European parliamentary elections: better together

Divided we fall - United we win

This week's European parliament elections are the most important of their kind for years. Since the last vote in 2009, Europe has been buffeted by banking failures and sovereign debt crisis, while Europeans in and out of the eurozone have been compelled to undergo prolonged austerity programmes.

The social damage of these measures, however necessary some may argue they were in economic terms, has been profound, lowering living standards and calling into question the long-term sustainability of European welfare and employment models. Hostility to the European Union has increased to new levels in many nations, fuelled by tensions over migration, and often matched by a wider domestic disillusionment with the national political classes of the member states, whose authority has rarely seemed more compromised.

Meanwhile, the EU is confronted with a foreign policy crisis in Ukraine which exposes the limits of Europe's influence in its own near-abroad. This is resetting relations with Russia into a more confrontational form at the same time as a relatively weakened United States redirects its principal focus towards Asia, and hopes of greater stability in Turkey and the Arab world recede. Europe's defence response is in disarray, with a poll this week showing four Germans in five opposed to future military missions. In such circumstances, elections to a parliament which has just acquired new powers might logically seem a moment of importance, and the way we cast our votes this week a matter of consequence, not least because the parliament can shape the next European commission, which must wrestle with these issues, one of which may include Britain's future in the EU.

In some respects, Europe's politicians have tried to rise to the occasion, although their efforts have been ignored in Britain. Elsewhere, the main European parliamentary blocs have attempted a pan-European debate, in which differing approaches to austerity and its legacies have been clearcut. But the elites' worthy attempts to connect with the public in Europe founder on the reality that the elites are widely and in some ways rightly perceived (the ludicrous Strasbourg-Brussels shuttle, for instance) as part of the problem.

Most of the main party blocs favour shifting more authority to the centre, to the Brussels institutions, the parliament prominent among them. The problem is that the elite debate excludes growing numbers who want far less power at the centre (or none at all), and overlooks the 70% or so of the population in many countries, including Germany and France (where a poll this week found only 39% support for the EU), who do not want more power at the centre and who favour significant reform of the EU.

Read more: European parliament elections: better together | Editorial | Comment is free | The Guardian

Middle East Chaos: Egypt, Libya, Palestine, Syria, Israel - back to square one

Middle East Chaos

It has not been a pretty picture in the Middle East for some time now after the euphoria of the Arab Spring - better still it is a total mess and certainly not a feather on the cap of any EU, Russian or Chinese diplomat, especially not for the cap of the US's Mr.Kerry. 

In Libya when one might have thought the mess there could not have gotten worse, it has. The latest round in the multidimensional chaos that has prevailed since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi was initiated by an ex-general named Khalifa Hiftar, who was trained in the Soviet Union, participated as a junior officer in the coup that brought Gaddafi to power in 1969, later broke with the Libyan dictator, and lived for years in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC, where he apparently also became a U.S. citizen.

Hiftar returned to Libya after Gaddafi was ousted. Now he has put together a force he calls the “Libyan National Army” and aims at removing the interim parliament in Tripoli.

So probably also for Libya there is a new dictatorship in the making?

Israel and the Palestinians were back to square one in the peace process last Friday after the Jewish state torpedoed US-sponsored talks in response to a Fatah-Hamas reconciliation deal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set the tone, telling the BBC that Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas could "have peace with Israel or a pact with Hamas (but) he can't have both".

"As long as I'm prime minister of Israel, I will never negotiate with a Palestinian government that is backed by Hamas terrorists that are calling for our liquidation," he added.

In Syria tyrant Bashar Assad may have to stay temporarily as Syrian president despite the death toll in the country’s civil war heading higher than the number killed in Iraq, Tony Blair said recently.

The former Prime Minister branded the situation in Syria an “unmitigated disaster” and insisted the West should intervene in such conflicts.

“We are now in a position where both Assad staying and the Opposition taking over seem bad options,” he said in a speech at Bloomberg HQ in central London.

“Repugnant though it may seem, the only way forward is to conclude the best agreement possible even if it means in the interim President Assad stays for a period.” 

Egypt : In a statement dripping with cynicism, the White House said that Obama was “deeply troubled” by the recent  mass death sentences in Egypt.

“While judicial independence is a vital part of democracy, this verdict cannot be reconciled with Egypt’s obligations under international human rights law,” the White House statement read. It appealed to Sisi and his fellow military rulers to “take a stand against this illogical action.”

Whom do they think they’re kidding? The niceties of “judicial independence” are hardly an issue in Egypt.

The hanging judge Youssef—popularly known as “the butcher”—was installed in a special court created by the junta to do precisely what he is doing. Moreover, the draconian sentences have a very clear logic: they are an act of state terror designed to intimidate the Egyptian masses.

The statement continued: “Since the January 25 Revolution, the Egyptian people have aspired to be represented by a government that rules justly, respects their dignity, and provides economic opportunities. The United States supports these aspirations and wants Egypt’s transition to succeed.”

It seems hardly a coincidence that these mass death sentence came only days after Washington approved the provision of 10 Apache attack helicopters on top of some $650 million in military aid already approved for the Egyptian junta this fiscal year.

This is half of what the administration wanted to supply to the country’s repressive forces, the other half being held up by laws restricting aid to regimes brought to power through military coups.

Obviously the helicopter deal was correctly interpreted by the Egyptian junta as a green light to escalate its brutal crackdown.

All this disaster unfortunately is only the top of the Iceberg when one looks at the total Middle East picture. Maybe only one word to describe this is: total chaos .

EU-Digest

Our EU Digest Poll in relation to this weeks EU Parliamentary Elections which was closed today showed the following results.

The Poll shows a potential strong showing by the so-called Eurosceptic parties while traditional pro-EU political  parties will remain in power.

Our new poll which runs through June 22 asks the question:  

"Do Corporations Have Too Much Influence On Global Governance?"

EU-Digest

European Parliamentary Elections - Eurosceptics: Netherlands' Geert Wilders cuts up EU flag in Bruxelles - by Nikolaj Nielsen

The Mouse which roared

Scissors in hand, anti-EU nationalist Geert Wilders of the Netherlands on Tuesday (20 May) vandalised the European Union flag in front of the European Parliament in Brussels.

In a publicity stunt amid the dozen or so cafes at Place Luxembourg, overlooked by the parliament’s tall glass structures, Wilders cut out a yellow star before unfolding the Dutch flag in its place.

The nationalist, who runs the Dutch Freedom Party, is convinced he will be able to form a new group of eurosceptic MEPs following the upcoming European Parliament elections. He wants the Netherlands to leave the Union, regain its sovereignty, and shut down its borders to asylum seekers.

His other goal - to pull apart the EU from within by forming the anti-EU faction in parliament - will require at least 25 MEPs from seven EU member states.Wilders says he will be meeting with other eurosceptic politicians next week in Brussels to work out a deal.

“It is our task to try to work together to overstep our differences, to not get into fights about our leadership, to overstep ‘our shadows’ as we say in the Netherlands,” he said.

He was short on details.

Note EU-Digest: Europe gets a taste of the type of politicians which represent the Eurosceptic group running in the elections for the European Parliament.

Read more: EUobserver / Netherlands' Geert Wilders cuts up EU flag

Banking Industry: EU - You won’t believe this, but some big banks may have broken the law again – by Jason Karaian

Just as markets were digesting the Euro 1.9 billion (US $2.6 b) penalty imposed on Credit Suisse for helping American clients avoid taxes, news from Brussels suggests that yet another big fine is looming for a few other banking giants. 

Today the European Commission accused JPMorgan, HSBC, and Crédit Agricole with rigging euro interest rates, alleging that they acted in a cartel to manipulate Euribor, a key interbank lending rate.

The three banks refused to settle the antitrust case in December last year, when the commission fined eight other banks and brokers a record €1.7 billion ($2.3 billion) for their roles in the rate-rigging cartel. Settling the case saved the accused 10% of the headline fine, on top of other discounts based on their degree of co-operation with regulators.

JPMorgan, HSBC, and Crédit Agricole must now answer the commission’s charges without the offer of leniency that comes from settling. 

That said, throughout the financial crisis European regulators have been seen as softer than their American counterparts, with Brussels wielding more limited powers and showing less of an appetite to impose big penalties. Even after settling with the EU in last year’s euro interest rate case, Société Générale is challenging its €446 million fine in court, alleging “a manifest error of assessment” in calculating it.

The three banks that were charged today will hope to benefit from the eurocrats’ presumed timidity. In theory, EU cartel fines carry a penalty of up to 10% of a company’s global revenue, which would imply a combined fine of more than $18 billion, according to the bank’s latest annual results.

But the commission is highly unlikely to ask for this much in damages, and the depressing regularity with which big banks land in legal trouble these days means that they are well prepared to pay the penalties. From interest rate-rigging to mortgage mis-selling, tax avoidance, foreign-exchange manipulation, money laundering and much else besides, banks now operate under the constant threat of large fines, and they’ve built up enormous litigation reserves to cope. 

Note EU-Digest: one can only hope the EU Commission will not act with their usual timidity in dealing with this serious fraudulent issues.

Read more: You won’t believe this, but some big banks may have broken the law again – Quartz

De Europese Verkiezingen: Wat dacht Pim Fortuyn over de EU? - RM

Pim Fortuyn - "at your service"

Het tv-programma Altijd Wat van KRO-NCRV zendt vanavond een nooit eerder uitgezonden interview uit met Pim Fortuyn. Het gesprek werd begin mei 2002, vier dagen voor de moord op Fortuyn, opgenomen; de NCRV besloot destijds om het niet uit te zenden.

In het vraaggesprek zei Fortuyn dat hij voor uitbreiding van de Europese Unie was. Hij zei letterlijk: "als premier zal ik vurig voor uitbreiding van Europa pleiten, vooral vanwege de veiligheid en stabiliteit."

Hij noemde Europa een uniek politiek project dat door de Europese bevolking moet worden gedragen. "Als dat niet gebeurt, zal alles uiteenvallen wat is opgebouwd."

En gelijk had Pim Fortuyn, zelf tot op de dag van vandaag.

 Als we ooit mochten teruggaan naar "eigen landje, eigen muntje, eigen zegje" worden we niet alleen levend "opgegeslokt" door de "grote machten"  - maar dan krijgen de multi-nationals zoals Monsanto, Dow, CitiBank, Google, Facebook, etc. in dat geval zeker een nog grotere greep op alles wat we kopen, eten en drinken en nog veel meer. Je moet er niet aan denken..

Gelukkig kunnen wij nu nog steeds via de EU tenminste gezamenlijk wat "tegen-gas" geven aan al die invloeden van buitenaf.

Stem daarom deze week tijdens de Europese verkiezingen vooral met uw gezond verstand en laat u niet beinvloeden door populistische uitlatingen van politici die niet verder kunnen of willen kijken dan hun neus lang is.

Jammer dat Pim er niet meer is om het ons nog eens een keer op zijn altijd scherpe en intelligente wijze goed en duidelijk uit te leggen.

EU-Digest

Chemical Cartel: Six multinational companies dominate the agricultural input market

Six multinational companies dominate the agricultural input market, and they’re in cahoots.

When a handful of corporations own the world’s seed, pesticide and biotech industries, they control the fate of food and farming. Between them, Monsanto, Dow, BASF, Bayer, Syngenta and DuPont control the global seed, pesticide and agricultural biotechnology markets. This kind of historically unprecedented power over world agriculture enables them to:

• control the agricultural research agenda;
• dictate trade agreements & agricultural policies;
• position their technologies as the “science-based” solution to increase crop yields, feed the hungry and save the planet;
• escape democratic & regulatory controls;
• subvert competitive markets;

…and in the process, intimidate, impoverish and disempower farmers, undermine food security and make historic profits - even in the midst of a global food crisis.

According to the UN, corporate concentration of the agricultural input market “has far-reaching implications for global food security, as the privatization and patenting of agricultural innovation (gene traits, transformation technologies and seed germplasm) has been supplanting traditional agricultural understandings of seed, farmers' rights, and breeders' rights.”

Read more: Chemical Cartel | Pesticide Action Network