Opinion: We must value the EU once again - by Christoph Hasselbach

No one can say it was inevitable, but it was expected. The next European Parliament will be even more fragmented than the last. Representatives from both far-left and far-right parties will be moving to Strasbourg in greater numbers than before. As for turnout, the picture is mixed: in some countries more people voted than before, but those votes often went to Euro-skeptic parties.

All in all, the general public's interest in the EU is shockingly low - even though all the parties tried their best to motivate the electorate. For the first time, they chose leading candidates to tour the continent and debate each other. They tried hard to personalize and enliven the election, and make it more relevant. It did little good.

The only reassuring thing is that the parliament will remain functional, despite all the enemies in its own ranks. The representatives from UKIP, the Front National, the Danish People's Party will deliver angry speeches, but they won't really be able to block anything - because they differ from one another too much - they're too focused on their own nationalism.

By the same token, their rhetoric is always directed at their own voters in their respective home countries. They prefer to be the voice of the dissatisfied, rather than develop a major common project. This will cause the centrist, Europe-friendly parties to stick closer together. No, the Euro-skeptic extremists don't present a threat, at least not in the European Parliament.

The debt crisis of a few years ago showed how quickly an old order could be overthrown. The EU itself was peering into the abyss. That crisis has been overcome, more or less, but only thanks to common effort, mutual aid, and discipline. If each country had tried to find its way out of its crisis on its own, they would all have lost - even the stronger among them. Is that too long ago to still be a lesson?

How high the stakes are in Europe can also be seen from the Ukraine crisis: 25 years after the end of the Cold War, we're in danger of entering a new long-term European conflict. Astonishingly, the Ukraine crisis barely played a role in the election campaign, even though the EU is perhaps the best example of what balance and cooperation can achieve.

I met an African election observer at the last European election in 2009. When he saw the turnout figures - of 43 percent, the same as this time around - he shook his head and said, "In a lot of African states we'd be glad to have any free elections at all. And you Europeans throw away your rights!" It was a humbling meeting.
If we in the EU have no bigger problems than a few over-bureaucratic directives, then we really do have it good. Maybe we have it too good to appreciate the miracle of peace and common prosperity that we gained 70 years ago.

Read more: Opinion: We must value the EU once again | Europe | DW.DE | 26.05.2014

Ukraine: New Ukraine president Petro Poroshenko vows to stop war- by Shaun Walker and Alec Luhn

Ukraine's new president, Petro Poroshenko, has vowed to make his first goal in office to stop the war in the east of the country.

The pro-European businessman won the presidential election with 54% of the vote, according to early results on Sunday, clearing the 50% threshold to win outright without a second round. The former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko was trailing far behind, with about 13%.

In an impromptu victory speech after an official exit poll showed his convincing first-round win, Poroshenko praised the record turnout and reiterated the pledge that his first official trip would be to conflict-riven eastern Ukraine. He promised an amnesty to pro-Russian rebels who turned in their weapons, but said those who had killed people in the region were terrorists who deserved no quarter.

"Today we can definitely say all of Ukraine has voted, this is a national vote," Poroshenko said. "The first steps that we will take at the beginning of our presidential term should be focused on stopping the war, to put an end to this chaos and bring peace to a united Ukraine."

According to Poroshenko, his strong support at the polls confirmed three major policy directions for his presidency: the preservation of a "unified Ukraine", including stability in the east; a "European choice" for closer ties with the west; and the return of Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in March. In reality, all of these tasks will be difficult to accomplish.

Poroshenko also promised to hold parliamentary elections before the end of the year, arguing that the lack of a majority coalition has made the body unable to respond to security threats.
"When there is a parliamentarian crisis, the only solution in a democracy is early elections," he said.

Ukrainians flocked to the polling stations on Sunday in what was seen as the most important election since independence. Millions of citizens in the restive east, however, did not vote, either because of separatist sympathies, feelings of intimidation by pro-Russian militias or simply a lack of polling stations.
Many of those voting for Poroshenko said they wanted to ensure he won the poll in the first round, without a runoff.

Read more: New Ukraine president Petro Poroshenko vows to stop war | World news | theguardian.com

European Parliament: Results of the 2014 European elections

Click here for results of the 2014 European elections - European Parliament

EU-Digest

European Parliament: Final Results EU Elections Watch LIVE

he last European elections had a turnout of just slightly over 43%. The results of the elections will be announced at 10pm GMT today Sunday May 25 when the rest of the EU countries will have voted on who all will take up the 751 seats of the European Parliament.
 
For live updates and material for the press on the European elections click here

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EU-US Trade: Did you know?

Did you know …

• EU and U.S.-based companies account for nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of the top R&D companies worldwide.  (Source: Transatlantic Economy 2014)

• EU-U.S. trade climbed to $787 billion in 2013, double the level of 2000. (Source: Transatlantic Economy 2014)

• The transatlantic economy generates close to $5 trillion in total commercial sales a year and employs up to 15 million workers in mutually “onshored” jobs on both sides of the Atlantic. (Source: Transatlantic Economy 2014)

• The transatlantic economy is the largest and wealthiest market in the world, accounting for over 50 percent of world GDP in terms of value and 40 percent in terms of purchasing power. (Source: Transatlantic Economy 2014)

• The U.S. and Europe are each other’s primary source and destination for foreign direct investment, together accounting for 56.7 percent of the inward stock of foreign direct investment (FDI), and a whopping 71 percent of outward stock of FDI. (Source: Transatlantic Economy 2014)

• U.S. investment in the Netherlands since 2000 was 14 times more than US investment in China during the same period. US investment in the UK was more than 10 times more, and in Ireland nearly six times more, than in China. (Source: Transatlantic Economy 2014)

• Eliminating or harmonizing just one-quarter of current non-tariff barriers in bilateral trade could boost a combined EU and US GDP by $106 billion. (Source: Transatlantic Economy 2014)

• According to a 2013 study, gains from a free trade agreement between the EU and U.S. could add up to a €210 billion (approximately $273 billion) boost to the two economies. (Source: Center for European Policy Research)

• The EU and US together contributed over $120 billion in official development assistance in 2012.  (Sources: OECD, USAID,EuropeAid)

• As of January 2011, nearly 1.7 million refugees from around the world call the US or an EU Member State home. (Source: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees)

• In 2011/12, more than 168,000 students from the US and EU studied abroad on the other side of the Atlantic. (Source:Institute of International Education)

• More than 11 million EU tourists traveled to the US in 2012. (Source: US Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration) ---------------------------------------------------
• EU-Digest

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 .

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