical in power, but others are still idealistic and say what they want to happen."
Light green, dark green, red green, green with envy or green meaning "naive" - what's your take on it?
I’m Mark Mardell, the BBC's North America editor. These are my reflections on American politics, some thoughts on being a Brit living in the USA, and who knows what else? My 
© 2012~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~27~RS~)
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GREENER and OLDER Germany and EU
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A Really interesting article.
Given we are in a period of falling growth this is a great time to take stock of what indicators we should be using to measure our country's development. The government is spending every penny it can lay its hand on into the economy and the only measure of success they talk about is ending the recession.
You can argue it is needed but what a wasted opportunity.
What measurements would we use if we wanted to make sure we were building a better world for our children?
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Freiburg does sound very pleasant, but I wonder how much that city depends on the remainder of German society for its incomes? What's the pensioner/worker dependency ratio? What're the net flows of tax and government spending and its fertility rates? Who subsidises the trams and trains? There are several pleasant towns in our country that rely on external earnings for their niceness. Green has to be sustainable everywhere not just in specific locations.
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Superb article. I personally would welcome a Freiburg translation in the UK. I really do feel that instead of wasting money on failing old technologies like the car industry we should all now more than ever be investing time, money and energy in creating a new green economy. Whatever party, however you interpret green and whatever kind of economist you are surely with climate change and an increasingly threatening Russia this is exactly what Europe needs!
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"Light green, dark green, red green, green with envy or green meaning "naive" - what's your take on it?"
It's a bit of a cocktail really. Nothing could be more sensible than getting as much power as possible from renewable, non-polluting resources. All political parties should be following that agenda. But, the investment in alternative hardware to deliver it is substantial. How can you tell people to spend thousands of Euros on solar panels then tell the banks not to lend them the money?
Replacing the pound with local currencies all sounds very romantic and democratic but it is also absurd. We should be replacing it with money we can spend anywhere. Euro anyone?
Having a minority of focused environmentalists in a political institution is good. It focuses the minds of the rest but it is still, in essence, single issue politicking. How can you have a green defence policy? It's a contradiction in terms. To make an impression on mainstream politics, the Greens must have a manifesto over a wide range of policies. Some of them will not be consistent with 'green thinking'.
So you are right. The Greens are understandably nervous that the mainstream parties are starting to address environmental issues seriously but after all, isn't that what they wanted in the first place? It is all well and good having bubbling brooks down the side of your road of good intent but it is still going to the same place.
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Well, Mr. Mardell, you could have chosen Frankfurt a. Main, the city of Joska Fischer, former minister of foreign affairs and leader of the green party in Germany. It is also the city of another green politician Daniel Cohn-Bendit, now a member of the European parliament, and the federal state Hessen has for many years been a bastion for the green party in Germany. In any case: Freiburg is also ok and they have excellent Weizenbier around there.
The green aspect has changed the positions in the EU politics. Old sceptics towards the EU and sceptics towards green politics, which is usually to very different groups, have realised that ecological and environmental problems are border crossing. Therefore the EU is a good forum for Europeans to discuss and make decisions about the protection of nature, environment, and consumers, to agree on standards for car emissions, to discuss energy politics and many other things.
You wrote: But the English and Welsh Green Party does have a very radical manifesto. And that is good, or it explains why they are not in charge anywhere in the UK?
I realise that the British EU sceptic in this blog are political amateurs, but is my impression correct that green politics and border-crossing environmental problems play no significant role in the general British understanding of the EU?
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You make an interesting comparison between German and British (or rather, English and Welsh) Greens. It must be noted that in the 80s the German Green Party went through a bloody internal feud between "Realos" and "Fundis", with the realists, such as Joschka Fischer and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, ultimately emerging as winners. However, this was only possible because the German Greens had the lure of power and the need to find compromise in coalitions. In Britain, with the first-past-the-post election system, the Greens have little chance of ever reaching even modest power, and thus no incentive in presenting credible, practical alternatives. Instead, the Green Party is monopolised by hairshirt greens, and moderate greens instead find refuge in the three main parties, in particular among the LibDems.
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Does the shade of green matter?
A lot of people will be using their vote to protest in the upcoming elections, surely any shade of green is better than the BNP.
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#6 - Mathiasen
". . . but is my impression correct that green politics and border-crossing environmental problems play no significant role in the general British understanding of the EU?"
No it is not. By coincidence, the largest wind farm in Europe came on stream yesterday. It is in Scotland. The British were a bit late coming to the party but now they have arrived, they are taking environmental issues very seriously indeed. However, it has to be said, that is because the political mainstream have embraced it, not because the Green Party itself has made a big impact. This, as we have said above, is the danger for Green parties all over Europe but, if they have been the catalyst for change, surely that is a cause for celebration.
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Completely agree with the theme of the article. Just simple pragmatic solutions can make a big difference. I hope the good burghers of Bath read this article and get on the train to Freiburg. If there is one UK city that needs intelligent thinking then Bath is it. It could be so much better than a traffic-polluted slum.
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I remember Freiburg well! Especially the Bächle, the small streams running down the side of main roads in the city centre, which have a cooling effect, we could use this device in some of our larger cities too! The only trouble is that they're just wide enough for cars to drive into!
My other memory is of the statue of the monk who "invented" gun-powder (for the West that is, it already existed in China) and the surprised expression on his face.
But, like London, the traffic roars around the ring road and there is always a queue if you want to escape to the Black Forest nearby.
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Soounds like a lovely place to live, but I would have liked to have heard if there have been any disadvantages.
Does the pedestrian zone simply push the cars out to the surrounding roads, as in so many 'park and ride' schemes in the UK?
Do local businesses find they get fewer customers? How do they get their stock delivered in the pedestrian zone, or is it only customers that are not allowed to drive?
Is it difficult to start a new business with all the additional green regulations?
Are there plenty of trams, and how are they powered? What happens if the trams don't go near your house? Do disabled citizens have any problems with access?
Are local taxes higher to pay for all this? If so, how much higher?
I would love to believe that pleasant towns like this can be created all over Europe, but something tells me that we are not hearing the whole story, otherwise surely people would have done this before? After all, we don't live in modern urban hellholes just for the fun of it ...
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As a Freiburger abroad, I appreciate this great story about Germany's prettiest and most progressive city! You have to realize, though, that the "pretty face" of Freiburg depends heavily on very strict building codes. A Green government can leverage these rules and regulations (and the citizens' tolerance of these rules) to exert powerful control to implement strict environmental and aesthetic standards. Looks like this top-down environmentalism works well in Freiburg.
In my current home in the USA it is quite the opposite. Here in North Carolina, there are very few rules as to what I can and cannot do on my property, so I am free to set up a biodiesel production facility in my backyard or basement, I can take my home off the grid and experiment with many ways to provide electricity etc. Personally, I have come to appreciate this grass-roots environmentalism, even though it's quite a bit messier than the German top-down model.
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Referring to 3. Freiburgh is a prosperous city with a good mixture of universities, High tech, agriculture and tourism (on the slope of the Black forest). So no they are not relying on handout. Now you'll change your tack and accused them of being wealthy people who can afford it.
Anyway Freiburg always has been a nice, albeit small city. The location in the Rhine valley exposed it to loads of conflict (and not just the two WW). Since mediaeval time the region witnessed trade, industrialisation (see density of chemical plants around Basel and along the Rhine), nuclear development and so on. They are at the hearth of Europe and suffered Chernobyl, Sandoz (chemical) and a plethora of others pollution of over industrialisation. One of Europe biggest aquifer had been damaged by pesticide and salt from local mining. Freiburg saw the future first hand and they didn't like it so they turn green. The greens are also popular across the Rhine in Alsace and upstream in Basel.
Can the model be scaled up? Hopefully, but it wont be easy
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PS Mark while you are there, you should have a look at:
1)the local airport. An example of co-operation between Basel, Mulhouse and Freiburg.
2) Public transport. Transfrontaler public transport is not un-heard of
3) universities the level of integration between the three regional universities is very interesting.
4) High speed train. there they couldn't agree and the developped they own network
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Freiburg is a city I visited quite a number of times as I have friends living there. I think it is a place where perhaps green ideals are also in conflict with some other German ideals that Mark does not mention here. The Black Forest is a totemic symbol to Germans, but I also seem to remember it is place where German super-bike enthusiasts like to ride their monsters as fast as possible along the spectacular forest roads to the annoyance of locals.
The German political system uses proportional representation where as the British one does not. This means there are more parties in Germany participating in power, but suffers from the serious disadvantage that policies are determined by coalitions AFTER the elections and may therefore turn out to be very different from the policies voters thought they were voting for. In the UK we have a reduced but clearer choice between two competing programs of government put forward by the main parties in their manifestoes which has (until Lisbon) meant fewer surprises. For the majority in the UK that vote with their pocket this is not a problem, but it puts British Greens in the same position as British liberals (who are deprived any equivalent of the German FDP) facing us with a choice between two main parties that differentiate themselves primarily along the classic left-right dimension of economic policy with perhaps no difference in their policy positions on the matters we care most about.
Environmentalism to me is attractive so long as it is liberalism (use of law to prevent harm to others) extended to preventing harm to the environment. There are however plenty of collectivist in search of green-coloured ammunition to persuade people to follow the general interest of their preferred collective, whether it be a particular class in society or the EU institutional interest in acquiring more power. Greens like liberals must choose their allies with care.
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"At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has sometimes been disastrous, by giving to opponents just grounds of opposition." (Lord Acton, 'The history of Freedom')
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Ho hum, one more "picturesque" European village with the obligatory open air market you must take a photo of to bring back as a souvenir. Where's the guy with the donkey charging you to take your picture with? One down, 999,999 to go. Got one on the side of a steep hill with the ocean in the background? How about a lake? And not even mountains either. What kind of photographer are you? Well at least you got the winding street. Always good to get at least one of these elements in the shot. Otherwise it might look like the East End of London.
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At #6 and #9:
Threnodio, although I agree with your comments in post #5, I believe your answer in #9 is not quite what Mathiasen meant.
". . . but is my impression correct that green politics and border-crossing environmental problems play no significant role in the general British understanding of the EU?"
I would say Yes. The general British understanding (and focus) of the EU concerns bendy bananas and erosion of sovereignty. A coordinated, international approach to environmental problems is a good thing and hence under-reported and of little interest to the euro-sceptic. People read the news not to be informed of something new, but to have their existing conceptions confirmed.
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Mr Mardell, I believe you have only touched on one part of the Freiburg story. While it's true that it is a green and pleasant town with fine universities, stories from people I know who have studied there suggests that crime is a problem.
Not crime for profit, but crime for "fun", perpetrated by the bored and dunk sons of middle-class families who amuse themselves by mugging individuals. The purpose of the mugging being to attack somebody violently not to make financial gain.
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Do the cooling 'water gutters' get turned off in summer when it gets realy hot due to hose-pipe bans?
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I have about four or five friends living in Freiburg. A very good article, Mark. I have found this on Twitter - which I would like to share: t1mmyb: A tale of two cities: Freiburg http://bit.ly/YP9F5 vs Bath http://bit.ly/47zfLi about 1 hour ago. It is a comparison with Bath in various aspects.
The big bonus of Freiburg is the sun - the beautiful weather. Attitudes of people seem to be different. I am thinking about it in rainy Machynlleth (with the Centre for Alternative Technology which does not seem to make any difference to Machynlleth people's lives how I have perceived it), Wales - where I'd rather not be right now. In Germany, I have either voted for Die Grünen or the SPD.
I really, really miss the pedestrian areas from the continent / esp. in Germany in the UK. To me it seems as if the British politicians just waste the money in meetings, some people's wages.
Green is definitely better!
I also miss the good cycling paths! I am moving.
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No Leiderhausen? No alpine costumes with suspenders, short pants, and funny pointed hats? No dancing with guys slapping their hands on their knees? No ump-pa-pa band? No beer steins or drinking horns? No rosy cheeked freileins in local traditional native costumes carrying a dozen or more filled beer mugs at a time for thirsty patrons? No platters of sausages and sauerkraut? Are you sure this is Germany? It could be anywhere. I don't like it. If I brought home photos like the two you have here and said these were memories of my trip to Germany, I'd be laughed at. They should get rid of all that garbage and put it back the way it belongs. Now where's that donkey?
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I know Freiburg well and love the area. Even thinking of moving there.
Number 12 has some good questions which I'll try to answer:
Q: Does the pedestrian zone simply push the cars out to the surrounding roads, as in so many 'park and ride' schemes in the UK?
A: Ring road traffic in Freiburg has always been a problem. East-West traffic used to be atrocious because of the geography. They've now invested a lot of money in a big road tunnel which has made things much better. Hardly "green", but it works.
You also find that pedestrianising the central zone means fewer cars need to turn into the zone, making for LESS congestion on the ring road.
Q: Do local businesses find they get fewer customers? How do they get their stock delivered in the pedestrian zone, or is it only customers that are not allowed to drive?
Customers prefer shopping in a pedestrian zone so it is very, very busy. There aren't many supermarkets, it's more department stores and speciality shops. On Saturdays, there used to be a big bus where you could leave your shopping with an attendant so you could go off and buy more. (Seems a no-brainer for the retailers to fund)
Lorries come into the pedestrian zone. I think they're time restricted. In most German towns cars are allowed into the pedestrian zone, for example to pick up something heavy, but are limited to 10km/hr and you can't leave the car.
Q: Is it difficult to start a new business with all the additional green regulations?
A: Not because of all the "green" rules. More a problem with labour laws. Green rules will be a problem for waste disposal, but that also provides opportunities.
Freiburg is also a centre of solar panel research and manufacturing. This is largely because of the high feed in tariffs, which mean that electricity in Germany is expensive, and lots of houses have south facing roofs covered in solar panels.
Q: Are there plenty of trams, and how are they powered? What happens if the trams don't go near your house? Do disabled citizens have any problems with access?
A: There are plenty of trams which are powered off the grid (not sure if on a green tariff). They have modern trams with very low level access. There are also buses on the less busy routes. I once missed a train because some pl***er parked his Mercedes in the tram route (no doubt collecting something - see comment above).
They've made some mistakes - they allowed a hypermarket (it was a Walmart - not sure now) about 400m beyond the last tram stop. In the UK, we build shopping centres all over the place with no regard for public transport, but for Freiburg this is a mistake. The greens can blame their predecessors.
But lots of people cycle. On rainy days the trams are significantly more full compared to nice cycling days. At the station, there's a purpose built "bike shed" with secure storage for about 1,000 bikes. Freiburg is a good size for bikes.
Q: Are local taxes higher to pay for all this? If so, how much higher?
A: Don't know. I suspect town taxes tend to be higher.
A lot of it comes down to choices local politicians can make. For example, the cheapest way to cut car congestion is to put in segregated cycle routes to schools. They've done this in Freiburg, but in British towns there's no budget for this, and "cycling" is the responsibility of leisure, when it should be part of transport.
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Nothing will contribute more to Germany's greeening than the current recession. But of course, if stiffer environmeal laws are passed this recession will deepen even more, which will result in even greener Germany still. :-)
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We have places all over America where the air is clean, there are no cars whizzing by, you can walk around from vendor to vendor, and the atmosphere is always cheerful. We call them shopping malls. The real world is just one step outside them. If most of Europe wants to return to the eighteenth century, it only has to step back a hundred years or so. It must have been murder getting modern plumbing and electricity into those old stone caves that look so picturesque when seen en masse from a distance. Cars had to be narrow to negotiate those winding cobble stone roads. Donkeys had no problems though.
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#18 - tomislav20
There is a lot of truth in what you post and I do not argue with you. I do wonder, however, whether there isn't a 'quiet revolution' going on these days. How often do you see anyone seriously suggesting that global warming is a fallacy or that secondary smoking is not a threat? You don't. These issues have ceased to be controversial.
Of course, if there is no controversy, there is no political mileage in it. Again a cause for celebration (even for lepers like me who have not abandoned the weed but maybe learned how to use it more responsibly). The danger, of course, for the Greens is that it is no longer radical. It has ceased to be an alternative agenda.
As to sovereignty and bendy bananas, the debate about the former must be ha. Anyone who thinks the latter is important (including the idiots who introduced the discredited rules) is simply irrelevant.
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Yes, indeed, Freiburg is a very pretty town. I was there a couple of years ago. However, I was saddened to come across the very venerable and handsome St. Martin's Tower, emblazoned with the golden arches of McDonalds! Whose idea was that? It was a jarring sight, philistine commercialism at its worst. Freiburg would be much prettier without it!
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#22. MarcusAureliusII wrote:
"No alpine costumes with suspenders"
In English please.... 'suspenders' = braces. Also I think the braces were more traditionally worn by boys rather then men.
I sense that you wish to be a green-basher and set your two dogs on the hippies from the safety of your gas guzzling SUV!
Green policies are sensible economically rational ideas in the main. Wouldn't you like to travel twice as far at the same speed and in the same degree of comfort as you do now? Is it critically necessary for your self esteem that you consume fuel at an unnecessary large rate, just because you can?
What is the point of going shopping in a Hummer? When you could use a far more economical Toyota? Really, please tell me!
Do you really like New York on a hot airless summers day? I would far rather be able to breathe less polluted air, maybe you wouldn't'?
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I am an American student in Freiburg- very surprised to see this article, as there was just one about Vauban (a neighborhood of Freiburg) in the NY Times recently.
From an American perspective, the most effective positive that Freiburg has allowing regular citizens to be more environmentally friendly is its public transportation- four street car lines, in a city of 200,000, can get you within a reasonable walking distance of almost all points in the city, and if you have a bike, then it is truly fantastic. Being "Green" here seems more pragmatic than what it is portrayed as in the US; part of the reasoning for the party's success here, I am told, is because there are solar panel manufacturers in the area.
The idea of forcing people to change their habits through regulation is, in my opinion, doomed to fail. Providing people with an easy means to change their habits (such as with public transport) or giving financial incentives (tax breaks for solar panels) seems to work. Convenience and money!
One last thing, regarding the comment of a previous poster: crime here really doesn't seem to be a problem.
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Hilarious to find that MAII can't find anything serious to argue over; even better to find that he has been totally ignored - except by me ;-0
Came across Freiburg several years ago: liked it then; sounds worth another visit.
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#30 - frenchderek
Who?
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19. At 2:01pm on 22 May 2009, tomislav20 wrote:
...stories from people I know who have studied there suggests that crime is a problem.
Not crime for profit, but crime for "fun", perpetrated by the bored and dunk sons of middle-class families who amuse themselves by mugging individuals.
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High levels of violent crime in Freiburg?
Stated (presumably) by a UK Resident?!!??
This is really an *interesting* case of Pot-Kettle-Black!!!
I've lived 13 years in a *much* larger German city. The only violence I've experienced (apart from various police-demonstrator clashes) was, once, in an Irish Pub, between two English speakers.
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22. At 2:51pm on 22 May 2009, MarcusAureliusII wrote:
"No Leiderhausen? No alpine costumes with suspenders, short pants, and funny pointed hats? No dancing with guys slapping their hands on their knees? No ump-pa-pa band? No beer steins or drinking horns? No rosy cheeked freileins (Sic) in local traditional native costumes carrying a dozen or more filled beer mugs at a time for thirsty patrons?.."
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Thus spake an open and brilliant mind, notably free from all prejudice and stereotypical preconception, astounding us with the depth of his insight and the very evident breadth of his international experience...
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I think of all the things you can buy for money, tourism is the one that is most overrated and overvalued especially when you can see and learn more from video travellogues than you can by visiting a place first hand. And if you really must find out what people are like around the world, just come to one of these types of blog sites and you will learn as much and more about them than you'd care to.
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MAII: as an American, give me 18th century european open-air markets over a US-style shopping mall any day. Laughable comparison, I must say, to anyone who has experienced them both.
And why the cheap-shots at German (more accurately, Bavarian) culture - i.e. Lederhosen, freuleins, sauerkraut and beer? Nice combo (except Lederhosen) if you ask me.
Clearly you have some deep seated resentment of Europe yet you comment here so frequently and say nothing.
Face it, europe is superior to the US in too many ways to count and you just need to come to grips with that. Sorry, old chap.
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CSG, the 18th century open air markets superior to an American style shoppoing mall? Try it in the rain, at night, or in winter, or when it's 96 degrees outside. I've also tried them both. Nice when you're indoors and there aren't flies swarming all over the food before you buy it. But that won't bother the Europeans. When I lived there not one of them I encountered or one house I saw had screen windows and as a result, their homes were often filled with flies and mosquitos.
I just used the Germans as an example. It could have been any of them. Having lived in Europe for nearly two years, I know the feel of the place. I could hardly wait to come home for the last time. I've resolved never to go back there again. Much ado about nothing.
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#33 and #35
Marks enquiry on capitals revealed something to me about the participants on this blog: We have many travelling experiences and we know a thing or two about our neighbours.
I would let the remarks from the American gentleman, who hides behind the name Marcus Aurelius, rest in piece. I dont think his project has any future, but Im convinced that our project has, namely to renew the European conversation while discussing our interests and goals. This effort is most encouraging.
In 1945 Thomas Mann let one of his figures in Dr. Faust wonder, how Germany should ever be able to rebuild relations to its neighbours. Tomorrow we celebrate 60 years of federal republic, and I suppose we are beginning to see the light.
(The paraphrasing of Duke Ellington is intended.)
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36. At 9:26pm on 22 May 2009, MarcusAureliusII wrote:
"CSG, the 18th century open air markets superior to an American style shoppoing mall? Try it in the rain, at night, or in winter, or when it's 96 degrees outside...
Having lived in Europe for nearly two years, I know the feel of the place. I could hardly wait to come home for the last time. I've resolved never to go back there again."
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In many European markets, the sellers are often the farmers themselves.
You can chat about the produce, recipes and whatever else & sometimes completely unexpected topics.
There is a human content and variety (not to mention fresh produce straight from the farm) which makes them a very enjoyable experience.
In US shopping malls you can be assured that everything is sterile, and even the plastic Eifel Tower or the imitation gondolas floating around the inside pond are undoubtedly disinfected several times daily.
Yes, my idea of a nightmare!
I've lived a total of 15 years in the USA and have NO desire to go back...
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#37 - Mathiasen
Thank you for that information.
I would like to congratulate the Federal Republic on its anniversary. The metamorphosis from tyrannical monster to gentle giant must be a cause of great celebration.
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Ah Marc, I read your post about Berlin being too untipical for Germany and I am happy that you found another destination. Whether Freiburg represents Germany better, hmmm, I have my doubts as a German from Frankfurt/Main. But hey, it doesn't always have to be the capital although I love Berlin probably more than any other place on earth.
I wasn't sure whether I had to add something important to this post but there was something which came to my mind in connection with the Greens. Last week Bad Homburg, one of these very rich and conservative suburbs in the north-west of Frankfurt voted for a new mayor and they voted Green. There definitly has to be something in the air and it is not only spring time, I guess this financial crisis also has positive aspects, it is not all about making money, more and more people start to think what they are and what they really need. If we needed such a crisis to restart thinking...
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#39 threnodio
Thank you for the congratulation!
- Unfortunately my thoughts were ahead of my writing so I wrote piece where I should have written peace. It is one of the things a spell checker can do nothing about...
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speiler
It may surprise you to know that farmers do that all over the world. I live in what is in part farm country and there are lots of farm stands all over the place. Still, I usually buy my produce in a store because there is more variety and convenience. However, locally grown peaches and apples are particularly good in season. The produce in the stores is almost as fresh.
When I lived in California which is one huge farm, everywhere you went outside the major cities there were vast quantities of produce for sale right off trucks and stands on the side of the road. Same stuff you got at the super market. Ho hum. This must have been the 43697276439th picture in the world of a local farm produce market. (Believe it or not, there are comparable indoor markets of the same type in the heart of New York City.)
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MA, what is travellogues?
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WebAlice, there are people whose business is to go all over the world with cameras, checkbooks, and as much equipment as 50 human beings could possibly carry and move to show you exactly what you would see if you visited a place yourself. They usually stay at the best hotels, eat in the best restaurants, and never worry about how much it costs. Then when you see it on television, you have images of what a great time you will have when you go there yourself. If you do go, what you will find out that they don't tell you about is the part about waiting around for hours for delayed airplane flights, being squeezed in for hours in uncomfortable seats on the plane, your baggage getting lost, the ptomaine poisoning you will get from the food in the cheap restaurants you will eat at, the uncomfortable beds you can't sleep in at the hotel, the money the local cab drivers will cheat you out of, the long lines to get into some museum or monument or other to see some stupid statue or painting or coffin, the extra fees you will pay they never told you about. And that's if all goes well. When you get home, you will tell everyone how much you enjoyed it and show them your video tape or photos and how you can hardly wait until next year so that you can go somewhere else and do it all over again. Here's a photo of George at the local market where we bought some fruit and cheese. Gee wasn't that a wonderful day.
Here's a TV channel that's devoted to nothing but travellogues
http://www.travelchannel.com/
Where would you like to go? Hawaii? Paris? Australia? Moscow? Try Samantha Brown, she'd be happy anywhere.
http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Samantha_Brown
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Freiburg being mostly a major university town, bishopric and administrative center, with very little industrial buildup, little if any historic trade-routes and no major traffic junctions besides are basically the "secret" of this.
Or rather, making it easy for the local politicians to implement greener policies and zoning laws than almost anywhere else in Baden-Würtemberg, helped by a number of unique geographical privileges, but the budget for the famous university, first class medical school and scientific research centers located here, which are attracting so many liberal and eco-sensitive minds, are paid for by the rest of the famously industrious federal state supplemented with national funds.
It is very easy to espouse "0% GDP growth" if someone else actually has to foot the bills of your eco-friendly enclave. But not actually honest at all, relying on the labour of those in the less pastoral areas.
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MarcusArelius,
my mother is from Colombia and although I have spent most of my time in Germany (my father is German, I carry both citizenships and I am a native speaker of both, German and Spanish) but everytime I leave Europe I traval to Latin America (not only Colombia). I am by far richer than most Latin Americans but I don't expect a special treatment there, I don't want to stay in expensive hotels, don't want to eat in expensive restaurants. And I don't care if my plane is too late or my luggage gets lost for a couple of days. That is part of a journey, this is an adventure and as we say in German: Der Weg ist das Ziel, no clue how to translate it into english, probably something like "the way is the destination". Your way of thinking leads to nowhere except frustration. Life can be an adventure but only if you walk with open eyes.
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Tortilla, maybe if I hadn't done it so many times for both business and "pleasure" the novelty might not have worn off and I wouldn't be so jaded but in reflecting back on all of it, I think that what attracts most people to travel is that they are afraid they are missing something if they don't go. What they fail to realize when they get there is that the place they have gotten to is no better and not all that much different than the one they left unless it is worse. Having found my little corner of the world where I am happy, I have no desire to get on any more airplanes, sleep in any more hotels, eat in any more restaurants (I can cook most anythiing I want the way I like it best at home) but I'm afraid I will have no choice. My fate is to travel whether I like it or not. Of all my recent trips, the last five to California were an ordeal I hope not to have to repeat any time soon. Several of them were over 12 hours long. I think at my age, if I took a non stop flight to say Manilla or even Honolulu, they'd have to peel me out of the airplane seat. You haven't lived until you've been lost alone in a forest in Alaska 70 miles from Juneau and wondered if you would be eaten by a grizzly bear (true story, happened to me in 1988.) The drive to work every weekday morning and evening through the rural New Jersey countryside is travel enough for me.
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Mavrelius, thank you; saved the links. Enchanting.
"Czars and commissars are out! Luxury and lifestyle are in! Capitalist Moscow with Mercedes, Hummers, Gucci, Prada and Chanel is a capital of contrasts. High fashion and a vibrant nightlife co-exist with the relics of the Kremlin and Byzantine cathedrals." :o)))
Funny I agree with your travel' insides description; having worked a bit in the industry, (hotels) (and touristic charter flights) that's exactly what you tell not, LOL. Or - work to improve, along the route of your arriving guests/travellers. A lot of both :o) is required in the profession.
PS don't get oriented by that travellogue much you understand what I mean :o))). While Hawaii pebble beach with black volcano cliff sides looks about correct, a brief glance at the first Moscow page reveals 6 mistakes. There is no "stunning view over Red Square" LOL from the first hotel they recommend; the next 4 they send you to were bulldozed; one does not dial country code calling from inside Moscow, to Moscow; city's architecture is not exactly "Gothic" :o))); and if you get oriented by the "average July temperature" of "63 F" you'll boil alive not morally prepared for it. Moscow is an awful hot stuffy box in July to get away out of ASAP.
But I am sure you'll be particularly pleased to know that Yes! it is 220V :o) and "two pin thin European plugs"
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But then I guess it differs depending from what side of the travel you look. As Tortilein wrote, @46, from outside - you keep your eyes open, enjoy new experiences and neglect minor moscitoes or whatever (I wish to all, absolutely all, such optimistic customers :o).
Once from inside - all matters, every detail, because that's what you get complains and missing customers from. Exactly those "minor" details; "minor" - it's a joke!! If you never put an ear to the wall trying to desipher if elevator sound can be heard at 3 am at that room wall; measured with a clock the walking distance for the fragile foreign pensioners, bus - museum gates (and if that's on cobbles and or asphalt paved), evaluated the current pickpocketers' situation ("That side of the street we do NOT walk to the souvenir flea market") or any other exuberancies of the kind. If anyone with the industry background is here as well - will understand what I mean.
LOL My unforgettable "achievements" were sending a couple of bell-boys to crawl over mezonine upper rooms with a glass ceiling, every night during White Nights, to manually spread the "night" cloth over (blue in stars LOL). Otherwise damn tourists can't sleep in light nights.
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Web Alice, too bad you don't get to see the full half hour shows on the web site, you need cable TV in the US to watch them. There are many hundreds of them from Samantha Brown alone. But she has lots of competition. Rick Steves will show you how to stay overnight in pensions and eat out of garbage pails, er I mean open air markets, buy Eurorail passes, get off the beaten path and take your family with you on the cheap....depending on what your definition of cheap is.
http://www.ricksteves.com/
If you miss him on PBS television, he's got an NPR radio program too.
Bert Wolf is selling a cruise through France this summer for charity. He also has a program somewhere or other.
http://www.burtwolf.com/travels2.htm
Want to go on a train ride across Canada?
And there are many more, in fact it seems endless.
If you must travel for pleasure, I think a cruise is your best bet. If you shop, you should be able to get a good one for about $100 a day per passenger not counting tips, air fare, or port taxes. I've been on 23 and I've had enough. My favorites for the money used to be Holland America and Royal Carribean. You only have to unpack and repack once. Food and entertainment quality and service are very variable. On those two lines it's always been at least good. I've been on most of the major lines. Unfortunately the industry has been ruined by its success. I don't know if going on a 140,000 ton+ ship is really an ocean voyage or a trip to a floating shopping mall. I prefer the smaller ships. There are so many cruise ships now, they've overcrowded the best ports and ruined them. Glad I was able to enjoy them before this all happened. The best thing to do on a cruise to the Carribean if you pick the right islands is...go to the beach. Me, I love Antigua. And Saint Maartin.
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"The flats are overflowing with quite literal greenness,..."
'Greenery', not "greenness". Jesus christ. And "quite literal" is a tautology. When a word means quite what it says, it is to be taken literally.
Now I will read the rest of the article, and see how much further violence the BBC is sponsoring you to do to our language.
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Mark Mardell writes:
"They would encourage part-time, rather than full-time work, preferably done at a household level.
They would rein in lending by banks, which would be placed under local democratic control, and the pound could be replaced in part by local currencies."
That is interesting stuff, especially the second paragraph. I wonder what the first sentence means?
While you are in Germany and reporting on radical green politics, maybe you could visit the birthplace of Rudolph Diesel. Actually he was born in Paris, but his father was from Ausburg, and his uncle taught maths there. That was where Rudolph studied.
Now Rudolph Diesel wrote a book on social theory, as well as inventing the most fuel efficient internal combustion engine. He believed that ordinary working people should manufacture goods from family business, at home. He invented the diesel engine specifically so that small businesses could compete with the large factories that were running huge steam engines for their lathes and milling machines.
And then the big corporations took his invention and the german navy grabbed it. And one story goes that Rudolph was on his way to england to sell his design to the British when German agents pushed him off the ferry and to his death in the English channel.
Anyway, it is a murder mystery with a green twist. Who would have thought the guy who invented the Diesel engine would have been a radical Green?
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MarcusAureliusII wrote:
".. I think that what attracts most people to travel is that they are afraid they are missing something if they don't go."
This is like that riddle about the antelope, and whether it always thinks of being eaten by lions. I mean, we can't know for sure, but I don't think the antelope is always thinking about being eaten. Maybe some of the time. Sure. But life can be about other things, Marcus. I am dead certain that antelopes, and other creatures, do things out of sheer curiosity and discovery.
That is why the best way to travel is to visit whatever parts of the natural wilderness still exist in the region, rather than checking out the statue of the dead guy in the town square.
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Good morning.
MAII is (obviously deliberately) missing the point and deviating from the arguement of the article.
While the article presents a portrait of German model city, its policies, ideals and constraints, MAII's comments are somewhat entertaining, remotely interesting, but above all subjective and misleading.
Or why are we spending more time on him, than on the topic of this article?
And that includes me ...
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Here is a posting that I've just put on 'Blether with Brian'.
I have just read that article (Herald) and it has just occurred to me that there is another party in existence within the confines of the UK that the major parties and media are avoiding discussing. I'm not talking about the Nationalists but the Greens.
If there were to be a protest vote against the major 3 parties (this applies mostly to England as there is no 'alternative' party such as we have in Scotland and Wales) then the only reasonable alternative is the Green Party. There seems to be a reluctance to even mention the Greens. I suspect that the Westminster lot are just as worried about the Greens as they are about the Nationalists. I think this is so because of the reasonable policies which the Greens have, nearly always, adhered to. If there were to be a hung parliament, and this might well be the case, then the Greens might just be able to force their own agenda and curtail the ambitions of the the major three.
Interesting times ahead.
As to the point put forward by the Herald and some MPs, of all parties, about there being a radical change to the structure of Westminster; I don't think that I'll live long enough to see that. I suspect that what will happen is that there will be a cosmetic change and this will be trumpeted by the major three as a wholesale root and branch restructuring of the political process in Westminster. Then they wil get down to running OUR parliament in the way that they see fit with the average MP still having no input into democracy within parliament apart from that spouted by their leaders. I may be a cynic but I can't see the MPs skipping happily into a new Westminster order where the party machine is finally subdued.
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55, gedguy2,
I haven't lived in the UK for 19 years but I'm afraid I would still lump them with the likes of the monster raving loony party or Bill Boakes. Maybe their policies are a bit more advanced these days from the previous 'regress to the middle ages' scenario but who knows what they would do in reality if they had power.
Here in Belgium they went through a torrid time some years back when they foolishly tried to control the Belgium formula 1 site at Spa, the damage they did by their idealism meant they were sidetracked for many years. Now they seem to be slowly coming back but whether their policies are better thought out who knows.
Anyway I have to say that as a recipient for my protest vote, the Greens would not be my choice as I don't trust idealist conviction politicians with largely tunnel vision.
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If you have been on the roads surrounding greater European cities you will know that on every working day idle running cars in large numbers are consuming fuel without going nowhere. And people are waiting for hours to get to work and get back to home again. And then from time to time someone demands the building of more roads.
In some major cities in the northern part of Europe politicians and parties usually in the left spectrum of politics have realised that a new pattern in the localisation first of all of firms is necessary. Since the firms are unlikely to do this by themselves restrictions and regulations of free localisation are being made on the political level the level where all interests are balanced against each other.
In the development of a more green, viable localisation, which is also taking into account some of the practical matters that was discussed above, Freiburg may serve a one of the model cities, because one thing is becoming clear: A major battle field of the future environmental politics are our greater cities.
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To go back to the discussion about increased use of renewable energy and giving tax breaks, grants etc to those that buy wind turbines or solar panels, I saw a letter the other day from one of the 'agreed' suppliers of electricity to us in South Belgium. It seems that you are obliged by law to be connected to the electrical network even if you become self sufficient. Considering that you pay for the meter and transport of electricity as a fixed charge (circa 50 euro per month) that would mean anyone being 'green' would be paying that for nothing or at best for a 'back-up'. These same companies claim they would buy from you any excess energy you produced, if any, but that would be unlikely to reach the fixed charge level.
Consequently, If this is the situation across the EU it shows the way the various governments just pay lip service to alternative energy sources and use, and are simply interested only in ensuring we remain ensnared in their sponsors networks as I can't find any real reason to refuse self sufficiency other than big business.
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# 56 Buzet23
I'm sure there is a lot of sense in what you are saying and I am sure that the Greens still need to 'grow up', but all parties have had to do that. All parties have made mistakes in their earlier days. Experience is what you gain five minutes after you need it.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
communists always were saying 'everything is fine' and censured the all what they werent happy about, but was true. And they tried to brainwash the people that everyone is living in a fairytale.
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Mark quote "He says this is politics working. "It's been a full, complete success. Most people are happy with the things realised here. It's a paradise for the children."
And i see no children around... i see no changes... i see that you can have a 'paradise' if the rest is burning... and of course the rest is buring, majority are not happy...
Is Mark a pro-EUSSR communist in their payroll?
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#58 - Buzet23
With respect, no it doesn't say that. What it does say is one hell of a lot about how utility companies - especially privatised ones - are a licence to print money. Meters and cable connections to the main are a mechanism by which these companies can potentially sell you their product. If you choose not to buy it, that is your choice and if you are going to be charged simply for having access to it, that is dangerously close to theft.
#62 - karolina001
Are these words of wisdom still coming from China or are you in a position to judge whether their are any children in Freiburg?
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MojoMenges, @54 "Oh why.." :o)
I'll support MA-eeee-(largely because I am no better). Someone once asked a well-known writer, forgot who it was "how to write a great book, what's your recepie, teach us". He replied the first and the last rule is it doesn't matter what it's about provided it's interesting." :o)))
No, of course I understand, blogs aren't books and journalism is another art and all.
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:o)
"The tendencies in our imperfect world take a strange twist lately:
More and more Greens. Less and less greenery."
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Seriously, Freiburg is of course very characteristic, I mean of German efforts to become more ecological and save energy and all. My mum has relation to those, sciencies, atmospheric air pollution, ecology aspects, and from what I see in papers in kilos at home from various int'l conferencies, simply in kilos of presentations :o) Germany seems may be the most active local driving force in this continent, always introducing a project or another, and saying a word on this and that. And Holland is also in, up to the ears. And then Denmark. I always come across in the kitchen at some papers how a parking lot has tubes lied under with water in them accummulating heat from the summer asphalt above, storing it in an underground reservouir, which is then enough to heat up the nearby military airport buildings the next winter (Holland), or a railway station in Stockholm literally absorbing heat from busy passanger bodies :o) literally running through, and also saving the "human heat" to feed with energy the nearby office block, or it'll be Denmark stretching electricity cables from the shore to the ships anchored in the port, so that they won't burn diesel while in port to get themselves electricity, and won't pollute air in port areas, but pay for electricity purchased from the shore (USA in the scheme as well, for large cruise linrer stop-overs) or smth of the kind. And German tables, calculations and all basically plague our whole house :o). From which I make an amateur observation they are very actively in in all those Green matters.
Of wind-mills heard they crunch birds sadly but steadily, stubbornly flying by. And you better leave slightly away where they are because the rotating blades are quite noisy.
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Ciapryna, @4 "however you interpret green, with climate change and an increasingly threatening Russia" ugh? er?!!
Yes, it was in-human of us to drag poor Barrosso :o)))) for the EU-Russia meeting all the way through to Khabarovsk. Surely if Medvedev liked him better he'd arrange it closer to the borderline in some idyllic small Russian town, on this end of the country, I mean. But then, what's so hostile and ungrounded Medvedev has said? Proposed helping Ukraine with money 50-50, the EU and Russia. Why? Because Timoshenko doesn't leave Moscow, every other day asking for money.
While we are about to start borrowing from the IMF ourselves - again! s.
I heard Russia plans to borrow 4 bln, while Ukraine keeps asking us for 5 bln and 4 bln.
Barrosso signed smth with Ukraine, ab Ukrainian gas networks fix-up, sponsored by the EU. Without Russia, we were excluded from the talks. The only result of it so far is Ukraine now asks Russia to enter intio the EU-Ukraine deal, with more money than the EU have allocated for Ukraine.
When people ask for money non-stop - do they seem to you financially solvent? No not. Ukraine isn't money healthy now at all. We have twice "forgiven" them some moneys due for the gas, since February.
What's so ungrounded in Medvedev's request to split the costs with Ukraine up-keeping together with the EU?
There are full grounds to expect them to stop paying for gas entirely later in this year. Simply because they aren't rich, no plotting or scheming, and because they keep saying honestly "your gas is un-afforadable to us."
What does Barroso count on, one would ask?
3 options.
1. Ukraine keeps paying Russia for its gas, has got money no worries.
2. Ukraine stops paying at some point, but does not help itself to the gas passing via them to Europe. Simply - transits, forgetting about itself.
3. Ukraine stops paying but helps itself to the gas sent via them to Europe, while Russia happily smiles and covers Ukraine country gas consumption from own rich budget.
???
I think we should have welcomed Barroso in Kamchatka volcanoes. Khabarovsk is too close.
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@ Alice:
"What does Barroso count on, one would ask?"
The only thing Barroso wants is more power for his EU-commission. Since he got to power the EU interferes more and more in politics of the national states without any legal basis to act. I wish we had some brave politicians to stop it but since all of our political parties want to carry the flag of the "Good European" we can only watch the decrease of power of the national parliaments which we vote and the increase of power of the EU-commission which we don't vote. So much to say about the real influence we have.
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"Because Timoshenko doesn't leave Moscow, every other day asking for money."
That is her job, Alice. At least she is trying to help her country, instead of fighting outdated ideological battles that don't make sense in the modern world.
On the subject on this thread, Germany is a beautiful country. For such an industrialized nation, I mean. I was driving up the Rhur valley last week and it was spectacular scenery. It is hard to believe this was the industrial powerhouse of the world for many years, all based on coal fired power.
And the Germans, like the Japanese, have had conservation projects for their forests for over four hundred years. They are not new to the idea of environmental degradation.
I would say germany is a classic example of a nation that has overcome its overpopulation problems. Further, I would say that overpopulation, and not any other factor, is the greatest threat to human well being. So Russia is maybe on the right track!
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#68
"Since he [Barroso] got to power the EU interferes more and more in politics of the national states without any legal basis to act."
Care to cite some evidence for that accusation?...
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threat of democracy
"I would say that overpopulation, and not any other factor, is the greatest threat to human well being."
You've been reading my posts lately? It makes me nervous when Europeans start to agree with me. It makes me wonder if I've miscalculated somewhere. I don't know if it ranks as number one but it's up there. It is the underlying cause of global warming and coming water shortages. Islamic terrorism and nuclear war are grave threats too which have nothing to do with overpopulation.
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#68 - Tortilein
I was under the impression that Mr. Barroso was appointed, after much horse-trading, with the unanimous approval of all the sovereign governments and that all other members of the commission are nominated by the individual governments. I was further under the impression that all 27 of those governments are freely elected in representative democracies and it is the duty of the Commission to do the collective bidding of those nations.
It seems I am wrong and that the whole charade is managed by and for the benefit of a handful of jackbooted uebermenschen. In the light of this knowledge, I clearly have a duty to boycott the forthcoming election in order not to give the EU any false democratic legitimacy even though I fear the authorities are, as I write, preparing the thumb screws and electrodes.
Um . . . . ?
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@ 70:
"Care to cite some evidence for that accusation?..."
Sure I can. As we talk about energy the EU-law doesn't give the EU the legal basis to deal with Russia or the Ucraine about energy supplies, these are national politics. Beyond the EU doesn't have the legal basis to coordinate foreign politics with the Ucraine and/or Russia. Remember that the EU is yet NOT based on the Lisbon Treaty (and maybe never will).
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tomislav20 and #18 / #19.
DUCK!
There it is again!
The infinite superiority of the pro-EU lobbyists!
"..the general British understanding (and focus) of the EU is bendy bananas and sovereignty.."
So, the 2 Green Party MEPs (just focussing on the EU to defend Britons, you understand) from the UK which is 2 more than a third of EU members states, were elected by the 'bendy banana' obsessives!?
So, the UK commitment to the Kyoto Protocols and the EU Environment Protection and Pollution Reduction initiatives (no opt-outs in that area) is about purely 'sovereignty' issues?
So, the UK Governments (NuLab and Conservative) that have successively committed themselves and the UK to: Agreements of the 1990 EU sponsored International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), signed to the 1992 Rio Conference on the Environment, advocate the EU 'Cities of Tomorrow' projects under the 5th framework programme linked to the 1994 Aalberg Charter for 'European Cities and Towns Towards Sustainability' etc. have all been about as you claim, "..existing conceptions confirmed.."
I think you may well be suffering from a case of commenting with preconceived conceptions that are totally at odds with the reality of the UK/England Publics' perception of what constitutes an important pan-European issue!?
According to media, government and scientific research polls/surveys the UK Public takes the threat to the global environment very seriously as is reflected in the above international commitments. In this area of public accountability/interest Britons are every bit as much concerned as any European neighbour.
Just because the British Public do not share the mainland European desire to pool their Political-Social-Judicial-Military resources with an over-riding power called the EU does not mean Britons are unaware of other vital bio-diversity/geo-political matters requiring pan-nation efforts for any satisfactory longterm solutions.
As for your 'Freiburg muggers' in #19, well, excuse me, but like with your #18 I would only suggest you look up the term 'stereotype' and reconsider your blanket views of others.
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Re Barosso: It is exactly as Threnodio is writing in #72.
To this I can add: The European parliament, we as voters are electing, examines the budget of the EU, and it exercises the democratic control of the commission. It has already happened once that a president of the commission had to go as a consequence of parliamentary discontent.
The Lisbon treaty will add to the parliamentary control with the commission.
I take this opportunity to thank the BBC and other serious media in Europe for trying to enlighten the citizens in these matters. We obviously have a great task for us.
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#74 - ikamaskeip
I am glad to note the distinctions you make and I am not going to take issue. Perhaps, for once we can agree about something.
1. All the stuff about bendy bananas, straight cucumbers and round tomatoes is absolute claptrap and none of any governments' business, least of all the EU. Anyone who had anything to to with that nonsense should be introduced that great British institution, the P.45.
2. The debate about common defence and foreign policy, shared social policies and so on is a complex one and will probably be a heated one as well. It deserves to be a serious discussion and we could do without the waters being muddied by irrelevant nonsense such as the above.
3. Environmental considerations are international. Nobody is going to achieve anything as a small entity unless the efforts, the research and emerging solutions are globally coordinated. This is one area where Europe must collaborate for practical reasons (what is the point of massive wind power generation in Scotland if it is going to be canceled out by coal generation in Germany or Poland?) and for political reasons because collectively the EU does have a degree of clout which no one member can offer.
What I am suggesting here is, if we can agree on what the EU is useful for, perhaps we can then focus on the contentious stuff without meaningless diversions from both camps.
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#76, ''What I am suggesting here is, if we can agree on what the EU is useful for, perhaps we can then focus on the contentious stuff without meaningless diversions from both camps.''
if EU was useful we would have agreed, but since we dont agree it means that EU is useful only for EU payrolls...
the MP expenses scandal... what a MEP expenses scandal could be?
bbc is a shame, Mark is a shame... we all know that the EU system is rotten as well... why all this censure?
you can censure all you want, people just know what is going on.. just guess and you are right on the spot... proEU payrolls are milking our taxmoney..
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there are so many scandals that the pro-EU payrolls are preventing from coming to the public.. they will come out.. claim lavish livestyles, and bonuses.. evading acountability and responsipility, using of your position.. fraud, corruption, etc etc..
i know cases where EU money is paid on false claims for every claim and never refused payments, let alone prosecution for criminal act, for manipulating the amounts of money, documents, invoices, receipts and the person doing it being a pro-EU 100%...
no need to comment further..
i am EUsceptic because of this, and nothing will change my mind that we can cooperate or even agree with pro-EU payrolls since they support the system as long as they rule it. they can pay for themselves.
i came, i see, and i win.. no need to discuss further.
we dont negotiate with terrorists, as well as with charlatans from EU.
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#77 - karolina001
". . . if EU was useful we would have agreed, but since we dont agree it means that EU is useful only for EU payrolls... "
Ah I see, you don't agree therefore it must be a self-seeking, self-serving tax drain. Leaving aside for a moment the obvious gaping hole in your argument that simply because you think something should be so, it necessarily is so, may I repeat my earlier question? Not long ago, you told us that you had lost your job due to the recession and we all duly sympathised. Then you told us you were posting from China. Now you are telling us that ".. proEU payrolls are milking our taxmoney..". What tax money? Do the Chinese share their tax revenue with us, are you returned to the EU and working or you just a good old fashioned hypocrite? Do tell.
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#78 - karolina001
If you have such evidence, not only are you entitled to produce it, you have a clear responsibility and a duty to do so. So we will look forward to seeing your revelations in the near future . . . won't we?
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haha.. this is funny.. this is censuring at best.. do you work in bbc?
'y + our = your' for everyone else to understand
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Marvellous that my 'local pub' in continental Europe is visible in the main picture. My sister, through academic work, has lived in Freiburg for many years. My visits there have been some of the highlights of my travels. Not for spectacular experiences or sights (though there are many - a cathedral with a 380ft spire can't have justice done to it by a postcard), but to be able to wander, or sit, and realise that there is something being done very differently is an amazing feeling. You do not have to know the political details, the ambience just overcomes you.
Matt, Aberystwyth.
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#73
Sure I can. As we talk about energy the EU-law doesn't give the EU the legal basis to deal with Russia or the Ucraine about energy supplies,"
Care to cite any evidence to prove that assertion, oh, and I choose my words carefully when I use the word 'cite' - if you think it's illegal you will be able to cite the relevant EU or international law, won't you...
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#74
"So, the 2 Green Party MEPs (just focussing on the EU to defend Britons, you understand) from the UK which is 2 more than a third of EU members states, were elected by the 'bendy banana' obsessives!?"
The the 'bendy banana' obsessives, as you call them, are those who are so obsessed with finding fault with any and all EU legislation or policy that they elected the UKIP MEPs...
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83,
spare me the legal or illegal arguments..
when you are the one to write the laws and abuse the laws.. in some countries it is legal to condemn people to death.. so it is perfectlly legal..
the EU has no morals.. so for EU payrolls it is legal to abuse the system..
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#85
"the EU has no morals.. so for EU payrolls it is legal to abuse the system.."
Just to repeat the comment from "threnodio" @ #80, if you have proof of such corruption you will have no problems reporting evidence known to - So we will look forward to seeing your revelations in the near future . . . won't we?
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#85 - karolina001
". . . it is legal to abuse the system".
No it is not legal.
So stop waffling about it and produce your evidence.
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democracythreat and #69.
re: "..Germans... Japanese.. They are not new to environmental degradation.."
Hmmm, with their history, I've a sneaking feeling you're on the right track!
Yes, I recall you believe the 'english-speaking peoples' to be the most bloodthirsty and cruellest in history, but, sometimes you manage to get things in historical perspective without really trying!
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threnodio and #76.
Well, I agree on your view of "..environmental considerations are international.." and that "..Europe must collaborate..".
As for the EU, it is a possible useful body through which some of this international environment protection effort can be administered. However, it has a diabolical track record on these really important issues. For that lamentable casebook no genuine blame can be attached to the UK/England anymore than other nations: No, the blame lays fairly and squarely with that ham-fisted, dogmatic EU institution that thwarts initiative, discourages enterprise and smothers new ideas/techniques with myriad regulation and petty-fogging jobsworth.
Global environmental protection is categorically the example of a 'one-size-fits-all' utter disaster in the EU's making: The earth's predicament calls for initiative, enterprise, imagination and Europe has got Brussels EUrocrats scrambling for their dividend from the 'Federalist' takeover when nothing of the sort applies to the crisis.
An EU concentrating on cross-border development of communal green-technology processes and resources, not pan-european police and judiciary, an EU pressing for renewable energy sources, not a new defence force, an EU that inspires Citizens and Governments alike instead of one that stifles them.
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it is not my duty, responsibility or paid by anyone to investigate or produce evidence.. therefore whatever i poses or know about of it is up to me to decide when i want to disclose evidence.
first you should ask those that are sleeping on the job to produce evidence..
evidence is in front of EU eyes, everything was submited to them, and they still paid the money..
(if i or anyone give you or EU the evidence (false documents claiming false amounts) and you or the EU pays me or anyone, because i am pro-EU funcy projects.. what evidence more you want from me..you already have the evidence... it is just an example.)
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#89 - ikamaskeip
If it is a question of the policy currently being in the hands of a bunch of ham-fisted cowboys, you will get no argument from me on that one. From my perspective, the process of changing all that might just start next month.
My point is a more general one. If the EU can come up with a coherent climate change policy and the political will to try and sell it to the rest of the planet, they are going to take a lot more notice of a 500 million person market place than a few has been colonial powers standing on a soap box.
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#90 - karolina001
British Members of Parliament have been at it for years. Many suspected it, no doubt quite a few knew about it. But it was hard evidence that finally brought about the downfall.
If you are right about the EU, the same thing will be true. Only hard evidence will brink about change. So if you have any, will you publish it please?
By the way, you write "not . . paid by anyone to investigate or produce evidence". If you have evidence and want paying for it, you are no better than they are.
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@ 83:
"Care to cite any evidence to prove that assertion, oh, and I choose my words carefully when I use the word 'cite' - if you think it's illegal you will be able to cite the relevant EU or international law, won't you..."
The contract of the European Community (1957) is the legal basis for what the EU is allowed to do. If you read Art. 3 I u. you will see that the Union CAN (Art. 5: "Can" means if the member states are not able to handle a problem) take respobsibility for energy WITHIN the Union but not with Russia/Ucraine as countries outside. I suggest that you seek further information about Art. 5 and the so-called principle of subsidiarity. You will find a lot of information about how the EU ignores it (and not only in connection with energy or foreign politics).
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sorry but when i will write 'not . . paid by anyone to DISCLOSE or REPORT evidence' then it means i want money for it.. can you understand the sentence correctly..
and if you dont want to pay for evidence then do you job, and enough with sleeping on the job..
you think you can get evidence free this day :) it's economic crisis so, sorry but if you dont want to pay, then do it yourself.. otherwise if someone else do it for you, you must pay.. fair enough..
does pro-EU payrolls work for free, or do they ask for bonuses as well ?
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@ 87:
". . . it is legal to abuse the system".
"No it is not legal."
The German federal constitution (Grundgesetz) gives every German the right to resist everything that tries to abolish the constitution as a whole or partly if there are no other possibilities (Art. 20 IV). The other possibility is our constitutional court which already works for nearly a year on the question whether the Lisbon Treaty will abolish parts of our constitution. As they need such a long time to decide about such an important political manner you see how many doubts there are about the EU and the Lisbon Treaty. As there is neither a European people nor a European country the EU cannot replace the national states but only complement them. As most of our law already comes from Brussels (I think I read something about 70-80% of all rules which directly or indirectly are created by Brussels) it is not impossible that we are on the way to a replacement de facto of the national states.
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Tortilein
Boilerplated
(as two opposing views)
Normally nobody in Russia cares what the EU area of management is and where their area of responsibility lies. Borders of either. Do they overlap each other, one equals the other one to one, or lie in absolutely different layers.
But since it concerns Russia from time to time, and more so recently, I wouldn't mind getting the angle from time to time. Not aspiring for the full understanding in its whole beauty, as it seemingly will take hard labour and much study of documents - and I am not a shareholder in the project, with direct dependance on the outcome .. but a glimpse in here and there won't harm me :o) Because, for one thing, it is absolutely impossible to seriously access any side's media bla-bla, if you don't know the underlying laws.
That example, for instance. The much spoken "EU-Ukraine gas deal."
From what threnodio and Boilerplated wrote the system (that I extracted from the messages above) seems to be it's people in countries elect own governments, governments elect own country's nationals (members of the acting country's government? not neccesarily?) into the "EU Commission",
after "much horse trading" as threnodio wrote that EU Commission elected themselves Mr. Barroso (from the acting Commission members? from outside somehow?) and now Mr Barroso represents the interests of the 27 EU countries in energy issues (disputed above, whether he can or not) in relation with outside countries (namely, Russia, Ukraine).
How much can he do? The deal was described in BBC, Russian media and Ukrainian media in vague terms I'd say namely "The EU will take part in Ukrainian gas networks' modernisation". A deal signed btw Ukr. President Joushenko and Mr Barroso.
Point left behind media attention are How much money? Over which period of time? And - the main thing I don't understand - is it a special own "EU Commission" budget? Do they have a budget? Money in a bank? Or do they have an agreement with 27 member countries that once Mr Barroso signs smth on behalf of the 27 - each country then transfers the amount to pool resources together? Is there a cap limit within the EU on how expensive deals can Mr Barroso sign? How does the Commission - or Barroso himself? allocate the expense - the exact amount in the "bill" each of the 27 EU countries will get? Is it on pre-agreed percentage base, by countries, split by "activity" - type "energy deals with countries of transit"?
Who saw the deal on paper, BTW, what's in there?
Why Ukraine asks us now to enter the deal as well? Does it not cover all they'd need for modernisation of their gas nwetworks' system? Is it an "open deal" that Russian can enter theoretically, or is it a boxed thing, where no more entrants are planned, and therefore Russia-Ukraine "gas networks improvement" deal (if ever) will be a side document, an extra?
Overall - is this EU-Ukraine deal in monetary terms, finance, or is it kind of a barter - namely that various European national energy companies will separately invest into and fix tubes in Ukraine, and then will own parts of the system?
Does Mr Barroso then have an OK from these separate national Energy companies? From which of them, and who has committed to what? Or are they beyond the deal, it is a governmental decision, and the respective governments whose reps to the Commission have Okeyed the project - will later on "press" their Energy companies to take part? Can I am sorry your "capitalistic" :o) governments "press" national Energy companies into doing something, or do Energy companies plan their expenses themselves? I don't understand the system. In Russia it's simple, Gazprom is state owned by a large percentage, Kremlin can "press" them.
Are your Energy companies 100% private money or partly state-owned as well?
This is also tied in with the questions of the "EU-East Partnership".
Another much advertised issue.
Basically what Medvedev did now in Mr Barroso talks is he checked the EU-Eastern partnership declared intentions as "open to Russia's participation as well" , as we say, "for fleas".
Why I say that intentions declared as "not hostile to Russia and open for Russia's participation? I listened to the press-conference in Moscow, Polish PM. He came to Moscow to assure Russia /Lavrov, in particular/ in the best intentions about a week ago.
I heard with own ears (in Polish, and in translation to Russian) he said "we, Poland, initiated the EU-Eastern partnership in the EU, so we feel our duty to come to Moscow and re-convince you it is not an act of hostility towards Russia or anything, but a very peaceful initiative, that doesn't harm you, Russia, at all, and moreover - it is open for your participation to which we are looking forward
Never saw a man smile so much as smiled that Polish man in the press conference. He was genuinely eager no jokes to fix the tensions, and Lavrov recognised that, several times said (with grave looks otherwise) that we highly value this Polish initiative to come over and explain us what's that EU-Eastern partnership is. And the interpretor the Poles had was very good, an elderly lady, translated very well, clearly a pro, and she made LOL additional effort to make the already friendly Polish tone sound even sweeter.
Anyway the Polish man repeated several times - it's open for you dear Russian to enter.
Now that EU-Ukraine deal. Is it beyond the East partnership, as was signed earlier? Nevermind, we aren't interested to fix their networks, what Medvedev offered was a money package to Ukraine, a loan, split 50-50 EU-Russia, which idea Mr Barroso declined in seemingly indignation.
What's then that "Eastern Partnership"? Is it not about money? Will it be EU companies investing in these countries, in various areas of business? How will it be arranged, again? The Commission decides, and then governments who sent reps to that commission "press" the national businesses into doing it? Or do the national businesses want to do it themselves, it is their bid? What, from all 27 countries? The private businesses all desired at once to invest into Armenia, for example? Sorry don't believe. A very strange co-incidence. That private businesses in 27 EU countries would suddenly desire to invest exactly in the list of countries that the Commission (urged by Poland) came up now with. If they wanted to, the businesses - nothing stops them without any "Eastern Partnership" deals. Would the conditions be better, in investment, for businesses, once negotiated btw the Commission and the Presidents of the "Eastern" countries? Hardly, it's a deal in favour of these countries, if these didn't plan to benefit from the deal they wouldn't subscribe to it.
To me it seems it's going to be the other way around - Commission - governments - private businesses to perform the Commission decisions.
A hundred questions but without knowing the answers sorry it is simply funny to "discuss". I'd better post a couple of jokes :o))) or talk to NAII about shopping malls :o))))
Do they have
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#94 - karolina001
Or, to put it another way, you don't have any evidence.
#93 - Tortilein
The contract of the European Community Treaty of Rome(1957) as ammended by the Merger Treaty (1965), the Single European Act (1987), The Treaty of Maastricht (1992), the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997) and the Treaty of Nice (2001) is the legal basis for what the EU is allowed to do. The Commission has no de facto right to negotiate on behalf of member states but can do if authorised by the council members.
However your point about the Federal Constitutional Court at #97 is an important one. More member countries should have legal institutions which have to power to rule that EU law contravenes their own domestic constitution. Of course, the British would need to have a constitution first, but that's another question.
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I think it's a valid point, threnodio, that oulematu raised to you ab "EU responsibility". That was on another issue, but here, on the energy side, it matters as well.
Suppose Mr Barroso hopes for win-win in both EU-Ukr gas deal, and in the "EU-Eastern partnership". That in the result of these two deals in the first case - Ukraine benefits as well as the private European national Energy companies, investing into the Ukrainian pipe-line modernisation
and in the second case - benefit all the "Eastern countries (Armenia, Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus etc) - as well as ? don't know who - from the European side (in case it's bbusinesses tied in, not plain financing, money).
We all hope he laid his hopes (as well as the EU Commission he represents) on the win-win scenario. (Russia was by-passed in both deals by the EU Commission, note.)
Then surprise surprise without Russia (that the EU Commission deliberately left overboard in both types of deals, in spite of out nagging and complaining "how can you? " etc.) - neither deal works to exactly both sides' satisfaction. Forget the Ukraine side and the "Eastern countries' side for a sec. Let's say - it does not work to the benefit of the 27 EU countries who are in, one way or another, obliged by the decision taken by representing their interests' EU Commission.
Then these 27 countries' governments simply write off the loss, it seems, because the EU Commission is their own hands' making, bad luck, next time will work better, and all. This is clear, but you won't deny these 27 countries' gain/or loss is directly dependant on these Commission decisions, re outside parties. The Commission itself it seems can be only fired in the worst case, if anything. They didn't "place a deposit" to cover the risks of their decisions. Well then you can only trust in good faith your future is in safe hands and the Commission decides on your behalf wisely. I would say a lot of power is concentrated in the Commission hands then as it is already. And these economic on the surface of it deals are heavily interwined with political issues, as it concerns such large outside bodies as Russia, and such a not-one-answer simple relations as it is. It is not an "energy deal" and "aid in economic development of neighbours" deal, but the EU expansion at stake and Europe-Russia multi-layered co-operation agreement at stake.
So far I'd put the EU Commission (on relations with Russia) a clear un-satisfactory mark. Because the current situation is we feel more friends and more open in work with separate countries within the 27, then with the EU Commission representing the interests of these 27.
Even on energy in particular - never heard of Gazprom tensions separately with any its customer/18 national energy companies. Even during the Feb crisis Gazprom was supported by national gas companies of various EU countries. This is abnormal, I think.
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Granted Russia isn't a piece of cake but not China either. For example. I'd say far more open, understandable for the EU Commission, and not a Newton's binom. And quite eager to figure out something commonly acceptable and not alarming to both sides.
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@ Trenodio:
"The contract of the European Community Treaty of Rome(1957) as ammended by the Merger Treaty (1965), the Single European Act (1987), The Treaty of Maastricht (1992), the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997) and the Treaty of Nice (2001) is the legal basis for what the EU is allowed to do. The Commission has no de facto right to negotiate on behalf of member states but can do if authorised by the council members."
The one and only treaty that really counts is the Treaty of Rome from 1957 (in German we only call it EG-Vertrag, so I had no clue whether it was the Nizza, Amsterdam or Rome Treaty). The Treaty which created the EU in 1992 (before we only had the EC) didn't bring duties for the member states, it only said the member states wanted further collaboration in terms of police, safty and foreign politics but this was and is nothing more than a wish, not a must. As we saw in 2002 half of Europe followed the USA into Iraq, the other half followed Germany, Russia and France to boycott the USA. In fact there are no common police, safty and foreign politics which is the reason why german universities only work with the Treaty of Rome in law education while the other treaties have no further importance. You have to distinguish between the "musts" and further "optional" rules which neither obligate the EU nor the member states. If they do it, fine, if not (like Britain in terms of Schengen and the Euro) is has to be accepted.
Don't get me wrong. I am all for a European integration. But as long as the people are only represented democratically within their national states there must be power limits for the EU. And until now there is no true democracy on EU-level, true democracy would not only mean "one man, one vote" but also that one vote has the same importance / weight throughout the EU which is simply not given (Germany has 1/3 more people than France, Britain and Italy and even two times more than Spain and Poland which are not represented in the EU-institutions). And as long as there is no real representation on EU-level there must be limits, the major political weight has to be in the nation states, not in Brussels.
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@ #95 and #100.Tortilein
Youre reading the constitution as the devil is reading the Bible. §20 (in the Germany constitution) is concerned with the relation between the state and the federal state (headline).
§23 is speaking about the EU. It says that the federal republic contributes to the development of the European Union and a united Europe.
(It is obvious that the constitutional court in Karlsruhe will include this § when it makes its sentence in the Lisbon Treaty case.)
You also wrote: as long as the people are only represented democratically within their national states there must be power limits for the EU. It is amazing. There are billboards all over Germany now, and we have even seen two of them here on BBC: You are asked to vote on June the 7th and decide on your representative in the European parliament.
As our Russian correspondent writes there are papers to be read, and I regret to say that the web sites of the two major German TV media, ARD and ZDF, are not of much help. Contrary to what is repeated here time and again the most powerful part of the EU system are the member states represented by the council of ministers: Take a look at the construction and take a good look at the rules for decision-making.
Add to this the opt-outs of various member states. They are exceptions, national exceptions that is, where a state is not bound, at least not directly, by decisions made by the Union. It is a fact that the member states in the whole process of treaty writing for the last 20 years have been quite reluctant to transfer sovereignty.
Jürgen Habermas is disappointed with the tempo of the integration. I am not. I believe the populations of the member states need time to build the necessary confidence and to digest the treaties. However, many discussions are confused not least because quite a few can not identify what the major force behind the European integration has been. I admit it can be difficult: Reading political treaties is not the preferred reading of many people, but just to give everybody a clue: The European parliament can agree on making common declarations of tyres but not on limiting the working-hours per week.
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#90
"it is not my duty, responsibility or paid by anyone to investigate or produce evidence.."
Sorry but, YES it is if you are the one making the accusations, see how far you would get if you walking into a police station and stated that you car had been stolen but couldn't even prove that you owned a car...
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#93
"European Community (1957)"
Is that as amended by later treaties?...
Also, has the EU taken any direct action in either the Ukraine or Russia - NO, can both Ukraine or Russia act in their own interests, such as trade - YES...
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threnodio and #91.
Yes, we shall see if the 'reform' process of the EU (and indirectly, local councils, might shift a few blockheads in UK), however myself, I cannot see it happening.
The "they" will no more listen to 500 million than to smaller National numbers: It is the very political-institutional impotence of the greater numbers that "they" relish most of all. Within an EU "they" enjoy even more anonymity on the vast stage - - "they" don't even have to use the UK's No.10/Westminster 'not me guv' routine response - - "they" simply are not there to be accountable, reachable, verifiable. "They" burrow and bury themselves in the fabric of a million unaccountable, unresponsive, unfathomable rules and regulations in which a EUrocrats existence is justified by EUrocratic needs and not those of the Citizen or Community.
"They" are there, therefore "they" are "they"! Deep? Or nonsense? I don't have the answer to that.
Someone once suggested it was like a 'cipher' and I did not really get that until I happened upon the fellow who did the 'pipes' at Durham Cathedral and he explained a 'cipher' as a "..continuous sounding of an organ-pipe, caused by mechanical defect...
"They" are the sound of the defect and perpetuate the sound whilst seemingly busy-busy-busy issuing agenda, holding meetings, taking minutes from which memoranda are issued about the sound and the defect for others to take note of and act on which of course needs agenda for meetings and minutes from which memoranda are issued and others then... thus "they" are in their EU cocoon doing so much and yet in reality so little or nothing about the mechanical defect. Naturally, "they" do insist on something eventually being done, but, as "they" have only listened to themselves "they" have come up with answers/methods of repair that any average EU Citizen can tell has not a chance of effectively functioning in the real world, and to be fair, "they" will respond in typical manner: With agenda-meetings-minutes-memoranda.....
As I and others have remarked before, a true EU-Soviet, and all the time "they" deny it because "they" do not have to justify themselves to anyone: Thus, the 'ham-fisted cowboys' reign supreme with absolutely no pressure or inducement to reform themselves or be reformed.
As for Planet Earth's prospects, well, "they" believe some other part of "they" is dealing with that issue and if there is not then "they" will very quickly and dutifully respond by writing an agenda for a meeting for.....
I know, my cynicism knows no bounds: See my piece some time ago on the Feudal system and the EU. Some thought I was kidding, I was not.
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#100 - Tortilein
#101 - Mathiasen
I mean no criticism of anyone's English - both of you are impeccably correct - but we may have a slight understanding problem. Let me give you a different example. As there is no British Constitution as such, a number of key Acts form the basis of how it works. Amongst these, the Great Reform Act of 1832 is of central importance. Nevertheless, it did not provide for universal sufferage, it gave no constitutional rights to women or to Roman Catholics. The Act remains in effect but subsequent Acts have significantly changed the way it works in practice. There have been many bits of legislation since which have addressed different issues in a specific way without altering the earlier Acts, it has had the effect of doing so. It is a bit like medication. You may take it for something completely unrelated but there is no such thing as a drug without a side effect.
When I write ". . . as amended by . . ." what I am saying is not that these subsequent deals have changed the wording of Rome or it's centrality to the process. I do say that all have, in their separate ways, impacted the way in which Rome works on a day to day basis, none more so than 1992 and the creation of the Union. This was far more than a symbolic name change as we all know. I was about to point out the significance of the preamble Rome by quoting but the EU link is broken so I will paraphrase. It requires that all member states must, as a prerequisite of membership be governed by a representative democracy elected by universal suffrage.
This is very important not only because it enshrines the basic rights of citizens from day one. It is also significant because it makes it clear from the beginning that there is and always will be a role for nation states in the Union. Why would you need to insist that the members were democracies if your objective is to strip them of all power and move it to the centre?
There is of course a price to be paid in terms of tensions. In defence and foreign policy, for example, there will be tensions between Britain and France with the others regarding nuclear capability and the permanent seats at the UNSC which go with it, there will be tensions between NATO and non NATO members and so on. So I agree with both of you. Tortilein writes "I am all for a European integration. But as long as the people are only represented democratically within their national states there must be power limits for the EU". This is right and it explains both why the principle enshrined in Rome is as important today as it was then but it also explains why the Commission has to continue in existence and with real and credible powers. So Mathiasen is also right not to be disappointed with the "tempo of integration".
These things are going to take time and it may be that it will take a later, less nation centred and more open minded generation to achieve it. Above all, because any transition must be democratically mandated if it is to have any worth, it may be that we have to wait many years for public opinion to catch up. Until then, national constitutional powers will continue to be very important. The Federal Constitutional Court is a case in point. How it rules on Lisbon may eventually be of secondary importance. What is indispensable is that they can do so.
Such institutions are the ones we rely on to tell Brussels that they may proceed along their chosen route but if they try to do so at the expense of the democratic rights of the citizens, they can and will be overruled.
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#104
""they" [EU burocrats] simply are not there to be accountable, reachable, verifiable."
Rubbish, the problem is that much appears to be inaccessible but ask anyone who has to work within EU regulations etc. and they will soon tell you that it's accessible if you know were to look, who to ask, basically these people who are criticising the EU for not being 'accountable, reachable, verifiable' are actually bouncing their own inabilities off the EU...
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#104 - ikamaskeip
I am interested in your analogy because I was recently at a performance when precisely that happened - an expected cipher in mid-performance. Far from getting used to it, what had started off as a distant irritating drone morphed into a jarring dissonance which wrecked the performance. Such things certainly do happen but the idea that we can ignore them and carry on as normal does not wash. Quite the opposite.
The problem I have with your vision of a vast, all embracing bureaucracy which is accountable to nobody is that you go on to equate it with an old style Soviet system. Others go further posting about some mythical EUSSR. What you are in fact describing is the UK. The 7,239,546 people employed in the public sector represents 27% of the total working population. Where is the democratic accountability? How is that any better than the EU's record?
Yes I know you have argued along with me about the(British)Union but is that really the point? The point in my mind is to ensure that power only passes to Brussels when it is obviously in areas which it is in everyone's interests are handled at an international level. We touched on environmental issues earlier and to that we could add defence since no one EU country can be said to have forces able to deal with a major crisis. The narrower the range of competencies gifted to Brussels, the easier it is to hold them democratically accountable. As to the rest, subsidiarity is simply not enough. Meaningful devolution to manageable local levels is the way of ensuring the greatest degree of public involvement and the main obstacle to that is not the EU but the nation state.
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Boilerplated and "106.
"..Rubbish.."
Oh well, that's okay then, you've got the access and the rest of us are just too silly to follow suit!
I recall asking the definite variety of 'pro-EU lobbyists' such as yourself the following:
Accountable: Name the MEP Candidate you are voting for? No answer.
Reachable: Name the Political Grouping in the EU Parliament you support? No answer.
Verifiable: Name and/or explain the Policy Initiatives/Programmes that your MEP is promoting? No answer.
"They": Explain when/how an MEP responded to the Individual EU Citizen request for assistance with a local (i.e. MEP Constituency) problem? No answer.
I distinctly recall being told ad infinitum by pro-EU lobbyists how 'accessible' the EU is to Citizens and the deafening silence when in response us 'antis' mention an EU Parliament with less than 50% Electoral participation appears not to have 'accessed' the Citizens!?
As for "..their ('antis') own inabilities..", perhaps you could consider that whilst we of inadequate education, poor communication skills and limited intellectual capacity are all humbled by your deep, thorough, authoritative knowledge of the EU Political process, it may be a tad illogical to come on here slating people using the exact same processes as your very good self!?
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#106, Boilerplated,
Rubbish? Of course the regulations are there to be found if you're willing to spend weeks searching through all the confusing cross referenced documents, and if you're willing to spend continued time keeping up with the amendments or qualifications that happen frequently. What ikamaskeip was pointing out is the perpetual response of bureaucrats who love to hide behind the regulations, whereby whether it's the EU or a local council or any public body, regulations and especially confusing cross reference regulations are an excellent smoke screen to justify their questionable existence and especially their jobs. The central committees you see everywhere are a symptom of that malaise, where an anonymous committee can rule on a subject or question without being exposed to the glare of the public.
So when he says ""they" [EU burocrats] simply are not there to be accountable, reachable, verifiable." , he is quite right, the endless committees, study/working groups, etc are not there to be reachable otherwise we (the people) would be demanding transparency from them and why they reach the decisions they do.
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threnodio and #107.
Unfortunate experience for you: Hope the entertainment wasn't entirely spoiled.
I simply do not agree with your comparative analysis of the UK as the "all embracing bureaucracy".
Whether it is 27% or 17 or 37 (and please remember any figure will inlude Health Service, Police etc.), the UK has a long established 'Democratic' process of 'Local' and 'Regional' accountability via the Ballot box (Councils and MPs) as well as the officially appointed oversight-bodies (in modern parlance 'quangos', but in practise the 1920s/30s revamped Local Boards for Health, Education etc.) with Regulatory powers answerable to regional and central Government.
What you see as a mass of public officials in the UK I see in the main as Public Servants and Services: These "they" are within a Society of 49,000,000 English and a wider framework of 1 National and 3 devolved Parliaments and thousands of Councils representing 60,000,000 English, Scottish, Welsh (and very regrettably Northern Irish).
The political-cultural-social evolution of this constitutional-electoral-administrative system in the United Kingdom has no reason to be considered inferior to an upstart European Union.
There, "they" are the EUrocrat bureaucracy obsessively claiming powers and authority to itself. No Ballot of UK/England/European Citizens has ever indicated support for this 'Federalist project' (as the June '09 EU Parliament elections will again demonstrate all too clearly). Yet, "they" will continue, doubtless with Barroso et al pronouncing again on how "they" 'must reach out to the people' as if after 2 decades of failure to do so "they" still have any right to influence anything. Of course "they" will go on for it is their venal, corrupt lives most at risk if Brussels falls apart.
I fully back my assertion of the EU-Soviet being that bureaucratic nightmare: The similarities in Brussels are fast becoming as dangerously illiberal as that all-consuming, over-riding Kremlin blanket.
Your antipathy to the UK always astonishes me: E.g. the Passport at Dover! Why is it such a big deal for you?
Such is your hostility to the UK you cling to the idea of the EU as still being a work in progress that can be made more accessible, answerable and amenable to 500,000,000 Citizens: It is a forlorn hope for "they" have no interest or intention of opening themselves up to what for them would be the horror of 'Democracy at work'.
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#108 - ikamaskeip
Accountable: Name the MEP Candidate you are voting for? I thought it was supposed to be a secret ballot but, since you ask, probably Szent-Ivanyi Istvan Csaba
Reachable: SZDSZ form part of the ALDE Group (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats )in the EU parliament
Verifiable: Broadly speaking much the same as the British Liberal Democrats. There is a strong emphasis on personal liberty with opposition to moves for Europe wide phone tapping and internet monitoring
"They": I have never had cause to take an issue to them directly but one is coming up shortly. Watch this space.
The EP constantly tries to access the people, never more so than in the run up to this election. Less than 50% participation suggests there are none so deaf as those who will not hear. Maybe Europeans just don't care about democracy. Maybe some have even been conned into believing that abstention is a legitimate political ploy as as opposed to a cop out. There are plenty on EUsceptic candidates out there if they are so minded.
#109 - Buzet23
And how do you answer the charge that they must just as well carry on as they are? Such is the level of interest in the EP that last time, fewer than 50% turned out. If the people don't care, why the hell should they?
"All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing" (Who was that - anyone?)
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#108
"Oh well, that's okay then, you've got the access and the rest of us are just too silly to follow suit!"
You have as much access as you want, of course those more interested in bashing the EU will not need much access as the truth rather gets in the way of half truths, lies and dammed lies - "bendy-bananas" have been mentioned, want to know about the regulation on banana production, importation and sale then look up those regulations on the various europal websites etc. but if you're only desire if to bash the EU over the head with a banana then just rant on about "bendy-bananas"...
"I recall asking the definite variety of 'pro-EU lobbyists' such as yourself the following:
Accountable: Name the MEP Candidate you are voting for? No answer.
Reachable: Name the Political Grouping in the EU Parliament you support? No answer.
Verifiable: Name and/or explain the Policy Initiatives/Programmes that your MEP is promoting? No answer.
"They": Explain when/how an MEP responded to the Individual EU Citizen request for assistance with a local (i.e. MEP Constituency) problem? No answer."
Well all I can assume is that you asked a singularly ignorant person, of which there are many I will admit and that is a problem, BUT had that person bothered/cared enough all the information is available (even if he or she doesn't have their own computer/internet access, now that there are public access points in the UK) - again, the problem is not at the institutional level but the individual level, put it this way: If you take a driving test and have not bothered to learn the your road signs then you will surely fail and the only person to blame is yourself.
Many people are disinterested in the workings of their own national parliament and the work it does, is it any wonder that they are even more disinterested in the EU parliament an it's institutions, but that is not the fault of the parliaments - perhaps the EU could ban celeb' magazines like they have banned bendy-bananas and consumers?!...
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#109
"Of course the regulations are there to be found if you're willing to spend weeks searching through all the confusing cross referenced documents, and if you're willing to spend continued time keeping up with the amendments or qualifications that happen frequently.
Would you say that about your own national parliament, or it it just the EU parliament that you suggest does that, come on - what you describe happens all the time from (talking of the UK political system) Parish councils though district, country, national to EU institution.
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#113
"what you describe happens all the time from (talking of the UK political system) Parish councils though district, country, national to EU institution."
Oops, that should have read:
...Parish councils though district, county, national to EU...
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#110 - ikamaskeip
This is not the place to answer your question "Your antipathy to the UK always astonishes me . . . Why is it such a big deal for you?" in detail but very briefly, I have absolutely no antipathy towards the UK.
I learned everything I know about freedom and democracy at the knee of Britannia and for that I shall be eternally grateful. This why I am so deeply saddened that the incumbent administration in the space of less than 12 years has reduced it to the stage where it can no longer be considered free, liberal, democratic or functional. I believe that the New Labour experiment has been such a complete and utter disaster that it has brought the UK close to ruin. And worst of all, I have watched the people stand idly by and let them do it. If you want a more considered response, we will have to find a blog which is not Europe focused.
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marcus wrote:
"Islamic terrorism and nuclear war are grave threats too which have nothing to do with overpopulation."
That s an interesting call. I'm not sure if it is true. By the way, I am also unsure whether you were the first to publish the view that overpopulation was the primary concern for the prosperity of humanity. It wasn't me, for sure, but i doubt it was you, either. Quite a few people think the same.
But this issue of whether islamic terrorism has nothing to do with overpopulation..... I must disagree. I have read the reports from Robert Gates's own staff on the source of radical fundamentalists, and he says clearly that a huge number of the taleban are doing it "for a job". They are paid to turn up. If there was something else to do, they would do it. They just need a job.
I was amazed to see Robert Gates say this. I am a big fan of the guy, I think he knows his salt. But even so, it shows that he is capable of dropping the ideological hoo hah and looking at the situation objectively. He understands that the people in the middle east and south asia are just normal people who live in an environment that is conducive to radical fundamentalist politics BECAUSE of the poverty and lack of economic opportunity.
And when folks then talk about what can be done to curb the fuel for the fire, the answer everyone agrees upon is to build the economy so that the folks in the troubled regions (we can call them the "drone zones") have something useful to do with their lives, something that gives them a chance of a better life in this material world.
Now.... that is proving to be one hell of a problem. Why? Overpopulation. There are simply far too many people. There are hordes and hordes, literally tens of millions, of people in these regions, who have absolutely nothing. Then there are tens of millions more who have maybe two goats and half an acre of ruined land per family. These latter employ the former as slaves, giving inadequate subsistence diet in return for manual work.
Only in this environment can a priest and a drug dealer team up and recruit a militia for a few dollars a day.
Note that you can't stop the problem by eradicating opium crops. The reason the religious militia is viable is because the soldiers are so cheap and desperate, NOT because they get money from drugs. If it wasn't drugs, it would be something else. In such a social environment, ANYBODY with a little bit of money (any foreign power, for example) can team up with some priests and form a radical religious militia.
Now research has been done into the reason the priests are able to get at poor children so easily. The answer is fairly bleak, and very simple to understand. Nobody else is trying. Say what you will about the evil nature of the jihad spouting cleric, these people are the only people on earth who are reaching out and providing food and a career to these unwanted children of the drone zones.
It is a cruel irony, but not without useful lessons. The lesson is not that we in the west must act to provide jobs for the poor of the middle east. Folks in afghanistan have been trying that since the russians moved in, and it doesn't work. And our own reconstruction efforts will also fail.
Why?
Overpopulation. At some point, a piece of land with finite resources no longer has the productive capacity to provide a decent quality of life for the inhabitants. From that point on, no matter what you try to improve, the region becomes a black hole for capital. The more you pour in, the more you lose. Because there is no surplus to invest, because everything is consumed and sold as soon as it hits the ground. The most striking example is perhaps the problems contractors are having putting down communications lines. Western contractors will lay down 100 miles of copper wire to link a regional outpost with a city, and before they can switch on the phones, 3 separate gangs of entrepreneurs have already carved up the cable, stripped it to the bare metal, and sold it to a trader as scrap.
So I disagree that religious fundamentalism has nothing to do with poverty brought on by overpopulation. I would claim the opposite is the case.
Priests have always fed from the misery of the poor, because what they sell is an afterlife. Now who trade their material life for an afterlife, with no guarantees, if the current life was worth living? Only someone with no prospect of a better future in the current life.
That is the mindset of the potential suicide bomber.
And the sports journalist.
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@ 101, Mathiasen:
"Youre reading the constitution as the devil is reading the Bible. ?20 (in the Germany constitution) is concerned with the relation between the state and the federal state (headline)."
You probably don't know that every headline in the constitution is added by the publisher of the book, these are no formal headlines. The federal constitution contains "grundrechtsgleiche Rechte", rights which are similar to the basis rights in the Art. 1 - 19. One of these rights equal to basis rights is Art. 20 IV, the resistance article which is NOT only concerned with the relation between Laender and the federal level but "gegen jeden" (against everybody). You find this article in the surrounding of the fundamental state principles (Germany has to be social, democratic and federal) because the constitution was written only a few years after 1945 under the impression that nobody from outside can harm the newly created Federal Republic, that dangers for the country and the society will always come from within Germany.
"?23 is speaking about the EU. It says that the federal republic contributes to the development of the European Union and a united Europe.
(It is obvious that the constitutional court in Karlsruhe will include this ? when it makes its sentence in the Lisbon Treaty case.)"
It is possible that Karlsruhe will deal with Art. 23 in it's decision but it won't be the main aspect. The main aspect for the decision will be Art. 38 (as it already was the main aspect back in 1993 when the court decided about the Maastricht treaty). Back then it decided that as long as the German people is only represented truely democratic by the federal parliament in Berlin (this will also be the case for the Lisbon Treaty, I guess we don't argue that the Lisbon Treaty will be more democratic than anything the EU had, still it won't be democratic) main decision making can only be made by them (the Bundestag) and not by a EU-institution. And whether the Lisbon Treaty takes away "main decisions" from the Bundestag and gives them to Brussels, this will be the 1.000.000 Euro question. If Karlsruhe decides that the Lisbon Treaty will take away decisions, rights and legal basises that really matter and are really important to maintain Germany as a souvereign and independent nation, it will decide that the Treaty violates against the federal constitution and Horst Koehler won't sign it. As we are already waiting for their decision since June last years I guess it is not obvious that the Lisbon Treaty doesn't harm the Grundgesetz. Everyone in Germany expects that they have a very close look "with eagles eyes"^^ on this question.
"The European parliament can agree on making common declarations of tyres but not on limiting the working-hours per week."
Again I guess that we don't argue about the EU-parliament not being fully democratic. They have neither the power to fully controll the EU-administration nor is it the main power in creating EU-law nor does it fully represent the people (I just mentioned that Germany now has 99 seats in it, with the Lisbon Treaty this would even be reduced to 96 seats, this number doesn't represent the number of people of Germany in relation to other countries. An example: A vote from Malta, Luxemburg etc. weights nearly a 100 times more than one German vote.)
@ threnodio, 105:
"I mean no criticism of anyone's English - both of you are impeccably correct - but we may have a slight understanding problem."
Believe me, it would be far easier for me to reply in German or Spanish, writing about such complicated things in English is really hard for me.^^
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threnodio and #115.
"..the incumbent administration in the space of 12 years has reduced it to the stage where it can longer be considered free, liberal, democratic or functional.."
Oh dear!
I see a disunited United Kingdom, but, only because the excellent NuLab 'Devolution' political path has stagnated somewhat and 'us' 49,000,000 English as ever are carrying the rest whilst over the borders get the gravy and the train!
That said, I cannot see how things were all that different prior to 1997 or even 1979!?
I recall Thatcher took the UK to war after a Parliamentary debate and vote just like 2003, her exploitation of Police and Magistrate powers to brutally quash the Miners, the patent lack of concern for 3 to 4,000,000 unemployed as Conservative policies revamped Britain into the go-ahead-free-for-all financial powerhouse with an obsequious, near in awe Parliament... hmmm, we all know where that's got the Isles! Now, where did we put the UK Manufacturing industries... is it that estate over there in Europe?
ID Cards? Well, they're not here yet. Anti-Terrorism excuses for over officious Police/Judicial powers... hmm, anyone really imagine Thatcher or Major in the past and Cameron in the future not exploiting this nasty gift-horse? CCTV? Another development of the Thatcher-Major era! Immigration? That was a lost cause even before Enoch Powell's ugly and ill-timed 'rivers of blood' speech. The European Union? Heath, Wilson, my 'Yes' vote along with millions of others can be blamed for our present subservience to that EUrocratic body! Parliament's MPs are just a herd? Well, in Thatcher's 11 years her Party voted against her policies only 6 times and it was she who signed up to Maastricht, so, sorting sheep from whatever hardly counts!
There was no New Labour "experiment": It was just an extension of Thatcher's brand of me-me-me-me-me politics and in the end, no surprise at all, the UK's own MPs have been found to have gone for it hook, line and sinker.
A General Election now, or in the autumn or next May (which is my bet considering just how woeful Jock Brown is as a PM) is very unlikely to change much at all. It certainly wont bring about my longed for Referendum on withdrawal from the EU unless UKIP win it (no, I don't support them), and, as for an English Parliament.... hmmm, there's several squadron of pigs flying in formation as I write, but, we can be certain of Cameron declaring a "..new beginning.." perhaps even, "..where there is discord let me sow harmony..", or, an original quote, "The UK is a busted flush.. we need a fresh Political start and no I don't just mean checking MPs expenses.."
Oh look, there's an entire airfleet of pigs (made in China of course under EU license following a Brussels Directive on replacing any indicators of British culture-heritage with 27 Stars replacing the Monarch's Head) taking to the skies...
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boilerplated and "112.
Yes, quite!
"..half-truths, lies and dammed lies..":
So, with all that remarkable knowledge you didn't notice it was a 'pro-EU lobbyist' who first mentioned "bendy bananas" and us 'antis' refuted the notion such trivia had anything to do with these serious issues!?
Whoops! Here, right on schedule comes the 'pro-EU lobbyist' name-calling:
"..you (me) a singularly ignorant person.."
So, you just did not get the reference to people using internet access throwing WorldWideWeb-accusations at other users was accessing a self-defeating accusation!?
Closely followed by the pro-EU lobbist' classic cop-out (as opposed to opt-out, you understand):
"..people disinterested in workings of national parliaments.. is it any wonder.. they are... more disinterested in the EU Parliament and institutions.."
So, the bright, glossy, innovative, superior, all-embracing EU and its Parliament are no more attractive than the 'National Parliaments': Just to help us nonentities out here, could you go back to your #106 and explain again that point you made about, ".. people bouncing their own inabilities off the EU.." Somehow (and I'm sure it's me) you appear to be giving the impression the EU's inabilities are to do with... the EU!?
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threnodio and #111.
I am curious: In the ProRep EU Election system how is it in Hungary you are able to be that specific in your choice of Candidate?
'Liberal-Democrat': I suspected as much. Good luck with your vote.
As I said before I shall definitely not be offwering any succour to this catastrophe known as the EU by Ballot box until a UK/England Referendum on withdrawal.
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#118 - ikamaskeip
Well there you go. You ask a question, I answer it and you plunge into a mire of sarcasm about flying plastic pigs. OK, that's fine but then please do not rely on criticism of EU enthusiasts for not offering you detailed answers to your questions because it doesn't wash. Either you are serious or you are taking the p**s. Make up your mind.
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threnodio and #121.
Hey, I was sarcastically referring to the likelihood of a reforming Dave Cameron changing the political landscape of the UK.
No reference in my 'flying pigs' to the EU.
You can get as iffy as you like but it's disappointing that even you, on times, do not read what is written in its proper context.
I hesitate to reply further as your insinuation about 'p... take' and not being serious suggest to me it is pointless to proceed with debate with any one from the 'pro-EU' lobby as apparently we 'antis' must all be labelled at some stage to suit the opposition argument!
Fine: Enough said.
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#120 - ikamaskeip
I can't as you very well know. Since you knew it, I assumed that the thrust of your question was who I favoured. I had credited you with doing better than setting traps but we have since had the flying pig incident. I would be pleased if Szent-Ivanyi Istvan Csaba were to emerge as a successful candidate and, to that end, I will favour SZDSZ. Happy now?
"'Liberal-Democrat': I suspected as much". Not sure if that was sarcastic or not but, with your knowledge of Hungarian politics, you will doubtless be aware that the MSZP, although nowadays a mainstream socialist party and forms most of the present government, they were born from the ashes of the old communist party and sit with the Socialists in Strasbourg. Not exactly a recipe for reform. Meanwhile Fidesz, while being ostensibly centre right make the UK Tories look like a bunch of 'wishy-washy liberals'. You should not assume that my voting intentions for the EU parliament and an election in Hungary in anyway reflect my voting intentions for the next UK parliamentary elections. Horses for courses.
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oj. Alice asked some simple questions :o)))).
Now, I was told before I act like litmus-paper on people but I thought it's an exaggeration :o)
As Lenin said and was printed on every Soviet schoolchild text-book on top "To learn, to learn and to learn!" :o))) "of Rome", Merger Treaty, Single European Act, Maa (which isn't MAII), Amsterdam, Nice. Add to this Buzet23 estimation of "cross refrenced documents", "keeping up with amendments or qualifications" - imagine Mr Medvedev staring silly at Mr Barroso not sure what he represents and what his borders of delimitations are. :o)
How this complies with separate deals done directly with countries what if smth uncompatible there.
How can the abstract EU be held responsible if anything goes wrong later in the EU-Russia next portion of "umbrella agreement".
So much easier to deal with national governments at least you know who is accountable.
This is typical "dual power" condition; we had that Feb 1917-Nov 1917 between the two revolutions. Not that I wish you anything of the kind, we live a century later.
Overall, with the amount of the EU treaties and laws and amendments that seemingly (I am sorry) confuse even those , what's called in Russia "in the theme" in these blogs - it's time for Russia to institute a new Institute on the EU Studies. A-la mode we have for ages "The Institute of the USA and Canada studies." Whose employees are experts in all things ex-main enemy and competitor, and coin diplomats, spies, and ordinary trade agreements' experts. Who know the laws and the fabric of the society inside the USA.
Long due to focus separate EU research bodies into one Russian EU Study Centre. You evolve, rapidly, the dragon's egg :o)))))) needs close supervision.
Well I hope Mr President Medvedev does not "stare silly" but knows what's behind Mr Barroso or whoever he meets; he's a lawyer after all, our top lawyer-coining institution' graduate. So one can reasonably hope we know what we are dealing with. Likewise Mr Foreign Affairs Minister Lavrov, graduate of MGIMO - Moscow's Institute of Foreign Relations. Another key Russian base for diplomatic corps.
Still, neither institution is EU-specific-focused, time to have a new study centre.
But as to the rest it is hopeless to understand. I will re-read of course again all you have written, as a glance in.
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#122 - ikamaskeip
OK, point taken. And no, I don't believe for one moment that Cameron will turn out to be a serious reformer. I do, however, believe - and I am not flying a kite here - that the at one time sacred institutions of British governance has been so seriously damaged that they have now to make way for something better and more suited to our times. I also believe that neither of the two major parties have the appetite or courage for the fight. Which leaves the 'also rans'. This is why I am hopeful of a good result for the nationalists in the other countries. The damage that has been done to the mainstream parties by the 'troughing' scandal might just push enough people to alternative parties to create a hung parliament. Perfect it will not be and it may make, short term, for some strange bed fellows but it might start the ball rolling.
What has this to do with Europe? Well, with the exceptions of the BNP and UKIP, they tend to be pro-Europe. So, unless those two do spectacularly well, the EU will not be that high on the agenda when the horse trading starts. EUsceptics should be aware of this and not miss the opportunity to make their point in June. Mass abstention will get neither of us any further forward.
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@ Alice, 124:
It was you who started with this Russia-EU-Ukraine deal on energy. Before it only dealt with some middle-sized city in south-western Germany.^^
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democracythreat I critically reviewed my position on scares "Russia expires as under-populated, dying out and vanishing in direct view shortly".
No risk given the steady hordes of migration up North from the South.
As we say "Holy place never stays empty". If you wish - "vacuuum will be filled in".
The only risk is it will end up "Russian halifat" shortly.
We should all very well remember who is Pushkin and explain this to the newcomers, to put it symbolically. Each 1 Russian ought to develop the ability to re-style 10 newcomers.
And if the EU does not want halifat for neighbours - I'd recommend they support our persistence in assimilation and in remembering what is Pushkin and what one eats it with. :o)
This development is directly related to the "Green" water lack issue - that both MAII and you have mentioned. Ex-Russian soft belly stripe, Central Asia - are in awful lack of water. They never fared well on it, but now 2 new factors influencing are in.
1. climate change deserts spreading
2. Russian oil and gas in USSR was feeding 15 republic. Now - a handful of individuals and Russia only. Central Asia does not have energy. Neither money to buy it at world prices. They compensate by blocking rivers arriving to them by dams, hydroelectric stations. In winter these stations use water that was otherwise stocked up previously to give them water in summer. Now summers there are disaster, nothing for the fields/agriculture, this might result in hunger soon.
And they are still "working on it", currently 2 Central Asian countries, n the "ups" of the rivers, against 3 Central Asian countries, in the "receiving end" of the water. The "upper two want more dams". The three below them teamed up and complain hysterically.
Water wars are nearly at our doors, but what this currently results in - they migrate up North, to the simply water places, to us. Without water Central Asia isn't sustainable.
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#124 - WebAliceinwonderland
Oh Alice, you are wonderful!!!
"As Lenin said and was printed on every Soviet schoolchild text-book on top "To learn, to learn and to learn!" "
I knew Blair's mantra about "Education, education, education" was too good to be original. Ha, ha - it was Lenin!!!
As to your general comment, it is confusing. I am not sure I fully understand it myself but the theory is that the Commission is made up from commissioners who are put in place by the sovereign governments and that it negotiates with the knowledge and consent of all 27. Providing that is the case, Barroso and his team certainly have the authority to make quite important deals. What they can't do is overrule member states who have other fish to fry.
So yes it can sign up to Nebuchadnezzar Pipeline deal but it can't stop Bulgaria, Austria, Hungary, Italy etc. signing up to the Southern Pipeline with Russia. In many ways, this works well for Russia. While they will always have an eye for the main target, it does not prevent them going about it another way.
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#119
Whoops! Here, right on schedule comes the 'pro-EU lobbyist' name-calling:
"..you (me) a singularly ignorant person.."
Err, no, the use of the word was in the true meaning of the word, 'someone of little knowledge', you either don't know or you do, you are either "ignorant" or you were did know and were thus lying when you said that you didn't- which is it?...
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Tortilein, :o) I do better on the subject of "A greener Germany" when off-screen.
Namely:
- Garden rakes - 1
- A spade - 1
- Plastic green border to dig into the ground around the flower bed - 6 metres
- A kind of a plastic cage for flowers to climb up - 1
- Ready small flowers to plant in a container with earth - 20
All this purchased by me in OBI German household and gardening appliences store yesterday. And applied to the dacha 7-11 pm the same yesterday.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Boilerplated and #129.
As I said, shameless name-calling when the argument is being lost: You excuse yourself as best you can.
As I wrote to another: Fine, enough said.
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#132
"As I said, shameless name-calling when the argument is being lost: You excuse yourself as best you can."
Sorry but, as usual, the only person who has lost the argument is you - which, as I said, will be confirmed by anyone referring to a standard English dictionary - had I wanted to insult you (by the gratuitous use of a single word) I could have used a word that also begins with the letter "I" but then goes on to use the letter "D" as its second...
"As I wrote to another: Fine, enough said."
At least you know when to stop digging! But going back to your question, had you asked me who my regions MEPs are (or should that be were, considering that they are all up for re election...), I would have told you three of them off the top of my head, Lib-dem, Green and UKIP - I've probably also just given away what (UK) EU electoral region I'm in to by saying that!
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@ 117 Tortilein
The edition of the constitution I have has been published by Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung. Till I see anything else I consider it an authorized edition. In any case the articles are in fact dealing with the relation between state and federal states. That is also the case with article 23.
The transfer of sovereignty is of course the point much of the debates here are circulating around.
Art. 23 is mentioning the transfer of sovereignty by the Bund with the consent of Bundesrat, but precisely how the court in Karlsruhe will interpret the remarks of the first section of art. 23 will be crucial. I shall not anticipate the sentence by the court, but I would be surprised if the court says that Germanys adoption of the Lisbon treaty is not conform with the constitution.
Also I shall not anticipate what Bundestag and Bundesrat will do if it happens, but at that moment if it ever happens we will want to know why the government and it legal advisors didnt know and what it was they didnt foresee.
While Threnodio was concerned with position of the member states, I am concerned with the rights (and not the limitations) art. 23 is giving those in favour of the EU. The federal republic has committed it self to the EU! How many constitutions are mentioning the European Union at all? In any case by comparison with other constitutions it tells us that the German is easier to change.
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Hmmm.... can't help yourself, can you?
'I' followed by a 'd'...?
Of course, I was misjudging you, my apologies, you meant:
Idealist, Ideate, Ideologue and my absolute personal favourite... the Ideologist!
How did I do?
Surely, you didn't have something else in mind, did you? That would be beneath your massive intellect, wouldn't it!?
As they say in the vernacular, "jog on", while you can.
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@ 134, Mathiasen:
I guess you didn't exactly understand the weight and importance which our constitutional court in Karlsruhe has. They indeed create political facts, what they say and how they interprete the constitution is CONSTITUTIONAL LAW and has to be respected by every political institution within Germany. In 1993 when they dealt with the Maastricht Treaty they made clear that our politicians are not allowed to transfer power to the EU without limits EVEN IF Bundestag and Bundesrat wanted this (this sentence became constitutional law as it is a concretisation of Art. 38 GG, you are of course free to read the Maastricht decision: BVerfGE 89, 155 ff., which is the main source for the decision now about the Lisbon Treaty). The Bundestag and the Bundesrat are not almighty, the last word will be spoken in Karlsruhe. Art. 23 GG which you seem to like is nothing more than bla bla, it just says that Berlin and the Laender capitals work together in EU-affairs but it doesn't give them the liberty to do what they want.
If your German is good enough to read this important decision from 1993 which is the main factor for decision making now, here is the link to a university in Switzerland where you can read it online from the beginning to the end:
http://www.servat.unibe.ch/law/dfr/bv089155.html#Rn002
By the way, the titles of Art. and §§ are never authorized because they don't have to be authorized, they are simply not part of the Art. of the GG or the § of other laws. They are just a help for the reader to find what he/she seeks more quickly without being official.
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#114 Boilerplated wrote:
#113
"what you describe happens all the time from (talking of the UK political system) Parish councils though district, country, national to EU institution."
Oops, that should have read:
...Parish councils though district, county, national to EU... "
Both are wrong. You are describing the English system, there is no "UK political system" in that sense. Difficult to generalise on political structures when you make errors about the structures in the UK!
Mark was correct to talk of the Greens in England and Wales - the Scottish Green Party is a wholly different organisation.
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Green is good, Green prevents us from sending money to countries and idelogies that want to kill us. That said every city needs a study on how it can maintain it's heavy industry using Green technigues, because just importing our steel and wood from some place else just makes us dependent. This is really a technology problem for us Americans. I don't see us driving smaller or less, I don't see us building smaller houses, wearing fewer clothes or shopping less. We will still be 2 and a half car families with a boat, when it's over(maybe 4 car families will be the norm if prices continue to fall). The technology is already on the way!!! At work we have Ford Escape, hybrid SUVs, most of the time they run on their electric motor, we have driven them for over 100,000 miles and their better than the vehicles they replaced, they're also bigger. We have beebn promised the new Ford Fusion hybreds and they are a large American car that gets 700 miles to a tank of gas and the factory repps say that will get even better. Boeing has just finnished testing on the new 787s Rolls Royce engines and that should really shake up the airline industry. Green is just around the corner, I mean were Americans, we can accomplish anything right??? Stand back world.
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# 136 Tortilein
You wrote: I guess you didn't exactly understand the weight and importance which our constitutional court in Karlsruhe has.
Well, Im glad you didn't write you don't exactly understand the weight and importance. I understand I have this regrettable condition behind me :-)
There is nothing in my posting to suggest that sentences from Karlsruhe should not be respected.
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#137
"Both are wrong. You are describing the English system, there is no "UK political system" in that sense. Difficult to generalise on political structures when you make errors about the structures in the UK!"
Oh right, so the UK doesn't have parish councils, doesn't have county councils, doesn't have a parliament at Westminster - sorry but it is you who is either wrong to splitting a very fine hair in your attempt to try and discredit anything EU. My point was about the various layers of legislation creation and how each layer changes and adapts legislation in the same way as the EU does on a EU wide bases, I was not attempting to write a thesis on how regional differences between the four (principle) nations that make up the UK.
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@95. The 80% figure is randomly picked up by the former German president and nothing more then a myth. And the the following link proves that it's a myth.
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#140 - Boilerplated
The last thing oldnat would do is try to discredit anything EU. He is right to post that the system you describe is confined to England and Wales and he is not splitting hairs because, at the root of this, there is a fundamental difference between the Scots system in which sovereignty is vested in the people and the English system in which it is vested in the in the elected representatives. It is certainly true that this distinction falls away when considering those aspects of government which continue to be run at Westminster. Nevertheless, it is an important one.
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The EU in one of its countless feel good hypocricies exports manufacturing jobs either by outsourcing or moving the factories themselves to places like China where labor is dirt cheap, has no expensive social security net, and you can pollute the air with as much poison and greenhouse gases as you like with no penalties. In fact this often results in an large net increase of total greenhouse gas emissions. Then Europe tells itself and the world what a great job it is doing reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. If Europe ever told the whole truth about anything, I'd probably keel over in cardiac arrest from the shock of it. Fortunately, I don't think my health is in any danger from that for the forseeable future.
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EUROPEAN FOREIGN POLICY CHIEF JAVIER SOLANA:
"These irresponsible acts by North Korea warrant a firm response by the international community. The European Union will be in contact with its partners to discuss appropriate measures."
Behold the way an economic organisation, devoted to the peaceful management of trade, transforms itself into a machine of war and foreign policy.
Has anybody here heard of an institution called the "Western European Union"?
The WEU was set up in 1948, in Brussels, in order to co-ordinate defense and security issues within the western european community of nations. Then there is NATO, as well.
So Europe has not one, but two, dedicated international treaties AND institutions devoted towards maintaining security. Therefore we can dismiss any possibility the that EU seeks to own this foreign policy territory because there is simply nobody managing these issues. No, the EU wants this territory because ..... you decide. I suppose that this thing we call the EU wants every last drop of power it can squeeze out of whatever it can grab, but then I have a distinctive view of political institutions. Perhaps the EU is the only really safe way to save everybody's babies each week.
And make no mistake, the EU is moving swiftly and secretly, in order to secure military power and control over foreign policy. It has now "assimilated" the powers of the WEU. What, you didn't know about that? Come on! It was all covered by the Treaty of Amsterdam! Maybe it wasn't spelled out in detail (actually people were told Amsterdam was about streamlining inefficiencies), but the intention was there.
Anyway, now we have this guy, Javier Solana, a career socialist politician, a real party animal.... and his official title is "The Secretary General of the Council of the European Union". What that means is that he is appointed by the Commission to run the Council of Europe. Sure, the Council of Europe has a president, but you don't hear much from that worthy individual, because it is actually the Secretary General of the Council who co-ordinates the business at hand, and who has access to the other institutions of the EU.
This is why the newspapers quote the guy from the EU commission who is not elected, and NOT the president of the European Council.
Now this guy, this appointed socialist with the title straight out of the soviet Duma, he is also known as "High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy".
So what does that mean?
That is what we call the EU foreign policy department BEFORE there is any basis in law for one to exist. (Everyone is waiting desperately for Lisbon to be ratified) You may note that the BBC article from which I took the quote at the head of this post refers to Javier as "European Foreign Policy Chief". If you think that is a bit off, because the EU does not have any powers to formulate foreign policy, because the EU is a body established to promote TRADE, then you would be wrong.
It is perfectly acceptable for this appointed socialist to be representing Europe in the world, and telling other states what Europe thinks of them.
Why not? He is the Secretary General. He is the secretary general of a committee of elected representatives. Now those representatives are all party members, and they were given safe seats by their party bosses behind closed doors, and this "Secretary General" is also a party member.
But the whole thing is democratic and legitimate.
Anybody who knows anything about the political structure of the soviet union must be able to read the previous two paragraphs and laugh aloud to themselves. The political structure is not similar, it is absolutely identical. Even the names are the same. So is the claim to democratic legitimacy.
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113, Boilerplated,
Please re-read my comment in #109 as I did say that this 'they' bureaucracy is to be found not just in the EU but also in any local council or in fact any public body, i.e. just look at the UK's NHS if you want to see 'they' hiding behind a wall of over regulation, fussy rules, crazy H&S regulations, endless study groups, expensive consultants everywhere etc.
I have spent a lot of time looking at the EU's web sites for certain details from time to time, just as I have often trawled the Belgian and UK government web sites. I have to say that often the government web sites are far easier to navigate to the required details than the EU sites where they seem deliberately complicated and information is normally fragmented across several different pages and covered in cross references.
As for access to MEP's etc, a friend of mine who became unemployed in France tried for weeks to obtain information of his rights as he wished to return to Belgium. The response from the EU bodies he contacted was vague and pretty well useless, yet mobility of labour is a major part of the EU's agenda. In the end he did the research himself by contacting both French and Belgian government agencies and after navigating the 'they' bureaucracy got the information he needed, but it was very hard indeed to do that.
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threnodio wrote:
#90 - karolina001
"British Members of Parliament have been at it for years. Many suspected it, no doubt quite a few knew about it. But it was hard evidence that finally brought about the downfall.
If you are right about the EU, the same thing will be true. Only hard evidence will brink about change. So if you have any, will you publish it please?
By the way, you write "not . . paid by anyone to investigate or produce evidence". If you have evidence and want paying for it, you are no better than they are."
This is a shocking post. It is confused, and groveling, yet it also seeks to attack.
Threnodio, why didn't you think a bit more about this issue before deciding to lecture and sneer at Karolina? Surely you can see how this post reads, upon reflection?
If not, let me put it to you as follows: Karolina made the claim that the EU is corrupt. You and others demanded that she "publish evidence".
But then you admit that inside the UK, it was a newspaper that published the evidence, and that many people had known about the corruption for a long time beforehand.
Threnodio, I don't think you understand. Karolina is NOTa newspaper. She is an ordinary person. She is, to use your own terms, one of the "many" who knew about the corruption. She is not a publisher who can force governments to run and hide by collecting damning evidence and selling it for a profit.
Now your own demand for evidence of EU corruption must be placed in context. It is in the context of a massive corruption scandal in your own country, which you cite, but also in the context of the EU, which you very know has not passed a single audit, and which has a widespread reputation for corrupt practices. Indeed, at one point the entire commission resigned rather than explain itself or suffer further investigation. And nobody has ever been held accountable.
THAT is the context in which you sneer from your high horse at Karolina, and demand "evidence".
Threnodio, who are you to demand evidence? You are not a court. You have no power as a judge. You cannot make any ruling. So who are you to demand evidence? I put it to you that the reason you demand evidence is because you want to sound like a judge. It must make you feel important, or something.
But the reality is that you are not a judge, and what you think doesn't matter. And Karoline is not a newspaper, so if she has evidence or knowledge of corruption (her own witness statement is evidence, which you would know if you were familiar with law), that is also about as irrelevant as your judgment.
This process of demanding evidence, and claiming that "hard evidence" brought the UK politicians to account is spurious. It is cowardly, because it refuses to face the rude facts of the situation.
It was not "hard evidence" that forced the UK politicians to run and hide for a few weeks (they have not been charged, nor held accountable, but merely embarrassed). It was a newspaper running a smear campaign. The hard evidence (witness statements) already existed.
And it was not a "downfall". That is way too dramatic for what has transpired. A newspaper told the whole of the UK that "their representatives" are stealing their money in the most callous way, and nothing has changed.
That is your democracy. That is your "downfall due to hard evidence". There is no law involved in these matters. The law has run away to hide with the politicians. What you describe is merely the press making money from the spectacle of an utterly corrupt system, and you owe Karolina an apology.
It is disgusting to see common people like yourself demand evidence from others, as if you were a judge, and as if the law were the proper forum for speculating about corruption. It is disgusting because you act this way for the thrill of vicarious power, and further because by doing so you assist the corrupt activities of the government and the EU. An unpaid spectator, you beat down those who would give testimony against the government. For the thrill of upholding the law.
But you are no sheriff, and we do not have law to protect us from government.
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#142
"a fundamental difference between the Scots system in which sovereignty is vested in the people and the English system"
Sorry, the last time I looked both countries were part of the UK, so it was splitting hairs, my point still stands - that legislation gets changed in all sorts of legislative places, not just the EU.
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#146, democracythreat,
It is a great shame that in the various bodies of the EU and likewise the various institutions of the member governments the only real expertise that is shown is in their ability to hide 'embarrassing' information. Look at the way Brown's government has run to the police after a whistle blower has struck, look at the was a certain British EU commissioner sacked a whistle blower in his anti-corruption department. Basically it is very difficult to get hard evidence to prove 100% the claims of corruption, since the evidence is heavily protected, and the pro-EU supporters on this site know that all too well, likewise they dismiss personal experience of EU failings or excesses or corruption as unfounded allegations that cannot be proved. For instance, if your MEP does not respond to your calls or letters you cannot prove he received them, likewise many EU responsibles who lose correspondence. The EU parliament has shown its stance on the issue of corruption by refusing to allow publication of their expenses, no doubt the full force of the law would be brought to bear on any person who 'leaked' the details.
My conclusion is that until the 'leaking' of such evidence of corruption is de-criminalised the amount of hard evidence which surfaces will be small. The whistle blowers deserve our thanks and our protection as we all knows what happens to those who rock the boat in the establishment.
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#143
"The EU in one of its countless feel good hypocricies exports manufacturing jobs either by outsourcing or moving the factories themselves to places like China where labor is dirt cheap..."
You mean that the USA doesn't, tell that to people who buy for Walmart etc!
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#146 - democracythreat
I thought you posted once that you are a lawyer. Maybe I am mistaken. If you are, you will doubtless be aware of the worthlessness of unsubstantiated allegations directed against any party, innocent or otherwise. As you are a regular contributor and reader, you will also be aware of Karolina's tendency to repeat the same mantra over and over again about corruption, apparently at almost every level within the EU without once pointing to a single concrete example yet constantly implying that he or she is privy to some information which we are not. He/she is perfectly entitled to have an opinion about the EU but when it comes to voicing vague suggestions of widespread graft and suggesting that 'EU payrolls' are a mechanism for paying civil servants for practicing black arts, it does not seem to me unreasonable to ask for concrete examples or some form of evidence. I am also entitled to express my frustration when none is offered.
It is your view that I owe Karolina an apology. I do not concur and I do not offer one. However you go further than that. You then proceed to use exactly the same tactics of which I stand accused by you, that of resorting to personal attack and insult.
You write that the EU "has a widespread reputation for corrupt practices". This is precisely the kind of sweeping generalisation of which I am complaining. Who is to say that this 'widespread reputation' is justified? Again I ask where the evidence is. The consistent failure to sign off on accounts may, in some peoples' minds indicate a cover up. It could equally point to a massive administrative cock up. The abuse of public office for pecuniary advantage is reprehensible wherever it occurs but it is also a very serious allegation. Rumour mongering, whispering campaigns and the promotion of widespread suspicion as fact is nothing more than a dirty tricks campaign. It muddies the waters - which I am sure is the intention - but contributes nothing constructive.
I will treat the remarks about 'shocking, confused and grovelling' posts with the contempt they deserve lest I should be tempted to respond to your personal attack in kind. Your penultimate paragraph almost beggars belief where you complain that "It is disgusting to see common people like yourself demand evidence from others, as if you were a judge, and as if the law were the proper forum for speculating about corruption." It is precisely this speculation about corruption with which I take issue.
I do, however, appreciate the compliment of being common. I would hate to think that I had joined the elite of the pompous, self-opinionated, self-righteous and downright discourteous.
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#148 - Buzet23
Whistle blowers are in an entirely different category. They deserve our thanks and encouragement. What they do, however, is put specific allegations into the public domain. That is courageous. Whispering campaigns about unnamed officials and vague hints about widespread corruption is not.
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boilerplatd, the US invented China as a modern industrial nation in part as a way to work around a bulwark of domestic laws protecting labor, consumers, the environment that took over a century of struggle to enact as legislation. The difference is that the US doesn't hypocritically export its jobs and factories to China and then proclaim to the world it has reduced greehouse gas emissions when it has merely transferred them elsewhere. The US did not sign up to Kyoto. Not only has Europe failed miserably to live up to the letter of the committments it made under Kyoto, it has thumbed its nose at the spirit of those promises. It is typical of Europe to talk a good game with its holier than thou moralizing to the rest of the world in general and America in particular and then to go about doing the very things it admonishes others not to. Europe is a complete fraud and a sham. Were it not for its profits from subsidiaries its largest companies own in places like China and its own internal trade, it would have little GDP to speak of at all....not counting the huge contracts for military hardware the UK won by bribing Saudi Princes with 2 billion dollars to win those contracts. In the end, it will get what it so richly deserves. It's on its way and nobody can stop it.
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#140 Boilerplated
threnodio has my point exactly.
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#148
"It is a great shame that in the various bodies of the EU and likewise the various institutions of the member governments the only real expertise that is shown is in their ability to hide 'embarrassing' information."
That could be said about just about any country, the USA is a past master at hiding 'embarrassing' information - indeed the new president is still doing so even after promising not to...
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#147 Boilerplated
I'm not disagreeing with your point that there are obscurantist procedures at all levels of government in (I imagine) every country. I'm simply pointing out that there is no such thing as a UK political system. The lowest level, at which that can be said to be true is legislation by the Westminster Parliament on wholly reserved matters.
Even then, it is only tradition (and a wish to avoid confrontation) that prevents the Scots courts from challenging the English doctrine of Parliamentary Sovereignty being applied to issues where Scots Constitutional Law would take a different view.
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Mavrelius this N Korea is your hands making. (I remembered it's always handy to blame USA :o)
Rather - a combined China-US product.
Russia only made them mad initially with Marx-Lenin ideas to copy our highly successful :o) practices, but then this is really a minor detail :o) of the story.
Then the two of you took over - and see what's the result of it!
All they do is blow up underground nuclear bombs in trials.
Really a puppet place, USA scares them deadly, China uses them when wants to say smth but doesn't want to be involved, kind of their appendix used for scaring others.
NK leaders themselves are not inspired by the future to meet with the Haague Tribunal and only repeat as mantra "US does not attack nuclear nations, US does not attack nuclear nations" and act accordingly.
The more you press them the more they hedgehog out in needles over.
And they are clever guys themselves don't notice the world has changed and stubbornly reply for hardening up measures towards them by hardening up reply from them to the world.
Meanwhile, the world, driven by the US opinion, exerts a politic of isolation towards N. Korea which only allows them to blossom in their full "beauty" behind the fence.
All extraordinary idiotic.
May I note that the only period when NK became for a decade more or less controllable was when China declared towards them a "politics of sunshine", soft charming somthing Chinese ideas then the NK put on hold temporarily their nuclear fooling around.
Now to start again this "sunshine" downpour on the NK may be well too late, NK got hardened up. What an ulcer, result of 3 clever heads' exercising.
If they were Russian zone of influence - there won't be any nuclear bombs there guaranteed. Only they aren't ours, they are China's. Russia they think predators who drove away off the Marz-Lenin path, that we are playing on the "West side", NK is highly suspicious of us.
And now try to pull a nuclear toy out of their hands, what a riddle.
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Threnodious, unlike the Congress of the United States where there is a visitors gallery open to the public for direct observation, the Congressional record that is also a matter of public record, and live and recorded broadcast proceedings on CSPAN, the proceedings of the EU are held in secret. Once the ruling elites have decided the fate of the peasant masses, those decisions affecting every aspect of their lives, they will be told in good time what they are allowed and not allowed to do. There is nothing they can do about it except leave if they don't like it. When enough of them do, likely that privilege will also be taken away, just as it was in the USSR. This is how it has been in Europe from time immemorial and this is how it shall remain. The EUSSR is in no substantive way any different from the way the USSR was. It is the same corrupt incompetent tyrannical dictatorship and its fate will be the same as well. And it will be well deserved. Europeans can delude themselves all they like but eventually, the truth will come out and everyone will pretend to be shocked. Now what is most popular in Strassburg among MEPs, Beluga, Servuga, or Ossetia caviar? Dom Perignon or Cristal?
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dictatorships ought to be bought, MAII. What am I, to teach you? :o)))
Otherwise the dictator would fight to the last drop of blood. Of his subjects.
And all you offer as future is that someone's golden statue would be tumbled lasso-ed down and he will be judged by US judges faaar faaar away from the hands and ideas of own people. And hanged up. What an offer.
My offer would be 10 years in the Bahamas with pension to Kim No? whatever, with preserving of all his signs of identification, personal guns and swords. The same to his family, friends in the "classmates" and friends of his friends. No shame to the nation and nasty for N. Koreans to remember to the West after. Simply - a change of style, temporara mutamur et nos mutamur in illis / times - they change and we change together with them/ something Latin philospical and suitable, non-offending can always be found.
At the condition that the NK people desirably get rid of him themselves.
Promise no foreign army boot on their ground if they will, and - a far more difficult promise to be kept - that when China moves their boot to the N. Korea the world will support NK.
In this my greatr plan I see only one mis-hap - how to inform N. Koreans of all this bright future avaiable to them UN and God willing.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8066513.stm
On this website I read:"European ministers said Burma's neighbours must take a firm stand and use their influence to bring about changes in Burma. "
So yet again the HYPOCRITICAL "EU" wants to lecture others but puts no pressure on the British government to give us the referendum we were promised.
People who post on this blog have claimed on several occasions that the refusal to give us the referendum we were promised and which is our right is the sole responsibility of the British government. The Slovenian "Presidency" of the "EU" gave me the same bullproduct.
How very appropriate that the symbol for Europe is a bull.
They should put it on their gardens.
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The "EU" is not yet as bad as Burma but it is heading in that direction.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8066946.stm
On this website I read:
'The Lisbon Treaty's progress is further complicated by the fact that legal "guarantees" for Ireland, covering sovereignty, neutrality and some social issues such as abortion, are being bolted onto the treaty. This extra text then also has to be ratified by all member states.'
So when it came to the wishes of the Uk [population it was too difficult to renegotiate the treaty.
When the Irish said "NO" then suddenly it was possible for them.
I want out but until we get that far some guarantees would be better than nothing.
Or is that really true? Does the full horror of this monstrosity have to becomne apparent before people do something?
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CONSERVATIVE LEAFLET.
So far I have had the UKIP leaflet, the BNP leaflet, the Green leaflet and the Conservative leaflet for the "EU" elections - in that order.
As yet no Labour leaflet.
Conservative leaflet:
"You can still buy fruit and vegetables in pounds and ounces, or a pint of beer, thanks to Conservative MEPs. They campaigned successfully for the EU to abandon plans to ban the use of imperial measure."
We shouldn't have to campaign in the "EU" for anything. There should not be structures in place which allow weirdos, apparatchiks and megalomaniacs in Brussells to dictate to us.
The useless Conservative Party gave us the "Common Market" the Maastricht Treaty and some others. It has not yet deselected MPs who voted against us having a referendum, at least a\s far as I am aware.
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Web Alice
The responsibility for NK becoming a nuclear power was NK's idea alone. Nobody can stop a nation whether it is NK, Iran, Pakistan, China, or the USSR from acquiring nuclear weapons without the use of direct military force. No sanctions or political actions will stop governments who see these weapons as the ultimate guarantee of their security from acquiring them. Ironically, having them or being even suspected of having them makes them more vulnerable than ever especially if they are rogue states. President Bush said that a nuclear 9-11 may leave no fingerprints and I think he was right. The question the world should ask is what would happen if the US were to be attacked with a nuclear weapon, say by shipping one in a shipping container in a cargo ship into New York Harbor and detonating it there or giving one to a terrorist group like al Qaeda who manages to sneak it into the US even piecemeal and then assemble and detonate it in a US city? The question the President will ask his top military and security advisors is how do I prevent this from happening again? The answer he will get is that all nations who may have had a hand in this or potentially could would have to be destroyed completely. If the President refused to take such actions, the history of the Cuban missile crisis suggests that the US military may have the power to take the decison out of his hands and act directly without him. US nuclear weapons may not be entirely under civilian control. The world as we know it will not likely survive. It isn't clear if the world would survive such an event at all.
NK is right to be scared to death of the US. NK has 57,000 pieces of artillery along their border with SK aimed at Soeul and US and SK troops. There are a few tens of thousands of US troops there who could not possibly prevent being overrun by a NK invasion. Friends who have contacts in the US military have told me that their military friends told them that upon command of the President, NK could be eliminated as a nation within ten minutes. Presumably this would be the result of a coordinated attack with cruise and/or trident missiles with nuclear warheads.
The US has prevented a nuclear arms race in Asia by guaranteeing the security of SK and Japan. Such an arms race would have alarmed China. China is far safer with the US being the local sherrif than with Japan having an arsenal of nuclear weapons. Japan could assemble a huge nuclear arsenal in a matter of months if it felt threatened and had a mind to, it has vast quantities of plutonium and is one of the most technologically sophisticated nations in the world, only the US being ahead of it.
Who know what other nations would be attacked and destroyed in the aftermath of a nuclear attack on the US. Certainly Iran. Probably Pakistan. And who knows who else. Without the possibility of developing nuclear weapons, Iran would be considered merely a nuissance, not a potential dire threat to the US. These people are playing with fire and making a very dangerous mistake. Place the blame for NK's nuclear weapons squarely on the Clinton and Bush administrations who did nothing to stop it when they had the chance. Now it may be too late.
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# 159 Suffolk Boy
You wrote:
the refusal to give us the referendum we were promised and which is our right is the sole responsibility of the British government.
I'm surprised you complaint about this. Would you prefer that the governments in for instance Lisbon, Helsinki or Berlin, or the EU commission, told London to hold a referendum?
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BBC Article: 'Europe may elect "virtual MEPs"'.
Surely the most intriguing and suspect part of this latest bit of EU lunacy is that '18' MEPs could be elected for the future?
It is all very well the EU Commission etc. planning for the future, but, so long as the Lisbon Treaty has not been ratified how can any election of MEPs except under present affirmed consitutional legislation be possible?
That legislation is for the same numbers as in 2004: There can only be election of the fixed number of MEPs as laid out for 2004 as no approval has been given to any additions until Lisbon is ratified.
Even if Eire (and it is a big 'if') does vote 'yes' to Lisbon second time around how can MEPs be retroactively put in place: The additional 18 cannot possibly have any legal basis to take seats? Those 18 will surely be open to legal challenge by any Citizen of the EU.
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We are forced to live with North Korea, because we failed to follow Douglas MacArthur's advice and let a failed Missouri Haberdasher talk us into reasoning with them instead of nuking their Commie !@#$.
We have never attacked a nuclear armed naton, because there was never a need to. That too, could change for Iran, North Korea or a terrorist controled Pakistan.
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pjv
Once the materials for these weapons are available to these rogue nations, they can be hidden anywhere within their territory and even extraterritorially. Such an attack would of necessity involve elimination of the entire nation and probably both prohibiting all incoming shipments from abroad and an exhaustive search for all collaborators and hiding places within the US on the possibility that weapons have already be secreted within our borders. It's a frightening prospect for the world but it is the consequence of having forgotten the lessons leading up to WWII. As with forgetting the lessons of the events leading up to the great depression, we will pay a terrible price to learn them again the hard way. As Santyana said, those who do not learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them. The price of tuition high as it was the first time may be much higher now. We have no one to blame for our stupidity but ourselves.
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#152
"the US invented China as a modern industrial nation"
I think that you will find that China did that all by it's self, and not for the first time either.
Unlike the EU, the USA actually does more to restrict trade with countries that it feels doesn't fit it's narrow ideology, such as Cuba... Or was your comment more about the USA exploiting China?...
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#153
"#140 Boilerplated
threnodio has my point exactly."
In which case we are talking at cross purposes, and not about the point I was replying too!
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DO NOT TELL ANYONE THAT FREIBURG IS PRETTY.
I have been living there and want to be able to get back to the "same" place I have left.
It is crowded already.
No more people please.
Let them make their own "green" cities.
And to the one commenter below.
Freiburgians do not have to rely on "donations" from other places in Germany.
Check facts on infrastructure first, please
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#157
"the proceedings of the EU are held in secret."
No they are not, no more than in any other parliament, it is true though that the USA were the first to routinely televise their governmental proceedings.
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#159
"So yet again the HYPOCRITICAL "EU" wants to lecture others but puts no pressure on the British government to give us the referendum we were promised."
That is because the UK doesn't need s a referendum, don't like the EU then vote UKIP (or sum such anti EU political party) - they have said that they willl pull the UK out of the EU even if the Lisbon treaty has come into effect, at least those in the UK have a vote unlike those in Burma - again those who want to bash the EU stoop the lowest and miss the point yet again....
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tinplate
What you don't know about the US would fill a library. Why would the US restrict trade with itself which is what it would be doing if it restricted trade with China? Much of what is made in China is produced by companies based in the USA. Much of the profits on those products returns to the US. Engineering the "opening up" of China was done by Kissinger and Nixon after their visit in 1973. It was cheaper for Americans to use labor in an environment with no protections for workers, consumers, or degradation of the environment to nearby residents than to comply with highly restrictive US laws. They US government may owe China's government a trillion dollars but profits brought back to the US in terms of goods American companies make there and sell around the world including in the US are many times that taken over a few years.
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160. At 4:00pm on 25 May 2009, SuffolkBoy2 wrote:
"The "EU" is not yet as bad as Burma but it is heading in that direction."
In your opinion of course, fortunately the truth is somewhat different...
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#161
"I want out [of the EU]"
Then feel free to emigrate!
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#162
"So far I have had the UKIP leaflet, the BNP leaflet, the Green leaflet and the Conservative leaflet for the "EU" elections - in that order."
Strange that, I thought you said that the EU wasn't democratic?...
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MAII #167
I believe the world is going to show as much resolve as the US about stopping the spread of nukes to mad men the day after Iran nukes Saudi Arabia or someplace in Europe or Little Kim eliminates Seoul after a bad nightmare brought on by Kim-che. Pakistan is really not in the same category as these other two.
By the way Kim, for the record we do threaten other nuclear powers, we promised to nuke Pakistan into oblivion if they interferred with our pursuit of Osama on September 12th, according to President Musharaf.
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boiled pie plate
"That is because the UK doesn't need s a referendum"
I agree. The UK citizens wouldn't know how to vote. That should be reserved for the political leaders who know much better than the average UK citizen what is good for them. After all, who has a better judgement of the value of the average education a Brit gets than their political leaders since they set the standards and monitor how the citizens measure up to them? They of all people know that they'd better continue to make the critical decisions for the nation or things will get even worse than they've already made them.
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#173
"What you don't know about the US would fill a library."
Less than you then, looks like you would need Congress!
"Why would the US restrict trade with itself which is what it would be doing if it restricted trade with China?"
Err the last time anyone checked China was an independent country with a seat on the UN (holding a veto which it has used against USA interest in the past, now if China was really a state of the USA would it have that5 seat on the UK and would it have used it veto against it's own country... Doh!
Actually the UK has more ties to China than the USA does due to Hong-Kong, in that respect we have been doing business with 'China' for over a 100 years to your - err - mere 37 (or there abouts)...
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164. At 4:37pm on 25 May 2009, Mathiasen wrote:
"# 159 Suffolk Boy
You wrote:
the refusal to give us the referendum we were promised and which is our right is the sole responsibility of the British government."
I actually wrote:
"People who post on this blog have claimed on several occasions that the refusal to give us the referendum we were promised and which is our right is the sole responsibility of the British government."
You gave the wrong impression by cutting in the wrong place. I don't think you did it deliberately.
You further wrote:
"I'm surprised you complaint about this. Would you prefer that the governments in for instance Lisbon, Helsinki or Berlin, or the EU commission, told London to hold a referendum?"
Yes! YES! YES!
As long as they do not do so, they are anti-democratic conspirators. They ought to have the brains and the common sense to know that there can be no peace in the "EU" if we do not get the referendum we were promised.
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174. At 7:33pm on 25 May 2009, Boilerplated wrote:
'160. At 4:00pm on 25 May 2009, SuffolkBoy2 wrote:
"The "EU" is not yet as bad as Burma but it is heading in that direction."
In your opinion of course, fortunately the truth is somewhat different...'
If you want to persuade people like me of that then you have to make sure that we get the REFERENDUM we were promised.
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175. At 7:36pm on 25 May 2009, Boilerplated wrote:
'#161
"I want out [of the EU]"
Then feel free to emigrate!'
I do feel free to do so. I don't have to do so to suit anti-democratic "EU"-lovers or the "EU"-dictatorship.
You could get yourself a one-way ticket to North Korea.
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176. At 7:38pm on 25 May 2009, Boilerplated wrote:
'#162
"So far I have had the UKIP leaflet, the BNP leaflet, the Green leaflet and the Conservative leaflet for the "EU" elections - in that order."
Strange that, I thought you said that the EU wasn't democratic?...'
I did and I still do.
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I believe that the German word for contract is the same as the German word for treaty - "Vertrag."
At a certain FE college the management at the behest of the "government" decided to force new, despicable contracts upon us. In the end we had to sign. We didn't have much choice. But we didn't have to have the same goodwill as before.
One lecturer told me he would send stuff to the wrong person. Others said they had refused to take students on TO a certain course so that a certain apparatchik would miss his target and not get a bonus. I don't agree with that. I left an office with another lecturer and turned the light out. He told me to leave it on to waste electricity and damage our employer.
A German with contacts in BMW has told me that when Rover was owned by BMW, workers would put stones into panels. The new owner would have a car that rattled and it took a lot of effort to find the rattle.
At school in the sixties my metal work teacher had been in the French resistance. He told us that French workers in a canning factory that sent canned food to Germany would scratch the inside of the can so that the can would rust and the food go off.
GIVE US THE REFERENDUM WE WERE PROMISED OR EXPECT CONTINUAL RESISTANCE!
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#178
"I agree. The UK citizens wouldn't know how to vote.
That would be why the UK allowed universal suffrage many years before the USA did...
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#181
"If you want to persuade people like me of that then you have to make sure that we get the REFERENDUM we were promised."
We were not, and what is more we have never had a referendum on a treaty, you don't seem know the difference between a treaty and a constitution, and in any case if anyone want to vote against the UK's EU membership they can vote UKIP (or some such party committed to taking the UK into the wideness...
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In reply to comments made @ #182
Only the far right would compare the EU with North Korea...
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In reply to comments made @ #183
Then you must object to free elections, considering that the countries that make up the EU are in the process of (re-)electing their MEPs.
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I see little point is arguing about the EU. If you are against it form an active resistance and fight it. It's not like there is a shortage of weapons in the world. Stop talking, do something.
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pie plate
Brits only get to vote on things that are not important to the ruling elite. Now in France they weren't as smart as the Brits. They let the mob, the great unwashed vote on the constitution and what happened? It was voted down. France's elite had to learn what the UK's elite knew all along. They won't make that mistake again.
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157 - MarcusAureliusII
I really can't be bothered with another tedious exchange which degenerates into irrelevant sniping.
In a later post addressed to Boilerplated (I assume that's who you mean by tinplate) you wrote "What you don't know about the US would fill a library". It is evident to me that your ignorance of the EU is verging on the sublime. The deliberations of the EU parliament are freely available to anyone who wishes to log into their website.
What you are talking about is the Commission. The Commission is, in effect, the EU's cabinet. When and if Mr. Obahma's cabinet meetings are televised, we will doubtless be happy to address your criticisms. Until they are, why not stick to a subject with which you have a passing acquaintance?
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it´s interesting reading discussions about the ´greenness´of the uk and germany as it is no simple comparison. in most of germany for example the bicycle has come through as a serious and often used transport method, which is inheritently green and provides good sowing ground for more modern greenschemes such as pedestrian areas. somehow the bike seemed to go out of fashion in the 20s in the uk and that may have prevented some ideas of ecological change. furthermore germany has long been one of the leaders of ecological change with a well established waste division and disposal system.
as already mentioned in another comment, the proportional representative voting system makes the green party more accesible.
Another factor though may be the german preciseness, once the basis for the german engineering bloom, their willingness, or possibly craving to do things by the book and then measuring it to be sure (for instance after parking the car, I´ve seen this myself) but it does mean infrastructures work, if somewhat overloaded with burocracy.
On the whole, Freiburg is representative of what many germans want to achieve; a cleaner well functioning town where inhabitants can live in health away from fumes and loud cars, and many other towns are also following suit. however not every town can work like this, as many towns, especially in germany are of a more industrial nature (think of the whole of the ruhr valley, it´s a different world) but it would be nice to see at least some towns in england adopt freiburg´sche ideals, shame money isn´t being spent on such schemes but on unecessary new malls (or rather was being spent, I heard most of them are work in progress?)
I live in germany now, lived in england for a long time and see good in both, only, maybe now the british political system needs a slight remake...anybody want to trade duck islands for solar panels?
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#180 - SuffolkBoy2
". . . there can be no peace in the "EU" if we do not get the referendum we were promised".
Promised by who, SB2?
That's right, Tony Blair.
Take it up with Westminster
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dqv
I'll bet those bicycles don't pass many vehicles on the autobahns...unless Lance Armstrong is pedaling.
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GREEN? Better than BNP!
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M.A.II
nope, but thats not what they´re for...
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#186 - Boilerplated
SB2 has a valid point about the referendum. The Labour government did promise a referendum on the constitution. So did a number of other EU countries. The Netherlands and France then proceeded to vote it down and it was consigned to the scrapheap.
To replace it, the heads of government dreamed up Lisbon.
You are perfectly correct to say that it is a treaty, not a constitution but anybody who seriously believes that this was anything other than a subterfuge to avoid giving referenda are kidding themselves.
Those of us who support the EU project are guilty of naivete if we do not acknowledge that it was a questionable sleight of hand. We can only sell the EU to a sceptical public if we are honest enough to acknowledge its failings as well as extolling its virtues. I personally do not have the same problems as others with Lisbon and regard it as quite a good result. But it is pointless to argue that labeling it a treaty rather than a constitution is anything other than dishonest.
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I doubt that Freiburg is typical for Germany, but there are other university towns in the Southwest of Germany like Tuebingen and Heidelberg that seem to develop along similar lines and common themes are found in slightly larger cities in the area as Strasbourg to the North and Basel to the South. One aspect that has shaped the local green movement in Freiburg is the 1975 protest against the construction of a nuclear power plant in nearby Wyhl. One of the first protests of its kind, it stood at the very beginning of the modern environmental movement in Germany and was a real grassroots movement with local farmers joining ranks with residents from Freiburg and neighbouring counties, including those on the western shores of the Rhine in Alsace. This movement has been deeply influenced by the local environment, i.e. a spirit of cooperation that reached across national boundaries, and has been embracing the concepts and ideals of the European Union, because it could see direct advantages in closer links between France and Germany. One line of reasoning is that by building the European Union you may delegate some power from the national level to the institutions of the EU, but, perhaps surprisingly, you also strengthen local regions. The idea of a "Federal Europe" induces much less anxiety in this part of the world whereas the concept strikes many British, including members of the British Greens, as something to be wary of. Perhaps the pro-EU sentiment of the region stems from the interpretation of a "Federal Europe" as a "Federation of the Regions of Europe", maybe its the difference between living in a border region and seeing the direct benefits of increased international cooperation compared to living on an island, perhaps it is because Strasbourg with its European parliament is so close that the EU does not pose the menacing threat of an unaccountable ruler but is regarded as a rather sensible idea with institutions designed to serve the people. The European Green spectrum can be split into many sub-shades of green, even the German Green Party is not without its split between pragmatists and idealists ("Realos" and "Fundis"). Common sense tells you to find the right balance between the two, if you do not take on board your constituents worries and aspirations you will simply not gather enough support, if you do not offer any new solutions and ideas you will not be able to offer or deliver change in the first place.
Freiburg is a nice little gem in the Black Forest, where policies promoted by many different parties over the years with the aim to improve the quality of life for the residents can be viewed from a green perspective. A bit of hype, a bit of substance, a nice place to visit, stay or live, but there are also good reasons for leaving the picturesque setting of eco-friendly snugness and moving to far-away dirty, bustling melting-pots.
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#198
Interesting reading. When we compare your description of the border regions of France and Germany (an area I know well) with Dymond's article from UK in his series we have the contrasts.
Perhaps we should invite more of our British neighbours for a visit!
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In reply to comments made @ #197
"The Labour government did promise a referendum on the [EU] constitution."
EXACTLY, that was for a constitution, Lisbon is a treaty - these mostly right wing anti EU people might have had a point had both Thatcher and Major given the UK people a say in what they did...
Lisbon has been ratified by the UK, so it's now to late for a referendum, if anyone wants to vote for the UK to be taken out of the EU they are free to vote for UKIP (or some such anti EU political party) who has stated that if they win power they will take the UK out of the EU - so it's not as if people do not have a choice.
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#165, ikamaskeip,
You have made a very interesting point about the legality of the forthcoming EU elections and the voting for 18 MEP's that cannot be elected until Lisbon is ratified by all. Since Lisbon means that the numbers of MEP's representing most member states changed this must have an effect on the candidate lists. If all candidate lists are based on Lisbon then the election will be invalid, if they are based on 2004 then lets hear it said as that is surely the law that remains in force at this moment.
#187, Boilerplated wrote:
In reply to comments made @ #182
Only the far right would compare the EU with North Korea...
Oh my, the old bogeyman "the far right", funny how to many socialists anyone to the right of him/her/it is "far right" just as I used to encounter in the loony left Lambeth in the 1970's where even Liberals were considered fascists.
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In reply to comments made @ #201
"the loony left"
The elephant in the room, it's OK for the far right to call anyone left of centre right the "Loony Left" but should anyone make such comments about them...
The only two groups who are spitting verminous bile about the EU and the UK's membership are the "Loony Left" and the "Far Right" political groups, so as you have made it very clear that you are not a member of the 'loony left' that only leave the 'far right' - thank for confirming my suspicions!
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Re #202
I remember at the time of the 1975 UK referendum my father was unsure whether to vote to stay in or leave. He then discovered that both Enoch Powell (on the right of the tory party) and Tony Benn (on the left of the labour party) were campaigning for withdrawal. He decided that any issue which united both Enoch Powell and Tony Benn was an issue worth opposing strongly, so he voted to stay in. I wouldn't be surprised if many others made their decision on the same basis.
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Having seen in the last hour David Cameron's live Open University speech on his ideas for UK Consitutional reform as a person who has never vote Conservative in 40 odd years I must admit it was a very impressive peformance.
His speech's content was really interesting and the main gist of its wide-ranging proposals for political rejuvenation of the Palace of Westminster and Local Government was truly thought-provoking.
My one real area of doubt was his declaration that the Coversvatives, if elected, would hold a "Referendum on the Lisbon Treaty" - - he also suggested legislation for Referenda on other matters at local level - - however, he did not qualify this promise as he had done previously with any reference to the result of the 2nd Eire referendum. Did he mean to say the UK would hold a Referendum irrespective of what the present Parliament has voted and no matter what the Eire result?
I do hope so: As Lisbon will go down the tubes by a massive English, if not UK, vote against this EU Constitution by stealth.
Excellent ideas from Cameron: As ever, proof will be in the Political reality of what a Conservative Government actually puts in the Queen's speech at the Opening of the Parliament with a Tory majority Government.
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#202, Boilerplated,
By your comments you would fit very well into the mould of people like Ken Livingston or Derek Hatton, to name but a few, to people like you all people of centre conviction are far right. It may also be of surprise to you and your type that many of my Belgian friends of both Centre right and centre left are also fed up with the direction of the EU. As for me I am mostly centre right but have many friends here in Belgium who are Socialist politicians as the type of Socialism here is Social Socialism as against the nanny knows best hard-line UK Socialism that I have always deplored, preferring the Conservatives or Liberals instead.
When you claim "The only two groups who are spitting verminous bile about the EU and the UK's membership are the "Loony Left" and the "Far Right" political groups, so as you have made it very clear that you are not a member of the 'loony left' that only leave the 'far right' - thank for confirming my suspicions!"
You merely confirm that you have lost the plot in labelling any who doubt your grand project, far left or far right. Keep on taking the tablets and try thinking laterally for once in your life, you may just learn something. There are more ways to skin a cat as the phrase goes, and because you favour a powerful federalist EU does not mean that there are not other far more palatable formats for a truly democratic and fair EU.
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To be or not to be?
That is the question.
Am I to be 'looney left' or 'extreme right-wing': Decisions, decisions!
Things I support: Equal Pay/Property/legal etc. for both sexes (i.e. full Equal Rights), Hetero and Single-sex couple parenting/adopting/marriage etc., Women's right to termination of pregnancy, closing all UK Public Schools, banning all Religious Education in schools except in History/Architecture/Anthropology lessons, every Religion with 500,000+ membership to nominate 3 official Holy-Holi-days, every worker entitled to 5 weeks annual holiday (exc. holy/holi-days), all Schools 4 fixed terms, no Capital punishment, Life Sentence to mean 'Life', no ID Cards, fewer Speed and CCTV Cameras, no Social Benefits for underage mothers, enforced Parenting Classes for underage fathers, UK Armed Forces in Falklands, Iraq, Afghanistan, Balkans, full withdrawal all UK Armed Forces from Northern Ireland, full independence for Northern Ireland and Scotland, an independent English Parliament (Wales Referendum to stay united or not to England), a Referendum on UK and England membership of the EU (I would vote for withdrawal from the EU for England; the other 3 can do what their majority want), compulsory National Community Service for max 9 months for all 17 - 19 years olds, quotas for economic immigrants to UK/England, full Passport/Visa controls and checks at every UK Airport, Port etc. on Entry and Exit, fixed Parliament terms (6yrs), no MP to serve more than 5 consecutive terms, no compulsory Retirement for males/females but qualification for State Pension at age 65, no immigrant to recieve State Financial benefits or housing (i.e. a House) for 12 months after arrival, no child under 12 to be held legally responsible for criminal action, tax-deduction for all homes/businesses using eco/green friendly machinery, retain Royal mail PO Offices at present numbers, no more Motorways, Rail Passenger fares fixed for 36 months, gradual de-nuclear weaponisation of the UK with no replacement as present systems rundown, increase in conventional Land-Air-Sea forces, pull-out from Human Rights Act but legislate specific UK version building on FOI Act and new Bill of Rights etc., and so it goes on...
Weird, complex, daft... ah, well, looney right of left of extreme-left with a dash of third/middle-way..
I mean, I oppose executing people but agree with abortion!? No religion in schools but same-sex adoption!?
So, if I want England out of the EU I must be...!?
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Buzet23.
I appreciate all your sensible, reasoned contributions, but, must warn you the tendency of 'pro-EU lobbyists' to want to label people, especially anyone who does not worship the EU places a strain on their "..lateral thinking.." they usually find impossible to withstand.
Though I am opposed to England's membership of the EU on cultural-historical and Political grounds despite a wide-based European family it does not matter a jot how many ways I explain myself in the end the 'pro-EU' person just has to call me a name or describe me as in some way backward, or of limited vision.
That my vision of the future of an England outside the EU is a tenable one is brushed aside as so much woolly-headed or extremist thinking: The 'pro-EU' want a discussion based around supposition about how good the EU may be some day in the undefined future, but, apparently never entertain through 'lateral thinking' the idea another good non-EU future is a possibility!
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#204
"I do hope so: As Lisbon will go down the tubes by a massive English, if not UK, vote against this EU Constitution by stealth."
No it won't, all it will mean is that the UK will get the same offer as Ireland has had, 'you are free to leave' - with all the issues that will raise...
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#205
"By your comments you would fit very well into the mould of people like Ken Livingston"
Well you are entailed to your opinion, but if we are going to get into political name calling, judging by your comments you would fit very well into the mould of people like Augusto Pinochet - and no doubt have as much respect to the electoral process as he did...
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Iantownhill, @203 this reminds me how Russia was voting for Israel-state to be, in the Palestine, say, region, in the UN. Stalin didn't have a clue the night before the UN vote (what will be USSR - yes/no/no opinion)
and then had an enlightment, to test the grounds/ask the sources, what is Churchill's idea. Was reported that Churchill gravitates to "no". So Stalin said oh in this case we do have an opinion, one ought to mind the traditions and all. If there is smth reliable in this world :o) it is that Britain and Russia always go opposite directions, so USSR is all "for".
:o)))
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No wonder I don't know if I am a "pro-EU" Russian or not. Can't Britain please define herself? Don't tell me you are going to be "against" Oh no!!!
Or should we break the tradition in this issue just for the hell of it? :o))))
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
#207 - ikamaskeip
". . . but, apparently never entertain through 'lateral thinking' the idea another good non-EU future is a possibility!"
That is so unfair. Nobody would deny the UK the opportunity to go in it's own way rejoicing. When and if anybody gets around to asking the British people what they want, be sure to let me know.
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leftilkley: Freiburg is located in Baden-Württemberg, the most innovative state of Germany, so it rather supports other towns. Naturally, trams and trains are largely subsidised by the state, just as motorways are in the UK.
Most towns in Germany don't rely on the support of other towns, because Germany IS about small towns. I've lived in Bonn and Aachen, and they both shocked me with quality of life and low traffic. Yet they don't need support of Münich or Stuttgart.
I've also lived in London, and it also shocked me.
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#209, Boilerplated,
I see you really don't get it, people like me expect the electoral process to be free and fair and not be subject to the political manipulation that we have seen from both the UK (Nu-Labour) and the EU. The UK's system has long been manipulated by the moving of boundaries to suit the party in power, combining that with the new rules on postal voting meant Nu-Labour had little risk of a conservative victory unless it gained new heights of unpopularity, which it has by its crass incompetence and indoctrinal stance. The EU with its various flavours of the PR system is little better as the favourite list system not only suits large party's but ensures that cronyism is rife in the drawing up of the lists. Maybe the STV system would be fairer as it is candidate orientated but I think only Ireland uses that.
Therefore Boilerplated, it would be pleasant indeed if the politicians you support with all the fervour of a Derek Draper apparatchik supported a free, fair and democratic electoral process but they don't preferring instead rigged lists to ensure the status quo, and denying referenda on major questions such as the Lisbon treaty cum constitution.
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#215
"I see you really don't get it, people like me expect the electoral process to be free and fair"
Then you will have no problem in the UK implementing the Lisbon treaty and staying within the EU should UKIP (or some such anti EU party) not get elected to govern the UK at the next general election...
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Boilerplated,
you stand up for the EU "all good" very ? feverently.
But the EU was more appealing when protected softer.
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#216, Boilerplated,
An election is for a whole manifesto, when something of major significance arises such as the EU constitution or Lisbon treaty, it needs to be put to the EU population directly since it affects every man jack of us. So yes I would and will have as much problem with a UK government ratifying this discredited treaty as I do with my Belgian government having done so without consulting us.
Please therefore do not mix my desire for free, fair and democratic elections with that being carte blanche for an elected government to do as they please without recourse to their electors. This treaty is of major constitutional importance and needs the support of the majority of the EU's population for it to be a success, one elector one vote, and the majority decides.
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here in the east of England, Greens are getting more known, but apart from a little recycling their policies are vague.
Sopme greens contemplate using nuclear power, rather than using the dire need for coastal protection to generate energy, their mindset is all for small furry animals, whilst humans will loose Haus und Hof to flooding.
I was amember of the Green Party in germany and in England, but they have left me standing with their allures to attract more media attention through a leader.
Schumacher never said 'big centralised systems are beautiful', so the re organisation of the green Party into a centrally led party, against their fundamental principal policy of decentralising power, has cost them many Green members, but they have gained many old Labourites who like to be led by the nose, so the balance is restored.
Just as the realos in germany had to supp with the devil and ended up being breakfast to UN bombers In Yugoslavia, their focus here has gone off the ball.
Still signs are good with some MPs of the 'three main parties' being found out as fraudsters, some involved in largency, the whole political spectrum has changed to the benefit of the smaller parties, including the Greens and the british National Party. With a little luck voters might actually get a fair vote, not that the BBC will have got anything to do with it, it was their barricades put up in their coverage of elections that has kept Greens down for years.
Now they will even win under the FPTP system, regardless, people are so fed up with the current shower.
Freiburg is great, I hope that one day I can help to bring back the Trams to Norfolk and Norwich, generate green energy from a Wash barrier to equal the power of 2 nuclear power stations, as well as safeguarding 1/5 of the british food supplies grown in the low lying Fenlands, from inundation with sea water.
greens must realise that human values and needs are as important than those of threatened species, we can do both if we put our minds to it.
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Boilerplated wrote:
#157
""the proceedings of the EU are held in secret." "
"No they are not, no more than in any other parliament, it is true though that the USA were the first to routinely televise their governmental proceedings."
I have been reading the tin man's posts for some time now, with increasing regret, however this particular post is perhaps the quintessential evidence for his worthlessness as an advocate.
Consider, he either believes what he says or he does not not. If he does not, he is clearly just a WUM and a liar, and therefore a cretin and a fool for bothering to turn up here at all, wasting everybody's time.
Now if he is honest, and writes what he understands..... then god help him.
He clearly believes that the EU is defined by the European parliament. Further, he thinks that televised parliament is the definition of transparent governmental proceedings.
In short, boilerplated is either ten years old, or he is a remarkable example of a fool.
Either way, if he would post less often and with fewer emotional remarks, it would be much appreciated.
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#220
In reply to comments about secrecy within the EU, [without getting into the name calling so evident in the comment I'm replying to, a sure sign of a lost argument...]
"[../various and scattered insults/..] In short, boilerplated is either ten years old, or he is a remarkable example of a fool."
In your opinion, fortunately you are the one on the outside looking in, you are the real threat to democracy, you don't know the meaning of the word... What you can't stand is the FACT that the EU is far more democratic than many a countries government/parliament, there is nothing to stop anyone with the wish and intelligence going and finding out what the EU does, how they do it and even take part in doing it. I've never suggested that the EU smiles though gold plated teeth, all I've ever said is that it's a not a threat to the democracy you and other want - but of course you don't want democracy, you want it moulded into what you think democracy is and not what the majority want.
I might not be correct but I'm no "fool" either - nor am I ten years old (wish I was, considering that I'm very much the wrong side of youthful energy...), the real fools are those who thinks that democracy is only to be found in what he or she want - that's despotism...
I suggest that you take a long hard read of the following, a very good commentory/exploration of the meaning of true democracy and what isn't;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8073863.stm
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