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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 30th, 2010 Media freedom threatened in most European countries, says OSCE“Authorities have yet to understand that media are not their private property,” says the OSCE IN FRANCE IT IS THE PRESIDENT WHO NOMINATES THE HEAD OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING – CLEARLY AN INFRINGEMENT OF THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS NOT UNKNOWN IN TOTALITARIAN STATES. July 30, 2010 - http://euobserver.com/9/30561/?rk=1 EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Media freedom is threatened in most European countries, warns the Organisation for Co-operation and Security in Europe, highlighting incidences in several of its member states including EU countries France, Italy and Greece. In a report published Thursday (29 July), the 56-member OSCE, a loose gathering of states monitoring regional security, says that “freedom of the media concerns arise in most OSCE participating States. They only manifest themselves differently.” The report, published annually, says the “freedom to express ourselves is questioned and challenged from many sides” and the threats manifest themselves through “traditional methods” to silence free speech as well as “new technologies to suppress and restrict the free flow of information and media pluralism.”
The breaches, either existing or potential, to media freedom range from a draft law on electronic surveillance and electronic eavesdropping law in Italy which could “seriously hinder investigative journalism” to a draft law in Estonia that may allow too many exemptions to the right to protect the identity of sources, to the fact that French President Nicolas Sarkozy is head of the public service broadcaster, France Televisions. “The presidential nomination of the head of a country’s public service broadcaster is an obstacle to its independence and contradicts OSCE commitments,” said the body’s Dunja Mijatovic, in charge of monitoring media freedom. Other areas of concern include the recent adoption by the Hungarian Parliament of parts of a media package with elements threatening media freedom and a possible threat in Greece to a minority radio station that broadcasts in Turkish, while the organisation expresses hope that Germany will adopt a law protecting investigative journalists. Beyond the EU, the “brutal attack” against a Serbian journalist known for his outspokenness against nationalism was highlighted as was the the “high number of criminal prosecutions” against journalists in Turkey covering sensitive issues as well “serious infringements” on media pluralism in Kyrgyzstan and a series of attacks against journalists in Russia. “Many argue that media freedom is in decline across the OSCE region. In some aspects, I can subscribe to that,” said Ms Mitjatovic. “Authorities have yet to understand that media are not their private property and that journalists have the right to scrutinize those who are elected.” “Violence against journalists equals violence against society and democracy and should be met with harsh condemnation and prosecution of the perpetrators,” she added. With the internet changing the nature and scope of reporting, Ms Mijatovi also promised a study into the various internet laws in place across the OSCE countries. “My office is currently working on the compilation of the first comprehensive matrix on internet legislation which will include an overview of legal provisions related to freedom of the media, the free flow of information and media pluralism on the internet in the OSCE region.” Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 3rd, 2010 I just watched Spain win in Johannesburg Ellis Park stadium, by 1:0 its game with Paraguay. This leaves Germany, Netherlands, Spain and Uruguay still standing, and we dare now to make our own predictions about the Semi-final and Final games. July 4th and 5th there are no games. Tuesday July 6th, in Cape Town’s new Green Point Stadium, Netherlands will play Uruguay and we predict a Netherlands win. Wednesday July 7th in Durban’s new Moses Mabhida Stadium, Germany will play Spain and we predict a German win. Saturday, July 10th in Nelson Mandela Bay/Port Elizabeth – The Port Elizabeth Stadium – we predict a Spain – Uruguay game and a Spain win for the third place in the 2010 World Cup. Sunday, July 11th in the new Johannesburg’s Soccer City Stadium near Soweto, in the iconic shape of the African calabash, there will be the final game of the 2010 World Cup. We predict that the game will be between Germany and The Netherlands – and we predict The German team wins. Above means that the final standing, we predict, will be: Germany, The Netherlands, Spain. On the European side, the early elimination of France, England and Italy was also considered by many as surprising. A Disclaimer: The 2010 South Africa FIFA Football, though strange, but being still rather round, allows for the unexpected – so we take no responsibility for the case our predictions are duds! Do not blame us if you execute the wrong bets. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 3rd, 2010 from: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/08d6fc3a-8600-… we learned the following – “Argentina in Cup dilemma.” a short article by Jude Webber from Buenos Aires that appeared in the Financial Times (in print) of July 3, 2010. “”No one in Argentina wants the national team to fail to make the World Cup final – except, perhaps, the planners at the foreign ministry trying to get a visit to China back on track. Cristina Fernández, the president, abruptly cancelled a trip to Beijing in January at the height of a row over the use of central bank reserves to pay off debt because she did not want to leave her estranged vice-president in charge. The cancellation of the visit, in which she had been due to meet her counterpart Hu Jintao, went down like a tonne of bricks in Beijing and the ill-feeling was widely seen as contributing to China’s subsequent decision to tighten restrictions on imports of soya oil from Argentina, a key supplier. Ms. Fernández apologised profusely for the faux-pas and the trip was rescheduled – but officials in this football-mad country must have momentarily taken their eyes off the ball: the visit was rearranged for mid-July. That seriously complicates the presidential agenda: diplomatic sources expect Ms Fernández to attend the World Cup final on July 11, if Argentina make it. But that would mean she would have to race to China for a meeting now pencilled in for July 13-15, and would potentially miss being homecoming queen in Buenos Aires if Argentina triumph. Commentators are already speculating that Ms Fernández and Néstor Kirchner, her husband, predecessor and likely presidential candidate in 2011, are dreaming of appearing on the balcony of the presidential palace beside football legend Diego Maradona, the national coach. If Argentina win their third World Cup, a pragmatic solution is bound to be found, but Mr Kirchner knows first-hand the dangers of putting football over business: he once kept former Hewlett-Packard boss Carly Fiorina waiting because he was engrossed in conversation with Mr Maradona. The computer group reportedly returned the snub by switching key investments to Brazil. A senior Chinese source in Argentina admits the timing is tricky and the dates “are an issue we are discussing with the foreign ministry”.” —————— Having seen above article earlier today, that is before watching the Argentina-Germany game, played in Cape Town, on ABC in New York, I clearly thought of the political pickle the Kirchner Argentinian internal politics came up with because of some policy vision confusion. Please, you do not push around China when you want their money – just because of internal dissensions! THE BEAUTIFUL GAME: With Germany and Argentina saying NO TO RACISM – on South Africa’s anti-racism day - the Argentinians in the crowd dancing to their anthem, and just about half of the Germans singing their anthem, under the watchful eyes of Chancellor Angela Merkel, present to encourage them, the game started very fast – and the first German goal came about after less then 6 minutes. The non-anthem singing members of the German team had names like Khedira and Boateng, but to my surprise I learned that even the Argentinians had an Ibrahim that was born in France, but clearly must have been of North Africa lineage. Whatever – this is the globalization of the football game that nevertheless is clearly anchored now in West Europe and in the Southern American cone. These games may now come up with a picture that further narrows it to one anchor – and it is Western Europe. But the last words were not said yet. What is clear nevertheless, is that Japan, China, the Koreas, or anyone else of Asia, will still have to practice for years before having an impact on the World Cup and in Europe the football field has lost some of its evenness – France, England, Italy were the early flunkies. But this article is really about China – and not because it is great in football. They surely have the money to buy players if they wish to do so. We rather believe they will develop a speedy game and enter it with their own people – but who knows? Surely they will not be left out for long. For one thing – Argentina could help by sending to them Diego Maradona and help this as a joint start-up effort. Maradona will not be needed in South Africa beyond today either. —————– FT EDITOR’S CHOICE:Fifa hands Nigeria ultimatum over team ban – Jul-02Nigeria’s Super Eagles suspended – Jul-01—————- Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 1st, 2010 July 1, 2001 The e-mail reads: Today Belgium assumes its role as the President of the Council of the European Union for the twelfth time in its history. It is a moment for Flanders and Belgium to shine: the rest of Europe, and indeed the world, will be watching as our country takes partial command of the complex EU institutional machinery. This time, Belgium is part of a triumvirate, in which Spain, Belgium, and Hungary consecutively chair the Council of Ministers for six months. This trio presidency of the Council of the European Union is the first one that falls entirely under the regime of the new Lisbon Treaty. This Treaty gives Europe the necessary clout to answer today’s challenges. Flanders has made substantive contributions to the joint presidency program of Spain, Belgium and Hungary, and to the Belgian one. The EU has much more influence on the daily life of Europeans than you may think: generally more than 70% of the legislation Europeans have to abide by, originates at the EU level! As our Minister-President recently highlighted with the slogan “Flanders shines in Europe, Europe shines in Flanders;” the EU Presidency is an excellent opportunity for Flanders to celebrate Europe and to bring Europe even closer to the Flemish people. We hope to achieve something similar with this introduction and to bring the European Union and the role of Flanders in the EU somewhat closer to all Flemings and the friends of Flanders in the US.
I wish you all an enjoyable Flanders Day on July 11 and relaxing summer holidays! Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 25th, 2010 After the completion of the third round we know now that the 16 are made up from 6 Latin American teams, 6 EU teams, two teams from Asia, just one from Africa, and the US. The six Latin American teams are all five teams of the Southern cone – the ABC and Uruguay and Paraguay, wth the addition of Mexico. The six EU teams are the two Iberian countries, England, Netherlands, Germany, and Slovakia. The two Asians are South Korea and Japan. And then is Ghana, the only African State to make it, and the US. These two teams will meet immediately in the first round of the elimination games – thus making it clear that the upcoming eight eight might not include any African team, or it will miss the US. The conclusion so far is that when one speaks soccer, the kings are again from the Latin cone and the Iberian Peninsula, with this year the addition of The Netherlands and Germany. The only teams that came out the full amount of 9 points – that is three wins – are The Netherlands and Argentina. The prizes for elimination-with-shame go to France and Italy. North Korea’s participation was a fluke. In their last game they lost to The Ivory Coast at 0:3. Comparing with our interim article, we seem vindicated by what we wrote about these games and this week-end’s Toronto G-20. ————————- After the completion of just two rounds of the pre-elimination stage in the World Cap games it is clear that Argentina, Brazil and Chile (the Latin ABC) and The Netherlands, will be among the competing golden 16. But Portugal wins our laurels. They shut out North Korea with a stunning 7:0, while Brazil played them only to a diplomatic 2:1 that allowed North Korea to crow that their Stalinism is succeeding. On the other hand – it took just two rounds to show it clearly that Europe is in deep crisis. France is in complete disintegration, England is preoccupied with the BP oilspill and even though they played an equalizer 1:1 with the US but it just does not cover the economic disaster of one of their top corporations and economically they are sinking together with the US. Soccer-wise they also played an 1:1 game with Nigeria’s oil and may be left out like France from the golden 16. This is shocking indeed in both cases but quite obvious for someone who analyses Europe at large. Personally – for transparency – I have to confess that I did bet on the Nigeria draw and am making some money of the English disaster. Then Italy and Germany and Spain – they may not make it either. Italy managed just two draws one with our favorite country – New Zealand (that is favorite in general but not in soccer). Germany, having lost to Serbia is not assured either of a spot among the 16 (For transparency – I was not as bold as thinking they will lose, I only bet on a draw but they ended worse then our prediction). Could anyone imagine a World Cup 16 without France, England, Germany, Italy …? All of them having their independent seats at Toronto’s G-20 table? Can I say once more that there is not an EU Half-life Crisis – face up to it – it is rather that the rest of the world is moving up and Europe must Unite in order to have future value. This World Cup Chaos is a bellweather! The United Siates might make it into the circle of the 16 – in soccer of all things – because it is now more united then the EU. That is even stranger. Thanks Portugal – you were the only ones to show there is still life left in Europe. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 25th, 2010 If you watch President Obama, and have learned something from the “Way to Copenhagen” you cannot miss that Obama has had achievements with China on the currency issue and on the increase of the internal market – so that issue we thought formerly to be the main gripe in Toronto – is now off the table. Think G-2? Today’s papers – all of them – show Obama and Medvedev chew hamburgers in a middle class lunch-joint in Arlington – no less then “Ray’s Hell Burger!” That reminded me of something that happened to me at the beginning of the Gorbachev days in Moscow. I had there friends from the National Academy that I knew for years. They were always nice to me when I came to Moscow and now I wanted to invite them also to a nice Moscow restaurant as I used to do in earlier times – you know – then it was one of the big hotels where it was intended just for foreigners. But no, this time they suggested to go to McDonalds – the novelty at the time in Moscow. I swear – this is a true story. OK -now to the issue of the day – please forget the Ham part of this food – it is neither Kosher nor Halal in ant case – but think heavily about the international meaning of “Burgers” – in German, French – you name it. So, if the US manages to get to some pre-Toronto understanding with Russia also, perhaps on how to make burgers then clearly – the patient to be dissected in the Toronto operating room will be the EU. Let us say once more – if the EU does not decide to unite – the individual member States alone – anyone of them – will just not make the grade to be considered a third partner in a G-3 constellation. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 20th, 2010 EU Sees Solar Power Imported From Sahara In 5 YearsDate: 21-Jun-10
Europe will import its first solar-generated electricity from North Africa within the next five years, European Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said in an interview on Sunday. The European Union is backing projects to turn the plentiful sunlight in the Sahara desert into electricity for power-hungry Europe, a scheme it hopes will help meet its target of deriving 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources in 2020. “I think some models starting in the next 5 years will bring some hundreds of megawatts to the European market,” Oettinger told Reuters after a meeting with energy ministers from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. He said those initial volumes would come from small pilot projects, but the amount of electricity would go up into the thousands of megawatts as projects including the 400 billion euro ($495 billion) Desertec solar scheme come on stream. “Desertec as a whole is a vision for the next 20 to 40 years with investment of hundreds of billions of euros,” said Oettinger. “To integrate a bigger percentage of renewables, solar and wind, needs time.” The EU is backing the construction of new electricity cables, known as inter-connectors, under the Mediterranean Sea to carry this renewable energy from North Africa to Europe. Some environmental groups have warned these cables could be used instead to import non-renewable electricity from coal- and gas-fired power stations in north Africa. “This is a good question but not a question to destroy our project,” Oettinger said. “This question must be answered by a good answer and so we need ways to ensure that our import of electricity is from renewables.” He said he believed it was technologically possible to monitor electricity imports to the EU and establish if they come from renewable sources or fossil fuels. “This question must be solved in the next years,” he said. SOLAR SUBISIDIES The Desertec consortium includes major firms such as Siemens, RWE and Deutsche Bank. They are expected to seek public money for the project. Oettinger said the EU’s assistance was likely to include help coordinating stakeholders, updating regulations to allow the imported electricity to move across European borders, and financing feasibility studies. On the prospect of EU subsidies, or the European Commission permitting state aid to firms involved in the project, he said that would become clear once the consortium has presented a detailed business plan. Oettinger said all three energy ministers at the meeting in the Algerian capital sent a signal they were willing to build the infrastructure and common market rules needed to allow a trade in renewable electricity with Europe. He countered concerns expressed in the past by some officials in Algeria that the project could involve Europeans exploiting north Africa’s natural resources. “Renewables are a two-way partnership because electricity produced here is for the home market of north African countries,” he said. “Maybe a bigger percentage of the electricity will be exported to Europe but at the same time we have to export the technology, tools, machines, experts, and so it’s a real partnership, not only a partnership by selling and by buying.” Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on May 2nd, 2010 We had the following sit in the computer in draft form for nearly a year. We did not post it because I thought – wait – we really may not see the depth of the problem yet. I watched today Fareed Zakaria interviewing Lloyd Blankfein, the present CEO of Goldman-Sachs, and saw the pits – this reminded me of the article. We heard that the Bush Administration employed ten graduates of the Goldman-Sachs school of doing business while the Obama Administration employs only three. This seems progress, but we learned that Hank Paulsen and Tim Geithner call Lloyd Blankfein to find out what goes on “on the Street” – read Wall Street. There is nothing wrong when the former boss calls the one that replaced him for information – but what if the information helps guide policy in ways the old House likes it? This does not have to be an issue of corruption – it is mainly an issue of business culture. This was not just in the Bush Administration – this is TODAY. We know that Wall Street is doing fine again – only that most everybody else does not – and some of the meanest misery was exported to others. See Europe – the German and French banks lent to Greece, Spain, Portugal etc. and never checked country policies that might have been very different from their own. Even the EURO, having been structured without common fiscal policy, gets into this hot tub. If Greece falls – so will the German banks that invested in a financially failing situation with open eyes. If Greece fails, what will happen to the EURO? Then how does this compound the German loss. The German loss will then be the US win – after all exchange rates go by who loses least. Having started the ball rolling, the US banking institutions, having already gotten support, can now watch how the Europeans start rolling into the dust. But this is not all – we listen to Mr. Blankfein and realize that more shoes will be falling – so – more institutions will lose credibility and start rolling. There is ample space in the mud – for all of them. Possibly some space in the jails too. John Paulsen was not the only Wall Street Wizard to figure out how selling of poison bundles will do him good. He was part of that school and stood his ground today explaining that giving rope to others to hang themselves is a good bet for the salesman.What is needed is seemingly the closing of schools that teach such science and for Washington to retain only reformed graduates of such schools. Knowing crime is a positive thing only if beholden friendship to the criminals is a thing of the past. Perhaps George Soros could be an adviser in such matters to President Obama. Paul Volcker, Joseph Stiglitz are excellent academics in these areas also. Paul Krugman and Thomas Friedman could further add a line or two. We get now to the point that real reform is needed by all – in the US and in Europe. Will this ever happen? Will the politicians agree to seek the right track to survival that is not just a game of cannibalism? Will they allow financial reform to proceed? —————————————————– Arianna Huffington, June 15, 2009 Whistling Past the Economic Graveyard: The Audacity of Misplaced Hope – Banks, Economic Recovery, Financial Market, Geithner Plan, Obama Economic Recovery Plan, Public-Private Investment Program, Timothy Geithner, Toxic Assets… Is it possible to have too much hope? To be too optimistic? Yes, if that hope keeps you from facing — and dealing with — unpleasant realities. That seems to be what’s happening regarding the financial institutions responsible for the economic meltdown. —– Let’s start with the banks’ toxic assets. When Tim Geithner unveiled the Public Private Investment Program, he said that dealing with these assets was a “core” part of solving the financial crisis. But the banks would much rather keep pretending that their toxic assets are not that toxic, and worth much more than they really are — a risky charade the relaxed mark-to-market rules allow them to continue to pull off. So, last week, the PPIP program was apparently scrapped. Does this mean that the toxic assets are no longer a “core” part of the problem? Or that hoping they’re no longer part of the problem will somehow make them no longer part of the problem? Among the proposals: “raising capital and liquidity requirements for all institutions”; “consolidated supervision by the Federal Reserve”; “robust reporting requirements on the issuers of asset-backed securities” including “strong oversight of ‘over the counter’ derivatives”; and providing “a stronger framework for consumer and investor protection across the board.” The devil, of course, will be in the details. And on how much muscle Obama puts behind pushing these measures through and ensuring they become law without being watered down. Especially at a time when the latest stock market bubble has undermined the urgent push for reform, which seems to have given way to a push to move on to other things and leave that little financial kerfuffle behind us. And investors seem anxious to do the same. Witness the “fierce rally” in the collateralized loan obligation market. CLOs are made up of sliced and diced assets (including high-risk and junk loans) — and are kissing cousins to the collateralized-debt obligations (i.e. crap) at the heart of the financial meltdown. But according to analysts at Morgan Stanley there has recently been a “remarkable change” in investor sentiment towards these securities, including an “exuberance” for the lowest grade junk being sold. In other words, we are right back to risky business as usual. No harm, no foul. Let’s get back to the fun we were having before this whole worldwide economic collapse thing started happening. It puts a whole other spin on the audacity of hope. ———- Too many in Washington — and in the media continue to take the well-being of Wall Street as the proper gauge for the well-being of the rest of America. Yes, the Dow is up 33 percent since March. But another 345,000 jobs were lost in May, raising the number of the unemployed to 14.5 million, and the unemployment rate to 9.4 percent. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, unemployment has almost doubled. What’s more, as the charts show it, over the past two decades, the top one percent of Americans has done very well in terms of wage growth. Things have not been nearly as good for everybody else. Are the reforms going to be sufficiently fundamental to avoid a repeat of the boom and bust cycles, in which only a select few enjoy the boom and everybody else pays for the bust? Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on May 2nd, 2010 This is a sequel that we announced in our article posted http://www.sustainabilitank.info/#14986 on the meetings at Columbia University on Friday, April 30, 2010. This sequel deals with the presentation, and the discussion following it, by the President of the European Parliament, Professor of Chemical Engineering Jerzy Buzek, formerly the Prime Minister of Poland (1997-2001). ( the speech – http://www.ep-president.eu/president/view/en/press/speeches/sp-2010/sp-2010-April/speeches-2010-April-3.html ) The European Parliament was created in 1979 as an eventual development from what was started May 9, 1950 – 60 years ago – by the Robert Schuman declaration that formed the coal community. The coal and steel industries of six European, previously warring countries, united to show that after WWII a new Europe was born. This led to new peaceful International relations as a way of reconciliation and eventually to the creation of the EU. Jerzy Buzek was born on 3 July 1940 in Smilowice, a town in south-eastern Silesia which is now in the Czech Republic, to a prominent family, which participated in Polish politics in the Second Polish Republic during the period between the two World Wars. The family was part of the Polish community in Zaolzie. Buzek’s father was an engineer. After the Second World War, his family moved to Chorzów. He is a Protestant. In 1963 Jerzy Buzek graduated from the Mechanics-and-Energy Division of the Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice specializing in chemical engineering. He became a scientist in the Chemical Engineering Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Gliwice. Since 1997 he has been a professor of technical science. He is also an honorary doctor of the universities in Seoul and Dortmund. Mr. Buzek told at the meeting that he went to study a hard science because in those days you could go nowhere with politics – politics were “of one color and falsified”he said, but in politics you can influence much more then in hard sciences he also said. Solidarity was the first non-communist party controlled trade union in a Warsaw Pact country. In the 1980s it constituted a broad anti-bureaucratic social movement. The government attempted to destroy the union during the period of martial law in the early 1980s and several years of political repression, but in the end it was forced to start negotiating with the union. in December 1989 Tadeusz Mazowiecki was elected Prime Minister. Since 1989 Solidarity has become a more traditional trade union, and had relatively little impact on the political scene of Poland in the early 1990s. A political arm founded in 1996 as Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS) – a rather rightist or center-right party – won the parliamentary election in 1997, but lost the following 2001 election. Those were the years that Jerzy Buzek was Prime Minister 1997-2001. In the 1980s Jerzy Buzek was an activist of the democratic anti-communist movements, including the legal (1980–1981 and since 1989) and underground (1981–1989) Solidarity trade union and political movement in communist Poland. He was an active organizer of the trade union’s regional and national underground authorities. He was also the chairman of the four national general meetings (1st, 4th, 5th and 6th) when the Solidarity movement was allowed to participate in the political process again. Jerzy Buzek was a member of the Solidarity Electoral Action (Akcja Wyborcza Solidarnosc, AWS) and co-author of the AWS’s economic program. After the 1997 elections he was elected to the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish Parliament, and was soon appointed Prime Minister of Poland. In 1999 he became the chairman of the AWS Social Movement (Ruch Spoleczny AWS) and in 2001 he became the Chairman of the Solidarity Electoral Action coalition. After losing the parliamentary elections in 2001, he stepped back from Polish political life (although he was elected a member of the European Parliament in 2004) and focused more on his scientific work, becoming the prorector of Akademia Polonijna in Czestochowa and professor in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Opole University of Technology in Opole. Buzek was elected to the European Parliament (MEP) from the Silesian Voivodeship, basing his candidacy only on the popularity of his name and on direct contact with the voters. He received a record number of votes, 173,389 (22.14% of the total votes in the region). His current party affiliation is with the Platforma Obywatelska, the governing party in Poland, which is a member of the European People’s Party – rather to the right in the European Parliament. On 7 June 2009, in the European Parliament election, Buzek was re-elected as a Member of the European Parliament from the Silesian Voivodeship constituency. Just as in the previous election, Buzek received a record number of votes in Poland: 393,117 (over 42% of the total votes in the district). In the 2004-2009 European Parliament, he was a member of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, an alternate member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, a member of the Delegation to the EU–Ukraine Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, and an alternate delegate for the delegation for relations with the countries of Central America. He served as rapporteur on the EU’s 7th Framework Programme for Research and Development, a multi-billion euro spending programme for the years 2007-2013. On 14 July 2009, Buzek was elected President of the European Parliament with 555 votes, becoming the first person from the former Eastern Bloc and the first former Prime Minister since Emilio Colombo to gain that position. He succeeded the German Christian Democrat MEP, Hans-Gert Pöttering. He has pledged to make human rights and the promotion of the Eastern partnership two of his priorities during his term of office, which will last two and a half years until, due to a political deal, Social Democrat MEP Martin Schulz will take over. At the meeting at Columbia University President Buzek said that we are in a time of transition period in the EU – going from treaty to treaty and enlargement. What does this mean for Europe and the US after Lisbon ? - and he will thus read from a prepared paper that said – A STRENGTHENING EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT IN THE TRANSATLANTIC PARTNERSHIP. How does the EU work? – he asked. And proceeded explaining that it is in a rising curve of power in the last 25 years. We used to have a Council guided by a rotating Presidency and now we moved further on with Lisbon. To his credit, he sounded self-deprecating when mentioning that actually there will be now several Presidents. This because Lisbon still left intact that half-year-long rotating structure. The EU Council is a system of Collective President. Europe 2020 is the project of how to learn to organize ourselves. There is still need for progress in the EU political system. Will ever the collection of 27 proud Independent States really agree to give up some of their sovereignty to a Central Government? Will the Council agree to be a Senate to the Parliament’s House of Representatives? How indeed can the US find its way across the Ocean and form a bridge with a body that has Three Presidents? THAT IS THE REAL QUESTION – and progress via just a strengthened Parliament will not do. Nevertheless, Mr. Buzek pointed out that the European Supra-National level has been strengthened by doing away with the previous requirement of unanimity that is reduced now to a qualified majority. The inter-governmental contact at head of state level still exists – but it is less. Passing on to the issue of Foreign Policy – with problems that are today global, there is the “Baroness” – Baroness Catherine Ashton or Lady Ashton – just one person now at the EU. She is a member of the Council and the Commission bringing thus one person to the position of power and the responsibility to deal in Foreign issues – and that is the point – unless the West is united – we will not be able to defend our interests in multilateralism at G8 or G20 etc institutions. Then he digressed by saying that Transatlantic Community is not enough anymore – we need partners all over the world for a united purpose in democracy and civilization. He quoted by name an interesting list of countries – that we give here in the order he said them – Russia, China, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, South Africa – that have to become stakeholders in the new order – they must have a sense of owner on issues like climate change. Everyone must feel that they are responsible. Then back to the topic – on the Transatlantic economic Council – we must have a more ambitious program. There is already freedom of flow of products, goods, capital, people in Europe – the four freedoms we have – transatlantic markets could build on these great success stories he said. The business community looks at the 800 million citizens of the Common Market in Europe. We must think of this common space of the Community. Then came the Q & A: Q: One big difference is that the US Congress spends 25% of the GDP but the European Parliament only 1.5% – will the Common Agriculture policy (the CAP) be decided bythe Parliament or the council? A: The answer is not about money but on the organization. Money and budget are not important but the “community.” Two World Wars were started in Europe and we have to change. We like diversity in language – we have 23 – you have one. We say it is our strength – “Unity in Diversity.” We have buses that leave the Parliament to the regions every weekend. They come back with ideas from home. We will have a European Energy Efficiency new Policy. — The Consul-General from Austria – Ambassador Peter Brezovszky, who was Consul-General in Krakow at the time Mr. Buzek was Prime-Minster, asked about the priorities – in democracy, on enlargement and what can the Parliament do to support parliaments in other Nations. As Europe does not pass the budget through the Parliament such activities are more limited, but he had interaction with his meetings in Washington (actually that was his main reason for coming to the States and I will be attaching more material on this) he had a meeting with Nancy Pelosi to develop the Transatlantic Parliamentary partnership. There are the European Energy Community, the European External Action Service, The European Human Rights activities. Next step in enlargement will probably involve Croatia and Iceland. He said that Iceland being located right in the middle between the US and Europe, had a hard time in deciding where they belong, but then Croatia and Turkey have problems that stem from ethnic conflicts – Croatia because of what goes on with the Serb minority and Turkey because of Cyprus. There is the Non-Visa regime and then the further potential of Bosnia-Hezegowina, Montenegro under some name, and Albania. Mr. Buzek further evaluated European recent history in periods – the 1950-1960s as French-German reconciliation. then came the 1980-1990s as German-Polish reconciliation. Now we need not only Polish-Russian reconciliation that might have been made easier because of the dignified way Russia reacted after the terrible recent air accident, but also the reconciliation with further border neighbors. The real problem is what happened in Katyn 70 years ago. Asked about an EU constitution, the President said – look the UK is doing fine and also has no constitution. —— These questions went on for an hour and Greece was not mentioned – this until someone observed the gap and said so! Mr. Buzek said two words; SOLIDARITY and RESPONSIBILITY. We wish him luck and that this does the trick. —– As we said earlier, we found out that the reason for The EU Parliament President’s trip to the US was his opening a Washington liaison office for the Parliament with US Congress. This is the first office of the EU Parliament outside Europe. That was April 29, 2010. We have what was said there and the follow up speech at the Johns Hopkins University. Also, the timing of this trip falls coincidentally when the EU is very much in the cross-hairs of the world economy because of the failure of Greece, the potential failure of Spain and Portugal, the danger to the EURO and what amounts – not to a strengthening of the EU, but rather to the unraveling of a system that created a common currency without having first secured a common policy. It is just inconceivable that voters in Germany can accept that their country pays tens of billions to save the people in Greece who enjoy much lower tax rates and get much better social conditions. The same voters will not think that much of the Greek debt is actually owned by German Banks, while much of the losses of German banks came on because of a lack of regulation that did not stop them from buying low grade financial products that were inspired by the Wall Street self-enrichment gurus. Yes – we know – much of the global financial problem originated in the US, but then the EU had its own internal structure faults that created imbalances that were just as easy – foreseeable. As Fareed Zakaria pointed out on CNN today the German voters talk of why they have to work for 45 years before being entitled to retire with a 46% pay, while a Greek worker gets 80% of his pay after only 35 years of employment. While the Greeks demonstrate now that they do not want a cut in their social conditions, the Germans by a majority of 92% say they will not let their leaders bail-out the Greeks. Is this leading to a call for the expulsion of Greece from the EU? The elimination of Greece from the EURO Club? The bailout by their own governments of German and French banks hurt by these debacles? Is it the end of the easy EU? Or are we moving into a stronger union where the member States give up some more of their independence? All this shows that after all – the European Problematique has to do with money because they have not yet created the structure that some day may bring the EU into the China-US G2 league as a third partner to turn it into a G-3. Until then, we fear, the days of Transatlantic talk are over. —————– www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126436512&ft=1&f=1004Crisis In Greece Puts E.U. At Risk May 1, 2010
Greece’s debt woes aren’t all that’s plaguing the European economy. Spain and Portugal have also seen downgrades in their credit ratings, and the response by the European Union to the crisis is being watched around the world. Host Scott Simon speaks with Jerzy Buzek, President of the European Parliament, about the financial crisis in Europe. SCOTT SIMON, host: We’re joined now by Jerzy Buzek, the president of the European Parliament. He’s at the European Union’s delegation to the United Nations office in New York. President Buzek, thanks very much for being with us. Mr. JERZY BUZEK (President, European Parliament): Thank you for the invitation for this interview. SIMON: You going to bail out Greece? Mr. BUZEK: Yes. It will be a response as usual in the European Union. Solidarity is our main slogan in the European Union for last six years. And I’m confident that the decision will be taken during next days. SIMON: I’ve read some opinion this week that suggests this was exactly what some people worried about with the euro, that thered economic problems in one, two or three countries and you couldn’t contain them because, of course, you had a common currency. And now you have Greece’s problems dragging in the rest of the eurozone. How do you address that concern? Mr. BUZEK: First of all, we must say that we’re at the beginning of the process of organizing our eurozone. It’s less than 10 years yet, so it’s not so easy. On the other hand, we have very deep crisis all over the world. So, it’s nothing unusual is that also some countries from the eurozone are affected by the crisis. And I’m quite sure we can manage. SIMON: But do you also, for example, in this case have countries with very different approaches to debt and spending? Say, between Greece and Germany. Mr. BUZEK: Yeah, it’s also obvious because we are saying in the European Union that we, of course, base our community on solidarity. But responsibility every separate member state is also very important. SIMON: May I ask, Mr. President, did the member states of the eurozone do a good enough job in checking out the Greek economy before they joined in 2002? Mr. BUZEK: It must be checked maybe once again by the European Commission. I wouldn’t like to say anything about that being representative of European Parliament because it was not our responsibility. It will be not our responsibility in the future as well. But of course, as members of European Parliament, we are very, very interested in everything what is connected with the recovery from crisis, exit programs, and also about Greek’s crisis. SIMON: So assuming a bailout for Greece, you think that that will have the effect of improving other particularly plagued economies in, let’s say, Spain, Portugal and Ireland, and that means they would be less likely to have to ever request a bailout? Mr. BUZEK: I’m optimistic because if we solve, and I’m sure we will solve the problem of Greece, it will be much easier in other countries. I know very well. I talked to Mr. Prime Minister Papandreou a few weeks ago and they prepared a very tough, difficult program for Greece. It will be not easy, but if you start working, it would be great progress in Greece economy and then will be no danger for the whole eurozone. SIMON: Jerzy Buzek, who’s president of the European Parliament, joining us from New York. Mr. President, thanks so much. Mr. BUZEK: Thank you much. ———————————————————————– Press Releases The office will be opened by President Buzek at midday (US, East Coast time) on Thursday. EP President Jerzy Buzek said: “We have many ideas for deepening our relations. The main purpose of the office is to build a much closer partnership between the European Parliament and Congress as the European Parliament is more powerful after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. The EU and the US need to be more coherent and well informed on legislation and political activity. If we work together in advance of legislation we can improve the outcome for citizens and business in a huge transatlantic market. Together, we must face the challenges that confront us across the Atlantic, from climate change to energy security, from maintaining free trade to improving global governance.” Background EP President Buzek has been in Washington since Monday for key meetings with the US administration including Vice-President Biden, Secretary of State Clinton and Speaker Pelosi. President Buzek and will travel to New York for meetings at the UN, including with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon which will take place on Friday 30 April. * * * The Director of the new European Parliament Liaison Office with the US Congress is Piotr Nowina-Konopka, Ph.D. Tel +1 202 862 4731 Office details: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/us/ – website of the EP – Congress Liaison Office For further information: —————————————– Press Releases Buzek to open the European Parliament Liaison Office with US Congress EP President Jerzy Buzek said: “We have many ideas for deepening our relations. The main purpose of the office is to build a much closer partnership between the European Parliament and Congress as the European Parliament is more powerful after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. The EU and the US need to be more coherent and well informed on legislation and political activity. If we work together in advance of legislation we can improve the outcome for citizens and business in a huge transatlantic market. Together, we must face the challenges that confront us across the Atlantic, from climate change to energy security, from maintaining free trade to improving global governance.” Background EP President Buzek has been in Washington since Monday for key meetings with the US administration including Vice-President Biden, Secretary of State Clinton and Speaker Pelosi. President Buzek and will travel to New York for meetings at the UN, including with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon which will take place on Friday 30 April. * * * The Director of the new European Parliament Liaison Office with the US Congress is Piotr Nowina-Konopka, Ph.D. Tel +1 202 862 4731 Office details: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/us/ – website of the EP – Congress Liaison Office * * * For further information: – — – President Buzek on “The New European Parliament: Politics and Power in Today’s European Union” at the School of Advanced International Studies – Johns Hopkins University I am delighted to be able to address you today. As a professor myself, I always feel at home when I come to a university. My passion has always been knowledge and passing on knowledge to the next generation, my activity in politics only came later on in life. I grew up in a system where art was censored, where history was falsified, and where politics had only one colour. This is why I chose the hard sciences and not political science – because even the Communists had to accept that ‘one plus one equals two’. Or at least they accepted that most of the time! Dear Friends, I would like to make a few remarks about the political system in the European Union, following the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, and what that Treaty means for both Europe and the United States. I will keep my talk fairly short. After that, I would be delighted to take questions or comments. I would be especially interested to hear your own views on these issues. =European Parliament= First, let me say a word about the European Parliament, which I now have the honour to chair. The Parliament has been on a rising curve of power over the last quarter century. The Lisbon Treaty takes that power to a new level. Already in most of the routine areas of law-making – like the single market, transport, the environment, employment, development policy, and intellectual property – the Parliament has been co-equal with the Council of Ministers for many years. It has long enjoyed a right of veto over EU law – first introduced by the Maastricht Treaty 17 years ago. However, now with the Lisbon Treaty, we move a step further. We are co-equal with the Council in law-making on agriculture and fisheries, international trade policy, and justice and home affairs. Nearly all international agreements, including all trade agreements, now need the Parliament’s explicit approval. We have a right of veto. We have already seen the implications of that on final data transfer (SWIFT or TFTP). In effect, like in the United States, we now have lower and an upper chamber – the European Parliament and the Council – in a single, bicameral legislature. =EU Political System= In parallel, things have changed on the executive side. The meetings of heads of state and government – the European Council – have been split off to become a separate, formal institution, chaired by Herman Van Rompuy. This body gives overall guidance to the Union, setting the big, long-term priorities for the Union. The European Commission remains the administration, with the special right to propose legislation. Simply stated, the Council of Ministers is now the counterpart to the European Parliament, as Europe’s legislative and budgetary authority. The Commission and the European Council jointly form the executive. In this system, the member states still remain very important, but the European level – the supranational level – has been strengthened and the exercise of power is shaped more than ever by the ‘Community method’. Now qualified majority voting, not unanimity, is the norm in the Council of Ministers. Now co-decision between the Council and Parliament is the norm. The ‘intergovernmental method’ still has its place, but in a smaller sphere – in decision-making on foreign and security policy, the financial resources of the Union, and some aspects of monetary union. =Foreign Policy Structures= We have also put in place new arrangements in the field of foreign policy. We have a new High Representative, also Vice President of the Commission – Baroness Cathy Ashton. She chairs the Foreign Affairs Council and is a member of the European Council: she is thus the only EU person officially in three institutions – the Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European Council. The external departments of the Commission and Council will be merged into a new European External Action Service. This will give the EU a more coherent structure for developing and implementing foreign policy – and present a more united face to our partners and allies around the world. =Transatlantic Perspectives= Dear Friends, So we have a new design to the political system of the European Union. The Lisbon Treaty should help Europe better coordinate its policies both internally and externally, and to develop a better way of dealing with the rest of the world. Critical to our success is the Transatlantic Partnership. In this second decade of the 21st century, the relative power of both Europe and the United States – and the rest of the West – is already decreasing. By the year 2025, OECD countries are expected produce only 40% of the world’s output, compared to well over half at the moment. Asia’s share will increase to 38%, practically on a par with that of the OECD. The rise of China, India and other new players makes this clear to Europe. In the United States, over the last decade, you have discovered the limits of American power. How are we to respond? Together, I believe, that we need to take the lead in building and shaping a new form of global governance. I have always liked how my friend Bob Zoellick has put it – that we need to ‘modernise multilateralism’. The hard truth is that unless the West is united, we will lose the ability to defend and advance our interests and values. If we are united, we can help define international responses, in the G8 or WTO or elsewhere. Of course, we will not be able to solve all major international challenges on our own. We will need to cooperate – and should want to cooperate – with a range of new partners around the world. Our interdependence can and should make us stronger. We need to use the Euro-Atlantic partnership to change the way global governance functions. The United States and Europe should play a key leadership role in defining the principles and structures of this new multipolar and multilateral world. In such a world, America and Europe should still serve as an axis of global stability and enlightened values. I believe we need to use this partnership to put in place the right policies and the right institutions on a world-wide scale. We all know the difficult challenges we face today – economic insecurity, energy independence, climate change, migration, money-laundering, piracy, and of course terrorism. Common action on these fronts is essential. And in addressing these issues, we will need to find ways of bringing on board, in different ways, Russia, China, India, Brazil and the other new regional powers. They have to become stakeholders in the new world order, or disorder – so that they can expect to have a genuine sense of ownership in the way policy is set. The time to do this is now, whilst Europe and America are still powerful enough to make a difference. If we fail, the 21st century will be a century of insecurity and instability for all of us. Dear Colleagues, Our transatlantic relationship is already very strong – we have the biggest trade and investment flows in the world. We share the same values – and very many of our interests are the same. We do have some issues on specific areas of legislation and regulation. You all know the cases – Boeing vs Airbus; Chlorinated Chicken; the REACH directive and recently SWIFT. We can address those in the Transatlantic Economic Council, but I think we should think bigger than that. We need to set ourselves a more ambitious challenge for the 21st century. In ten years time let us implement a genuine transatlantic single market, based on the four freedoms which already exist in Europe – the free movement of goods, services, capital and (yes) people. I would add a fifth freedom, the free movement of knowledge across the Atlantic. A transatlantic market could build on one of the European Union’s greatest success stories – the single market that we have building continuously for over 50 years. Yesterday I addressed the US Chamber of Commerce and challenged the business community to put forward their ideas and proposals to achieve such a free market, to look at both sides of the Atlantic as one space of 800 million citizens. Today I challenge you, the next generation of Americans, to think of a Euro-Atlantic community – a common space where you can live, work and study on either side of this inner sea which is the Atlantic Ocean. That may seem a dream, but our challenge is to change the context and create a new reality. Next weekend – on 9th May – we will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the famous declaration in Paris by Robert Schuman that lead to the European Coal and Steel Community. Jean Monnet, who wrote that declaration, once said that ‘everybody is ambitious. The question is whether he is ambitious to be or ambitious to do’. The pooling of sovereignty over coal and steel, which at the time was the core of a nation’s industry, was an incredibly bold and ambitious project. The six countries that took part changed Europe’s face and Europe’s future. Today, let us also be ambitious to do. Let us dream not just of a strong Transatlantic Partnership – let us create a genuine Transatlantic Community. =============Europe unravels in a tangle of national interests.By Philip Stephens Published: April 29 2010
Watching the slow-motion train crash that is the Greek debt crisis invites the question as to whatever happened to European solidarity. Listening to politicians in Berlin explain that parsimonious German voters will not stomach a bail-out of their spendthrift continental cousins offers only half an answer. There is more to the story than an angry collision between Greek profligacy and German moral superiority. Behind the proximate threat lies a more unsettling truth. The crisis is symptom as well as cause. For all its upheavals, there used to be something reassuringly ineluctable about the European Union. Now the enterprise is beginning to unravel. Greece’s predicament, and the response of its eurozone partners, holds dangers on many levels: a sovereign default within the single currency; contagion as markets test the resilience of Portugal, Spain and Ireland; and a breakdown of the political trust and mutual support mechanisms on which the monetary union depends. As my FT colleague Alan Beattie observed in a searing commentary earlier this week, recent events have underlined also the sheer incompetence of those charged with stewardship of the eurozone. Given Angela Merkel’s central role, perhaps we should not have been surprised at the vacillation. Berlin’s stumbling response to the collapse of Lehman Brothers provided a template for the ineptitude that has again left the authorities playing catch-up with unforgiving markets. Lest I am accused by my German friends of taking the side of the sinner against the sinned against, Ms Merkel has right on her side in saying that Athens must not be rewarded for disdaining its solemn obligations to its partners. It is no use writing cheques unless Greece has a credible fiscal plan. As Berlin should have learnt, however, there comes a point when finger-wagging becomes self-defeating. The price of righteousness turns out to be chaos; and chaos does not discriminate – as the German banks holding billions of euros of Greek sovereign debt well understand. We sometimes have to live with moral hazard. More worrying is what all this tells us about the fundamental cohesion of the Union. Until quite recently if someone asked what the EU would look like, say, 20 years hence my reply was that its essential contours would be pretty much unchanged. Sure, my argument would have run, the guiding purpose had changed with the end of the cold war, the reunification of Germany and enlargement to central and eastern Europe. But a collection of middle-ranking powers with common borders, values and interests had sensibly concluded that they were better together than apart. The rise of new powers – China, India, Brazil and the rest – presaged a much diminished role for Europe on the global stage. Proud nations such as France, Germany, Britain or Spain would not surrender their identities; but they would pursue their interests collectively. Maddening as it could often be, “Europe” would always be around. That is what I used to think. Even now, I still believe the logic is compelling. Look at any problem touching the peoples of Europe – from crises in the international financial system to global warming, from terrorism and uncontrolled migration to a newly assertive Russia – and they tell the same story. Europeans must act together if they want to exert influence. For all that, Europe no longer carries the stamp of inevitability. Quite suddenly, it has become almost as easy to foresee a future in which the Union fractures. The risk is not so much of a great rupture – though if Greece defaults the immediate shocks will be profound – but of the atrophy that flows from the absence of political leadership. European governments still pay lip service to the logic of co-operation; they are no longer willing or able – sometimes both – to admit its implications. They know where their national, and the continent’s, strategic interests lie, but they lack the purpose to marry them. Germany relishes instead the chance to become a “normal” country, separating what it sees as its national from the European interest. Helmut Kohl’s historical insights are forgotten in the insistence that German taxpayers should not be asked to remain the continent’s paymaster. So too are Berlin’s long-term interests in European-wide political stability and in open markets for its exports. France struggles with the dynamics of a Union in which more Europe no longer necessarily means more France. Nicolas Sarkozy’s admirable energy is unconnected to strategic purpose. Britain, as ever, stands half on the sidelines. Italy, led by Silvio Berlusconi, has removed itself from influence. There have been moments of stasis before. But the rules have changed. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism have turned an enterprise of necessity into one of choice. If the Union falls into disrepair everyone will still be the loser; but the threat no longer seems an existential one. The EU has become a victim of one of the awkward paradoxes of globalisation. Even as it robs nation states of power, global interdependence increases the domestic pressure on national politicians to shelter voters from the insecurities of a borderless world. The response of Europe’s politicians has been to sacrifice the strategic to the tactical. They boast that they can “reclaim” power from the EU – and promise they will not be pushed around by Brussels. This explains Ms Merkel’s Germany-first approach to the single currency; and the reluctance of other leaders to match pieties about Europe’s role in the world with anything resembling common policies. There is nothing strange or wrong about politicians pursuing national interests. That is what they are paid for. The problem for the EU is that governments now see this as a zero-sum game. During the era of postwar reconciliation and the cold war the coincidence of national and European interests spoke for itself. Europe’s waning influence in a world no longer owned by the west means that the convergence is as powerful as it has ever been. But without the threat of war or invasion, it is harder to identify. It requires leaders of stature to make a case to their electorates. Look around the continent and there are no such politicians in sight. More columns at www.ft.com/philipstephens ============================= Speech by Professor Jerzy Buzek,President of the European Parliament,Columbia University, New York City When I look back upon my life I sometimes have to remind myself of the journey we in Central and Eastern Europe took to get here. As some of you may know my true vocation has always been that of a scientist and academic. I am an Engineer not a political scientist. The science of politics came later in life but my passion has always been knowledge and passing on knowledge to the next generation. I grew up in a system where art was censored, where history was falsified, and politics had only one colour. I chose science, because even the Communists had to accept the iron discipline of mathematics. One of your greatest Presidents, Abraham Lincoln, once said that “you can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time”. The Communist regimes tried to fool all of the people all of the time, but they forgot that liberty, that justice, that human rights, that dignity and solidarity will always beat a lie. With the entrance of ten new member states to the European Union in 2004 and Romania and Bulgaria in 2007, we have reunited our continent, but more importantly we have reconciled our continent. Today, we live in a different European Union, one where the President of the European Parliament is from a country that not long ago would imprison me for speaking to you freely, and would probably not give me a passport to come to Columbia University! Dear Friends, First, let me say a word about the European Parliament. We have been on a rising curve of power over the last quarter century. The new Lisbon Treaty takes that power to the next level. Already, in most of the routine areas of law-making – such as transport, the environment, employment, the single market, development, intellectual property – the European Parliament has been co-equal with the Council of Ministers for many years. It has long enjoyed a right of veto over EU law. Now, with Lisbon, we are also co-equal with the Council in agriculture, international trade, and justice and home affairs. Nearly all international agreements, including all trade agreements, now need the Parliament’s approval. We already saw the implications of that on SWIFT which the European Parliament rejected in February. In effect, like in the United States, we now have an upper chamber and a lower chamber – the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament – in a single legislative system. Dear Colleagues, The Lisbon Treaty will help Europe better coordinate its policies both internally and externally – and we hope, help both of us to develop a new way of dealing with the rest of the world. I believe that together we need a new form of global governance. We need to ‘modernise multilaterism’ – as my friend Bob Zoellick has put it. This is something I have said over the past couple of days in Washington. In this second decade of the 21st century, the relative power of both Europe and the United States – and the rest of the West – is already decreasing. By the year 2025, OECD countries will produce only 40% of the world’s wealth, as compared to 55% in 2000. Asia’s share will increase to 38%, practically on a par with that of the OECD. The hard truth is that unless the West is united, we will lose the ability to defend our interests and values. Even then, we will no longer be able to solve major international challenges on our own. We need to cooperate – with each other, but also with our partners around the world. Our interdependence can and should make us stronger and should not be seen as a threat but as an opportunity. We need to use the Euro-Atlantic partnership to change the way global governance functions. The United States and Europe can and must take a leadership role in defining the principles and structures of this new multipolar, multilateral world. We all know the difficult challenges we face today – economic insecurity, energy independence, climate change, migration, terrorism. Common action on these fronts is essential. And in addressing these issues, we need to find ways of bringing on board Russia, China, India, Brazil and the other new regional powers. They must have a sense of ownership since they too are stakeholders in this world’s governance. I often use the small example of combating piracy in the Gulf of Aden. For the first time, Chinese war ships operate next to Russian, American, European and South Korean vessels. Why? Because these pirates are a threat to the 30 000 ships which sail through this passage. Ships which are bound for Europe, and Asia. But in such a world, America and Europe must still serve as an axis of global stability and enlightened values. We are home to the world’s most successful democracies. I believe we need to use this partnership to put in place the right policies and the right institutions on a global scale. We represent 60% of the world’s GDP. If we have the right policies, the rest will follow. If we fail to work together the 21st century will be a century of insecurity and instability for all of us. I believe fundamentally that the EU’s unique model of sharing sovereignty – of promoting common solidarity and common responsibility – is working well and can be a model for the rest of the world. Dear Colleagues, Next week is the 60th Anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, when six countries pooled sovereignty over coal and steel, making war between them virtually impossible and laying the foundation of today’s EU. Schuman said that ‘Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity” He was right. Our trade relations are already 95% problem free, we respect each others regulations, customs and laws. Our legislators and our executives talk and negotiate with each other non-stop. It is time to create a space of freedom so that 800 million people can benefit from our relationship. An area based on the four freedoms we have in Europe – free movement of people, goods, services and capital. I am convinced that this should be the next step in the evolution of our partnership. It is a dream, but it is up to you, the next generation of Europeans and Americans to make it a reality. Thank you for your attention. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on February 1st, 2010 Foreign Drillers Rush at Uganda’s Promising Oil Reserves. By GUY CHAZAN in London And NICHOLAS BARIYO in Kampala, Uganda A skirmish over an oil field on the shores of Africa’s Lake Albert highlights Big Oil’s intense interest in Uganda—a rising star of African energy. Tullow Oil is competing with Eni, Total and Cnooc to secure an oilfield stake owned by partner Heritage. The battle centers on the Ugandan assets of Heritage Oil PLC, a small U.K.-based explorer, which is selling its stakes in the much-coveted Lake Albert Rift Basin. The area has yielded some of sub-Saharan Africa’s largest onshore oil discoveries of recent years. Big energy companies like Italy’s Eni SpA, France’s Total SA and China National Offshore Oil Co. all are vying for access to Uganda’s oil wealth. Uganda’s onshore oil is particularly appealing because it is relatively inexpensive to produce. That sets it apart from other frontier provinces, like the deep waters off Brazil’s coast and the Arctic Ocean, where the majors require an oil price of around $60 a barrel just to break even. Initially, Eni looked to be the likely winner, announcing in November that it was buying Heritage’s stakes for $1.5 billion in cash and assets. But Tullow Oil PLC, Heritage’s partner in the oil field, exercised its contractual right to block the sale and acquire the stakes itself at the same price. Tullow’s purchase, however, is subject to approval by the Ugandan government. The initial reaction was negative, with the country’s energy minister saying the government didn’t want one company to end up with control of the whole oil field and would prevent the sale if necessary. Heritage and Tullow share ownership of two blocks in the oil field, while Tullow owns all of a third. Acquiring Heritage’s stakes would give Tullow full ownership of all three blocks, covering 10,000 square kilometers—about one-third the size of Belgium. The government’s position appeared to soften after Tullow Chief Executive Aidan Heavey met with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in Kampala recently. Tullow said that once in full possession of the oil field it would sell half to either Cnooc or Total to help finance the construction of a refinery and a 1,300-kilometer pipeline that would carry Uganda’s oil to world markets. Such an arrangement would allow Tullow to control who it works with as well as concentrate on its core activities—exploring for and pumping oil, rather than refining and transporting it to market. Tullow also announced plans last Wednesday to raise around $1.6 billion in a rights issue to help it develop Uganda’s oil. Tullow now is the favorite to take the Heritage stakes, with Cnooc edging out Total as Tullow’s most-likely partner, a person familiar with the matter said. Mr. Museveni met with Cnooc executives in Kampala last week and is expected to meet them again this week to finalize details, the person said. Cnooc and Total declined to comment. Eni hasn’t given up, however, and last week sweetened its package. The company’s CEO, Paolo Scaroni, said in a newspaper interview that Eni would not only develop the Lake Albert field and build a refinery and pipeline to the Indian Ocean, but also would construct an electricity plant in Uganda and upgrade a railway line from Kampala to the Kenyan port of Mombasa. He said Eni would invest $13 billion in the “integrated development plan.” Eni declined to comment for this article. Tullow declined to comment on Eni’s new offer. What has attracted companies like Eni to Uganda is the one billion barrels of crude already discovered in the Lake Albert Rift Basin, a vast, oil-rich area close to Uganda’s border with Congo to the west, and the huge untapped potential of the region. Tullow estimates that about 1.5 billion barrels, roughly the same amount as Yemen’s oil reserves, remain to be discovered in the basin. Uganda also is seen as more stable politically than many of its neighbors, though the north of the country is wracked by armed conflict between the army and a rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army, that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Some of the most promising prospects are in Lake Albert itself, however, and will require offshore drilling using floating platforms. Industry experts have said there could be large amounts of oil on the Congo side of the lake, which remains largely unexplored. Uganda plans to produce around 150,000 barrels of oil a day in four to six years, most of which will be exported. For comparison, that is slightly less than the output of Brunei. The steady revenue stream from oil could radically change the fortunes of the east African country, one of the world’s poorest. “It doesn’t move the needle in terms of global oil supply, but it’s one of the few countries that will see growth in the coming years in a world of shrinking opportunity,” said Bob McKnight, an oil expert at consulting firm PFC Energy. Tullow and Heritage have had an almost unbroken run of successes since they started drilling for oil in the Lake Albert area five years ago, with most of their wells encountering crude. Tullow’s share price nearly doubled last year on the back of the discoveries. Write to Guy Chazan at guy.chazan at wsj.com and Nicholas Bariyoat nicholas.bariyo at dowjones.com
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on January 12th, 2010 from: Sandor Szabo The Renewable Energy Unit of the Joint Research Centre-European Commission based in Ispra (Italy) has open a position to develop and integrate an optimization tool for rural electrification planning in Africa. The multitask project simultaneously aims to support Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy in Africa. The main results are expected to be communicated on the project web site managed by JRC and also to be published as peer-reviewed scientific articles. http://ie.jrc.ec.europa.eu/job s/docs/Cat30/IE-REU-2010%2801% 29-30.1_Publication.pdf For further details contact: Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 19th, 2009 Indonesia deports journalists covering Greenpeace. Nov. 19 2009 – AP Slash-and-burn land clearing is used to make way for oil palm plantations, mines and commercial development, making Indonesia the third-largest emitter of carbon in the world after the United States and China. Thirteen foreign Greenpeace activists have been deported this week over the protest, including 11 over the weekend, the environmental group said. Indonesian police also detained 44 Indonesian activists and charged 21 with allegedly trespassing on private property. “The expulsion of foreign journalists harks back to the country’s authoritarian past, not its democratic present,” the statement said. Italy denounced the expulsion of Bultrini and an Italian Greenpeace activist at the Indonesian Embassy in Rome. The Foreign Ministry requested that their rights be guaranteed by Indonesian authorities. ———————————— Environmental Media Alliance Worldwide is the Global ej-Forum on Email<ejournalists@gmail.com> Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on September 19th, 2009 nbsp;EUobserver.com – 19.09.2009 ****************************** THE FUTURE OF THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY IN THE EU. WHEN: 8th October 2009 from 9:00 -13:00h Registration is FREE and is required due to limited number of seats. Please register on: http://conferences.euobserver.com/auto/i… Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on September 13th, 2009 ———- Forwarded message ———- From: Franny Armstrong <franny@spannerfilms.net>
Date: Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 2:15 AM Subject: [Age-of-Stupid] 9 days to go… Welcome Italy, Iceland & Iran Hello from New York,
The good news is that those gorgeous Italians have finally joined the Global Premiere (eight cinemas confirmed, maybe more coming soon) – as have Iceland, Iran, Moldova. and Nigeria (where we’re going to be featured on a TV show called Morning Ride on Ch 5 on Sunday 13th). There are no cinema screenings in Australia, New Zealand or the UK - as the film’s already been released there – but anyone in those countries can join the premiere by setting up their own screening via our Indie Screenings website.
But the bad news is we’ve just realised there’s a fundamental flaw in this ludicrous plan of ours… We are attempting the world’s biggest live film event…. with no advertising money whatsoever…. for a low-budget documentary about climate change (as opposed to, say, a high budget feature film about war starring Brad Pitt)… which means we have to rely totally on word of mouth for people to hear about it. So far so logical, yeah? But word on mouth works by people seeing the film and then recommending it to their pals…. Whereas our film is playing for one night only…. so there is no time for word of mouth to build…. aaaaaaaaaaargh….
Help.
1. Word of mouth before the event. Tom has made a super-easy page with all the possible ways for you to spread the news. Just go to this page http://www.ageofstupid.net/promote and add the new widget to your site, make a poster in various languages, email all your pals and so on. If you do all the steps, you’ll also land in the electronic hat to win a Stupid goodie bag. (In case you were wondering: this is not a money making exercise like a normal film. It’s highly unlikely that we’ll ever even break even – would have to take ten million pounds or something – and, even if we did, all the cash gets shared out to our funders and crew. So if you are able to help promote the premiere, you’ll be helping spread the news about the climate crisis rather than making anyone rich.)
For a bit of inspiration, check out the fantastic Stupid websites in Holland (http://www.notstupid.nl) and Hungary (http://ahulyesegkora.com/). There’s also some brilliant Spanish, Dutch and Hungarian twittering going on. No idea what they’re saying, but they’re sure saying a lot of it. If any of you twitterers, out there felt like sending a message with the #ageofstupid tag, that would be much appreciated. Or do you have any famous twitterer friends who might care to mention it?
2. Friends in far places. Check out the v v v v v looooooooooong list of countries which have now confirmed for the premiere. Got any pals living in any of them? Please forward them the link to their country page and encourage them to buy tickets to their local screening. Might be an idea to mention that they have to go on the day of the Global Premiere (21st Sept in USA, 22nd Sept everywhere else) or there’ll miss it. It’s just for the one night, not a whole week of screenings or anything.
Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Maldives, Malta, Mauritius, Micronesia, Moldova, Republic of, Mozambique, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Slovakia, Spain, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Zimbabwe
10:10 update
Our mega-climate campaign welcomed an iconic British business into the fold this week….. Yup, Royal Mail have signed up to cut their emissions by 10% in 2010. ie the postman. Well, all the postmen. And all their vans, all their offices, all their stamping machines… It is ridiculously exciting after so many years of talk, talk, talk to finally see people actually starting to cut their emissions… Enough to melt the hardest heart.
“Are you an inspired, original and highly organised strategic thinker with a passion for fighting climate change and experience running a major campaign?” 10:10 is advertising for a full-time Director. With a proper salary, natch. See full job ad here.
In other news
My first bash at writing for the world’s biggest and most respect blog, the Huffington Post, was accepted and published this week. Yahey. Pls retweet it if you think it’s any good. Then again, it’s just the normal stuff about yeast and coin-flips which I’m sure you’re all bored to tears with by now.
My old sparring partner Ed Miliband and I had another of our public spats this week. This time on BBC’s Newsnight. Except I had the major disadvantage of not being able to see Ed or Paxo and having a killer echo of myself in my ear, which made it extremely difficult to string a coherent sentence together. I demand a rematch.
Just in case you were feeling sorry for me there for a second – humiliated on national TV – the supremely generous Eric and Lenny (the dudes who will be satellite-linking our New York solar tent to all the world) have not only given us a giant free office (which is already crammed full with our ever-expanding team of interns – minimum requirement pHD in climate science, it seems), but they also dragged Lizzie and myself out from behind our desks the other night and took us to…. the US Open tennis. Ha ha. To entertain us even further, they got their pals on the cameras to make sure they kept filming us at inopportune moments – and then to round off the evening, John McEnroe came out of the commentary box and bashed a few balls around with Djokovic. At last the perks are starting to roll in…
Over and out,
Franny, Lizzie, Rhiannon, Alexandra, Laurel & Tommy
NY Sat night team
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 1st, 2009 The following are the top 28 finalists in the Official 2009 New 7 Wonders of Nature competition – nominated from among hundreds of sites around the world that have been proposed. see please: http://www.new7wonders.com/ and you can vote – for up to 7 of the 28 list – at that link.
you can vote for your choice of 7 on line, by phone, or text message. It is expected that one billion people will vote and the winner will be announced in 2011.
A similar effort two years ago elected seven manmade wonders generated considerable publicity. We backed at that time Machu Picchu, Peru
These selections are being organized by a Swiss filmmaker and entrepreneur, Bernard Weber, and the committee that chose the 28 finalists included Federico Mayor, former chief of UNESCO, and Rex Weyler, co-founder of Greenpeace International.
Like everything else that has a UN connection, obviously such selections will be politicized beyond the simple angle of national pride – just see the country called Chinese Taipei for what most call Taiwan.
In this year of climate change we thing the Amazon will get the world’s nod, but watching in Vietnam (it is Halong Bay) how a whole country can get beyond a particular location we would have said that China could muster the vote, but will they do it for Taipei?
From among the many places on the list that we have been to – I am voting as Numero Uno for the Iguazu Falls.
From the competition on the 7 Man-made wonders – a stamp collection from Gibraltar:
 For all media inquiries and interview requests, please contact: Tia B. Viering, Head of Communications Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 26th, 2009 Pope’s dream of heaven on Earth. By KEVIN RAFFERTY HONG KONG, Sunday, July 26, 2009 — Of all the criticisms and critiques of the state of the world since the financial crisis that triggered global recession, the most devastating and yet the most profound and constructive came this month from such an unusual and unlikely source that many media ignored them. Yet the comments deserve a global audience. The critique denounces the “grave deviations and failures” of capitalism and blames the mentality of making profits at all costs for the global meltdown. Here are some sample quotes: • “Financiers must rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their activity, so as not to abuse the sophisticated instruments that can serve to betray the interests of savers.” • “Profit is useful if it serves as a means toward an end that provides a sense of how to produce it and how to make good use of it. Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.” • “To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is an urgent need of a true world political authority.”
He acknowledges the swirling global changes and tries to offer a holistic solution to the world’s woes that places human beings, not money or power or raw economic efficiency, at its center. The pope essentially finds that existing institutions, including individual national governments, have not kept pace with the scale, force and speed of change. He sums up the tremendous benefits and the damaging side effects of globalization: “The world’s wealth is growing in absolute terms, but inequalities are on the increase,” he writes. “Corruption and illegality are unfortunately evident in the conduct of the economic and political class in rich countries as well as in poor ones.” Pope Benedict has little faith in markets and still less in financiers to solve the problems of inequality and oppression, and points to the evils of “badly managed and largely speculative financial dealing, large-scale migration of people and unregulated exploitation of Earth’s resources.” The pope delayed publication of his encyclical until the eve of the summit of the Group of Eight rich nations in nearby L’Aquila. Whether this was a masterstroke of political imagination or because the Vatican had problems turning expressions such as “tax haven” and “market value” into Latin of the principal text is not clear. May I suggest that it would be worthwhile to produce a plain English version of the encyclical’s contents, with the turgid German thought processes cut out and references to previous papal encyclicals placed as footnotes. The next step would be to persuade Benedict XVI to apply his considerable intellect to answering the glaring questions that remain in his thesis — what kind of world government, and what teeth should it have? Politically, does the pope really want to give more powers to the U.N., a collective of squabbling ambitious nations, and more powers to the politicians of developing countries whom he correctly criticizes for corruption? What does the pope say to the public snubbing this month of the U.N. secretary general by Myanmar’s junta, which epitomizes the model of Third World military dictatorship suppressing its own people and greedily making money from big corporations stripping the country’s resources? The pope deserves praise for his vision of heaven on Earth, but he does not say how to banish sin. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 12th, 2009 Some hardy souls did not throw up their hands yet. They do not want to see climate change going to the “balloon builders.” With the backing of Dr. James Hansen the members of the Climate Crisis Coalition say that Cap & Trade will only create a trillion dollar market in carbon futures and derivatives – a speculator’s playground on Wall Street that has economic disaster written all over it. Do we never learn from the series of balloons and bubbles that we have allowed so far? **** Just Out: CCC’s ‘A Conversation with James Hansen’. Produced by CCC, 28 min video, July, 2009. Dr. James Hansen, Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is considered by many to be the foremost climatologist in the world. From his New York City office, he spoke with Climate Crisis Coalition Coordinator Tom Stokes, on May 10, 2008, about the science of climate change, the urgency of enacting effective climate legislation and why he is speaking out about it not as a NASA spokesperson but as an individual. Dr. Hansen believes that we should enact a carbon tax with the revenue recycled back to the people, rather than a cap-and-trade system.
Climate Crisis Coalition CCC to Co-Host U.S. Senate Briefing. CCC, July 8, 2009. “Effective Climate Policy with Direct Carbon Pricing,” Monday, July 13, 1:00 – 2:30 p.m., Capitol Visitors Center, Room SVC 208-209. The briefing is on enacting meaningful climate legislation in the wake of the narrow plurality for the Waxman-Markey bill in the House and its uncertain prospects in the Senate. It will address the science, economics and politics of getting from the compromised House bill to a simpler architecture with brighter prospects for enactment that can gather broad support and be effective as part of an international carbon pricing system for preventing catastrophic climate change. Speakers: James Hansen, PhD: Director, Goddard Institute of Space Studies, National Aeronautics and Space Administration; Robert Shapiro, PhD: Former U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs; Janet Milne, JD:Professor of Law, Vermont Law School; author of The Reality of Carbon Taxes in the 21st Century. Cecil Corbin-Mark:Policy Director, We Act, New York City; Chair, Environmental Justice Leadership Forum on Climate Change. Brent Blackwelder, PhD: President, Friends of the Earth. Moderator. Online registration: PriceCarbon.org. The Need to Move on to Plan B – The Carbon Tax – Will Become Increasingly Apparent. Letter to the Editor by Mark Valk, NYTimes, July 3, 2009. “While it’s encouraging to see Congress taking steps to reduce global warming, the approach championed at the moment — cap and trade — is fraught with perils and ineffectiveness. The biggest drawback is the creation of a trillion-dollar market in carbon futures and derivatives, a speculator’s playground that has economic disaster written all over it… The bill that was passed in the House appears dead on arrival. A simpler, more effective and politically viable option is a tax on carbon, with revenues returned to Americans through income and payroll taxes to offset higher energy costs. Such proposals have already been introduced by both Republicans and Democrats in the House, making it a solution both parties appear willing to support. Come late fall, when the Waxman-Markey bill has languished in the Senate, lawmakers will see the need to move on to Plan B — the carbon tax.” Mark Valk is the communications director for Citizens Climate Lobby, a co-host with CCC and the Carbon Tax Center of the Senate briefing (above). Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 11th, 2009 The UN came into existance in 1945 as a post-World War II organization, as a club of the victors in the war, to guide the world under the supervision of the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council: the US, Britain, France, Soviet Russia, and Maoist China.The war-axis states of Germany, Italy and Japan were not members of the UN It became slowly evident that the above five were not the world economic leaders and in 1975, thirty years later, in Paris, a new club was formed – the G6 that had in it the US, Britain, France the free economy states that won WWII, and the newly successfully reconstructed former losers of the WWII Germany, Italy and Japan. Those were the six largest free market economies and the main democracies that could have been viewed together as the motor of the world economy. Canada was added to above group two years later – so it was G7 – then for various political reasons – and seemingly as an encouragement for its internal change – in 1997 President Clinton got Russia admitted to what became then known as the G8. Above structure had a small corrrection nevertheless when the other states of the European Union wanted also some sort of recognition, and the representative of the EU was also given a chair next to the above G8. Another thirty years later that group – the US, Europeans, Japan, and Russia has shown its irrelevance when much of the economy is now decided in a completely new world of Beijing, Delhi, and Brasilia that includes the two billion plus fast growing markets of Asia and another economic potential giant that is becoming the leader of South America. So what is happening now is that for particular purposes new groupings are being created for the purpose of attacking ongoing important issues. The UN itself, with its 192 mix of members is hardly an organization for efficiency. In effect already while still relatively a much smaller body, back in 1945, its General Assembly was planned as a pure debating club. The best use for the UN is to allow its Secretary General to sit also in the smaller room of the more powerful, and let him present the wish list of the dispossessed. President G.W. Bush, not really with problem solving best intentions, allowed the establishing of a G-20 that covers many more diverse participants – from Argentina to Turkey – and hoped that this smaller debate club will make it clear to the world the extent of what can be agreed upon and what not. This group met November 2008 and created its own cycle of meetings that had in 2009 a Summit in London and has planned another Summit in Pittsburgh for this September. The L’Aquila G8 Summit is thus, time-wise, halfway in between those two meetings, but on a different cycle of meetings. President Berlusconi wanted to show that he can save the G8 and had sessions to which he invited besides the G8 leaders also the leaders of China, India and Brazil – the first redress of the problem that could have created a G11. If the EU could show that it is capable of getting its act together and have just one seat at the table for a new ideal global economic leadership – the US, the EU, Japan, China, India, Brazil, Russia, Canada – this could have been the most practical reformulated G8, but this sort of solution is still light years ahead of us. As above G11 looked politically incorrect with no African or Arab on board – Mr. Berlusconi invited to his group also South Africa and Egypt – and this new G13 was host to some of the L’Aquila meetings. But even the G13 did not seem good enough to many other UN member states, so they knocked on the door and about 40 of them had their head-of-state admitted to L’Aquila to sit in at some of the meetings. Obviously, also the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was there and the Swedish UN Presidency for July-December 2009 was there. Talking about climate change, President Obama has his own idea of a G16 + EU group. That was the group that witnessed the lack of practical results on the Climate issue. Yes, there is some talk of aspirational goal of two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) as limit to global warming with some behavioral intent figures as targets for 2050. But with no agreed upon shorter term targets for 202o and nearer, these are just fairy tails – and every level-headed person understands that. What is mistakenly called a G17 and is only a G16+EU, is the Washington created MAJOR ECONOMIES FORUM or MEF – which is the G11+EU+Mexico, South Africa + Australia, Indonesia, Korea. (Are these 16/17 the maximum one could work with?) A serious problem is – the Europeans understand that the US House of Representatives figure of just 4% CO2 emissions reductions by 2020, based on 1990 figures – but dressed up in Congress language to make it look as 17% – it really does not compare to the EU figure of 20% for 2020 that they even offered to increase to 30% if the rest of the world is ready to go for the 20%. Even the good meaning Barack Obama does not measure up to the Europeans, even when one looks at the criticism the Europeans get from their own NGOs. UN’s Ban Ki-moon talks of “missed unique opportunity” at L’Aquila, but he must have been sleep-walking if he ever thought that there will be a result at L’Aquila. This website keeps pointing at the UN as a source of unreal sunshine – it is unreal because it does not exist. Instead of saying what has to be done and speaking truth to power, all we hear are hopes and missed opportunities. Now we hear about next target time – the September Pittsburgh meeting of the G20. Further, China is busy now with its internal Xinjiang Province internal fights, but on climate change there is no substitute to a direct G2 agreement China-US. What we are saying is that with all the waste of time in the UN sponsored cycle of climate debates – the reality is that if there is no G2 material on the Copenhagen December 2009 table, there will simply be no climate change global agreement. Those that think that above G2 agreement will be just the lowest common denominator have not looked outside their window at what real life looks like. The most important statement for the L’Aquila meeting was by Celso Amorim the Foteign Minister of Brazil: “THE G8 IS OVER AS A POLITICAL DECISION GROUP.” “IT SIMPLY REPRESENTS NOTHING AT ALL – YOU CAN’T IGNORE EMERGING COUNTRIES SUCH AS BRAZIL, CHINA, INDIA.” He said this a month earlier at a meeting in Paris. _______————-_________ THE UPDATE We learned from the Wall Street Journal reporter Jonathan Weisman that not only “G-8 DELAYS MAKING BIG DECISIONS” but actually that in light of the fiasco with this meeting, President Obama said: The interesting thing is that President Obama clearly thinks that without China, India and Brazil, the G8 has simply lost any power to decide on issues like Climate Change and World Trade and economics. On the other hand he also said that the UN is not the place for series negotiations and we feel that the UN suggested formula is the G16 + the EU. Mr. Obama also said, as we saw on TV, that the exact number of the new kind of “G” to be involved in joint decision making is a very difficult figure because everybody agrees that the figure must be small “but we must be part of it so they say” – when it was decided that the figure be 20, the country that comes 21 demanded to be included so it becomes G21. We know exactly about what country of the EU he was talking – and we also know what other EU country will then want to be #22. This clearly borders with the ridiculous – and it does not reach yet out to demands from the poorer and more suffering countries that also want to be heard! * * * From AQUILA, Italy July 11, 2009 — The Group of Eight leading industrial democracies pushed many priorities of their summit here off to larger groups of countries, placing the next moves in trade negotiations, climate-change talks and containing Iran’s nuclear program in front of the so-called G-20 and the United Nations in September.
Climate-Change Pact Falls Short $10 new Billion for a total of $20 Billion have been collected forAfrica Agriculture – aid and development with the proding from President obama and new pledges from Canada and the EU. Senior White House officials said the president has more clearly defined expectations for the September meetings. The nations gathered in L’Aquila did achieve one parting success, a $20 billion pledge over three years to overhaul food and agricultural assistance to the poorest countries. Only about half that pledge is new money, according to the White House, but it roughly doubles nonemergency agricultural assistance. On trade, nations agreed to a series of bilateral meetings at which developing countries will outline for which products and services they intend to maintain protective tariffs and other barriers, and which they will allow to compete globally. The idea, according to a U.S. official, is to achieve clarity to speed up global trade talks that the 17-nation Major Economies Forum pledged to complete by 2010.
Write to Jonathan Weisman at jonathan.weisman at wsj.com ————————– Further from the press: NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL Mr. Obama was clearly eager to restore America’s leadership role. He convened a special side meeting of 17 nations — the G-8 plus China, India and seven other developing nations — that together emit 80 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases. Before the leaders gathered, their negotiators had already settled on a draft communiqué, committing to a 50 percent cut in worldwide greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The industrial countries would cut theirs by 80 percent, and the developing countries would make “significant” if unquantified cuts. But on Wednesday, things fell apart. The developing nations flatly refused to commit to the 50 percent goal by 2050. It was not immediately clear why they balked. Some repeated an old demand: that the United States and the other industrialized nations — which bear responsibility for the buildup of greenhouse gases since the beginning of the industrial revolution — should do more and do it faster. Otherwise, the developing nations would be left with an unfair share of the burden while their economies were expanding rapidly. What is clear is that Mr. Obama and the other leaders of the developed world have yet to come up with the right mixture of pressure and incentives to get the developing countries to commit. The 17 nations did agree to an “aspirational” goal of preventing global temperatures from rising more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. But with global climate talks in Copenhagen only five months away, aspirational goals won’t carry things very far. If there is any chance of pulling this off, the developed countries are going to have to take away all excuses from China, India and other developing nations. The Europeans have already committed to deep cuts in their emissions. The United States is doing a lot better under Mr. Obama, but it is still lagging. The House’s climate change bill requires emissions reductions of only 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020. (The Europeans have pledged themselves to a 20 percent reduction from a much earlier base line, which will require much more aggressive cuts.) We know that getting the Senate to do as well as the House won’t be easy. But Mr. Obama will have to press them to do even better. Mr. Obama should also continue to talk to the Chinese, who are now the world’s leading emitters of greenhouse gases. A host of top administration officials, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton included, have made the pilgrimage to Beijing. The Europeans are concerned that Mr. Obama and the Chinese will cut a less ambitious side deal and undercut a worldwide agreement. There is no evidence to support those suspicions. Mr. Obama, like the Europeans, says he wants a strong deal to bring down emissions. Without China’s participation, the fight against global warming is essentially lost. —- NEWS ANALYSIS By PETER BAKER and RACHEL DONADIO Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, left, greeted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India at the summit meeting. The group’s 35th gathering is such a sprawling event that the leaders of about 40 countries traveled here for it. No longer can just eight powers drive every decision. President Obama headed one meeting with 17 leaders for what he called a Major Economies Forum because there would be no point grappling with climate change without, say, China and India. So whither the Group of 8 in a Group of 20 world? What relevance does the Group of 8 have when it seemingly cannot take landmark action without enlisting others? Does it make sense for thousands of officials, diplomats, lobbyists, public relations people and journalists to descend on a single overwhelmed town each year when maybe a simple videoconference call might do? Or if it is still meaningful, then does it have the right membership in a changing world? “Look at the amount of effort, of carbon, of cost that went into this,” said Kumi Naidoo of South Africa, co-chairman of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, an advocacy organization, looking at the large tents set up for the news media, complete with air-conditioning, wireless Internet and land lines. “The G-8 is an elite cocktail, a self-appointed group,” he added. “I think it’s an anachronism, and consistently undermining the work of other multilateral initiatives.” These are questions that come up every year, but more so lately as economic and political power shifts. The Group of 20, which includes the eight and an array of nations from Argentina to Indonesia to Turkey, has emerged in recent months as a potent forum addressing the global recession. President George W. Bush summoned the Group of 20 leaders to Washington in November to figure out how to revive the world economy. Mr. Obama joined the group when it met in London in April and invited it to meet again in September in Pittsburgh. As a first-time Group of 8 participant, Mr. Obama seems to have a skeptical eye, uncertain about its suitability as a vehicle for solving the world’s problems. This year’s meeting produced statements on the economy, Iran, the Middle East and other topics but made few breakthroughs, and Mr. Obama’s aides cast it as a mere way station between Group of 20 meetings. “We view this meeting and this discussion as a midpoint between the London G-20 summit and the Pittsburgh G-20 summit,” said Mike Froman, the president’s chief negotiator, or “sherpa.” Indeed, Mr. Obama concluded that it was pointless to talk about climate change among just the eight powers, so he invited nine others Thursday. Developing countries like China and India agreed to make “meaningful” reductions in greenhouse gases but refused to accept the specific targets for 2050 sought by the United States and Europe. Mr. Obama cast that as victory enough, until discussions resume at the Group of 20. “We’ve made a good start,” he said, “but I am the first one to acknowledge that progress on this issue will not be easy.” The developing countries of the Group of 20 say the days of the smaller club are numbered. “The G-8 is over as a political decision group,” Celso Amorim, Brazil’s foreign minister, said last month at a conference in Paris. It “represents nothing at all,” he said, adding that “you simply can’t ignore emerging countries such as Brazil, China or India.” Still, talk of restructuring or scrapping the Group of 8 invariably runs into resistance from current members. At a news conference on opening night, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, the host, said the summit meeting was “ideal for building confidence and cordiality, for creating friendships and deepening friendships.” He added, “We call each other by our first names and not our last names” and gather “at the same informal table.” There is no doubt Italy pulled off a tour de force of last-minute organization, spending $75 million to transform a police training complex in an earthquake zone into an Olympic-style village, complete with high-quality espresso bars and wicker lawn sets. Cooks are preparing 25,000 meals over three days, and 3,700 journalists registered to attend. It is a far cry from the original meeting outside Paris in 1975, when leaders of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan inaugurated the Group of 6. Canada joined two years later, and it became the Group of 7, an organization without organization — no headquarters, no bylaws, no staff, just a rotating leadership to hold the annual meeting. President Bill Clinton got Russia admitted in 1997, and others started attending as observers. By this year, there was a regular meeting with China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, now dubbed the Group of 5. Mr. Berlusconi also invited Egypt, so the secondary meeting became known as the G-8 + 5 + 1. Then there was a working lunch with international organizations called the G-8 + 5 + 1 + 5. Given that China’s president, Hu Jintao, abruptly left to deal with rioting at home, perhaps it should have been called the G-8 + 5 + 1 + 5 — 1. Then there is breakfast on Friday with African leaders. All told, roughly 40 countries representing 90 percent of the world economy sent leaders to L’Aquila. But that has risks of its own; a president never knows whom he might run into. Mr. Obama found himself shaking hands on Thursday with Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya. Robert C. Fauver, who was Mr. Clinton’s sherpa, agreed that the Group of 8 could be redefined, but noted that has complications too. “If you’re trying to negotiate an exchange rate deal with 20 countries or a bailout of Mexico, as in the early Clinton days, with 20 countries that’s not easy,” he said. “If you get above 10, it just makes it too darn hard to get things done.” Attending his 21st summit meeting, John Kirton, director of the Group of 8 Research Group at the University of Toronto, said the group would evolve with additional formats involving more countries. But he said the core eight still represented unrivaled political and economic power and had the duty to weigh in on issues of democracy that others could not. “There’s a lot that the eight can do that the others can’t,” he said. “You’ll always need the G-8.” ———– The Wall Street Journal has a negative approach to the G8 and to everything that may impact on the US free style. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB12471889… ———— Climate change deal eludes big polluting nations – Climate change talks grind to halt. The Financial Times, July 10 2009 03:00 Leaders of the world’s 16 biggest polluting countries last night failed to agree on targets and funding to cut greenhouse gases, setting the stage for recriminations between rich and poor nations. A sombre Barack Obama, US president, who chaired the meeting of the Major Economies Forum in Italy, said he acknowledged that progress would not be easy and that it would be “no small task” to bridge the differences. The MEF countries, which produce 80 per cent of global emissions, agreed that the world should not heat up more than 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. But India and China resisted a push from the G8 developed nations to set a target of reducing emissions by an overall average of 50 per cent by 2050. Leaders must “fight the temptation towards cynicism”, Mr Obama said, calling climate change the defining challenge of his generation and acknowledging that the US had a much higher per capita carbon footprint. “No one nation is responsible. No one nation can address it alone,” he said, noting that he had to “wrestle” politically with the issue in the US and that a global recession made it harder for all countries to get on board. However, Ed Miliband, UK secretary of state for energy and climate, told the Financial Times that a pledge by developed nations to limit global warming to less than 2 °C “significantly increases the chances of success at Copenhagen”. NGOs and environmental activists were dismayed at the outcome, calling it a missed opportunity that risked undermining the UN conference in Copenhagen in December, which must set a climate change programme to replace the Kyoto framework expiring in 2012. “The blame lies squarely with the G8,” said Anantha Guruswamy of Greenpeace. “The blame game will start. The EU and others are blaming India and China and then there will be a harsh pushback.” While the G8 club of rich nations agreed on Wednesday in what Mr Obama described as a “historic consensus” to cut their emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, they failed to set near-term goals. They also refused to commit themselves to the huge funding required – estimated by experts at some $150bn (€107bn, £92bn) a year – to help developing countries adapt to climate change and cut their own emissions. Mr Obama only said that the MEF had agreed to a “substantial increase” in contributions to poor countries. Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, who will chair the Copenhagen meting, was quoted as saying the G8 summit had “missed a unique opportunity”. China in particular wanted assurances from the G8 that intellectual property rights would be relaxed so it could benefit from new technologies to take a lead in clean energy markets. Joanne Green, head of policy for the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, said the 2 °C limit agreed by MEF was “forward movement but it is woefully inadequate compared to what is needed”. Climatico, a network of climate change experts, said that, to limit temperature rises to 2 °C, emissions needed to peak in the next 10-15 years. It said the US Senate was the best hope for breaking the impasse by giving Mr Obama a strong cap-and-trade bill. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 9th, 2009 Thursday, 9 July 2009, IPS Newsbriefs NEW DELHI, Jul 8 (IPS) – It is hard to say whether U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will find herself being quizzed more on Washington’s ‘AfPak’ strategy to contain global terror or her appeasement of a financially muscular China, when she lands in India mid-July. Already much is being read into the fact that Clinton’s visit comes a full five months after she landed in Beijing where, to the consternation of international rights groups, she refused to allow human rights to “interfere” with talks on more pressing issues such as the financial crisis, climate change and security.
Dutta pointed to the dramatic revelation by the U.S. Pacific Command chief Admiral Timothy J. Keating during his visit to India on May 14 that a top-ranking Chinese naval official had sounded him out on a proposal to split control over the world’s seas between the navies of the two countries. Keating was reportedly told {by the Chinese}: “You (the U.S.) take Hawaii East and we, (China) will take Hawaii West and the Indian Ocean. Then you need not come to the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean and we will not need to go to the Eastern Pacific.” ——— If there is essence to the above, and looking at what went on in Sri Lanka as a barometer of China’s interest in getting some further warm ports, then when added to the arming of Pakistan, the Indians might have lots of questions to the US. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 9th, 2009 THURSDAY, JULY 09, 2009 from the IPS G8 Summit: The Five Throw a Challenge L’AQUILA, Italy, Jul 8 (IPS) – “The world needs a new global governance,” the G5 declared Wednesday, “the construction of which must be based on inclusive multilateralism.” As rhetoric goes, this might sound like more of the same. But the time and place of that declaration gave the words a new significance. The current G8 summit in Italy was billed as an occasion where developed and developing countries would come together to seek common solutions to such global problems as the economic crisis, climate change and food security. And some commonality is certain to emerge. But A Major Economies Forum is due to come up with a declaration Thursday on climate change. That declaration by a group of countries that includes the G8 and the G5 stops short of specific numerical targets. And the developing countries effectively blocked any move to sign them on to binding targets – while pledging to cut emissions on their own. So while agreement will be reached in general terms, there will be no individual or group targets for either developing or industrialised countries, according to a senior official close to the negotiations. The G5 campaigned collectively to ensure that the principles they support are respected – prime among them the recognition that the developed nations are the prime polluters, and therefore carry primary responsibility to cut emissions such as carbon dioxide that are believed to cause global warming, and consequently, damaging climate change. Through the climate change negotiations, an effective grouping among the developing nations is already fact. A strong message went out following their summit on Wednesday that they can stand together and bargain hard with the G8. Extraordinary, too, was the very range of issues on which they took a firm stand in relation to the perceived interests of the G8 countries (the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia). The G8 have also stepped up their campaign for reform of the U.N. system, most potently the United Nations Security Council. That demand, primarily for expansion of the Security Council’s five permanent members with veto powers, has the backing of several of the G8 countries as well, particularly Britain. The G5 issued a trade declaration separately from their political declaration. And that only firms up the position the developing countries have taken at talks so far that have blocked a deal on the principle that no deal is better than a bad deal.
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