2009 - a summary

2009 has been the year the European Year of Creativity and Innovation, and as usual almost nobody outside Brussels has noticed.

What everybody noticed were the European Parliament elections 2009 that have dominated this blog for the first half of 2009. The last election day and the Monday after the elections were the most successful days (in terms of visitors and hits) of this blog in the first semester. I should also remind you of the Th!nk About it! blogging competition where I was invited to moderate a discussion at the final event in Rotterdam.

The second semester was much more quiet with the summer break - until my visits to Hungary where I spoke to local and regional journalists and to the "Brussels bubble" in October. This visit was extremely fruitful, meeting people I only new through blogging and Twitter, and discussing issues that are very relevant to my own research as a political scientist. These days in Brussels have been covered in a four-part series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 & Part 4.

On 3 November 2009, we finally saw the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty that has put the EU on a new constitutional basis on 1 December 2009 - probably the last "major" reform for at least a decade.

And over the year, we got many new and renewed faces for the top EU posts: Jerzy Buzek as European Parliament President (my comment), José Manuel Barroso as European Commission President (see the very first Chasing Brussels Podcast episode), Hermann van Rompuy and Catherine Ashton for European Council President and "Foreign Minister" (Eurobloggers' comment) as well as Pierre de Boissieu as EU Council Secretary General (comment by Grahnlaw) and his successor Uwe Corsepius (my portrait. Not to forget the new European Commission as proposed by Barroso at the end of November that is awaiting confirmation in January.

Well, and we have seen the amazing evolution of Bloggingportal.eu that has become the point of reference for the Euroblogosphere that I expect to continue to mature in 2010, where we will have to move to more policy-related issues after a year dominated by institutional and personality issues.

I myself am looking forward to 2010, not least since I know my own life will change again as I might move to Brussels for some time in Spring, and I will continue blogging as I did in 2009 - although I don't think I will be able to repeat the amount of almost 600 posts published over the year...

PS: My special thanks this year go to the Swedish Presidency Twitterers and blogging Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt for their work in making the Council Presidency the most transparent ever, serving as examples to build upon in the future!

I recommend reading: "2009 and the EU budget: part one"

On the marvellous initiative FollowTheMoney.eu, Jan Seifert (who also runs an individual blog) has published a nice start into the discussions around the 2009 EU budget and the upcoming stages:

"2009 and the EU budget: part one"

I recommend reading - and following the whole initiative!

Greece with foreign minister Dora Bakoyannis takes over the OSCE chairmanship - updated

Since January, 1, Greece has taken over the chairmanship of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation (OSCE) from the Finns.

Their foreign minister Alexander Stubb has been blogging several times during the Finnish chairmanship, notably during the Russian-Georgian crisis, which called my attention earlier this year. I doubt that Dora Bakoyannis, number 78 on the Forbes list of the most powerful women and first female foreign minister of Greece, will get the attention of the European blogosphere with extensive online appearance.

According to the OSCE press release - which is aggressively general - the most important issue seems to be Georgia:

In particular, we intend to proceed with a swift and co-ordinated course of action to try and find a compromise arrangement that would allow the Organization to continue its activities throughout Georgia, in order to assist all efforts for the peaceful resolution of the crisis.

The last time we have heard about the OSCE was in early December, when the Russian proposal to establish a new pan-European security strategy was rejected by the rest of the OSCE countries. The only remark in the press release is that Greece will "build on the discussions" at the ministerial OSCE Council in Helsinki, which means that on the diplomatic level they cannot bury the initiative but it won't come up politically.

The next OSCE presidency (2010) will be held by... Kazakhstan, a nation that ranks particularly low in all fields of democracy and good governance, according to the 2008 Freedom House "Countries in Transit" report.

Update (22 January 2009)

Oops, have I been deliciously tagged by Ms Bakoyannis personnally today...?

The Czech EU-Council Presidency (3): The Eurosceptic President Václav Klaus is not the country

In a rather long article titled "The legend of the Eurosceptics" ("Die Legende von den Euroskeptikern"), the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), a major German quality newspaper, covers the alleged Euroscepticism of the Czech EU-Council Presidency that will take over the responsibilities from France in January 2009.

What the author Karl-Peter Schwarz is trying to prove is that Václav Klaus might be a Eurosceptic, as many report (e.g. here, here, here) but that this does not reflect the position of the Czech Republic as whole.

After citing opinion polls which confirm that Czech are even more positive towards the European Union, he remarks:

Indeed, quite frequently the declarations of Václav Klaus are distorted beyond recognition, just to be able to condemn them as populist and nationalist. But it remains without questions that he is an expressed opponent to a continued European integration. The debate on the goal and end of the European Union he wants to start is just an issue of minorities, also within the Czech Republic. And there is not much reason to conclude "pars pro toto" from the President to the "Czechs", their parliament or their government. However, it would also be wrong to neglect that the popularity of the Czech president consists in him being a trustworthy representative of the national interests [of the Czech Republic].

(own translation)

So if there is a divide between the popular opinion and the presidential declarations, a difference in the positions of the president and the government, we might face a situation in which unclear priorities within the Czech presidency might prevent the Union from moving on. This will not bring forward the Union, it will slow down politics and policy developments. In this sense, the Euroscepticism of Václav Klaus will be a problem for all of us, no matter how europhile "the Czechs" are.

I don't have a problem with debates on the future of the European Union, I am in favour of criticising undesirable developments (i.e. "eurocratism", "eurospeakism", "CAPism"), but I prefer to hear them from Europhiles than from hidden or even overt nationalists. But I am afraid we might get the latter rather than the first - and that the legend of the Eurosceptics will become a true story...

The separatist agenda (2): Transnistria and Moldova

Have a look at the short article by Scraps of Moscow containing a number of interesting links to recent posts covering Transnistria, the eastern breakaway region of the Republic of Moldova!

Especially nice is the article by Thomas de Waal (who is also an expert in Nagorno Karabakh), qualifying the Transnistrian "conflict", which is often compared to the South Ossetian example, to be more like a "family quarral" than like a real conflict.

I have seen on the draft agenda for the General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC) in the first half of 2009 that Moldova will probably be covered during several sessions, which always also includes the question of Transnistria. I should therefore cite de Waal saying that

"The EU must decide how much of a priority this small obscure dispute is. Arguably, it should see an opportunity here to pursue an agreement that would open up a path to Europe for both Moldova and Transdniestria and make a model of successful cooperation with the Russians. That would suit everyone, except the black-marketeers."

The European Union should try to help to solve a conflict that does not appear to be a real one, and any step towards resolution will be a step towards a less divided Europe, something not only of advantage for the East but also for the Centre and the West.

The Czech EU-Council Presidency (1): Reviewing enlargement

In a Council document published these days, the working programme of the Czech EU-Council presidency in the field of economy and finances for the first half of 2009 is presented.

Beside the obligatory "crisis rhetoric", one of the issues on the agenda will be an assessment of the impact of the past enlargement of the European Union:

On 1 May 2009, five years will have passed since the biggest enlargement of the EuropeanUnion. The Presidency will use this opportunity to reflect in the ECOFIN Council and other Council formations on the economic impact of this enlargement on the whole Union.

I hope that this will be an honest assessment of what enlargement has brought to the Union, to the member states, and to the citizens.

Personally, I am convinced that the advantages outweight the disadvantages - and I hope that this analysis will bring some optmistic light for the 2009 European Parliament elections and for a Council Presidency that is expected to be much less EU-enthusiastic than some of the previous.

In any case, I think that such an evaluation will help to foster discussions about the future of the European Union, and the Czech Presidency is well advised to encourage these, not least for the sake of its own reputation.

2009: The European Year of Creativity and Innovation - or: Yet another European Year of Something

2009 is not the year of the European Parliament Elections, but just the European Year of Creativity and Innovation, as the Council decided last month.

The importance of these European Years of Something is rather reduced. Or did you notice that this year was the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue...?