Angela Merkel seems to still be on the side of deep European values that are the heritage of this continent’s history. Many were expecting her to have a change of heart on her refugee policy following the latest attacks in Bavaria that could be linked in some way or another to the influx of refugees. Instead she has chosen to clearly state that there is no going back on the “open-door refugee policy”. What remains to be seen is whether she will insist on the Merkel Method approach to solving refugee-related issues EU-wide or whether she is now prepared to adopt a more federalist approach. Full article here.
Speaking for the first time after a Syrian refugee blew himself up in southern Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel reaffirmed her commitment to helping refugees on Thursday.
“Wir schaffen das [we’ll manage it],” Merkel said, repeating the famous phrase she uttered almost a year ago which set off a dramatic wave of migration to Germany.
Her government would stick to its course on refugees, but it would also reinforce efforts to fight the causes of the refugee crisis, she said.
“We have already achieved very, very much in the last 11 months.”
Defending her decision to stop applying EU asylum rules to Syrian refugees, she said she had “acted in line with my knowledge and conscience.”
The Chancellor had broken off her holiday in eastern Germany to come back to Berlin and address the nation after a string of bloody attacks, three of which were carried out by refugees, left the country shaken.
“The attacks are harrowing, depressing and depraved,” Merkel said, adding that “terrorists want to destroy our ability to live together harmoniously”.
“They sow hate and fear between cultures and religions.”
“That two men who came to us as refugees carried out the attacks in Würzburg and Ansbach mocks our country,” she said.
Civilizational taboos have been broken, Merkel said, adding that the attacks took place in locations where any of us could have been – a point she had also made after a shooting spree in Munich on Friday left nine people and the gunman dead.
Asked by a journalist if terrorists entering Europe is the price we pay for our humanity, Merkel replied: “We know since at least the Paris attacks that Isis also use refugee routes to smuggle terrorists through.
“We have also know for a long time about the travel routes taken by people who are threats to the state. We need to check all of these routes and also live with the danger of terrorism.”
She refuted that this was the most difficult point in her chancellorship.
Jan Böhmermann hit the international news by offending Turkey’s Erdogan. The Turkish leader had requested that Angela Merkel prosecute Böhmermann under an outdated German law for having dared make fun of him in public. Merkel acquiesced causing widespread indignation among the anti-establishment.
Writing on Twitter addressing the Federal Minister of the Chancellery, Böhmermann stated “I would like to live in a country where the exploration of the limits of satire is allowed, desired and the subject of a civil society debate”. He wouldn’t ask for help, but desired to plead for “considering my artistic approach and my position, even if it is contentious”, Böhmermann added. In Norway and in the Netherlands planned were announced to abolish similar laws to the German one that punished insulting foreign leaders.
A YouGov poll revealed on 12 April, that a majority of the Germans supported Böhmermann’s position. 48 percent of the pollees found the poem appropriate, 29 percent view it as undue. A great majority (66 percent) opposed the deletion of the poem on the ZDF website as well as Merkel’s criticism of the poem as “intentionally hurtful” (68 percent). Only 15 percent support a criminal investigation, 77 percent objected it. In the meantime, more than 240,000 people signed a petition for Böhmermann at Change.org. A further poll by Infratest dimap for the German ARD broadcaster published on 17 April showed that 65 percent of the Germans considered Merkel’s decision to allow criminal proceedings against Böhmermann as “wrong”, 28 percent supported it. Also Merkel’s personal popularity fell, 45 percent were satisfied with her work, while 56 percent were dissatisfied, an all-time low for her in this legislative period.
In case you had missed poem, in it Böhmermann, among other things, called Erdoğan “the man who beats girls”, and said that he loved to “fuck goats and suppress minorities, kick Kurds, hit Christians, and watch child pornography.” Much of the rest of the poem is devoted to associating Erdoğan with various less accepted forms of sexuality. Let’s just say that he might have stopped short of jellyfish and vaginal labia but one man’s trash is another man’s treasure I guess.
What were the consequences for Böhmermann? “On 12 April it was reported that Böhmermann is under police protection, because he was threatened by supporters of Erdoğan. The filming of upcoming editions of Neo Magazin Royale were suspended until May 2016 due to “massive media reporting and the focus on the programme and the presenter”. Böhmermann had also temporarily suspended his radio show Sanft & Sorgfältig on Sundays and was not present at the Grimme-Preis (Grimme Awards), where he was awarded for his Varoufakis video.” (Wikipedia)
It’s not just Glenn Bedingfield and (Super) One TV and Farsons then. So it must be ok, musn’t it? Well. Not really no. It is not ok. I still believe that Merkel was obliged to apply the law if it existed and order the prosecution of Böhmermann under that law. What happens next though is of paramount importance. The court of law of a western democracy with the set of values of a western democracy is being called upon to decide whether a satrist and public commentator of political matters can be allowed to go along with his work. The sanity of the rule of law requires that this process occurs because it defines what our society is all about – beyond the yelling of the social media. Unlike Bedingfield and One TV and Farsons, this matter would be decided in a court of law.
On the 16th of July a Hamburg regional court upheld the injunction prohibiting the reading of the offensive poem in public places however, more importantly, the court said that “Böhmermann’s “libelous poem,” was “undoubtedly” a work of satire and art, adding that due to his prominent political position, Erdogan must be prepared to put up with strong criticism.”
Yesterday Böhmermann was at it again. His target? Boris Johnson. He uploaded the speech in which the spineless blonde agitator gave up on the Tory leadership race onto Pornhub – a popular pornographic video site. He titled the video “Dumb British Blonde Fucks 15 million people again”. So much for moderation. Ironically, earlier this year, Johnson won a contest held by the Spectator (a magazine that he once edited) that had called for poems offending Erdogan in solidarity with Böhmermann.
“If somebody wants to make a joke about the love that flowers between the Turkish president and a goat, he should be able to do so, in any European country, including Turkey,” Johnson said. Talking about the prize, Spectator editor Murray said: “Finest thing possible that in the UK, in Great Britain, in 2016 you can award a prize to a political leader for insulting a despot in Ankara, while in Germany in 2016, a political leader tries to slam people up in prison,” he said, commenting on his decision to turn a blind eye to flaws in the poem for the sake of delivering a political message.
But is Germany much worse off than Britain? The Brexit vote and the reasons why Leave won leave much questions hanging around this. Which of the two embodies the most European values? Which of the two embraces the differences of the continent and the project of building a Union of strong individuals living freely ? Well who better than the very Böhmermann to give us an answer? Warning… the words of this video might not be too pleasing to the ears. Particularly, the invitation to “Read Kant you cunt” must not be taken too literally. Kant can be quite disturbing you know.
Listening to London’s Heart radio on a Saturday morning, I got to know that for the first time ever the capital’s Oxford and Regent streets would be traffic free for the whole day. The reason for this car-free bonanza was of course shopping. Londoners who forwent the option of visiting such colossi as Bluewater and Brent Cross would be granted the possibility of traipsing around the main shopping streets free from the polluting nuisance of cars. Conservative estimates had it that by the evening of this busiest shopping day of the year (for London), a million and a half shoppers would have hit the stores − presumably to spend some of their well-earned British Pounds.
Nothing abnormal there is there? Whether it is Sliema, Valletta or London, every town will be doing its best to get the lion’s share of the Christmas spending market and London is no exception. Enthusiasm oozed out of the radio as the announcer coordinated listeners through traffic jams, transport hitches and special opening times towards the giant Mecca of consumption. Here was Britain’s answer to the US Black Friday. There was even a whiff of the Dickensian Christmas that could be detected through the advertorials… until the half-hourly news stepped in.
Are you being deceived?
Yep. For the news could not miss out on the greatest item of the day. Europe (the naughty, naughty EU) had decided to forge ahead without the UK. It was all over the place − from the indignation and anger of Sarkozy, the unaffected matter-of-factness of Frau Merkel, and the schoolboy half-hearted apologies of David Cameron: The Euro 17 + 9 others (that means all the EU minus the UK) will forge ahead with an intergovernmental pact. The Euro Debt Summit (you know how bad things are when the word “Debt” creeps into the summit title) had unsurprisingly resulted in egg on the face for whoever thought that states would pool sovereignty as easily as they pool debts.
The best off-record comment I read about the summit has been attributed to an anonymous French diplomat. He said: “The Brits turned up to the Euro Summit like a man who turns up to a wife-swapping party without a wife.” I’m assuming it was not Strauss-Kahn who said that but probably someone with very much the same mentality. What did happen of course is that many states were not that eager to have a rapid tinker with the Treaties as the Merkozy duo had suggested at the beginning of the week. What they have opted for is the sort of Intergovernmental Agreement that consolidates the belief that we are still at a stage where nations and their sovereignty come before any idea of union and solidarity, which is also what federations are about.
United we lend
Behind the minutiae of the agreement lie a few unaltered truths. States will hang on to their fiscal policies and will only allow a mechanism that punishes deficit defaulters if they are allowed to create the deficit in the first place. Essentially, while the Lisbon criteria regarding deficits were a sort of invitation to budgetary discipline, the new agreement turns that invitation into compulsory conformity − with consequences for those who fail.
Why is the UK out? The UK is out because it never was really that far in. It sat at the table for 10 hours demanding the impossible in exchange for its participation. Frankly, the UK is not the problem. The issue here is how much of this is a long-term solution and how much will turn out to be cosmetic playing to the markets. The opting for an intergovernmental approach is also a clear sign that Europe might have once again missed its chance of institutional integration within a federal framework. One of this week’s blog posts on J’accuse (http://www.akkuza.com/2011/12/06/aaa/) looks at a speech delivered by Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski.
Calling spades
Sikorski’s speech has the added advantage of having that no-nonsense approach. Here are his words of advice to the UK:
You have given the Union its common language. The Single Market was largely your brilliant idea. A British commissioner runs our diplomacy. You could lead Europe on defence. You are an indispensable link across the Atlantic. On the other hand, the eurozone’s collapse would hugely harm your economy. Also, your total sovereign, corporate and household debt exceeds 400 per cent of GDP. Are you sure markets will always favour you? We would prefer you in, but if you can’t join, please allow us to forge ahead. And please start explaining to your people that European decisions are not Brussels’ diktats but results of agreements in which you freely participate.
If you can’t join us please allow us to forge ahead. That was Sikorski’s “plea” to the UK on 28th November. By 9th December, Europe was doing just that − forging ahead.
The UK was left wondering whether this opt-out was really such a good deal after all. Either that or, instead of wondering, it was busy shopping in Oxford and Regent streets because the recession might turn out to be one big Brussels lie after all … might it not?
The big three credit ratings agencies were threatened yesterday with fines and the creation of a new state-backed competitor, only weeks after European leaders attacked them for exacerbating Greece’s problems with downgrades. – The Times (UK)
Readers will be familiar with reactions by the Maltese administration to certain reports from particular institutions. “Audit” is the byword for a scrutiny or check that was originally applied to matters accounting but is now extended to such realms as “democratic accountability” and “freedom of press” to give but non-economic examples. The auditor is supposed to be as impartial as possible and his job is simply to report on the state of affairs – the idea being that it is up to managers, politicians and lobby groups to make do with the report as best they deem fit.
Recently we have seen an increased tendency to debate the validity of the auditor rather than the message itself. In other words, in these times of economic woes that might even effect the clear thinking of (non-economic) democratic institutions, there is a growing tendency to shoot the messenger. A concerted effort by (Commission President) Barroso and (German Chancellor and French President) Merkel & Sarkozy has recently been stepped up with the intention to undermine the credibility of a very important set of “auditors” in this day and age.
Credit Rating Chart
Europe’s continental leaders have targeted the three credit ratings agencies – responsible for the rating of governments and of their ability to pay their debts. The three: Standard & Poor‘s, Moody’s and Fitch (no relation to Abercrombie’s other half) have been busy downgrading Greece, Spain and Portugal’s ratings recently and were also on the verge of giving the same treatment to France. While Merkel and Sarkozy argued that the agencies need more scrutiny – a form of supervision and regulation – Barroso criticised the three for failing to alert investors on the imminent demise of Lehmann Brothers in 2008.
Barroso asks three questions:
Is it normal to have only three relevant actors in such a sensitive issue where there is a great probability of conflict of interest?
Is it normal that all of them come from the same country?
Is it normal that such important entities are escaping fundamental regulation?
Now the eagerness with which the “EU that counts” shoots down the three agencies is inevitably tied to the large amount of control that they hold on the mood of the market. their ratings are not simply an auditing assessment but any move of theirs tends to have heavy repercussions on the financial and economic sectors. Shooting the messenger is only half the story.
The EU does not only intend to regulate the auditors but seems intent on creating an auditor of its own – an in-house competitor. Questions will surely be raised about the independence of such a new monster. If the current three are not above suspicion because of the possibility of conflicts of interests what then of the new monster that will be financed by the very set of sovereign nations it is supposed to vet?
Barroso’s questions begin to sound more and more like Muscat’s quickly assembled 15 point plan to battle corruption. Loads of rhetoric and flimsy legal justification. In both cases they provide little solution and comfort. Back to the drawing board José (and Joseph)
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