Europe 2020 - The missing points

I was born in a socialist country, so I am no fan of 10-year plans unless they come from the European Union.

With the Lisbon Strategy, the EU has invented the internet. It has reformed its agricultural policy and made it greener, more efficient, and more fair for the rest of the world. It has become a global leader in protecting human rights. And English has become our lingua franca that every EU citizen speaks beside his mother tongue and the languages of all national minorities (including Welsh).

Despite this success, our majesty Barroso II has called from above to create a European Union 2.020 - that is more than Web 2.0 - and I feel obliged to point to three missing details in the new strategic superplan of our Union, a plan that I haven't read out of pure conviction that it must be good anyway.

1. Invent the interdrum

In 2010, only a small number of visionary politicians sees a chance to connect people via modern technology. Shocked by the dullness of digital communication tools - toys only kids and terrorists are using - they have proposed to use drums to communicate from European village to European village. If implemented through the 2020 strategy, their proposal will not only boost the European drum industry. It will also satisfy the French stick manufactures who might complain that they are disadvantaged by the billions of Euros that are invested to turn tomato plantations in Spain into eco-friendly ice-cold polar bear habitats (see next point).

However, critics say that the interdrum could enable ordinary citizens to drum with each other freely, disturbing the upper classes enjoying classical live music concerts on their 40 inch iPosters produced by Apple-Google Inc. Yet, if we put in place effective measures to control the copying and distribution of volume-controllable drums, there will be no particular danger in the emerging interdrum. To the contrary: We will finally be able to track citizens wherever they are because they will be too loud to hide.

2. Foster a modern and climate change oriented agriculture

In 2020, the earth will be so warm that polar bears will have almost disappeared from Europe if we don't do something over the next 10 years. Once trekking in large herds through our continent, the polar bear has become a vital part of the European climate compassion industry. In Copenhagen, the Union has shown its strength and global leadership potential in that regard - it deserved our compassion - and it now needs to follow up. Now the Common Agriculture Policy of the EU will have to implement its usual sound and balanced set of measures to save future-oriented products (polar bears) by first creating mountains of these products (i.e. "ice beargs") that then can be dumped into the (Arctic) sea which will make the north of Europe white again.

3. Chinese courses for all

Finally, until 2020 China will have understood how great the European Union is. They will come to copy our democratic model, the "Citizen Bureaucracy", buy our cheap manufactured and agricultural goods (sticks and polar bears) and sell their high-tech products (drum detection and supervision equipment) to us. In order not to lose them as our customers and students to the prospering region of Darfur, we all need to speak Chinese in 2020 (beside Romani and Maltese).

I know these are visionary ideas - but if we can imagine Nigel Farage being European Council President and Geert Wilders being EU Foreign Minister in 2020, why can't we also dream in other areas and formulate these dreams in a strangely bureaucratic language so that nobody can complain if they don't come true over the next 10 years?

Is Greece a natural disaster?

Two years ago, Stephen Colbert wanted to convince the US to join the EU, but now he is happy "about the self-destruction of Europe". And he knows why P.I.G.S is a perfect acronym on our continent.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Greece's Economic Downfall - Scheherazade Rehman
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Skate Expectations

For those of you who have watched the full seven minutes: Yes, you heard correctly - a satirical American news show dares to quote from an actual article of the Lisbon Treaty, something European news don't even consider doing (not even as a joke)...

French finance minister praises EU co-operation in Jon Stewart's Daily Show

In an excellent English, and with true conviction, the French finance minister Christine Lagarde yesterday praised EU work and co-operation in the times of the economic crisis in the US-American comedy news "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart".

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Christine Lagarde
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

This is excellent ambassadorship for the European Union, not like some of her UMP colleagues!

CEE countries united for EU rescue plan

The countries of Central and Eastern Europe (see the discussion: Is there something like CEE?) in the European Union will have a separate co-ordination meeting ahead of the EU summit on 1 March.

They are afraid to ignored in the possible EU rescue plan, and will try to form a common front against the old and rich(er) EU member states.

I am not sure whether this is a good sign.

It hints to the fact that behind the scenes there is not much unity, that in the administrative and diplomatic levels of the Council member states are bargaining. It is a bad sign, because it means that a unified approach to the financial crisis will not be the result of shared interests but of political games.

It is a bad sign, and I hope it will not get too ugly.


Read also (21 February 2009): Barroso will join the CEE meeting

The Czech EU-Council Presidency (7): Economic priorities of the European Union and global free markets - updated

The Czech EU-Council Presidency has presented a document called "Key Issues Paper 2009 - contribution from the Competitiveness Council to the Spring European Council" (update: revised version of the document) in which it outlines the priorities of the European Union to strengthen its economy.

While most of the 11 pages contain general rhetoric including "the Crisis", "research excellence", "small and medium enterprises (SMEs)" blabla, the last page presents, under the headline "The external dimension of competitiveness", a paragraph that might surprise those who thought that the Crisis would change minds when it comes to free market policies.

To the contrary, as you can see:

The external dimension of competitiveness remains of crucial importance. Open markets, both in the EU and globally, are key to ensure growth and jobs. Avoiding the trap of protectionism and overregulation, Europe needs to take full advantage of the realities of the emerging new international economic system, diversify relations and develop new opportunities for mutually beneficial partnerships around the globe. Approaches for achieving an ambitious and balanced result in the negotiations on the Doha Round should be explored with our global trading partners.

I don't see any change in free market rhetoric, which underlines that the basis of the Union are, after all, the five freedoms (four in the treaties plus the freedom of knowledge) and the continued strive for an ever more integrated internal market.

This position is confirmed by an editorial written by the Czech President Vaclav Klaus for the Financial Times (found via Publius) where he states:

As regards the EU’s “constitutional” stalemate, the Czech government will – hopefully – not lead Europe to an ever-closer union, to a Europe of regions (instead of states), to a centralised, supranational Europe or to an increasingly controlled and regulated Europe masterminded from above. It will keep stressing its EU presidency slogan “Europe without barriers”, which means the advocacy of further liberalisation, removing trade barriers and getting rid of protectionism.

That is both, an attack to the political dimension of the Union, while stressing its market dimension. It is another sign that the Czech president will indeed split the efforts of the Czech EU presidency and make the next six month the most problematic for the Union in the last decade.

Those advocating for the end of "neoliberal" ideology will have to lobby as hard as those lobbying for a more political and integrated Union until the next European Council.

Let's solve multilateral problems unilaterally

Sometimes I ask myself why we have created a political, economic, and monetary European Union.

As EUobserver titles in an article, a mini-summit in Paris yesterday failed "to stop unilateral action by EU states". Sarkozy, Merkel, Brown, Berlusconi, as well as the two financial Jean-Claudes, Juncker and Trichet, had met in order to find common solutions, but as so often in European Union politics, their only joint action is to say that unilateral actions are prefered.

Amazing!

Sarkozy is cited:

"We have taken a solemn vow as chiefs of state and government to support banks and financial entities to face the crisis. Every government will use its own system for that, but in co-ordination with other member states."

For me its sounds rather like a "sole vow" than a "solemn vow". But at least they could have a nice meeting in Paris. Many people do that on Sundays, so why not our political and financial leaders?!

Number of solutions produced: ZERO.


Read also:

- the article by the Coulisses de Bruxelles
- Grahnlaw's related article on "EU: Excessive government deficits"

A coordinated EU response to the economic slowdown (supplemented and updated)

Aparently, the Council of the European Union is preparing "Conclusions on a coordinated EU response to the economic slowdown".

A draft forwarded by the EU Council Secretariat to COREPER has been issued on 30 September 2008.

The substance is close to zero. One of the few "programmatic" statements in the text is the following:

In order to ensure a prudent fiscal stance throughout the cycle, recent experience suggests that work is needed to better take into account the effects of economic cycles, and of the related cycles in asset prices, on tax revenues.

However, if this is what the Union plans to do, then one might ask what they have done so far? Ignored the fact that there are economic cycles?

But it becomes even worse when you read completely empty sentences like this:

[S]tructural reforms are key to all Member states. Recommendations made in this respect should be prioritized to fully take into account the economic situation. As structural reforms have an added value for the euro area as a whole, Ministers from the euro area also agree to devote specific attention to euro area recommendations.

I wonder why ministers and diplomats spend time with such phrases, without any added value to the political process neither of the European Union nor for the member states. If you ask me whether this glass is half-empty or half-full, I need to answer: "There is no glass!"

When it comes to practical implications of the whole "coordinated EU response", I can almost only find that:

The EIB [the European Investment Bank] is proposing to raise its level of lending to SMEs to up to 15bn euros (+50%) in 2008/2009, including with a new product line allowing risk sharing with banks.

For the rest, it is a useless piece of paper. Not that this is the only one, but it reminds me of my assessment of European leadership in financial questions made in yesterday's article on European leaders looking to the US.

Meanwhile, in another draft conclusion (update: link to revised version), the Council is discussing a new framework for executive pay. The draft conclusions say on the objective of a new regulatory framework on that issue (quote):

• The governance framework should be conducive to an effective control by shareholders
• Performance should be properly and comprehensibly reflected in executives' pay
• Performance criteria should provide the right incentives
• Care should be taken to prevent potential conflicts of interest for executives conducting mergers and acquisitions

That is something that will solve our problems... (Maybe not.)

But again, ministers will be able to pat themselves on the back, providing some useless framework which will make the people happy. And this is much better than solving actual problems, because solved problems don't vote.