Monday 1 February 2010

Success in Spanish: Everyone agrees that good things shall be done

I just came across a press release by the Spanish celebrating the success(es) of their first month as the rotating Council presidency."
"The institutions and our partners have given their full and unconditional backing for the fundamental objectives of our Presidency. It's been a good start", the Secretary of State said during a press conference."
Okay, so success is when other people agree with you. That's great. But what do they agree on with you?
"Among these objectives, he emphasised economic recovery and the creation of quality employment, the strengthening of Europe's role in the world, further development of citizens' rights - above all in terms of equality between men and women - and security."
It must have been really hard to convince the others about these fundamental objectives - because we all know how everyone else is against controversial goals like "economic recovery" or "security"...

3 comments:

Jon Worth said...

I thought the goal of the Spanish Presidency was to generally not annoy anyone and not really do anything much... and they seem to have succeeded in that one so far as well!

Anonymous said...

It reminds me of a discussion on nuclear weapons I was at a few years back.

Everyone agreed nuclear war was a bad thing. Lots of nodding heads from the noble participants who seemed to think this was a breakthrough.

The problems arose when we discussed how to avert it. Some said build up a deterrant, others said get rid of all the weapons.

Goals are easily devised, methods divide. Lets see what the Spanish do next...

Ralf Grahn said...

They have to say something, don't they, when the EU is idling.

Read the Official Journal or the new preparatory documents on Eur-Lex, and you see that the European Union has not functioned normally since before the European Parliament elections in June 2009.

There is still not a new, working Commission in place. Spain has hosted informal gatherings, without notable decisions. The Council seems stuck on SWIFT and ACTA secrecy, more or less. The US will probably be represented by Mickey Mouse at the EU-US summit.

Even the RSS streams from the presidency on my blogs are frozen, despite a number of resets.

Need I go on?