Migration Policy EU: - While EU split on migration widens - by Jess Smee

Illegal immigration poses an ongoing political crisis for the European bloc and politicians' failure to act has left Europeans reportedly more concerned about immigration than climate change.

Will November's change of leadership in the European Commission help improve its track record on the humanitarian emergency?

Large numbers of migrants continued to arrive on European shores this summer and hundreds of people died en route so far this year.

But while immigration dominates the headlines, Europe is divided on how to respond, meaning that the issue tops the to-do list for incoming European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Pressure is rising on Europe to take a firm stance on the extended emergency.

In August, Greece underscored its calls for the EU to share the burden of new arrivals amid a sharp increase in migrants landing on Greek islands in recent weeks.

Deputy minister for citizen protection Giorgios Koumoutsakos even warned that the country had "exhausted its capacity" to cope with the newcomers - and called on the rest of Europe for help.

And as well as loud complaints from the front-line nations, Europe is struggling to bridge increasingly polarised political positions on immigration.

Read more at: EU split on migration widens

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Germany's CDU reelects Angela Merkel leader with lowest support since she became chancellor

Chancellor Angela Merkel

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has won reelection as the leader of the Christian Democratic Union.

It will be her ninth term as chairwoman.

The only candidate in the running, Merkel gained 89.5 percent of the votes cast at the CDU congress – her worst result as chancellor and her second-worst performance in a vote concerning her.

Ahead of the ballot, she made an effort to appease the conservative wing of the party.

“We do not want any parallel societies, and where they exist we have to tackle them. Our laws have priority over honor codes, tribal and family rules, and over Sharia law…

That also means that with inter-personal communication, which plays a crucial role, we show our face. This is why the full-face veil is not appropriate and should be outlawed wherever it is legally possible – it does not belong to us.”

Read more: Germany's CDU reelects Angela Merkel leader with lowest support since she became chancellor

US Foreign Policy-A New Intelligent Approach ? : Obama: "Being The Best Hammer Doesn't Mean Every Problem Is A Nail" - by Mark Lander

Not every Problem is a nail

President Obama on Wednesday May 28 tried to regain his statesman’s mantle, telling graduating cadets here that the nation they were being commissioned to serve would still lead the world and would not stumble into military misadventures overseas.

Speaking under leaden, chilly skies, Mr. Obama delivered the commencement address at the United States Military Academy.

“America must always lead on the world stage,” he said. “But U.S. military action cannot be the only – or even primary – component of our leadership in every instance. Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail.”

Under pressure from critics who say the United States has been rudderless amid a cascade of crises, the president said that those who “suggest that America is in decline, or has seen its global leadership slip away – are either misreading history or engaged in partisan politics.”

A day after announcing that the last American soldier would leave Afghanistan at the end of 2016, the president told this latest class of Army officers that the United States faced a new, more diffuse threat in an arc of militancy stretching from the Middle East to the African Sahel.

Mr. Obama has been deeply frustrated by the criticism of his foreign policy, which during his first term was generally perceived as his strong suit. He has lashed out at critics, whom he accuses of reflexively calling for military action as the remedy for every crisis.

The overriding objective he said  is to avoid an error on the order of the Iraq war.

He brushed aside as reckless those who say the United States should consider enforcing a no-fly zone in Syria or supplying arms to Ukrainian troops.

In the speech, Mr. Obama described an array of priorities, ranging from the Iran nuclear negotiations to a new global climate change accord, which he said would occupy his final two-and-a-half years in office.

He also spoke of the need for the United States to look eastward to Asia, promoting his long efforts to negotiate a trans-Pacific trade agreement and pledging to defend American allies in the region in their territorial disputes with China in the South and East China Seas.

Note EU-Digest: Kudos to President Obama for at least showing the intention of his Administration to the world, in this major foreign policy speech at West Point, that the "gun-boat diplomacy" of the US is not acceptable anymore and has come to an end.   

Read more: ‘America Must Always Lead,’ Obama Tells West Point Graduates - NYTimes.com

Russia: President Vladimir Putin deserves kudos for 2014 Sochi Olympics - a job well done

President Vladimir Putin

Even though most of us in the Western Press had initially used every possible occasion to be critical about a variety of issues surrounding  the Sochi Olympics project, the Olympics not only got off to a brilliant start, but also throughout the games showed to be a smooth and perfectly managed operation.

This was recognized by just about everyone afterwards.

Olympic Committee officials went to great lengths to praise these much-maligned Games in their closing news conference.

"They've done a phenomenal job," said USOC chairman Larry Probst, mentioning everything from smooth transportation to Vladimir Putin's presence throughout the previous 15 days. "(Putin) has really owned these Games," he said.

Like it or not, President Vladimir Putin deserves to receive Kudos, not only for these Olympic games, but also for doing everything in his power to turn Sochi into a household word and exposing a cultural, warm and friendly face of  Russia to the rest of world.

Indeed, Mr. Putin might not be everyone's friend - which great leader ever is- but he will certainly be viewed by historians later as the Russian leader who picked up Russia by the bootstraps, after it was down and nearly out when the Soviet Union fell apart, and turning it into the modern society it is today.   

According to Russian public opinion polls, Mr Putin not only remains popular - his popularity is even rising.  In the latest poll, taken in December 2013, by the independent research organization, the Levada Centre, 68 per cent of respondents said that if new presidential elections were held this they would vote for Putin. This was up by 10 per cent from December 2012.

Why is Mr. Putin so popular at home? The simple answer is that the Russian population of 144 million is much better off today than it has ever been. Real incomes have risen substantially over the past decade, and the share of the population living below the poverty line has fallen.

The range of available consumer goods is worlds apart from when the Soviet Union fell apart little more than two decades ago.  Many of the middle class Russian families are now taking vacations outside their country and in the summer you will now find Russians vacationers just about everywhere in the world with a large contingent  in Turkey and Thailand..

During his two terms as president, Putin signed into law a series of liberal economic reforms, such as the flat income tax of 13 percent, a reduced profits tax, a new Land Code and a new edition (2006) of the Civil Code. Within this period, poverty in Russia was cut by more than half and real GDP has grown rapidly.

Some of the main features of Putin's regime so far have been: development of a corporatist system by pursuing close ties with business organizations, social stability and co-optation of opposition parties.

In 2005, Putin launched National Priority Projects in the fields of health care, education, housing and agriculture. In his May 2006 annual speech, Putin proposed increasing maternity benefits and prenatal care for women. Putin was strident about the need to reform the judiciary considering the present federal judiciary "Sovietesque", wherein many of the judges hand down the same verdicts as they would under the old Soviet judiciary structure, and preferring instead a judiciary that interpreted and implemented the code to the current situation.

In 2005, responsibility for federal prisons was transferred from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Justice.

The most high-profile change within the national priority project frameworks was probably the 2006 across-the-board increase in wages in healthcare and education, as well as the decision to modernize equipment in both sectors in 2006 and 2007.

So far during Putin's government, poverty was cut more than half and real GDP has grown rapidly.

In a rare sign of emotion and patriotism, he once said in an interview with Time magazine: "Russia is an ancient country with historical, profound traditions and a very powerful moral foundation. And this foundation is a love for the Motherland and patriotism. Patriotism in the best sense of that word. Incidentally, I think that to a certain extent, to a significant extent, this is also attributable to the American people."

Kudos Mr. Putin, Sochi was a job well done.

EU-Digest

EU: Why the World Needs Europe - byTony Fernandes

Unity not Eurosceptism

For some time already, wherever you are in the world, one cannot escape the question asked by many political, media and financial observers: "What is going to happen to Europe?" Source of sarcasm for some, of anxiety for many others, the continent's economic and political situation appears critical.

On the one hand, observers lament an economy which is deeply handicapped by a public debt which exceeds the continent's GDP and by unemployment rates which have become untenably high. On the other, the concern felt by observers is also triggered by a political analysis of the European situation. Frequent differences of opinion and hesitation on the part of European leaders in past years have damaged the image of the continent as much as economic problems have.

Yet, when you manage a foreign company, the image that Europe portrays is different in many respects. The continent is the most important foreign investor in many regions of the world, including South-East Asia. Of course, the European market is no longer considered dynamic but it still remains huge; the first common market in the world with 600 million people. Its citizens have considerable purchasing power, especially compared to other regions or countries which have higher growth rates.

When GDP in France and Germany averaged respectively 0% and 0.7% in 2012 compared to 6.2% and 5.6% in Indonesia and Malaysia, purchasing power per capita in these countries was respectively US$35,000 and US$40,000, compared to US$4,000 and US$15,000.

Europe remains synonymous with high-level research and strong value-added goods. A reputation based upon the transfer of skills and technologies by European industrial groups to their client countries. Of course, this can be a source of frustration for the country where such technologies are developed but the day this transfer of skills and technologies no longer occurs, or worse, occurs in the opposite direction, Europeans will have really lost the game!

When one has such comparative advantages, one shouldn't complain let alone be afraid of the future! The real problem in Europe is that its Member States seem to have lost any all ambition to act on the international stage, either individually and as a whole. You only have to observe the proliferation of negative and resigned speeches and the rise of xenophobic parties with protectionist economic programs to be convinced. Leaders and voters must be persuaded of the strength of their political project.

 By deciding to unite towards a common future when an entire part of the world was only starting to awaken, they have been a role model for the world for the past sixty years. In 1957, when Europeans created the first common market, the European Economic Community, they became a source of inspiration for the Asian world. Ten years later, the ASEAN was created, which has since succeeded in both promoting economic prosperity and strengthening political stability within the region.

When Europeans rose above their differences and succeeded in setting up the unprecedented industrial project which today produces Airbus aircraft, their partners were both envious and admiring. But this is not enough. Defense and aeronautics cannot be the sole sectors to carry the integration process forward when so much progress remains to be made in the fields of new communications technologies, renewable energy, health, and many others. We need to increase the number of pan-European industrial partnerships, invest more in research, and streamline administrative and fiscal systems. European leaders are aware of the challenges that Europe faces, they need to start tackling them.

Europe holds its destiny in its own hands. No one will come to its rescue and no one would understand if the continent did not fight for its model, liberal, democratic and based on a common vision. The crisis it is experiencing must form the starting point for a new strategy to push this model forward because, beyond its own project, Europe represents the success of a model for all countries in transition.

But by displaying weakness when faced by the main economic, diplomatic and environmental challenges of this century, Europe is likely to slowly marginalize itself, slipping from the center of the global economy toward its periphery. At a time when the crisis is now hitting the world economy as a whole, there is an urgent need for stability and leadership. Europe must contribute to this, for its own sake and the world's.

EU-Digest