Changes in the Slovakia, Belgium, and Finland

Yesterday, Slovakians voted against the ruling social democrats and elected a centre-right majority into the Parliament.

Today, Belgium also tries to vote a new government, and, luckily for the politicians, voting is obligatory over here - because what I heard during last week was that politicians are tired of campaigning and voters tired of voting in Belgium after years of crisis. That is democracy how we love it!

And at the end of next week, Finnish prime minister Vahanen will be replaced by the 41 year old Mari Kiviniemi, bringing some young blood into the European Council in the near future.

Will Tarja Halonen become European Council President?

While other sources still search the European Council President on the male side of life, let's follow Jerzy Buzek's proposal and look again at the feminine Europe.

She is number 68 on the Forbes list of the most powerful women in the world, but she is hardly known to a wider public.

Having held three different ministerial posts from 1987-91, being minister for foreign affairs from 1995-2000 (including the Finnish EU Council Presidency in 1999) and being president of Finland since 2000 (including the Finnish EU-Council Presidency in 2006), she has more national and European executive experience than any other women on the continent.

She is a member of the Council of Women World Leaders (CWWL) and was convenor of the International Women Colloquium on Women's Empowerment earlier this year where she became the new president of the CWWL - following Mary Robinson...

So Harja Talonen is a powerful woman with a lot of high level experience and excellent international contacts. She comes from a northern European state and she is a Social Democrat who managed to be in office without creating noise around the continent, which speaks in favour of more diplomatic qualities.

If you add these together, she would not only qualify for the job of European Council President who will need to moderate between the EU's heads of state and government, she also unites a number of demographic and political properties (female, from the north, social democrat) that could well fit the complex equilibrium of the post distribution that we are going to see due to this special declaration to the Lisbon Treaty.

So my bets are on Ms Halonen - and if she won't become European Council President, her profile also fits the Foreign Minister post...

Update: Read also eurosocialist's article "Woman @ EU top: let’s enter the 21st century now!"

The European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECRG) - corrected and updated

The "European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECRG)", isn't that the most ridiculous combination one could imagine? Mixing those who want to conserve and those who want to reform?

But it has become a truth:

The British Tories, the Polish PiS and the Czech ODS form a joint eurosceptic group in the European Parliament. This brings together three of the most important not-so-European anti-good-things parties, those who want to conserve the bad sides (like nationalism) in the European Union and reform the good ones (like working together, liberalising interpersonal relations, etc).

But since nobody really wanted to play with them (who wants to play with such a strange trio), they needed to find a bunch of individual MEPs who seem to be so unpopular among their peers that they were ready to form the appendix of their three big brothers.

And they found five six of them, from Finland, Hungary, the Netherlands, Belgium, Latvia, and Lithuania. The theatre group is formed.

Well, this ridicules the idea of a parliamentary group, but since together they combine 56 MEPs from 9 countries [see update on figures at the end!] - more than the Greens - they do have the right to form an official faction in the European Parliament.

Will they hold together? - Probably yes, because it doesn't really hurt them to stick together and the financial and political advantages are probably higher than the losses. But still, according to the new Rules of Procedure (PDF) of the European Parliament (Article 30), they will have to keep up MEPs from at least one fourth of the EU's member countries.

However, if one of the partners says something stupid - and seeing this group it is more than probable that this will happen - the other can easily ignore it, since the national media won't notice it anyway. Being in that group will thus most likely not have any negative influence on the image of the parties. So the reasons to quit might remain lower than the incentives to stay in.

And, to be honest, I think the Union and the Parliament deserve such a strange group, which is the result of a rule made by the majority against the minority short before the elections - but a rule that is easily to circumvent by those who have the will to do it if it serves their individual advantage.

Doesn't that sound like most of the EU's regulations?

PS: Jon Worth has some more substance on this matter. Nosemonkey as well.

Correction (23 June 2009): One more MEP from Lithuania has to be included as I've learned at EurActiv.

Update (23 June 2009): Besides Grahnlaw and La Oreja de Europa who are backlinked below, Jon, Nosemonkey and The European Citizen have followed-up on the story. One of the news passing around today was that the Finnish Centre Party MEP will remain with his colleagues in the ALDE group, thus reducing the ECRG down to 55 MEPs from 8 member countries.

European Parliament elections 2009 (82): Eurotopics' press review on the Eurobarometer results

Eurotopics has a nice little press review with translated article extracts from Luxembourg, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and Finland on the recent Eurobarometer results that project a low participation rate for the EP elections.

That's worth reading!

Let me also use this opportunity to praise the work of the people from Eurotopics (background information) who provide me and other Europeans with an excellent English language multinational press review (which also exists in German, French and Spanish) every day.

It's taxpayers money involved here, but it is spent for a very good purpose, and it is done in a very pleasant way, so I can only applaud for this initiative!

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Under the category "European Parliament elections 2009" I am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009.

For an overview over all articles in this category have a look at the overview article.

For the five newest post see also the sidebar.

Finnish Foreign Minister Stubb: EU foreign policy co-ordination inefficient

In a blog post titled "Ten Theses on Europe", the Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb discusses the future role of the European Union and its relevance for Finnish foreign policy.

The whole text is not very revolutionary, but I would like to point to one paragraph:

3. A common policy and funding require joint preparation. To me, the External Relations Council of the European Union bears too much resemblance to international conferences where participating states complain about their own worries. We need a much more uniform and effective preparatory machinery that brings more specifically selected and better thought-out proposals to the negotiations. The quarrelsome and dispersed actors of Brussels must be forced, once and for all, to work in better cooperation. The EU foreign ministers should be able to concentrate on major policy lines rather than tinkering with minute details.

This paragraph highlights something that I have experienced myself in one of my previous employments: EU foreign policy co-ordination is not always oriented towards the common good, it is too much focused on little details, on individual countries' "mental state", and not designed to foster positive co-operation but rather inter-country bargaining. This is not only the case on the level of foreign minister represented, but apparently also on the levels below.

However, if a foreign minister (who is working for a country that has presided the EU Council only 2 1/2 years ago) is complaining about the work of the foreign relations Council, this seems to be a quite strong signal to me that the practical organisation of EU foreign policy co-ordination needs reform, not necessarily through a Treaty reform but maybe just by a change in procedures and, what could be even more important, by a change in spirit.

I am very glad that Alexander Stubb is raising this issue, and I hope it is heard among his colleagues and those working in the Council on the side of the member states and also on the side of the Council secretariat.

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...?

Member states vs. EU Commission on transparency and access to documents - updated

According to EUobserver, member states, and especially Finland and Sweden, are fighting against an EU Commission proposal that aims at reforming the public access to EU documents.

The Finnish Minister for EU affairs, Astrid Thors, is quoted (update: full speech, via Wobbing Europe):

"Our interpretation is that the commission proposes to exclude certain documents, such as documents related to the commission's own inspections. [...] The justification for this exclusion is that it would ease the workload of the commission, releasing them from the duty of assessing the documents one by one. But on the contrary, we believe that considering documents one by one is a cornerstone of this legislation. What we may lose in the end with a little bit more work, we win by having a good and sound administration"

In the Green Paper "Public Access to Documents held by institutions of the European Community - A review" of the Commission this reads as follows:

"Experience has shown that the handling of requests can be burdensome. The purpose of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 being to disclose information in the public interest, the institutions have to balance the interest in disclosure against the workload entailed by the handling of a request. A situation where important resources are devoted to a limited number of voluminous, complex or otherwise burdensome requests would not be in the public interest. Therefore, it might be useful to define criteria with regard to the proportionality of access requests."

I hope that Finland and Sweden will not remain the only countries who will rally against any move to restrict access to EU documents.

It is amazing how a supra-state organisations that is already almost totally intransparent for the wider public is still trying to limit external access to its documents. We need to act, because if we keep quiet, we will lose more and more democratic elements of the European Union, and in the end, the only things remaining will be a number invisible Eurocrats and the priggish cries of pan-European eurosceptics...

I would like to see the European parties to give a very clear position on these issues. I won't vote for anyone who doesn't make access to EU documents and EU transparency a major goal!

A look at: Blog censorship

Worldfocus.org dedicates one article to the topic of blog censorship including EU criticism towards Turkey, the attitudes of older Finnish as well a British view on the matter.

Interesting read, which makes me remind readers that even EU institutions are ready to censor or prohibit critical reporting.

Tracking: EP elections 2009 (XXIII)

Today, I have started to read the biggest Finnish daily, Helsingin Sanomat...

And although from the Finno-Ugric languages I only know some Estonian (Tere päevast, ma rägin veidi Eesti keelt!), a good fairy (alias Ralf Grahn or Grahnlaw) has sent me a very nice hint:

The Finnish newspaper reports about "Parties seeking money and candidates for European election". According to the article, one of the most important issue for Finnish politicians is to get the necessary funds for the elections.

Other than for the national parliament elections, where the country is devided in 15 multi-candidate constituencies (1), for the European parliament candidates have to compete nation-wide for the 13 seats that Finland possesses according to the Nice Treaty (and also according to the Lisbon Treaty).

This raises the costs for the campaigns massively while lowering the chances to actually get a seat. For me, this is a quite surprising effect, taking into account the perceived importance of the European elections: Interested politicians have to invest more money to interest citizens in an election that has generally less interest than local or national elections, while offering less possibilities to be successful.

And suggestions for a good solution?

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Under the category "Tracking: European parliament elections 2009" I am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009.

For an overview over all articles in this category have a look at the overview article.

For the five newest post see also the sidebar.

Martti Ahtisaari's Peace Nobel Prize: Maybe not for Kosovo

Several news sources report that the Finnish ex-president and diplomat Martti Ahtisaari wins this year's Peace Nobel Prize.

The Nobel Prize Jury writes:

"for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts"

His last big project was to bring Serbia and Kosovo to an agreement - an effort that failed and led to today's situation of a partically recognised country in conditions that are "peacefull" only in the sense that there is no war.

This Nobel Price coincides with Wednesday's UN General Assembly decision to see whether Kosovo's status as an independent country is in conformity with international law and with the recognition of Kosovo by several former Yugoslav countries.

And without using Russian excuses for a wrong war, I would still point to the fact that the Kosovo situation has also eased the outbreak of the Russian-Georgian war by raising political and diplomatic confrontation in Europe and especially around other breakaway regions such as South Ossetia.

Therefore: Congratulations to Ahtisaari - but some doubts to the Jury.

Corruption in European Union countries

Corruption is once again on the agenda these days. And yes, there is corruption within the European Union.

That there is even corruption or related practices within the institutions of the European Union has been discussed quite recently, not for the first time.

But while for anyone working on Central and Eastern European countries it is not really surprising to hear that Romania and Bulgaria have the highest perceived corruption in the European Union, reading from the EUobserver that populations in Finland, Portugal, Italy, France, and Great Britain have the feeling that corruption is not fought appropriately in their countries is rather discouraging.

The EUobserver article is based on the Corruption Perception Index Report published by Transparency International yesterday.