Europe

• Spain?s ?New Way? of Doing Diplomacy 8 hours ago The Brussels Journal - The Voice of Conservatism in Europe
  
  
  Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has just unveiled Spain?s latest contribution to fostering global peace and security. No, his government will not be sending more troops to help rebuild Afghanistan. And no, Spain will not be providing more vaccines to help needy children in Africa. Instead, the Zapatero government is the proud sponsor of a lavish decorative ceiling at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva.

  Miquel Barceló, one of the world?s most highly paid abstract artists, was commissioned by Spain to redecorate ?Room XX? and its ellipsoidal dome at the Palais des Nations. He used more than 100 tons of paint to turn the negotiating room into a cave dripping with thousands of 50-kilo multicolored artificial stalactites.

  

  ?The cave is a metaphor for the Agora, the first meeting place of humans, the big African tree under which to sit to talk, and the only possible future: dialogue, human rights,? says Barceló. Using postmodern rhetoric which closely mimics that employed by Zapatero, Barceló describes his new work as ?reaching towards the infinite, bringing a multiplicity of points of view.?

  The 1.500m2 (15.000ft2) ceiling, which was co-unveiled on November 18 by King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia of Spain in the presence of UN Secretary General Ki-moon, is being hailed by the Spanish government as one of the UN?s most important works of art. Some are even comparing Barceló?s new ?symbol of multilateralism? with Michelangelo?s work at the Sistine Chapel.

  As Spaniards debate the artistic value of Barceló?s ceiling, however, excitement has turned into anger as Spanish taxpayers learn that they will be the ones footing the bill. The 13-month redecoration project has cost more than 20 million euros, all of which is being paid for by Spain. Some 60 percent of the money is coming from a group of Spanish companies that presumably have been pressured into joining a special NGO set up by the Spanish foreign ministry to ?promote dialogue through the use of Spanish art.? The remaining 40 percent is being paid for by the Spanish government, including 500,000 euros that were taken from Spain?s overseas development aid fund. Barceló, who insists that the money was not ?stolen from the poor,? will walk away with 6 million euros for his ?long, hard, fun and ultimately orgiastic? efforts.

  Zapatero, who does not like the concepts of transparency and accountability (unless, of course, they are applied to US President George W Bush), had tried to keep the cost of the controversial project secret. But he was forced to come clean after Spanish newspapers published exclusive photos of the final product just a week before it was to be unveiled.

  In a quintessentially Socialist way of doing damage control, Spain?s foreign-minister-cum-art-critic Miguel Ángel Moratinos refused to debate the cost because ?art has no price.?  He said: ?Only fools confuse value and price. This project is a new way of doing diplomacy and foreign policy.?

  And indeed it is. Welcome, once again, to the Zapaterian world of postmodern politics, where image is king and substance is, well, un pequeño detalle (a small detail).

  Zapatero initially foreshadowed his passion for art during his first speech [pdf] to the United Nations General Assembly in September 2004, when he declared that ?culture is always peace.? Since then, the Spanish prime minister has made it his solemn duty whenever and wherever possible to pontificate about human rights. Thus it comes as no surprise that Zapatero has now managed to unify these two obsessions into the Opus magnum of his political career: Barceló?s new ?planet-cave? will henceforth be called the ?Chamber for Human Rights and the Alliance of Civilizations.? What?s more, it will also be the permanent home of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

  The Human Rights Council is, of course, the successor to the infamous UN Commission on Human Rights, which was shut down in 2006 after 50 years of devoting itself almost exclusively to criticizing Israel. But less than three months after it was created, the new Human Rights Council voted in June 2006 to make a review of human rights abuses by Israel a permanent feature of every council session. Since then, the Human Rights Council, which has been hijacked by some of the world?s worst human rights violators, such as China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe, has passed more than 60 percent of its resolutions on Israel alone. It reaffirms the UN?s pathological obsession with the Jewish state.

  But rather than demanding the complete reform of what even the staid New York Times says has become a complete disgrace to multilateralism, Zapatero instead has chosen to legitimize this paragon of dysfunctional globalism with Spanish largesse because of his desire to raise Spain?s international profile. The ceiling is a gift from Spain ?to the entire international community, to all human beings, to all countries,? says Zapatero. The ?impressive dome is a reflection of Spain in the 21st century, a country of solidarity, commitment to development aid and against intolerance, discrimination and poverty.?

  The Alliance of Civilizations, meanwhile, is another one of Zapatero?s postmodern initiatives to save humanity from itself. He ?borrowed? his idea from the ?Dialogue of Civilizations,? a pre-modern concept promoted by Islamic radicals in Iran during the 1990s. In its essence, it calls on the West to negotiate a truce with Islamic extremists, on terms set by the latter.

  According to Zapatero, the world would be so much more peaceful if the West would just abandon Judeo-Christian monotheism. Never mind the pequeño detalle that hyper-secularists like Zapatero are the embodiment of what Al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremists hate about the West. Zapatero believes that with a small dose of multilateral group therapy, he will be able to paper over any differences he may have with the Islamists who want to take over his country.

  As always with Zapatero, it?s the image that matters, not the substance. And so his impeccable postmodern logic comes full circle. His rabidly anti-clerical government takes great pride in its Sistine Chapel of the 21st century, a shrine dedicated to the gods of multilateralism that ultimately seek to bring down the Western Civilization (especially to the Judeo-Christian part) that Zapatero hates so much.

  Never mind the pequeño detalle that money was lifted from the foreign aid budget to pay for his grandiose monument to globalism. According to the Spanish government, ?everything that is related to human rights is development aid, and in that sense, what is being done in Geneva in the framework of the UN is the best example of that effective multilateralism.? As far as the misappropriation of funds are concerned, the proletarians who fail to see the value in such Socialist largesse are ?fools? who are not sufficiently sophisticated to understand the value of art.

  Meanwhile, the thinking goes, if Spain?s example of ?art as effective multilateralism? through the UN Human Rights Council and the Alliance of Civilizations can contribute in some way to the demise of Israel and the West, well then Zapatero can also take credit for bringing peace to the Middle East and even to the whole world. Then the possibilities for building his Socialist utopia will be endless!

  It?s all part of the new, quintessentially ?Made in Spain? way of doing diplomacy and foreign policy.

• Cliché Croatia 12 hours ago Rick Steves: Blog Gone Europe
  
• Sorry 007, dry martinis are out now 23 hours ago Certain ideas of Europe | Economist.com
  

  MI6 looks for a new sort of spy

  IF "Quantum of Solace," the newest James Bond film, were viewed as a job advert for modern spies, the qualifications would apparently include the ability to survive high-speed car chases in Italy, cleverly expose the baddies during a night at the opera in Vienna, win punch-ups in seedy pockets of Bolivia, and no matter how bloodied, always look good in a suit. The non-stop violence hardly leaves a moment for romance.Reality, it seems, is another matter. MI6, Mr Bond's on-screen employer, has launched a new recruitment campaign that downplays the danger and past, macho responses to cold war-era threats, and plays up the need for diversity to respond to modern realities. About 10% of the British spy agency's latest intake for the most elite jobs are

  
• Catch As Catch Can 1 day ago EURSOC - News and comment from Europe
  

  Ms Griffin is a professional journalist respected by her peers, directors , and readers of one of the best-known, and - sometimes - loved, women?s publications. Affectionately known as ?Cosmo?. (Cosmopolitan was bought by William Randolph Hearst in 1905 for $ 400,000. The journal is still owned by Hearst Communications Inc, based at Hearst Tower, New York).

  Historic attempts to have the magazine banned in Israel, South Africa and Iran failed. Although, a new prohibition in Iran has been decreed under the current regime.

  Christie Griffin is an expert in ?The ways to the heart?. One of the principal lessons in ?How to Be a Total Man-Magnet? is: ?Make Positive Small Talk?. Griffin advises her readers to avoid ?negative comment? on a first date such as: ?There will definitely be another terrorist attack?. Or, a derogatory observation with regard to another would-be man-magnet, such as: ?Look at that chick?s belt - so 2002!?.

  Another useful piece of information: ?Remember: ?Hold a drink in your hand?. This will give the guy the impression that you do not want a cocktail straight away. So he feels more comfortable. And gets a signal that you are independent?.

  An extra sagacious clue is to avoid - on a second date - a headline that you may have read at a beauty parlour. An example is: ?How to make condoms more fun?. (Trust me. This one will get you nowhere fast)?.

  Enough said. Good luck. And may the force of ?Positive Talk? be with you.

• The French are different 1 day ago Certain ideas of Europe | Economist.com
  

  The joy of subsidies

  FROM our Brussels correspondentTO lunch with the French agriculture minister Michel Barnier, who is in Brussels for a marathon series of talks on reforming the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). During the lunch, organised for a group of mostly French journalists, Mr Barnier told us that he loves his job as farm minister and offered to explain why. Recently, he said, he had taken some fellow European ministers to a farm near Limoges, where a farmer explained how he makes a living. After selling his livestock and paying his bill, he was left with net revenues of €4,000 a year. Thankfully, he received €24,000 in EU direct subsidies each year. "Without that EU money, he would have to close his farm,"

  
• Obamania and the American Myth 2 days ago The Brussels Journal - The Voice of Conservatism in Europe
  
  
  A spectre is haunting Europe ? the spectre of Obamania. The old continent is engaged in a collective swoon as a result of the election of Barack Obama as American president. The president elect?s every move and decision is the subject of slavish and adulatory reporting in the European press: will Obama continue to use a BlackBerry? What dog will the Obamas buy for the White House? What sort of armoured car will he travel in? People are giving private parties in European capitals to celebrate Obama?s election, while the new president has been invited to address the European Parliament and even to attend a European Union summit in April.
   
  The reason for this outpouring is not difficult to fathom. Barack Obama represents to the highest degree all the values which European elites hold most dear ? youth, progress, innovation and, above all, multiculturalism. As Obama himself faces a challenge in the Supreme Court to prove that was in fact born in Hawaii instead of in Kenya (which would disqualify him from being president of the United States) his very foreignness and mixed ethnic background is precisely what European leaders find so deeply attractive about him.
   
  Obama corresponds to precisely the post-modern, post-national and multiethnic fantasies to which European leaders subscribe ? and which they have been struggling for decades to realise in the creation of a United States of Europe. The European project, after all, is ideologically American. Not only has it always been supported and initiated by the USA (including the CIA) since its inception (see Gerd Lundestad, ?Empire by Integration?, Oxford University Press, 1998); but also its very symbolism and vocabulary ? from the stars on the flag to the use of the word ?Convention? to describe the committee which worked on the European constitution from 2002 to 2004 ? is based on the American model.
   
  It is based, in particular, on what I call the American myth. People often talk about ?the American dream?, by which they usually mean something rather banal about how people from the bottom of the social ladder can attain positions of great power. But America itself embodies another dream, or myth, which is connected to the former, namely that a state can be founded, and continue to exist, on the basis of contractual and universal values but without drawing legitimacy from the vagaries of history or geography. This is the true American dream.
   
  We can see this in the way Americans often refer to their state as ?young?. In reality, the American state is no younger than other states which never refer to themselves in the same way, Australia or Canada for instance. The reason for the difference is that Americans believe their country represents and new and different kind of society, created ex nihilo by the ?Founding Fathers? on the basis of rational principles. According to the dream, those principles live on today, and continue to form the basis for the continuing existence of the American state as the result of a kind of necessity rather than historical contingency. The American dream is, in this sense, a sort of semi-religious ?covenant? which never ages because it is constantly renewed by the adherence of each individual American to the social contract.
   
  European elites are deeply attracted to this (in my view totally false) version of history. They want the same thing for Europe:  they want the ancient nation-states of Europe to be subsumed into a post-modern, post-historical, post-geographical and of course post-national future, in which ?French? and ?German? will have little more than folkloric meaning. They want all European societies to be multicultural and multiethnic. They want Muslim Turkey to enter the EU to prove their point. They want to engage in a form of politics which denies that it is even politics, pretending instead that they are carrying out a vast humanitarian peace-keeping mission. They think of themselves not as politicians deploying power in the real world but instead as semi-Messianic figures, rather like Barack Obama. They think of themselves as belonging to the same ideological community as the Americans, a community which enables them to break the laws of geography and history and to feel closer to a country thousands of miles away than to their immediate neighbours. Speaking before the American election, the EU?s High Representative for Foreign Policy, Javier Solana, said that Europe and America were together ?a force for good in the world?.
   
  One of the many negative results of this, in my view, is the damage it does to relations between Europe and Russia. Russia in 1991 abandoned any pretence that it embodied a dream of universal appeal to mankind. That dream ? communism ? had brought the country to the brink of destruction. Now, Russia?s politics are deeply anti-ideological and pragmatic, so much so that there is little difference between the state and the country?s numerous mega-enterprises supplying raw materials and energy. Because Russia now resolutely refuses to embody any ?dream?, but instead wants normal inter-state relations with Europe, on the basis of sound economic relations and geopolitical mutual respect, she is shunned and regarded instead as a threat. Worse, she is regarded as embodying a reactionary force ? one that refuses to join in the collective dreaming and instead want to engage in politics.
   
  It is a ridiculous state of affairs. Russia is Europe?s geographical neighbour; most continental Europeans could drive there in their cars in much less time than it takes to cross the US. Russians are obviously themselves Europeans. Russia supplies Europe with what she needs (energy and raw materials) while Europe supplies Russia with what she needs (high-tech and precision engineering). By what possible standard of values should Europeans treat the election of an American president as something so intimately connected to themselves that one sometimes has the impression Barack Obama has come into their homes and sat down at their kitchen table, while their media simultaneously dismiss every move of the much closer Russian president as suspicious, ominous, cynical and threatening? This surely is the world upside down.

• Heading north 2 days ago Certain ideas of Europe | Economist.com
  

  Immigrants flock to Sweden

  NOT all of those Polish plumbers leaving Britain and Ireland as the economies slow are necessarily going straight home. Sweden has seen immigration surge to record levels this year. The Local, an English-language news site, reports:According to recent figures from Statistics Sweden (SCB), Sweden’s population increased by nearly 60,000 residents in the first nine months of 2008, with immigration accounting for more than 70 percent of the increase. Altogether, just over 78,200 immigrants came into Sweden between January and September of this year, while nearly 34,900 foreign-born residents left the country. The net immigration of more than 43,000 represents the highest net immigration ever recorded in Sweden, reports the Sydsvenskan newspaper.The newcomers have scattered more widely around the country than past

  
• Oh, Champs-Elysées 2 days ago EURSOC - News and comment from Europe
  

  The survey's report made for chilling reading for business owners on the Champs-Elysées, as they compete with other cities in a fearful economic climate. Le Monde reports it claimed:

  "The welcome (in the boutiques and restaurants) was judged mediocre in the majority of cases. The staff were cold, didn't smile and did not take the time to help customers. Worse, in three out of ten cases, they didn't even welcome or thank the customers."

  The "most beautiful avenue in the world" didn't even make the top three shopping centres in terms of attractiveness: It ended up fourth. A survey carried out by the same company in 2005 (pdf) ranked Les Champs third, after NYC's 5th Avenue and Madrid's Calle Serrano.

  Naturally, business owners on the Champs-Elysées dispute the survey. The head of the business group for Les Champs, Edouard Lefebvre, says that his colleagues don't deserve to be among the lowest-ranked. He said he didn't believe that shop assistants - in some of the world's most prized brands' flagship stores - treated their customers with disdain. The business organisation carries out its own "mystery shopper" surveys and finds that service is good, considering that between 300,000-800,000 shoppers tread the Champs every day.

  The Mayor of the 8th arrondisement, where the Champs-Elysées runs, weighed in too, claiming that the survey was "rather superficial."

  Nevertheless, there has been a decline in the prestige of France's most famous street. Yes, giants like Louis Vuitton have opened grand stores there, but car showrooms and giant branches of global high street stores like Gap, Nike and Adidas have taken some of the shine off the Champs.

  Paris city council is determined that the city's great avenue does not end up as "another Oxford Street" - sadly for Paris, Oxford Street is ranked higher than the Champs-Elysées on the survey.

  In 1992 the city launched a renewal scheme to clean up some of the grottier aspects of Les Champs, widening the pavements and improving lighting. But sixteen years later, it appears that smartening up Les Champs has drained it of its Parisian character.

  Few today would argue that it is one of the world's most romantic boulevards, as one pushes through crowds of tourists and the hoodlums from the housing estates outside Paris who have recently started hanging around the thoroughfare. There have been rising incidences of crime: Four years ago, a young man was stabbed to death just by the Champs. Parisians rarely venture there, put off by the high prices, crowds of tourists and gangs of youths; the sort of shops Parisians are said to prefer are unable to afford a place on the Champs, thanks to the sky-high rents.

  While the Parisians dismiss the survey, there is a certain amount of blame-shifting. Litter on the Champs-Elysées is blamed on the absence of waste paper bins, removed on the orders of the anti-terror Vigipirate scheme. The centre-right Mayor of the 8th arrondisement blames (Socialist-led) City Hall for refusing to pay for bomb-proof waste paper bins for the street. For its part, the City Hall says it isn't a question of cost, but of aesthetics: The architectural rules protecting France's heritage forbid the new bins. The Prefect du Police argues that he hasn't been informed of any new anti-terror designs.

  Next month, the Paris council will launch a competition to design bomb-proof bins; and hopefully start cleaning up Les Champs (again).

• A cyclist city is a civilised city 3 days ago Certain ideas of Europe | Economist.com
  

  Bike-rental schemes are taking off

  THE popularity of bicycle-rental schemes across Europe, inspired by the "Vélib" programme in Paris, continues to spread. Instead of sitting in gridlocked traffic, a growing number of Europeans are picking up a bicycle in one corner of town, dropping it off in another, and doing the reverse on their way home at night. Barcelona, Amsterdam, Lyon and Rome are some other cities that have embraced the idea.Now Boris Johnson, the London mayor who is an avid cyclist himself, has given the go-ahead to the placement of 6,000 rental bikes at 400 stations around central London by May 2010. A feasibility study by Transport for London says they could generate 40,000 extra cycle trips per day. As part of the city's goal is to increase cycle

  
• SOS Europe: Outsourcing Democracy 3 days ago The Brussels Journal - The Voice of Conservatism in Europe
  

  Are we still living in a democracy? As an elected politician I am probably expected to say that we are. But are we?

  Two years ago, in January 2007, Roman Herzog, the former President of the Federal Republic of Germany, caused quite a stir when in an op-ed article (Welt Am Sonntag, 14 January 2007) he wrote that democracy in his country is virtually non-existent since the European Union (EU) has stealthily eaten away all the national parliament?s powers.
  
  Mr. Herzog referred to a report of the German Ministry of Justice which pointed out that between 1999 and 2004, 84% of the legal acts in Germany stemmed from unelected EU institutions in Brussels, with only 16% coming from the German Parliament in Berlin.

  Like Germany, Belgium is a EU member. In our parliament, we, too, are called upon almost every week to vote the incorporation into Belgian legislation of so-called ?directives? emanating from the EU Commission. This is a mere formality. Parliamentarians all over Europe press the green button because the EU treaties oblige the 27 EU members states to incorporate the EU directives unchanged into their national legislations.

  Hence, there are no debates about the directives and no alterations or amendments are proposed to the texts. Occasionally my party abstains from voting or we press the red button ? a position we can take since we are not part of the Belgian establishment and are considered ?extremists? anyway. But even we, I must admit, usually vote ?yea?. The EU treaties demand it. The European Court punishes countries that do not oblige with hefty fines.

  Inspired by Mr. Herzog?s calculations, I submitted a question to the Belgian authorities. They informed me that between 2000 and 2005, 1,395 laws were passed in Belgium, of which 551 were bills that incorporate EU directives into Belgian legislation. That is 39.5 percent. The ratio is increasing, however. While the figure was 31.3% in 2000, it had increased to 51.8% by 2005.

  This means that a majority of Belgian laws emanates from the EU. It also means that only one single Belgian, namely Louis Michel, the Belgian member of the European Commission, has had a say over the majority of the laws imposed on all his compatriots. How democratic is this?

  For my American readers I must point out that the EU directives do not pass through the European Parliament (EP). They come directly from the Commission, which is the EU?s executive. The EP, though elected, is not a proper legislative assembly; its only role is to have a say over the EU budget and the power to veto the appointment of European Commissioners. The real power lies with the Commission and the Council. The Commission consists of one member from each of the 27 EU member states, appointed by their respective governments. The Council consists of a representative of each government of the 27 member states. The Council tells the Commission what to do.

  The English political philosopher John Laughland has called the EU ?a cartel of governments, engaged in a permanent conspiracy against their own electorates and parliaments.? European integration favors the power of national governments over that of their respective parliaments. Laws in the EU are made by the governments and the approval of an elected legislative is not required since the treaties oblige the member states to incorporate the EU laws into their own national legislation.

  ?It is for this simple reason,? says Mr. Laughland, ?that all establishment politicians, whether of Left or Right, are in favor of the EU. It increases their power and their room for maneuver. How much easier it is to pass laws in a quiet and secret meeting with your twenty-seven colleagues, than it is to do so in front of a fractious parliament where there is usually an in-built opposition.?

  Mr. Herzog, who is not only a former President of Germany (1994-1999) but also his country?s former Chief Justice (1987-1994), sees it as follows: ?Against the fundamental principle of the separation of powers, the essential European legislative functions lie with the members of the executive. And so the question arises whether Germany can still be referred to unconditionally as a parliamentary democracy at all, because the separation of powers as a fundamental constituting principle of the constitutional order in Germany has been cancelled out for large sections of the legislation applying to this country.?

  This is true for the other EU member states as well. Democracy is in a deep crisis in Europe. People are still allowed to vote, but their elected representatives are powerless. The so-called ?democratic? nations of Europe have become the political henchmen of an empire with global ambitions. And the voters resent it.

  Hon. Alexandra Colen, Ph D, is a Vlaams Belang member of the Belgian Federal Chamber of Representatives. She is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Belgian Parliament and the chairperson of the Advisory Committee for Social Emancipation of the Parliament.

  This article was first published at the website of The Hudson Institute New York