Kosmolinks #18

• Russia Blog: The Misconception of Russian Authoritarianism

  This looks interesting. Don’t forget the other 5 parts! “Kevin Cyron, an American living in the Russian Federation who recently graduated with a Masters degree in Sociology from St. Petersburg State University, has agreed to Russia Blog publishing his thesis titled, “The Misconception of Russian Authoritarianism (doc)“.

• Continental drift (pdf)

  More on the difficult relationship between Britain and the EU: “Britain is becoming semi-detached from the rest of the EU – and an establishment in denial of the political nature of the European project is to blame, argues Peter Sutherland”. Also read the response by Certain ideas of Europe here.

• Democratic deficit or simply boredom?

  An opinion piece by Lisbeth Kirk: “In a word, the danger is not so much that the EU is perceived as undemocratic but that it is seen as increasingly boring and irrelevant.” She continues by asking “What if the US were like the EU?”

• Romania corruption scoop

  The European Commission will publish a progress report later this month, hopefully with some clear statements regarding corruption. A strong statement could be to trigger the safeguard clauses…

• The Wider Black Sea Region in the 21st Century: Strategic, Economic, and Energy Perspectives (pdf)

  The Black Sea region, once on the periphery of European consciousness, has become the next frontier in transatlantic strategic thinking in terms of energy security, trade, migration and other key policy areas. In this volume leading international experts examine the new dynamics of the Black Sea region, including perspectives from the region, trans-regional issues such as energy security, cross-border conflicts, democracy, civil rights, the rule of law, and future relations with Russia, the EU, NATO and other key actors.

• EU-Russia Relations, Toward a Way out of Depression (pdf)

  EU – Russia relations: A period of stagnation (2003–2006), followed by a period of depression (2006-present)…

• Serbia’s climate change

  The formation of a new government in Serbia offers modest hope of progress in its path to European Union membership, say Daniel Korski & Ivan Zverzhanovski.

• Grahnlaw: Anti-EU by any other name

  Is the label “euroscepticism” misleading? The idea is that labels such “anti-EU” or “anti-Europe” would be more suitable to describe “Eurosceptics” since most people that would put themselves in this category actually oppose any Europe wide approach. Very interesting thought!

• Fear and strange arithmetics: when powerful states confront powerless immigrants

  Interesting essay by Saskia Sassen: “It is surprising to see the high price in terms of ethical and economic costs that powerful ‘liberal democracies’ seem willing to pay in order to control extremely powerless people who only want a chance to work. Immigrants and refugees have to be understood as a historical vanguard that signals major ‘unsettlements’ in both sending and receiving countries.”

• National populism versus democracy – Antony Todorov

  Populist movements are a threat not because they raise the issue of direct democracy, but because they advocate nationalist mobilisation based on xenophobia, writes Antony Todorov. Given the failure of the leftist projects of the twentieth century, it is telling that far-right populism is more anti-democratic in the new democracies of central and eastern Europe than in western Europe. Is populism identical to the crisis of democracy or rather a symptom of it?

Kosmolinks #17

• The referendum: populism vs democracy

  The idea of the referendum as an instrument of the people’s will rests on pre-democratic foundations, says George Schöpflin. I certainly agree!

• A better way with referendums

  Interesting idea: Is it possible to introduce a more deliberative approach when holding a referendum? Does “deliberative polling” make citizens more knowledgeable?

• Instead of bullying the Irish, Europe should be working on plan D – and E

  Timothy Garton Ash actually favours the “Nice plus” arrangement.

• Yes, they could

  What went wrong for the German Social Democrats? And how can they recover? – Although the article could focus more on the second question it makes a few good points. However, it seems to me that Kurt Beck is the wrong person to deliver “change”… unfortunately the same can be said for a large part of the SPD leadership!

• WIA Report » Blogger Arrests

  Quite a shocking report: “Unfortunately, one way to assess the political importance of blogging around the world is through the growing number of blogger arrests. Since 2003, 64 citizens unaffiliated with news organizations have been arrested for their blogging activities.”

• Centre for European Reform: Tough choices to avoid euro-paralysis

  Hugo Brady proposes the most likely outcome of the “EU crisis” after the ‘No’ in Ireland. And he mentiones one interesting point: “Many voters do not see the continuity between EU treaties and think that old guarantees are over-written by new texts.”

Kosmolinks #16

• The Irish ‘no’ and the EU’s “nuclear”option

  Daniel Gros (CEPS) argues for “a radical solution – the other EU members should propose to leave the old EU and create a new one with the Lisbon Treaty as its founding document.”

• So much for bringing Europe closer to the people
  

  Everyone is right and wrong at the same time…a tragic dilemma!

• The European Council on Foreign Relations | Ireland’s creative destruction

  Daniel Korski calls European leaders to save “one of the main ideas behind the Treaty – to make the EU a more effective foreign policy player”. The rest is truly depressing: “Real business is likely to be pushed aside and a new bout of Euro-pessimism could set in.”

• Joschka Fischer: Das vereinte Europa ist gescheitert

  Joschka Fischer has no hope anymore…
  

• Wolfgang Munchau – Europe’s hardball plan B for the Lisbon treaty

  “An alternative would be a referendum with a differently worded question, such as: “Do you want to remain in the EU on the basis of the Lisbon treaty?” Of course, this bundles two questions many people would like to answer separately. Yes, stay in the EU, No to Lisbon. But folding the two into a single question is politically more honest because it is Ireland’s only real-world choice.”

• Robert Kagan – In Europe, a Slide Toward Irrelevance

  Robert Kagan’s take on the Irish ‘NO’ – basically what you would expect from him, but also with a few good points.

• The fear factory devastated Ireland’s flaccid political class

  “You forgot us in Shannon.” — “Our sons are too good-looking for the army” –”right-wing Catholics” — “leftwing anti-militarists” — “a mysterious group that emerged from nowhere with a great deal of money to spend” — “Imported British Euroscepticism” — “a very efficient factory of fears” — “an extensive menu of anxieties” — “the scattergun of negativity only had to hit one sensitive spot”

• Will Hutton: Europe must not be derailed by lies and disinformation
  

  “On top of these there is the political problem that the treaty can’t be rewritten to accommodate specific Irish concerns because it already does; Ireland’s ‘no’ campaigners told lies. The voters’ great concerns had been met. There is a specific protocol that guarantees Ireland’s neutrality and excuses it from membership of any joint European defence effort, if any surfaces. There is no possibility of Ireland being told to enforce abortion. And all states have autonomy over tax policy.”

• The Irish “no” and the rich-poor/urban-rural divide

  “The Irish ‘no’ – like the 2005 French ‘non’ – shows a clear poor/rich and urban/rural divide. Working-class and rural voters are systematically voting against further European integration. European leaders should take note.”

• DJ Nozem: Euroblog Coverage: The Irish ‘No’

  A handy round-up about the Irish ‘No’ in the blogosphere…

Kosmolinks #15

• Public perceptions of the EU as a system of governance

  Good overview on the state of research…

• Is Europe doing any good in Chad? | Certain ideas of Europe

  Apparently there is not much to do in Chad. Sudan is far away, the local dictator feels more secure, and anyway, the EU mission has the wrong equipment for the area…

• Macedonia’s election | A Balkan Belgium? | Economist.com

• “A fashionable idea is circulating among Balkan-watchers: “Belgianisation”. This is not meant to suggest complex federalism. Instead it implies that different nationalities whom history has left sharing a state are at last behaving like Belgians, reaching for ballot boxes and courts, rather than guns and bombs.”

• The amusing approach to the Treaty of Lisbon – the spoofer’s guide
  

  Quite a funny “guide” … I wonder how many people in Ireland will actually read it…

• Lisbon Treaty faces rejection as No vote doubles in latest poll

  It is gonna be a close race. And it seems that No voters don’t know anything about the treaty: “The reason most often cited by No voters is that they don’t know what they are voting for or they don’t understand the treaty – with 30 per cent of No voters listing this as the main reason for their decision.” I have argued before that referendums and uninformed publics do not go well together, moreover referenda over several hundred pages of legal text will never cause any enthusiasm… Let’s see on Thursday…

• Brussels Blogger : Comments on the logo of the French EU Presidency

  The logo of the French EU presidency…it is actually quite ugly…

• Get involved over Georgia or invite a war

  “The west could be sleepwalking into a war on the European continent. Georgia, which burst into view with a moving display of democratic ambition during the Rose Revolution of 2003, is teetering on the brink of war with Russia over the separatist Georgian enclave of Abkhazia. The outcome of this crisis – involving a fledgling democracy with aspirations to join Nato and the European Union – will help determine the rules of the post-cold-war security system. But western diplomats are not sending strong enough signals to either side.”

Kosmolinks #14

• Corruption in eastern Europe | Talking of virtue, counting the spoons

  The state of the elites in Eastern Europe. It seems as if especially anti-corruption agencies and justice ministries are very reform resistant. Or as the Economist puts it: “Yet from the Baltic to the Balkans, even politicians facing the most startling accusations of corruption seem not to suffer at the polls. A bit like Italy, really.”

• Transatlantic Politics » Corruption in Eastern Europe: back to square one

  “A survey made amongst Romanian judges showed that most of them don’t consider corruption as being a serious crime. “It’s not like you kill someone. And how can I sentence someone to many years of prison for corruption, when I have to bribe myself nurses and doctors if I go to the hospital”, said a judge as quoted by a German expert who ran the survey.”

• Chatham House -The European External Action Service: Roadmap for Success

  A Chatham House Report that sets out ten key policy recommendations for the EEAS.

• European Blogosphere

  A customized google search drawing on 172 websites (at the moment), including EU Blogs, Industry Federations, NGOs, Think Tanks, etc. Brought to you by the guys behind “Blogactiv”. It is certainly an interesting tool, however, it would be very helpful to have access to the list of these 172 websites… otherwise it is a bit difficult to suggest new content!

• Putin – The bottom line

  Another critical analysis of the developments during 8 years of Putin written by two former ministers.

• EU: the most peaceful region in the world

  Indeed an argument that should not be forgotten despite all the shortcomings of the EU…

• Institutional Competences in the EU External Action: Actors and Boundaries in CFSP and ESDP (pdf)

  Interesting but lenghty think tank paper…

• EU Green Lights Partnership Talks With Russia

  After 18 months of opposition, the 27 European Union member states finally agreed to launch strategic partnership talks with Russia. But how did the EU manage to get its act together? – A Lithuanian diplomat explains the procedure: “Now all of our concerns have been put into the annexes, we are happy.”

• Silobreaker: European Union

  The latest “news service” discovery and it looks as if it could become my favourite news aggregation page…

• Gazprom’s Foreign Energy Policy (pdf)

  “This issue of the Russian Analytical Digest analyzes Gazprom’s strategy toward foreign markets. It considers Gazprom’s perspective on international markets and examines the natural gas conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Additionally, the publication includes statistics on Gazprom sales and the Russian–Ukrainian natural gas trade.”

• Sovereignty: The History of the Concept « Faustian Europe

  Undergraduate essay on the concept of sovereignty with an emphasis on “internal sovereignty” with chapters on history, Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, French Revolution, Soviet Revolution, National Socialists, Liberal democracy…

Kosmolinks #13

• EU Common Agricultural Policy proposals 2008 – Wikileaks

  “Leak of latest European Commission proposals for reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, known as the ‘health check’. These proposals will form the basis of an internal Commission discussion on 14 and 15 May 2008. The agreed proposals are due out later in the month.” -  Is this the first online leak of an important EU document?

• A Bit of Humor « The Balkan Report

  A new balkan blog with this hilarious post: “In the early days of the siege of Sarajevo in the mid-1990s, a photo of a half-ruined post office with three items of graffiti written on its wall captured the imagination of the world. The first graffito read “This is Serbia!”; the second stated “This is Bosnia”. And someone scrawled underneath, “No, you idiots, it’s a post office!”

• The Obama campaign’s ‘unsung hero’

  Very interesting article about Jeffrey Berman, Barack Obama’s director of delegate selection…

• Why Ireland must say ‘Yes’ to Lisbon

  Andrew Duff (MEP) on the Lisbon Treaty and the upcoming referendum in Ireland and why the Irish eurosceptics are wrong.

• Ukraine: A lynchpin in Europe’s ‘Manifest Destiny’?

  “Global Power Europe” makes the case for a more decisive European approach towards Ukraine. And this “firm commitment” is EU accession..

• Some Detainees Are Drugged For Deportation

  Another shocking story on human rights in the US: “The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country, according to medical records, internal documents and interviews with people who have been drugged.”

• Is European democracy promotion on the wane? (pdf)

  A CEPS research paper that looks at “serious limits across three strands of democracy policy – the magnitude of incentives offered in return for democratic change, the degree of critical pressure exerted for democratic reform and the scale of European democracy funding.”

• EU Funds in Central and Eastern Europe: Cohesion or Collision?

  This interactive map developed by CEE Bankwatch Network and Friends of the Earth Europe shows 50 damaging projects planned or already underway in Central and Eastern Europe at a total cost to EU taxpayers of €10 billion.

• Questions raised over EU diplomatic service

  The new Lisbon treaty is (probably deliberately!) very vague on the issue of a EEAS (European External Action Service). Indeed, clarity is something else, as some of the rather basic things still need to be solved, for example the interaction between the Council, the Commission and the member state staff, the role of the European Parliament, the formal title of the head of the missions and the formal title of the delegations…as well as the question “where the EEAS and the foreign policy chief will be situated.” Luckily, only in 2010 the final proposal need to be finalised.

• The surprise that may await Europe

  Good and comprehensive analysis of the election results in Serbia.

• Global Power Europe: The return of ‘History’?

  “Do we—Europeans—have the political vision and will to make it happen? Do we want to remain the shapers of history, or would we rather continue under the delusions so ruefully picked apart by people like Kagan?” (…) On the present trajectory, of declining European military budgets; ill-equipped and under-prepared armed forces; poorly crafted foreign and security policies, particularly on the part of European Union Member States like Germany, Italy and Spain, one could be forgiven for thinking that the European Union’s future looks rather bleak. And as Kagan warns us, we need more than hope to prove them wrong…”

Kosmolinks #12

The “Kosmolinks” are finally back, and with the help of diigo I will try to make it a weekly feature! You can also watch and navigate through a slide show of all live pages of “Kosmolinks”: Just click here to start the “WebSlides”!

• Medvedev’s Russia

  A bunch of experts share their views about the new Russian president and topics ranging from Putin and developments in the Russian society and economy to the Caucasus and relations with Europe, Asia, USA … even a short paragraph on McCain and Obama.

• Mark Mardell – A presidential game of musical chairs

  The latest rumours about the new EU top jobs…Barroso, Ahern, Rasmussen, Blair, Juncker?…but it is also true that the front runners never win!

• The Borders of the European Union: Zagreb, 1. June 2011

  The Balkans in 2011? – A rather pessimistic (but realistic?) outlook on the future political developments on the Balkans…

• Belarus: RFE/RL Cites Online ‘Solidarity’ In Face Of Cyberattack

  Another cyberattack… exactly on the day of the 22nd ‘anniversary’ of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. RFE planned live coverage of a protest rally in Minsk. Not that difficult to figure ot who was behind it…

• The Guest Blog : Le Monde goes Europe, the UK goes chicken

  Is the “Bureau of European Policy Advisers” (BEPA) of the European Commission (also known as the internal think tank) about to start blogging or is it only a guest post? Anyway, some good points on communicating and debating the EU and the usual problems and chances associated with it…

• Serbs to have easier travel in EU

  Another “carrot” for the undecided voters…

• ECFR: The new Russian presidency: Medvedev 1.0 or Putin 2.0?

  some “informed speculation” about the future of Putin and co.

• Time to think of a strategic bargain with Russia (pdf)
  

  Michael Emerson (CEPS) on the need of strategic relations between the West and Russia.

• Nicolas Sarkozy’s Foreign Policy: Gaullist by Any Other Name – Brookings Institution

  Is Sarkozy an Atlanicist, Gaullist or even a Sarkozyst?

Kosmolinks #11

Today’s main topic is of course Kosovo, the World’s Newest Country. DJ Nozem sums it up with a ‘pinch’ of sarcasm: Another Show of Unity

I have been looking at some EU news services lately and as a result I created a EU universe (www.netvibes.com/eu) which brings together most of the available official EU – RSS feeds. So please tell me what you think about it! Although there are numerous (but quite hidden!) feeds on the europa.eu page, I still wonder whether the Commission has realised its potential here. Most of the times, traditional press releases are put into the feeds. But RSS could be used to track policy proposals within the Commission (green paper- consultation-white paper). Anyway, I will cover this topic more extensively in another post later this week!

Now there is also a social bookmarking service for EU related news and blogs: Eurovalley, give it a try, of course everything is still in beta! eufeeds has a collection of over 300 newspapers and it is updated every 20 minutes: interesting idea but unfortunately there seems to be no easy option to export an individual feed or a selection of feeds. Have you ever heard of the Europe Media Monitor? It seems to be one of these hidden Commission projects but I must say it looks quite promising especially when you need to monitor EU news.

So lets turn to our “favourite” treaty….Nicolas Whyte writes about the Lisbon Treaty here and the ISN wonders whether the Lisbon treaty makes the ESDP more Coherent and Capable? Stanley’s blog asks: EU Foreign Ministers: an endangered species?

Two interesting articles regarding EU funds and budget: Fraud and responsibility for EU funds on Jan’s EUblog and EuropesWorld: Why the EU may never get its accounts straight

What is a “Societas Europaea (SE)” ? It took the EU 30 years to decide on it…and now, there are only around 150 SE in total (EU-wide). But things might improve as local businesses becoming more ‘European’, well at least in the Czech Republic.

Richard Lewis blogs about Frattini’s proposals regarding tougher EU immigration rules. America plays divide and rule is a fascinating article on a diplomatic fight. And the “quote of the month” award goes to Jonathan Faull, a European Commission director general:

“We don’t negotiate matters that are dealt with in Washington with the state of California. That would be disrespectful and we expect the United States to be similarly respectful of our law and system.”