Showing posts with label Publius. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Publius. Show all posts

Tuesday, 6 January 2009

How the reactions of the Czech Republic and France represent the 21st century (tribute to Publius)

Publius has written an amazing comment on the behaviour of the outgoing and incoming French and Czech EU-Council presidencies with regard to the present Gaza conflict.

I am sure that my English translation cannot capture the tone of the original (I am open for suggestions!), but it will allow those of you not too familiar with the French language to understand the main message:
[...] One of the best identified difficulties of social life is to prevent the worst actors among its members to act with precipitance in the hope to stand out in doing so. The will to succeed in politics is nothing but the most recent proof of the egomaniac right of the least considerate to be the first to cry wolf. Europe, at least originally, had the goal to protect the least powerful member states from the infelicitous and unreflective initiatives of their powerful neighbours. Let us thank France and the Czech Repulic, from now on the members of what will have been the last Troika in European history, to show to us that the solutions of the 50s - made for the people of the 50s -, which put up the proper respect of neighbours to satisfy their interests based on the founding principle of social life, are for sure not appropriate anymore for a 21st century that puts up individual success as the etalon [i.e. standard; JF] of moral life
[Remark JF: Publius has slightly changed the text later on. This translations is based on the first version.]
Tony Barber in the Brussels Blog of the Financial Times goes in the same direction - but far less expressive.